Job 11:18

And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope; yea, thou shalt dig about thee, and thou shalt take thy rest in safety.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) Thou shalt dig about thee.—Rather, thou shalt look around or search about thee, and see that thou canst lie down in safety. (Comp. Joshua 2:2, and Job 39:29.) The same word means, indeed, to dig and to blush; but both meanings are incongruous and inadmissible here.

Benson Commentary

Job 11:18-19. Thou shalt be secure, because there is hope — Thy mind shall be quiet and free from terrors, because thou shalt have a firm and well-grounded confidence in God. Thou shalt dig — Either to fix thy tents, which, after the manner of the Arabians, were removed from place to place; or, to plough thy ground, as he had done, Job 1:14, or to make a fence about thy dwelling Thou shalt take thy rest in safety — Free from dangers and the fear of them; because of God’s fatherly providence watching over thee, when thou canst not watch over thyself. And none shall make thee afraid — Thou shalt be in perfect peace, and none shall disquiet thee; yea, many shall make suit unto thee — Desiring thy favour and friendship, because of thy great power and riches, and eminent felicity.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

11:13-20 Zophar exhorts Job to repentance, and gives him encouragement, yet mixed with hard thoughts of him. He thought that worldly prosperity was always the lot of the righteous, and that Job was to be deemed a hypocrite unless his prosperity was restored. Then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot; that is, thou mayst come boldly to the throne of grace, and not with the terror and amazement expressed in ch. 9:34. If we are looked upon in the face of the Anointed, our faces that were cast down may be lifted up; though polluted, being now washed with the blood of Christ, they may be lifted up without spot. We may draw near in full assurance of faith, when we are sprinkled from an evil conscience, Heb 10:22.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And thou shalt be secure - You will feel confident that your prosperity will be permanent, and you will be free from the distressing anxieties and fears which you now have.

Thou shalt dig about thee - The Chaldee renders this, "thou shalt prepare for thyself a sepulchre, and shalt lie down in safety." The word used here (חפר châphar) has two significations. It means,

(1) "to dig" - as, e. g. a well, and under this signification to search out, to explore; and,

(2.) to be ashamed, to blush, Isaiah 1:29.

According to Gesenius, the latter here is the signification. "Now thou art ashamed, then thou shalt dwell in quiet," Lexicon. So Noyes renders it. Dr. Good translates it, "yea, thou shalt look around;" Rosenmuller, "thou art suffused with shame." This is, probably, the true sense; and the idea is, that though he was now covered with shame, yet he would lie down in peace and safety if he would return to the Lord.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18. The experience of thy life will teach thee there is hope for man in every trial.

dig—namely, wells; the chief necessity in the East. Better, "though now ashamed (Ro 5:5, opposed to the previous 'hope'), thou shalt then rest safely" [Gesenius];

Matthew Poole's Commentary

i.e. Thy mind shall be quiet and free from terrors, because thou shalt have a firm and well-grounded hope and confidence in God’s merciful and providential care of thee. Or, thou shalt be confident that thou shalt have what thou hopest for, the act, hope, being put for the object, as is very usual, i.e. thou shalt have assurance in and from God, that thy hopes shall not be disappointed, but fulfilled. This is opposed to that fear, Job 11:15.

Thou shalt dig about thee; either to fix thy tents, which after the manner of the Arabians were removed from place to place for conveniency of pasturage for their cattle; or to find out water for thy cattle, as they did, Ge 26; or to plough the ground, as he had done, Job 1:14; or to make a fence about thy dwelling; for both the foregoing and following passages express his secure and safe condition.

In safety; free from dangers and the fear of them, because of God’s fatherly providence watching over thee when thou canst not watch over thyself.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And thou shall be secure,.... From coming into like darkness, difficulties, and distress again, and from every evil and enemy; nothing shall come nigh to disturb and hurt, nothing to be feared from any quarter, all around: or "shalt be confident" (y); have a strong faith and full assurance of it, in the love of God, in the living Redeemer, and in the promises which respect the life that now is, and that which is to come:

because there is hope; of the mercy of God, of salvation by Christ, and of eternal glory and happiness, as well as of a continuance of outward prosperity; faith and hope mutually assist each other; faith is the substance of things hoped for, and hope of better and future things on a good foundation encourages faith and confidence:

yea, thou shalt dig about thee; to let in stakes for the pitching and fixing of tents to dwell in, and for more commodious pasturage; or for wells of water, for the supply both of the family and the flocks; or rather, for ditches and trenches to secure from thieves and robbers, or for drains to carry off floods of water:

and thou shalt take thy rest in safety; lie down on the bed and sleep in the night season in peace and quietness, having nothing to fear; being well entrenched, and secure from depredations and inundations; and, more especially being hedged about and protected by the power and providence of God; see Psalm 3:5; the Targum is,

"thou shall prepare a grave, and lie down, and sleep secure.''

(y) "et confides", Mercerus, Piscator, Schmidt; "et habebis fiduciam", V. L.

Geneva Study Bible

And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope; yea, thou shalt dig about thee, and thou shalt take thy rest in safety.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18. because there is hope] In opposition to Job’s desponding pictures of his life, ch. Job 7:6 seq., Job 9:25 seq., Job 10:20 seq.

thou shalt dig about thee] Rather, thou shalt look, or search, about thee, cf. ch. Job 39:29; Deuteronomy 1:22. Job, as one naturally does before retiring to rest, will look around to see if there be any danger near or cause of disquietude, and seeing none will take his rest in safety.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 18. - And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope. Job, entering on this second period of prosperity, would be and feel secure; safe, i.e. from any return of calamity, because hope would once more animate him and be his predominant feeling. No doubt "hope springs eternal in the human breast;" and when Job's prosperity was actually restored (Job 42:12-16), these anticipations had their fulfilment; but, as uttered by Zophar, there is a ring of insincerity about them, and we cannot but feel that his object in expatiating at length on the details of Job's coming happiness is not to console and encourage his friend, but rather to annoy and exasperate him, since the entire basis on which he builds is the assumption of Job's heinous guilt (vers. 3, 6, 11, 14), and the prosperity which he promises is to follow upon an acknowledgment of guilt and a putting sway of iniquity (vers. 13, 14), which he knew that Job wholly repudiated. Yea, thou shalt dig about thee. So Schultens, who understands it to mean that Job shall dig a moat around his habitation, to make himself perfectly secure. The verb has, however, two other meanings - "to investigate" or "search out," and "to blush;" and it is taken here in each of these meanings by some critics. Our Revisers translate, "Yea, thou shalt search about thee;" and so Canon Cook and Professor Stanley Loathes. Rosenmuller, on the other hand, and Professor Lee render the words by "Though thou shouldst blush," or "be ashamed." It is difficult to decide between such high authorities; but the fast that Job uses the verb in the sense of "search," "look after," in Job 39:29, and does not elsewhere use it in either of the other senses, should incline us to accept the rendering of the Revised Version. And thou shalt take thy rest in safety; or, securely; i.e. with a sense of being in perfect security. Job 11:18

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

16 For thou shalt forget thy grief,

Shalt remember it as waters that flow by.

17 And thy path of life shall be brighter than mid-day;

If it be dark, it shall become as morning.

18 And thou shalt take courage, for now there is hope;

And thou shalt search, thou shalt lie down in safety.

19 And thou liest down without any one making thee afraid;

And many shall caress thy cheeks.

20 But the eyes of the wicked languish,

And refuge vanisheth from them,

And their hope is the breathing forth of the soul.

The grief that has been surmounted will then leave no trace in the memory, like water that flows by (not: water that flows away, as Olshausen explains it, which would be differently expressed; comp. Job 20:28 with 2 Samuel 14:14). It is not necessary to change אתּה כּי into עתּה כּי (Hirzel); אתה, as in Job 11:13, strengthens the force of the application of this conclusion of his speech. Life (חלד, from חלד to glide away, slip, i.e., pass away unnoticed,

(Note: Vid., Hupfeld on Psalm 17:14, and on the other hand Bttcher, infer. 275 s., who, taking חלד in the sense of rooting into, translates: "the mildew springs up more brilliant than mid-day." But whatever judgment one may form of the primary idea of חלד, this meaning of חלד is too imaginary.)

as αἰών, both life-time, Psalm 39:6, and the world, Psalm 49:2, here in the former sense), at the end of which thou thoughtest thou wert already, and which seemed to thee to run on into dismal darkness, shall be restored to thee (יקום with Munach on the ult. as Job 31:14, not on the penult.) brighter than noon-day (מן, more than, i.e., here: brighter than, as e.g., Micah 7:4, more thorny than); and be it ever so dark, it shall become like morning. Such must be the interpretation of תּעפה. It cannot be a substantive, for it has the accent on the penult.; as a substantive it must have been pointed תּעוּפה (after the form תּקוּדה, תּקוּמה, and the like). It is one of the few examples of the paragogic strengthened voluntative in the third pers., like Psalm 20:4; Isaiah 5:19

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