For I know that you will bring me to death and to the house appointed for all living.
Job has finished recalling his better days, and now he turns his lament on God. He has worked out where God is taking him, and it is the grave.
The address every living person shares
The closing words name a destination nobody escapes. One commentator says the thought should have calmed Job, not crushed him.
Leslie M. Grant"You lift me up to the wind" (v. 22) — that is, God was exposing Job to the cruel winds of circumstance. So He had blocked any possibility of success for the poor sufferer. All he could look for now was the pain of death (v. 23), which he speaks of as "the house appointed for all living." This fact itself should have calmed him. It should have made him realise that his case was not unique: others were appointed to the same end.
One translator renders the closing words as "the house of assembly for all living" — the grave pictured as the place where the whole human family gathers.
"I know" — and Job did not know
Job's words sound like settled knowledge. One commentator goes through the chapter line by line and marks where he was wrong.
William Kelly"I cry to you and you do not hear me." But God did hear him. There was a reason why He did not answer; but God did hear. "I stand up, and you do not regard me. You have become cruel to me." There he was quite wrong... "For I know that you will bring me to death" — there he was wrong again. God had good things in store for Job.
The hand he read as cruelty
Job's worst pain was not his body. It was his reading of God's intentions, and that reading was the exact opposite of the truth.
Leslie M. GrantWhat seems the most devastating misery for Job is that he considers God is against him... God answers only at the right time and in the right way. Had God become cruel to him? He thought so, but it was the love of God that delayed an answer. What he considered God's hand strong against him was in fact the strength of God's love for him.
Before we judge him, one writer asks us to picture the condition he was speaking from.
F. B. HoleIn verse 20 he turned to God and made bitter complaint to Him, and even against Him... Poor Job! Without any question men had become cruel to him, and he now felt that God had become cruel also... Let us not judge Job harshly. In such a fearful plight as his we should probably have said far worse things than he.
Suffering as God's other way of speaking
Job read his decline as a death sentence. One writer points to Elihu, a later speaker in the book, who treats the same suffering as God speaking.
Samuel RidoutBut God has another way of speaking to men. If they do not listen to His word, He may send them His rod. In enlarging on this, Elihu is in effect describing the case of Job... He is at the end of life, drawing near to the grave, or to the more dreadful "pit of destruction." "I know that You will bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living" (Job 30:23).
Why the riddle stays unsolved here
The chapter ends with no light. One commentator traces that to what fills the speech.
William KellyHis words are an expression of the deepest gloom. The cause is the bright past he had enjoyed by God's favour, which had taken too much of the place of God Himself in his soul... No solution of the riddle appears yet. Instead the difficulty grows, and God is hidden even more, the longer he dwells on the circumstances of past and present with a conscience on which no evil lay. For all this is but self, not God; and we must humble ourselves under His mighty hand if we want Him to lift us up at the right time.
The prospect changed by another Man
Job's sentence is the inheritance every child of Adam receives. One writer sets it beside what comes through Christ.
C. E. StuartFrom Adam what have we received?... for an inheritance, a life of sorrow and frustration; for a prospect, death and "the house appointed for all living" (Job 30:23)... Blessed be God, this condition is not beyond remedy. Another Man has been found who was obedient to death. Through Him we receive something very unlike what our first parents passed down to us: a nature which cannot sin, an inheritance which cannot fade away, and a prospect of life beyond death. More than that, we receive the assurance of everlasting life. The grave cannot cheat us of it, and the great enemy cannot take it from us.
Summary
- Appointed. The grave is the house kept for everyone, and Job's own words should have told him his case was not unique.
- Wrong. He said "I know," but he did not know — God had good things in store for him.
- Love. The hand he read as cruelty was in fact the strength of God's love. God did hear him, and answered at the right time.
- Self. The gloom deepened because the speech was full of Job, not God. God lifts up those who humble themselves under His hand.
- Christ. Adam passed down death. Through the Man who was obedient to death comes an inheritance the grave cannot touch.