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Job 27:15

Adam Clarke
Bible Commentary

Those that remain of him - שרידיו seridaiv, his remains, whether meaning himself personally, or his family.

Shall be buried in death - Shall come to utter and remediless destruction. Death shall have his full conquest over them, and the grave its complete victory. These are no common dead. All the sting, all the wound, and all the poison of sin, remains: and so evident are God's judgments in his and their removal, that even widows shall not weep for them; the public shall not bewail them; for when the wicked perish there is shouting. Mr. Good, following the Chaldee, translates: Entombed in corruption, or in the pestilence. But I see no reason why we should desert the literal reading. Entombed in corruption gives no nervous sense in my judgment; for in corruption are the high and the low, the wicked and the good, entombed: but buried in death is at once nervous and expressive. Death itself is the place where he shall lie; he shall have no redemption, no resurrection to life; death shall ever have dominion over him. The expression is very similar to that in Luke 16:22; (note), as found in several versions and MSS.: The rich man died, and was buried in hell; and, lifting up his eyes, being in torment, he saw, etc. See my note there.

Albert Barnes
Notes on the Whole Bible

Those that remain of him - Those that survive him.

Shall be buried in death - Hebrew “shall be buried BY death” (במות bamâveth ), that is. “Death shall be the grave-digger” - or, they shall have no friends to bury them; they shall be unburied. The idea is highly poetical, and the expression is very tender. They would have no one to weep over them, and no one to prepare for them a grave; there would be no procession, no funeral dirge, no train of weeping attendants; even the members of their own family would not weep over them. To be unburied has always been regarded as a dishonor and calamity (compare the notes at Isaiah 14:19), and is often referred to as such in the Scriptures; see Jeremiah 8:2; Jeremiah 14:16; Jeremiah 16:4, Jeremiah 16:6. The passage here has a striking resemblance to Jeremiah 22:18-19 -

“They shall not lament for him, saying,

Ah! my brother! or, Ah! sister!

They shall not lament for him, saying,

Ah! lord! or, Ah! his glory!

With the burial of an ass shall he be buried,

Drawn out and east beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”

And his widows shall not weep - The plural here - “widows” - is a proof that polygamy was then practiced. It is probable that Job here alludes to the shrieks of domestic grief which in the East are heard in every part of the house among the females on the death of the master of the family, or to the train of women that usually followed the corpse to the grave. The standing of a man in society was indicated by the length of the train of mourners, and particularly by the number of wives and concubines that followed him as weepers. Job refers to this as the sentiment of his friends, that when a wicked man died, he would die with such evident marks of the divine displeasure, that even his own family would not mourn for him, or that they would be cut off before his death, and none would be left to grieve.

Matthew Henry
Concise Bible Commentary
Job's friends, on the same subject, spoke of the misery of wicked men before death as proportioned to their crimes; Job considered that if it were not so, still the consequences of their death would be dreadful. Job undertook to set this matter in a true light. Death to a godly man, is like a fair gale of wind to convey him to the heavenly country; but, to a wicked man, it is like a storm, that hurries him away to destruction. While he lived, he had the benefit of sparing mercy; but now the day of God's patience is over, and he will pour out upon him his wrath. When God casts down a man, there is no flying from, nor bearing up under his anger. Those who will not now flee to the arms of Divine grace, which are stretched out to receive them, will not be able to flee from the arms of Divine wrath, which will shortly be stretched out to destroy them. And what is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and thus lose his own soul?