Job 3:15

Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Job 3:15-16. Or with princes that had gold, &c. — My repose and security from worldly anxieties would have been the same with that of those princes who were once celebrated for their wealth, and whose birth entitled them to large treasures of gold and silver. Or as a hidden — That is, undiscerned and unregarded; untimely birth — Born before the due time, and therefore extinct. I had not been — To wit, in the land of the living, of which he here speaks; as infants which never saw light — As those fœtuses that were never quickened, and come to nothing, or those infants which are stifled and dead before their birth.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:11-19 Job complained of those present at his birth, for their tender attention to him. No creature comes into the world so helpless as man. God's power and providence upheld our frail lives, and his pity and patience spared our forfeited lives. Natural affection is put into parents' hearts by God. To desire to die that we may be with Christ, that we may be free from sin, is the effect and evidence of grace; but to desire to die, only that we may be delivered from the troubles of this life, savours of corruption. It is our wisdom and duty to make the best of that which is, be it living or dying; and so to live to the Lord, and die to the Lord, as in both to be his, Ro 14:8. Observe how Job describes the repose of the grave; There the wicked cease from troubling. When persecutors die, they can no longer persecute. There the weary are at rest: in the grave they rest from all their labours. And a rest from sin, temptation, conflict, sorrows, and labours, remains in the presence and enjoyment of God. There believers rest in Jesus, nay, as far as we trust in the Lord Jesus and obey him, we here find rest to our souls, though in the world we have tribulation.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Or with princes that had gold - That is, he would have been united with the rich and the great. Is there not here too also a slight evidence of the fondness for wealth, which might have been one of the errors of this good man? Would it not seem that such was his estimate of the importance of being esteemed rich, that he would count it an honor to be united with the affluent in death, rather than be subjected to a condition of poverty and want among the living?

Who filled their houses with silver - Rosenmuller supposes that there is reference here to the custom among the ancients of burying treasures with the dead, and that the word "houses" refers to the tombs or mausoleums which they erected. That such a custom prevailed, there can be no doubt. Josephus informs us that large quantities of treasure were buried in the tomb with David, which afterward was taken out for the supply of an army; and Schultens ("in loc.") says that the custom prevailed extensively among the Arabs. The custom of burying valuable objects with the dead was practiced also among the aborigines of N. America, and is to this day practiced in Africa. If this be the sense here, then the idea of Job was, that he would have been in his grave united with those who even there were accompanied with wealth, rather than suffering the loss of all his property as he was among the living.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

15. filled their houses with silver—Some take this to refer to the treasures which the ancients used to bury with their dead. But see Job 3:26.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Or with princes that had gold,.... A large abundance of it while they lived, but now, being dead, were no longer in the possession of it, but on a level with those that had none; nor could their gold, while they had it, preserve them from death, and now, being dead, it was no longer theirs, nor of any use unto them; these princes, by this description of them, seem to be such who had not the dominion over any particular place or country, but their riches lay in gold and silver, as follows:

who filled their houses with silver; had an abundance of it, either in their coffers, which they hoarded up, or in the furniture of their houses, which were much of it of silver; they had large quantities of silver plate, as well as of money; but these were of no profit in the hour of death, nor could they carry them with them; but in the grave, where they were, those were equal to them, of whom it might have been said, silver and gold they had none.

Geneva Study Bible

Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver:

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. their houses with silver] There is no reason for supposing that “houses” means mausoleums or tombs. The reference is not to the practice of burying treasures along with the dead, nor to the idea that the pomp of riches could thus be perpetuated in death. It is those who were famous in this life with whom Job, had he died, would have been in company in death.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver. This may either mean simply," princes who were rich in silver and gold during their lifetime," or "princes who have gold and silver buried with them in their tombs." It was the custom in Egypt, in Phoenicia, and elsewhere throughout the East, to bury large quantities of treasure, especially gold and silver vessels, and jewellery, in the sepulchres of kings and other great men. A tomb of a Scythian king in the Crimea, opened about fifty years ago, contained a golden shield, a golden diadem, two silver vases, a vase in electrum, and a number of ornaments, partly in electrum and partly in gold (see the author's 'Herodotus,' vol. 3. p. 59, 3rd edit.). Another Scythian tomb near the Caspian, opened by the Russian authorities, contained ornaments set with rubies and emeralds, together with four sheets of gold, weighing forty pounds. A third, near Asterabad, contained a golden goblet, weighing seventy ounces; a pot, eleven ounces, and two small trumpets. The tombs of the kings and queens in Egypt were so richly supplied with treasure that, in the time of the twentieth dynasty, a thieves' society was formed for plundering them, especially of their golden ornaments (Brugsch, 'History of Egypt,' vol. 1. p. 247, 1st edit.). The tomb of Cyrus the Great contained, we are told (Arrian, 'Exp. Alex.,' 6:29), a golden couch, a golden table set out with drinking-cups, a golden bowl, and much elegant clothing adorned with gems. Phoenician tombs, in Cyprus especially, have recently yielded enormous treasures (Di Cesnola, 'Cyprus,' pp. 310-316). If the "gold" and "silver" of the present passage refer to treasures buried with princes and kings, we must understand by the "houses" of the second clause their tombs. The Egyptians called their tombs their "eternal abodes" (Diod. Sic., 1:51). Job 3:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

13 So should I now have lain and had quiet,

I should have slept, then it would have been well with me,

14 With kings and councillors of the earth,

Who built ruins for themselves,

15 Or with princes possessing gold,

Who filled their houses with silver:

16 Or like a hidden untimely birth I had not been,

And as children that have never seen the light.

The perf. and interchanging fut. have the signification of oriental imperfecta conjunctivi, according to Ges. 126, 5; עתּה כּי is the usual expression after hypothetical clauses, and takes the perf. if the preceding clause specifies a condition which has not occurred in the past (Genesis 31:42; Genesis 43:10; Numbers 22:29, Numbers 22:33; 1 Samuel 14:30), the fut. if a condition is not existing in the present (Job 6:3; Job 8:6; Job 13:19). It is not to be translated: for then; כי rather commences the clause following: so I should now, indeed then I should. Ruins, הרבות, are uninhabited desolate buildings, elsewhere such as have become, here such as are from the first intended to remain, uninhabited and desolate, consequently sepulchres, mausoleums; probably, since the book has Egyptian allusions, in other passages also, a play upon the pyramids, in whose name (III-XPAM, according to Coptic glossaries) III is the Egyptian article (vid., Bunsen, Aeg. ii. 361); Arab. without the art. hirâm or ahrâm (vid., Abdollatf, ed. de Sacy, p. 293, s.).

(Note: We think that חרבות sounds rather like חרמות, the name of the pyramids, as the Arabic haram (instead of hharam), derived from XPAM, recalls harmân (e.g., beith harmân, a house in ruins), the synonym of hhardân (חרבאן).)

Also Renan: Qui se btissent des mausoles. Bttch. de inferis, 298 (who, however, prefers to read רחבות, wide streets), rightly directs attention to the difference between החרבות בנה (to rebuild the ruins) and לו בנה ח (to build ruins for one's self). With או like things are then ranged after one another. Builders of the pyramids, millionaires, abortions (vid., Ecclesiastes 6:3), and the still-born: all these are removed from the sufferings of this life in their quiet of the grave, be their grave a "ruin" gazed upon by their descendants, or a hole dug out in the earth, and again filled in as it was before.