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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 7:7 - 7:7
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
7 Remember that my life is a breath,
That my eye will never again look on prosperity.
8 The eye that looketh upon me seeth me no more;
Thine eyes look for me, - I am no more!
9 The clouds are vanished and passed away,
So he that goeth down to Sheôl cometh not up.
10 He returneth no more to his house,
And his place knoweth him no more.
11 Therefore I will not curb my mouth;
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
We see good, i.e., prosperity and joy, only in the present life. It ends with death. שׁוּב with לְ infin. is a synonym of הוסיף, Job 20:9. No eye (עַיִן femin.) which now sees me (prop. eye of my seer, as Gen 16:13, comp. Job 20:7; Psa 31:12, for רֹאֵנִי, Isa 29:15, or רֹאָנִי, Isa 47:10; according to another reading, רֹאִי: no eye of seeing, i.e., no eye with the power of seeing, from רֳאִי, vision) sees me again, even if thy eyes should be directed towards me to help me; my life is gone, so that I can no more be the subject of help. For from Sheôl there is no return, no resurrection (comp. Psa 103:16 for the expression); therefore will I at least give free course to my thoughts and feelings (comp. Psa 77:4; Isa 38:15, for the expression). The גַּם, Job 7:11, is the so-called גם talionis; the parallels cited by Michalis are to the point, Eze 16:43; Mal 2:9; Psa 52:7. Here we first meet with the name of the lower world; and in the book of Job we learn the ancient Israelitish conception of it more exactly than anywhere else. We have here only to do with the name in connection with the grammatical exposition. שְׁאֹול (usually gen. fem.) is now almost universally derived from שָׁאַל = שָׁעַל, to be hollow, to be deepened; and aptly so, for they imagined the Sheôl as under ground, as Num 16:30, Num 16:33 alone shows, on which account even here, as from Gen 37:35 onwards, שְׁאֹֽולָה יָרַד is everywhere used. It is, however, open to question whether this derivation is correct: at least passages like Isa 5:14; Hab 2:5; Pro 30:15., show that in the later usage of the language, שָׁאַל, to demand, was thought of in connection with it; derived from which Sheôl signifies (1) the appointed inevitable and inexorable demanding of everything earthly (an infinitive noun like אֱלֹוהַּ, פְּקֹוד); (2) conceived of as space, the place of shadowy duration whither everything on earth is demanded; (3) conceived of according to its nature, the divinely appointed fury which gathers in and engulfs everything on the earth. Job knows nothing of a demanding back, a redemption from Sheôl.