the Fourth Week after Easter
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New Revised Standard
Job 3:14
Bible Study Resources
Concordances:
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- TheParallel Translations
with the kings and counselors of the earth,who rebuilt ruined cities for themselves,
With kings and counselors of the eretz, Who built up waste places for themselves;
With kings and counsellors of the earth, which build desolate places for themselves;
with kings and counselors of the earth who rebuilt ruins for themselves,
with kings and wise men of the earth who built places for themselves that are now ruined.
with kings and counselors of the earth who built for themselves places now desolate,
With kings and counselors of the earth, Who built up [now desolate] ruins for themselves;
With kings and counselors of the earth, Who rebuilt ruins for themselves;
With kings and counselors of the earth, Who built up waste places for themselves;
With the Kings & counselers of the earth, which haue buylded themselues desolate places:
With kings and with counselors of the earth,Who rebuilt waste places for themselves,
with kings and counselors of the earth, who built for themselves cities now in ruins,
with kings and their advisors whose palaces lie in ruins,
or with princes who had [plenty of] gold, who filled their houses with silver.
With kings and counsellors of the earth, who build desolate places for themselves,
with the kings and their advisors who built palaces that are now in ruins.
With kings and governors of the earth who built desolate places for themselves;
sleeping like the kings and rulers who rebuilt ancient palaces.
with kings and counselors of the earth, who rebuild ruins for themselves,
with kings and wise men of the earth, who built ruins for themselves;
like as the kynges ad lordes of ye earth, which buylde them selues speciall places:
With kings and counsellors of the earth, Who built up waste places for themselves;
With kings and the wise ones of the earth, who put up great houses for themselves;
Lyke as the kinges and lordes of the earth, which haue buylded them selues speciall places,
With kings and counsellors of the earth, who built up waste places for themselves;
With Kings and counsellers of the earth, which built desolate places for themselues,
with kings and councillors of the earth, who gloried in their swords;
With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built up waste places for themselves;
with kyngis, and consuls of erthe, that bilden to hem soleyn places;
With kings and counselors of the earth, Who built up waste places for themselves;
With kings and counselors of the earth, who built desolate places for themselves;
With kings and counselors of the earth, Who built ruins for themselves,
I would rest with the world's kings and prime ministers, whose great buildings now lie in ruins.
with kings and wise men of the earth who built cities for themselves that are now destroyed.
With kings, and counselors of the earth, who had built them pyramids:
With kings and consuls of the earth, who build themselves solitudes:
with kings and counselors of the earth who rebuilt ruins for themselves,
With kings and counsellors of earth, These building wastes for themselves.
With kings and with counselors of the earth, Who rebuilt ruins for themselves;
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
kings: Job 30:23, 1 Kings 2:10, 1 Kings 11:43, Psalms 49:6-10, Psalms 49:14, Psalms 89:48, Ecclesiastes 8:8, Isaiah 14:10-16, Ezekiel 27:18-32
which built: Who erect splendid mausoleums, funeral monuments, etc. to keep their names from perishing, while their bodies are turned to corruption. Job 15:28, Isaiah 5:8, Ezekiel 26:20
Reciprocal: Isaiah 22:16 - hewed
Cross-References
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel."
The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person's blood be shed; for in his own image God made humankind.
You shall therefore make a distinction between the clean animal and the unclean, and between the unclean bird and the clean; you shall not bring abomination on yourselves by animal or by bird or by anything with which the ground teems, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean.
May his foes bow down before him, and his enemies lick the dust.
Then deep from the earth you shall speak, from low in the dust your words shall come; your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost, and your speech shall whisper out of the dust.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord .
they shall lick dust like a snake, like the crawling things of the earth; they shall come trembling out of their fortresses; they shall turn in dread to the Lord our God, and they shall stand in fear of you.
Gill's Notes on the Bible
With the kings and counsellors of the earth,.... From whom he might descend, he being a person of great distinction and figure; and so, had he died, he would have been buried in the sepulchres of his ancestors, and have lain in great pomp and state: or rather this he says, to observe that death spares none, that neither the power of kings, who have long hands, nor the wisdom of counsellors, who have long heads, can secure them from death; and that after death they are upon a level with others; and even he suggests, that children that die as soon as born, and have made no figure in the world, are equal to them:
which built desolate places for themselves; either that rebuilt houses and cities that had lain in ruins, or built such in desolate places, where there had been none before, or formed colonies in places before uninhabited; and all this to get a name, and to perpetuate it to posterity: or rather sepulchral monuments are meant, such as the lofty pyramids of the Egyptians, and superb mausoleums of others; which, if not built in desolate places, yet are so themselves, being only the habitations of the dead, and so they are called the desolations of old,
Ezekiel 26:20; and this is the sense of many interpreters q; if any man desires, says Vansleb r, a prospect and description of such ancient burying places, let him think on a boundless plain, even, and covered with sand, where neither trees, nor grass, nor houses, nor any such thing, is to be seen.
q Pineda, Bolducius, Patrick, Caryll, Schultens, and others. r Relation of a Voyage to Egypt, p. 91.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
With kings - Reposing as they do. This is the language of calm meditation on what would have been the consequence if he had died when he was an infant. He seems to delight to dwell on it. He contrasts it with his present situation. He pauses on the thought that that would have been an honorable repose. He would have been numbered with kings and princes. Is there not here a little spice of ambition even in his sorrows and humilation? Job had been an eminently rich man; a man greatly honored; an emir; a magistrate; one in whose presence even princes refrained talking, and before whom nobles held their peace; Job 29:9. Now he was stripped of his honors, and made to sit in ashes. But had he died when an infant, he would have been numbered with kings and courtsellers, and would have shared their lot. Death is repulsive; but Job takes comfort in the thought that he would have been associated with the most exalted and honorable among people. There is some consolation in the idea that when an infant dies he is associated with the most honored and exalted of the race; there is consolation in the reflection that when we die we shall lie down with the good and the great of all past times, and that though our bodies shall moulder back to dust, and be forgotten, we are sharing the same lot with the most beautiful, lovely, wise, pious, and mighty of the race. To Christians there is the richest of all consolations in the thought that they will sleep as their Savior did in the tomb, and that the grave, naturally so repulsive, has been made sacred and even attractive by being the place where the Redeemer reposed.
Why should we tremble to convey
Their bodies to the tomb?
There the dear flesh of Jesus lay,
And left a long perfume.
The graves of all his saints he blessed,
And softened every bed:
Where should the dying members rest
But with the dying Head?
And counsellors of the earth - Great and wise men who were qualified to give counsel to kings in times of emergency.
Which built desolate places for themselves - Gesenius supposes that the word used here (חרבה chorbâh) means palaces which would soon be in ruins. So Noyes renders it, “Who build up for themselves - ruins!” That is, they build splendid palaces, or perhaps tombs, which are destined soon to fall to ruin. Dr. Good renders it, “Who restored to themselves the ruined wastes;” that is, the princes who restored to their former magnificence the ruins of ancient cities, and built their palaces in them But it seems to me that the idea is different. It is, that kings constructed for their own burial, magnificent tombs or mausoleums, which were lonely and desolate places, where they might lie in still and solemn grandeur; compare the notes at Isaiah 14:18. Sometimes these were immense excavations from rocks; and sometimes they were stupendous structurcs built as tombs. What more desolate and lonely places could be conceived than the pyramids of Egypt - reared probably as the burial places of kings?
What more lonely and solitary than the small room in the center of one of those immense structures, where the body of the monarch is supposed to have been deposited? And what more emphatic than the expression - though” so nearly pleonastic that it may be omitted” (“Noyes”) - “for themselves?” To my view, that is far from being pleonastic. It is full of emphasis. The immense structure was made for “them.” It was not to be a common burial-place; it was not for the public good; it was not to be an abode for the living and a contributor to their happiness: it was a matter of supreme selfishness and pride - an immense structure built only run themselves. With such persons lying in their places of lonely grandeur, Job felt it would be an honor to be associated. Compared with his present condition it was one of dignity; and he earnestly wished that it might have been his lot thus early to have been consigned to the fellowship of the dead. It may be some confirmation of this view to remark, that the land of Edom, near which Job is supposed to have lived, contains at this day some of the most wonderful sepulchral monuments of the world; comp the notes at Isaiah 17:1.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Job 3:14. With kings and counsellors of the earth — I believe this translation to be perfectly correct. The counsellors, יעצי yoatsey, I suppose to mean the privy council, or advisers of kings; those without whose advice kings seldom undertake wars, expeditions, &c. These mighty agitators of the world are at rest in their graves, after the lives of commotion which they have led among men: most of whom indeed have been the troublers of the peace of the globe.
Which built desolate places — Who erect mausoleums, funeral monuments, sepulchral pyramids, &c., to keep their names from perishing, while their bodies are turned to corruption. I cannot think, with some learned men, that Job is here referring to those patriotic princes who employed themselves in repairing the ruins and desolations which others had occasioned. His simple idea is, that, had he died from the womb, he would have been equally at rest, neither troubling nor troubled, as those defunct kings and planners of wars and great designs are, who have nothing to keep even their names from perishing, but the monuments which they have raised to contain their corrupting flesh, mouldering bones, and dust.
