Job 24:18-21

18-21. Clericus regards this passage as one of the most difficult in Holy Scripture. Job seems to argue against himself, (Job 21:7,) and to have surrendered the citadel to his foes. Some moderns (Dathe, Umbreit, etc.) follow the Septuagint and Vulgate in regarding these verses as an imprecation, thus: “May he be light (swift) on the face of the waters,” and thus swiftly hasten to his doom. Others (Ewald, Hirtzel, and Dillmann) suppose that Job is ironical, and that he parodies the sentiments of his friends; others still (Stickel, Welte, and Hahn) that he repeats their views only the more emphatically to controvert and refute them. But none of these opinions meet the demands of the passage. Rosenmuller, Delitzsch, and Canon Cook are right in looking upon it in general as simply a description of the unperturbed fate of such sinners as those he has just described. Like the Psalmist (Psalms 73:3-5) under dark temptation, he sees in their death no marks of divine displeasure. Like a bubble on the flood, (Job 24:18,) or an evanishing stream of the desert, (Job 24:19,) the grave (sheol) silently swallows them up.