Job 17:16 NIV: Will it go down to the gates of death? Will we descend together into the dust?"

Job 17:16

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◄ Job 17:16 ►

New International Version (© 2011)
Will it go down to the gates of death? Will we descend together into the dust?"

King James Bible
They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust.

American Standard Version
It shall go down to the bars of Sheol, When once there is rest in the dust.

Young's Literal Translation
To the parts of Sheol ye go down, If together on the dust we may rest.

Job 17:16 Additional Translations
Clarke's Commentary on the Bible

They shall go down to the bars of the pit - All that I have must descend into the depths of the grave. Thither are we all going; and there alone can I rest. בדי baddey, which we translate bars, signifies also branches, distended limbs, or claws, and may here refer either to a personification of the grave, a monster who seizes on human bodies, and keeps them fast in his deadly gripe; or to the different branching-off-alleys in subterranean cemeteries, or catacombs, in which niches are made for the reception of different bodies.

When our rest together is in the dust - That is, according to some critics, My hope and myself shall descend together into the grave. It shall never be realized, for the time of my departure is at hand.

In those times what deep shades hung on the state of man after death, and on every thing pertaining to the eternal world! Perplexity and uncertainty were the consequences; and a corresponding gloom often dwelt on the minds of even the best of the Old Testament believers. Job's friends, though learned in all the wisdom of the Arabians, connected with the advantages derivable from the Mosaic writings, and perhaps those of the earlier prophets, had little clear or distinct in their minds relative to all subjects post mortem, or of the invisible world. Job himself, though sometimes strongly confident, is often harassed with doubts and fears upon the subject, insomuch that his sayings and experience often appear contradictory. Perhaps it could not be otherwise; the true light was not then come: Jesus alone brought life and immortality to light by his Gospel.

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

the bars of the pit

Job 18:13,14 It shall devour the strength of his skin: even the firstborn of death shall devour his strength...

Job 33:18-28 He keeps back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword...

Psalm 88:4-8 I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that has no strength...

Psalm 143:7 Hear me speedily, O LORD: my spirit fails: hide not your face from me, lest I be like to them that go down into the pit.

Isaiah 38:17,18 Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but you have in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption...

Jonah 2:6 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever...

rest

Job 3:17-19 There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest...

Ezekiel 37:11 Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost...

2 Corinthians 1:9 But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raises the dead: