The clods of the valley will be sweet to him. All men will draw after him, as there were innumerable before him.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 33. Acceptable to the gravel of Cocytus. The Hebrew word, which S. Jerom has here rendered by the name Cocytus, (which the poets represent as a river in hell) signifies a valley or a torrent: and in this place, is taken for the low region of death, and hell: which willingly, as it were, receives the wicked at their death: who are ushered in by innumerable others that have gone before them; and are followed by multitudes above number. Challoner.—Isaias (14:9) and Ezechiel (32:21) describe the splendid reception in hell of the kings of Babylon and of Egypt, nearly in the same manner as Job does that of any sinner who has lived in prosperity. Calmet. 38:17. He gives life to the whole creation, in the true spirit of poetry. Calmet.—The rich man is represented as tenderly embraced by his mother earth; (Calmet. 1:21. Bible.) the very stones and turf press lightly upon him; as the ancients prayed, Sit tibi terra levis. Hebrew “the stones or clods of the torrent ( Calmet.) shall be sweet to him, and he,” and so forth Bible.—S. Jerom has chosen to mention a particular river, instead of the general term nel, “a torrent or vale,” to intimate that Job is speaking of the state after death.—Cocytus is a branch of the Styx, a river of Arcadia, of a noxious quality, which the poets have place in hell. Pineda.—Septuagint “The pebbles of the torrent became sweet to him, and in his train every man shall come, and unnumbered men before him.” Alex. MS. has “men of number;” the two first letters of αναριθμητοι being omitted. Bible.—The Church reads in her office for S. Stephen, Lapides torrentis illi dulces fuerunt: ipsum sequuntur omnes animæ justæ. Many explain this passage of Job as a menace. The wicked have carried their insolence so far as to ( Calmet.) give orders to ( Bible.) be buried with the utmost pomp: but in the other world, they shall be thrown ignominiously among the other dead. Saint Gregory and so forth Calmet.—They were little moved with the thought of death, as it was common to all. But what will they think of eternal misery? Bible.