Psalmi 38:17

Clementine Latin Vulgate

Numquid apertæ sunt tibi portæ mortis, et ostia tenebrosa vidisti ?

Parallel Translations

Jerome's Latin Vulgate (405)
Numquid apert� sunt tibi port� mortis,
et ostia tenebrosa vidisti?

Nova Vulgata (1979)
Numquid apertae sunt tibi portae mortis, et ostia tenebrosa vidisti?

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

the gates: Psalms 9:13, Psalms 107:18, Psalms 116:3

the shadow: Job 3:5, Job 12:22, Psalms 23:4, Psalms 107:10, Psalms 107:14, Amos 5:8, Matthew 4:16

Reciprocal: Job 10:22 - the shadow of death Job 28:3 - the stones Matthew 16:18 - and the Hebrews 4:13 - naked

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Have the gates of death been opened unto thee?.... Meaning not by which death has entered into the world, and which have been the causes and occasion of it; as the sin of man, the appointment of God, and various providences, calamities and diseases; but by which men enter into the state of the dead. Men know not experimentally what death is, nor in what way they shall go out of the world, nor at what time, nor in what place; they know not what the state of the dead is, there is no correspondence between them and the living; they do not know either what they enjoy or endure, or who precisely and with certainty are in the separate abodes of bliss or misery; the gates of these dark and invisible regions to us have never been thrown open, for mortals to look into them;

or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death? the same thing in other words; the Targum and Jarchi interpret this of hell.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Have the gates of death been opened unto thee - That is, the gates of the world where death reigns; or the gates that lead to the abodes of the dead. The allusion here is to “Sheol,” or “Hades,” the dark abodes of the dead. This was supposed to be beneath the ground, and was entered by the grave, and was inclosed by gates and bars; see the notes at Job 10:21-22. The transition from the reference to the bottom of the sea to the regions of the dead was natural, and the mind is carried forward to a subject further beyond the ken of mortals than even the unfathomable depths of the ocean. The idea is, that God saw all that occurred in that dark world beneath us, where the dead were congregated, and that his vast superiority to man was evinced by his being able thus to penetrate into, and survey those hidden regions. It is common in the Classical writers to represent those regions as entered by gates. Thus, Lucretius, i. 1105,

- Haec rebus erit para janua letl,

Hae se turba foras dabit omnis materai.

- “The doors of death are ope,

And the vast whole unbounded ruin whelms.”

Good.

So Virgil, Aeneid ii. 661,

- Pater isti janua leto,

“The door of death stands open.”

Or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death? - The doors which lead down to the gloomy realms where death spreads its dismal shades. This expression is more emphatic than the former, for the word צלמות tsalmâveth “shadow of death,” is more intensive in its meaning than the word מות mâveth, “death.” There is the superadded idea of a deep and dismal shadow; of profound and gloomy darkness; see the word explained in the notes at Job 3:5; compare Job 10:21-22. Man was unable to penetrate those gloomy abodes and to reveal what was there; but God saw all with the clearness of noon-day.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 38:17. Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? — Dost thou know in what the article of death consists? This is as inexplicable as the question, What is animal life?

The doors of the shallow of death? — צלמות tsalmaveth, the intermediate state, the openings into the place of separate spirits. Here two places are distinguished: מות maveth, death, and צלמות tsalmaveth, the shadow of death. It will not do to say, death is the privation of life, for what then would be the shadow of that privation?