Job 21:32

Verse 32. Dead. Hebrew “the sheaves,” being quite ripe for harvest, and even in the tomb, the tyrant retains some sore of pre-eminence, as he is buried with honour, an set like a more elevated sheaf, to inspect the rest. Calmet.—Godiss, is rendered by Prot. “tomb,” (margin) “heap.” But (Calmet. 5:26) where only the word occurs again, we find “a shock of corn,” and this comparison seems very suitable here. The damned shall watch, alas, when it will be to no purpose, among the heap of fellow-sufferers, who would not think while they had time to repent. After millions of night spent thus without sleep or ease, we may imagine we hear their mournful lamentations from the depth of the abyss. Always misery! and never any hope of ease! Bible.—“Eternity,” says Bridayne, (ser. in Maury’s Eloq.) “is a pendulum, the vibration of which sounds continually, Always! Never! In the mean while, a reprobate cries out: What o’clock is it? And the same voice answers, Eternity!” Thus at last the wicked shal awake from the sleep in which they have spent their days; ( Bible.) and their watching, restless, and immortal souls (S. Thom.) will bitterly lament their past folly. What profit will they derive from the honours paid to their corpse by surviving friends, ( Bible.) even though they be embalmed, and seem to live in marble statues? Pineda.