Job 27:22

For God shall cast upon him, and not spare: he would fain flee out of his hand.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(22) For God shall cast upon him.—The Authorised Version supplies God as the subject; but we obtain very good sense by understanding it of the man who constantly fled from his power now being only too glad of the opportunity of avenging himself on him, while he or others clap their hands at him, and hiss him from his place.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

27:11-23 Job's friends, on the same subject, spoke of the misery of wicked men before death as proportioned to their crimes; Job considered that if it were not so, still the consequences of their death would be dreadful. Job undertook to set this matter in a true light. Death to a godly man, is like a fair gale of wind to convey him to the heavenly country; but, to a wicked man, it is like a storm, that hurries him away to destruction. While he lived, he had the benefit of sparing mercy; but now the day of God's patience is over, and he will pour out upon him his wrath. When God casts down a man, there is no flying from, nor bearing up under his anger. Those who will not now flee to the arms of Divine grace, which are stretched out to receive them, will not be able to flee from the arms of Divine wrath, which will shortly be stretched out to destroy them. And what is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and thus lose his own soul?

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For God shall cast upon him - That is, God shall bring calamities upon him, or cast his thunderbolts upon him, and shall not pity him.

He would fain flee - He would gladly escape from the wrath of God, but he is unable to do it.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

22. cast—namely, thunderbolts (Job 6:4; 7:20; 16:13; Ps 7:12, 13).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

God shall cast upon him his darts or plagues, one after another.

And not spare, i.e. shall show no pity nor mercy to him, when he crieth to God for it.

He would fain flee out of his hand; he earnestly desires and endeavours by all ways possible to escape the judgments of God, but all in vain.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For God shall cast upon him, and not spare,.... Cast his sins upon him, which will lie as an intolerable weight upon his conscience; and his wrath upon him, which being poured out like fire, he will not be able to bear it; and deserved punishment on him, which, like a talent of lead, will bear him down to the lowest hell; and this will be done without showing any mercy at all; for, though the wicked have much of sparing mercy in this world, they have none in the next; there is sparing mercy now, but none in hell; God, that spared not the angels that sinned, nor the old world, nor Sodom and Gomorrah, will not spare them, 2 Peter 2:4; he that made them will have no mercy on them; and he that formed them will show them no favour:

he would fain flee out of his hands; in whose hands he is, not as all men are, being the works of his hands, and supported by him; much less as his people are, secure there; but in his hands as an awful and terrible Judge, condemning him for his sins, and sentencing him to everlasting punishment; and a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living and almighty God: there is no getting out of them, though "fleeing, he flees", as the phrase is, with all his might and main, with all the swiftness he can; it is all to no purpose; he is where he was, and must continue in the torment and misery he is in to all eternity; his worm of conscience will never die, nor the fire of divine wrath be ever quenched; though he will desire death ten thousand times over, he shall not find it, it shall flee from him, Revelation 9:6.

Geneva Study Bible

For God shall cast upon him, and not spare: he would fain flee out of his hand.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

22. shall cast upon him] i. e. shall shoot down upon him His destroying arrows, Numbers 35:20. Comp. again what Job says of himself, ch. Job 6:4, Job 16:13, “His arrows compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins and doth not spare.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 22. - For God shall out upon him, and not spare. Some commentators regard the storm as still the subject, and translate, "For it shall east itself upon him [or, 'rush upon him'] and not spore" (Sohultens, Merx). The difference is not great, since the storm represents God's judgment. He would fain flee out of his hand; or, if the storm is meant, out of its hand. Job 27:22

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

19 He lieth down rich, and doeth it not again,

He openeth his eyes and-is no more.

20 Terrors take hold of him as a flood;

By night a tempest stealeth him away.

21 The east wind lifteth him up, that he departeth,

And hurleth him forth from his place.

22 God casteth upon him without sparing,

Before His hand he fleeth utterly away.

23 They clap their hands at him,

And hiss him away from his place.

The pointing of the text ולא יאסף is explained by Schnurr., Umbr., and Stick.: He goes rich to bed and nothing is taken as yet, he opens his eyes and nothing more is there; but if this were the thought intended, it ought at least to have been ואין נאסף, since לא signifies non, not nihil; and Stickel's translation, "while nothing is carried away," makes the fut. instead of the praet., which was to be expected, none the more tolerable; also אסף can indeed signify to gather hastily together, to take away (e.g., Isaiah 33:4), when the connection favours it, but not here, where the first impression is that רשׁע is the subj. both to ולא יאסף and to ואיננו. Bttcher's translation, "He lieth down rich and cannot be displaced," gives the words a meaning that is ridiculed by the usage of the language. On the other hand, ולא יאסף can signify: and he is not conveyed away (comp. e.g., Jeremiah 8:2; Ezekiel 29:5; but not Isaiah 57:1, where it signifies to be swept away, and also not Numbers 20:26, where it signifies to be gathered to the fathers), and is probably intended to be explained after the pointing that we have, as Rosenm. and even Ralbag explain it: "he is not conveyed away; one opens his eyes and he is not;" or even as Schlottm.: "he is not conveyed away; in one moment he still looks about him, in the next he is no more;" but the relation of the two parts of the verse in this interpretation is unsatisfactory, and the preceding strophe has already referred to his not being buried. Since, therefore, only an unsuitable, and what is more, a badly-expressed thought, is gained by this reading, it may be that the expression should be regarded with Hahn as interrogative: is he not swept away? This, however, is only a makeshift, and therefore we must see whether it may not perhaps be susceptible of another pointing. Jerome transl.: dives cum dormierit, nihil secum auferet; the thought is not bad, but מאוּמה is wanting, and לא alone does not signify nihil. Better lxx (Ital., Syr.): πλούσιος κοιμηθήσεται καὶ ου ̓ προσθήσει. This translation follows the form of reading יאסף equals יוסיף, gives a suitable sense, places both parts of the verse in the right relation, and accords with the style of the poet (vid., Job 20:9; Job 40:5); and accordingly, with Ew., Hirz., and Hlgst., we decide in favour of this reading: he lieth down to sleep rich, and he doeth it no more, since in the night he is removed from life and also from riches by sudden death; or also: in the morning he openeth his eyes without imagining it is the last time, for, overwhelmed by sudden death, he closes them for ever. Job 27:20 and Job 27:20 are attached crosswise (chiastisch) to this picture of sudden destruction, be it by night or by day: the terrors of death seize him (sing. fem. with a plur. subj. following it, according to Ges. 146, 3) like a flood (comp. the floods of Belial, Psalm 18:5), by night a whirlwind (גּנבתּוּ סוּפה, as Job 21:18) carrieth him away. The Syriac and Arabic versions add, as a sort of interpolation: as a fluttering (large white) night-moth, - an addition which no one can consider beautiful.

Job 27:21 extends the figure of the whirlwind. In Hebrew, even when the narrative has reference to Egyptian matters (Genesis 41:23), the קדים which comes from the Arabian desert is the destructive, devastating, and parching wind κατ ̓ εξοχὴν.

(Note: In Syria and Arabia the east wind is no longer called qadı̂m, but exclusively sharqı̂ja, i.e., the wind that blows from the rising of the sun (sharq). This wind rarely prevails in summer, occurring then only two or three days a month on an average; it is more frequent in the winter and early spring, when, if it continues long, the tender vegetation is parched up, and a year of famine follows, whence in the Lebanon it is called semûm (שׂמוּם), which in the present day denotes the "poisonous wind" ( equals nesme musimme), but originally, by alliance with the Hebr. שׁמם, denoted the "devastating wind." The east wind is dry; it excites the blood, contracts the chest, causes restlessness and anxiety, and sleepless nights or evil dreams. Both man and beast feel weak and sickly while it prevails. Hence that which is unpleasant and revolting in life is compared to the east wind. Thus a maid in Hauran, at the sight of one of my Damascus travelling companions, whose excessive ugliness struck her, cried: billâh, nahâr el-jôm aqshar (Arab. 'qšr), wagahetni (Arab. w-jhṫnı̂) sharqı̂ja, "by God, it is an unhealthy day to-day: an east wind blew upon me." And in a festive dance song of the Merg district, these words occur:

wa rudd lı̂ hômet hodênik

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