with kings and counselors of the earth who rebuilt ruins for themselves,
Job has lost his children, his wealth and his health, and he breaks his silence by wishing he had never been born. Picturing the grave, he names the company he would have kept there: kings, their counsellors, and princes with houses full of silver.
Where the verse falls
Job's opening speech moves in stages, and this line belongs to the middle one. One writer sets out the shape of the whole lament:
Samuel RidoutFirst: Job curses the day of his birth (vv. 1-9). Second: He wishes he had died in infancy (vv. 10-12). Third: Death is described as a rest (vv. 13-19). Fourth: He longs for death (vv. 20-23). Fifth: He is oppressed by terror (vv. 24-26).
Kings who built ruins
The ESV says these kings "rebuilt ruins for themselves." One writer, using an older translation that reads "build desolate places," takes those places to be the tombs kings built:
William KellyHe asks why he had ever been born, one destined to such misery. Why was he not left instead, as he says so sharply, "with kings and counsellors of the earth, who build desolate places"? Is this what the greatness of this world comes to — kings building ruins for themselves? "Or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver?" But gold and silver cannot buy escape from sorrow or death. Was this life? Was this the work in which the kings of Egypt sought fame, the building of their own tombs?
The grave as leveller
Job's list runs downward from kings to slaves, and the point is that the grave makes no distinction between them:
Samuel RidoutDeath is here described as a rest (vv. 13-19) in which all have an equal share. The old and the young, even the unborn baby, the great and the small, are alike at rest. Kings whose palaces have crumbled into ruins, and princes whose vast wealth has all been left behind, are here at last in deep and equal repose. The wicked cannot trouble them. A master cannot demand service from his slave. Prisoners and their captors find no difference in the presence of death, that great leveller of mankind.
Rest — or nothing at all?
But rest is not all Job asks for here. One writer weighs what his picture of death leaves out:
Samuel RidoutJob goes further and puts all in an unconscious sleep, "as infants who never see the light." Is there no difference between the condition of the wicked and of the righteous after death?… By blurring the future in this way, Job shows how far his soul had drifted from the truth of God. In plain language he is longing for annihilation.
The strongest answer to Job's mood comes from Job himself, later in the book:
Samuel RidoutJob's own words disprove his unbelief here: "I know that my Redeemer lives" (Job 19:25). David also said, "when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness" (Ps. 17:15).
Wishing is not faith
Job's cure for his pain is to have died at birth. One writer sets that wish beside faith:
Leslie M. GrantIf only he had died, he says, he would be at rest. In death at least, he claims, the wicked stop troubling, the weary are at rest, the prisoners are released and the slave is free from his master. But wishing is not facing facts as they are. Faith faces facts and gives God credit for doing what He knows is best. But Job's faith had become very weak.
Why God allowed the breakdown
Job's collapse was not a failure in God's plan. One writer explains what God was after in it:
J. N. DarbyJob had never really been brought into the presence of God… He was resting in what he was to others, and not in the favour of God Himself… So God keeps dealing with Job, until He brings him to nothing in the very thing for which Job was most famous. Job, the most patient man, curses the day of his birth. Why is this? Because we must be broken down. We must come to a sense of what we are, as well as of what we have done. Then God can deal with us out of His own heart.
Summary
- Ruins. Kings and counsellors built their own tombs. The greatness of this world ends in the ruins they built for themselves.
- Gold. Princes filled their houses with silver, and none of it could buy them out of sorrow or death.
- Level. In the grave the great and small, master and slave, captor and prisoner lie in the same rest. Death is the great leveller.
- Drift. Job's picture of rest slides toward wanting to stop existing, and his own later words answer him: "I know that my Redeemer lives."
- Purpose. The most patient man curses the day he was born. God was not after better fruit, but a heart broken down and brought into His presence.