Job 26:6

And what does Job 26 let us hear Job saying in answer? First he pays an ironic compliment to the speech just delivered, praising its power and wisdom as if it had settled the question under debate. Then, despite all his misery, he sets out the power of God far more fully and more vividly than they do. He adds the solemnities of the unseen world.

Revelation 9:11 shows this name to be the same as Apollyon, "the destroyer," who is called "the angel of the bottomless pit." It is perhaps not so much one of the names of Satan as his character personified. It occurs six times in the Old Testament. Three of them link it with hell (sheol): Job 26:6; Proverbs 15:11; Proverbs 27:20. One links it with death — "Destruction and Death say," Job 28:22 — and one with the grave, Psalm 88:11. In all these passages, and in Job 31:12, it is translated "destruction."

Sheol — the state of souls and spirits separated from their bodies — is naked before Him, while we ourselves know nothing of those in Sheol. The state of destruction is chaos to us, but God sees it exactly as it is. He is above everything low and hellish.

Job begins with the depths we cannot see. To those depths God has sent the giant forms of those who once fought against Him. He makes them tremble now, though the hour of judgment has not yet come. He sees not only peace in the high places, but the dread of God reaching far beyond the earthly scenes of His government. Sheol and Abaddon stand unveiled before Him.

It is folly to think of the place of the lost as independent of God. Whether it is "the spirits [now] in prison" (1 Peter 3:19), or the bottomless pit, or the lake of fire, God, not Satan, reigns. In the end His will must be obeyed. "If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!" (Psalm 139:8).

It is a serious thing to have to do with a living God who searches the inward parts and the heart, as the Lord Jesus does. Yet it is a blessed thing too, if taken in faith. When His grace is really known, it is a joy to welcome His search against unconscious self-love or shallowness... Here it does not go as far as Psalm 139. It says, "Sheol and Abaddon lie open before the LORD; how much more the hearts of the children of man!"

There is no created thing that is not manifest in His sight. So I am conscious not only of the discerning power of the Word working on me, but of the all-pervading, all-searching power of the Spirit and presence of God. For "all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account." Everything is open before Him — heaven and hades, the place of the dead, as well as the recesses of the heart of man.