Job 3:19

The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Job 3:19. The small and great are there — It should rather be rendered, are equal there; persons of all qualities and conditions, whether higher or lower, are in the same circumstances. There is no distinction in the grave, but the meanest and most despised peasant is in a situation equal to that of his rich and powerful neighbour. The man of birth and fortune appears there to no advantage: he commands no place; he usurps no authority; neither does he lord it over the poorest or meanest of the human race. And the servant is free from his master — The most contemptible slave, who was entirely subject to the impositions and exactions of his owner, has got his discharge, and is now free from the power of him that tyrannized over him: a good reason this, why those who have power should use it moderately, and why those that are in subjection should take it patiently.

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

The small and the great are there - The old and the young, the high and the low. Death levels all. It shows no respect to age; it spares none because they are vigorous, young, or beautiful. This sentiment has probably been expressed in various forms in all languages, for all people are made deeply sensible of its truth. The Classic reader will recall the ancient proverb,

Mors sceptra ligonibus aequat,

And the language of Horace:

Aequae lege Necessitas

Sortitur insignes et imos.

Omne capax movet urna nomen.

Tristis unda scilicet omnibus,

Quicunque terrae munere vescimur,

Enaviganda, sive reges,

Sive inopes erimus coloni.

Divesne prisco natus ab lnacho

Nil interest, an pauper et infima

De gente sub dio moreris

Victima nil miserantis Orci.

continued...

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

19. servant—The slave is there manumitted from slavery.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The small and great, i.e. persons of all qualifies and conditions, whether higher or lower.

Are there, in the same place and state, all those kinds of distinctions and differences being for ever abolished.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The small and great are there,.... Both as to age, and with respect to bulk and strength of body, and also to estate and dignity; children and men, or those of low and high stature, or in a mean or more exalted state of life, as to riches and honour, these all come to the grave without any difference, and lie there without any distinction (y) "little and great are there all one"; as Mr. Broughton renders the words, see Revelation 20:12,

and the servant is free from his master; death dissolves all relations among men, and takes away the power that one has legally over another, as the husband over the wife, who at death is loosed from the law and power of her husband, Romans 7:2; and so parents over their children, and masters over their servants; there the master and the servant are together, without any superiority of the one to the other: the consideration of all the above things made death and the state of the dead in the grave appear to Job much more preferable than life in his present circumstances; and therefore, since it had not seized on him sooner, and as soon as he before had wished it had, he desires it might not be long before it came upon him, as in Job 3:20.

(y) "Grandia cum parvis Orcus metit". Horat. Ep. l. 2. ep. 2. ver. 178. "----Mista senum ac juvenum densantur funera". Horat. Carmin. l. 1. Ode. 28.

Geneva Study Bible

The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19. small and great are there] i. e. are there alike, the same.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 19. - The small and great are there; i.e. "all are there, the small and great alike;" for

"Omnes eodem cogimur, cranium
Versatur urna serius ocius
Sors exitura, et nos in aeternum
Exilium impositura cymbae."

(Her., ' Od.') And the servant is free from his master; rather, the slave (עֶבֶד). Job 3:19

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

17 There the wicked cease from troubling,

And the weary are at rest.

18 The captives dwell together in tranquillity;

They hear not the voice of the taskmaster.

19 The small and great, - they are alike there;

And the servant is free from his lord.

There, i.e., in the grave, all enjoy the rest they could not find here: the troublers and the troubled ones alike. רגן corresponds to the radical idea of looseness, broken in pieces, want of restraint, therefore of Turba (comp. Isaiah 57:20; Jeremiah 6:7), contained etymologically in רשׁע. The Pilel שׁאנן vid., Ges. 55, 2) signifies perfect freedom from care. In הוּא שׁם, הוּא is more than the sign of the copula (Hirz., Hahn, Schlottm.); the rendering of the lxx, Vulg., and Luther., ibi sunt, is too feeble. As it is said of God, Isaiah 41:4; Isaiah 43:13; Psalm 102:28, that He is הוּא, i.e., He who is always the same, ὁ αὐτός; so here, הוּא, used purposely instead of המּה, signifies that great and small are like one another in the grave: all distinction has ceased, it has sunk to the equality of their present lot. Correctly Ewald: Great and small are there the same. יחד, Job 3:18, refers to this destiny which brings them together.