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Nothing could well be conceived of as more truly sublime than the whole discourse of which the above quotation is a part. Job is convicted by the great Teacher both of ignorance and of weakness. How little did he know of the plans and workings of providence. Whithersoever he turned himself, he was surrounded with mystery. There was another state of being, too, over which clouds and darkness rested. It was a land from which no traveller had ever returned; a land of spiritual essences, and incorporeal natures alone. "Have the gates of death been opened unto thee?"

1. The metaphor suggests to us how ignorant we are of the period at which our mortal lives must terminate. Canst thou look into the secret chambers of the Almighty, and say which of the ten thousand ways of leaving this world, is the precise one thou shalt be under the necessity of taking? How often does the king of terrors take one and pass another by. The number of years we are to fill; the nature of the death we are to die; the spot where and the manner how; all are infallibly known to God; nay, were so long before we were born, or the earth itself was formed on which we dwell. From us these futurities are wisely and mercifully concealed. "Death's thousand doors stand open" as the poet says, but through which of them we are to pass is only known unto Him who hath appointed to all flesh the bounds of their habitation.

2. The metaphor suggests to us that we are very much in the dark as to the nature of the invisible world. Canst thou clearly discern, through the opened gates, the condition of that world which lies beyond the present, the occupation of its inhabitants, the pursuits in which they are engaged, or the views they entertain? We know there is such a state. We are told it shall forever be well with the righteous, and ill with the wicked. But we are left very much in the dark as to particulars. Many curious and interesting questions naturally occur to a thinking and. Some think that from the moment the breath departs, all spiritual life and consciousness are suspended until the day of resurrection. But such a theory can easily be shown to be preposterous and untenable. All things go to prove that, as it is appointed unto all men once to die, so immediately after death cometh judgment, not the general judgment of the last day, but the particular judgment that shall pass on every individual.

3. The metaphor suggests that it becomes us to express ourselves with great caution when at any time we speak of the dead. There are two propositions of which we cannot be too confident.

(1) That they who die in the Lord are blessed.

(2) That such as die unregenerate shall be eternally miserable. But we may err widely in the application of them. We cannot know, with absolute certainty, the state of another man's soul. God has not constituted us judges in the matter. Learn —

1. The propriety of considering our latter end.

2. The folly of rash speculations upon the nature of the invisible world. What God has taught us, it becomes us diligently to ponder; what He has thought proper to conceal, let us religiously abstain from intermeddling with.

3. To see abundant cause of thankfulness to God for the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. What, but for this, must have been our future prospects? He who lay in mortal slumber in Joseph's tomb has come back to tell that death shall be swallowed up in victory, and that they who believe on Him shall never perish.

(J. L. Adamson.)

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KJV: Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?

WEB: Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?