Job 27:14

Those that remain of him,.... Of the wicked man after his death; or such that remain, and have escaped the sword and famine:

shall be buried in death: the pestilence, emphatically called death by the Hebrews, as by us the mortality, see Rev 6:8. This is another of God's sore public judgments wicked men, and is such a kind of death, by reason of the contagion of it, that a person is buried as soon as dead almost, being infectious to keep him; and so Mr. Broughton translates the words,

"his remnant shall be buried as soon as they are dead;''

or the disease of which such die being so very infectious sometimes, no one dares to bury them for fear of catching it, and so they lie unburied; which some take to be the sense of the phrase, either that they shall be hurried away to the grave, and so not be embalmed and lie in state, and have an honourable and pompous funeral, or that they shall have none at all, their death will be all the burial they shall have: or else the sense is, they shall die such a death as that death shall be their grave; and they shall have no other, as the men of the old world that were drowned in the flood, Gen 7:23; and Pharaoh and his host in the Red sea, Exo 15:4; and Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, who were swallowed up in the earth, Num 16:27; and such as are devoured by wild beasts; and if this last could be thought to be meant, we have all the four sore judgments of God in this verse and Job 27:14, sword, famine, pestilence, and evil beasts, see Eze 14:21,

and his widows shall not weep; leaving more than one behind him, polygamy being frequent in those times; or else these are his sons' wives, left widows by them, as Bar Tzemach thinks, they being the persons immediately spoken of, dying by various deaths before mentioned; but whether they be his widows, or theirs, they shall weep for neither of them; either because they themselves will be cut off with them; or their husbands dying shameful deaths, lamentation would be forbidden; or they would not be able to weep through the astonishment and stupor they should be seized with at their death; or having lived such miserable and uncomfortable lives with them, they should be so far from lamenting their death, that they should, as Jarchi interprets it, rejoice at it; the Septuagint version is,

"no one shall have mercy on their widows.''

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Job 27:14 If his children be multiplied, [it is] for the sword: and his offspring shall not be satisfied with bread.

Ver. 14. If his children be multiplied, it is for the sword] As were Ahab’s seventy sons, for instance, 2Ki 10:1, whom he had begotten after God had threatened to root out his posterity. He, therefore, as it were to cross the Almighty, gives himself so much the more strenuously to the work of generation; but this was (like Ephraim) to bring forth children to the murderer, Hos 4:13. See the like of Ahaziah and his forty-two brethren slain at the shearing house. {2Ki 10:14}

And his offspring] Heb. His issues, or egressions, his shoots or branches, his pledges: so Mercer rendereth it.

Shall not be satisfied with bread] i.e. Shall be pined and famished, which their wicked parents, by heaping and hoarding, sought to prevent, but it could not be. And this shall be a more cruel kind of death than the former, Lam 4:9. Drusus, the son of Tiberius Nero, was put to this death; so was our Richard II, at Pomfret Castle; Sanders, that traitor in Ireland; and many others.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

If his children be multiplied, it is for the sword - That is, they shall be slain in war. The first calamities which it is here said would come upon a man, relate to his family Job 27:14-18; the next are those that would come upon himself, Job 27:19-23. All the sentiments here expressed are found in the various speeches of the friends of Job, and, according to the interpretation suggested above, this is designed to represent their sentiments. They maintained that if a wicked man was blessed with a numerous family, and seemed to be prosperous, it was only that the punishment might come the more heavily upon him, for that they certainly would be cut off; see Job 18:19-20; Job 20:10.

And his offspring shall not be satisfied with bread - This sentiment was advanced by Zophar, Job 20:10; see the notes at that verse.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Job 27:14-15. It is for the sword — That they may be cut off by the sword, either of war or of justice: and his offspring, &c. — Shall be starved, or shall want necessaries. Those that remain of him — Who survive that sword and famine; shall be buried in death — “Shall be reduced to so great a degree of misery,” says Schultens, “that where they die, there they shall rot, and no person shall bury them: they shall have death itself, (so he renders the text,) for their sepulchre.” It is put in antithesis, or by way of contrast to the monuments of the rich. And his widows — For they had many wives; shall not weep — Because they, as well as other persons, groaned under his tyranny, and, therefore, rejoice in their deliverance from it.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Strophe b — Having fully established his main position, that the virtuous may suffer, for instance as in his case, (2-10,) Job proceeds to give in detail the sufferings of a portion of the wicked in this present life. In admitting the sufferings of some of the wicked, he magnanimously proffers a ground of conciliation, with an implied condition that the friends should also admit the sufferings of the righteous, which they in the obstinacy of silence fail to do, Job_27:14-18.

14. His children — Calamity hangs over his home also; his children perish, too, some by war and some by famine. Job’s glowing description of a godless family in Job_21:8, he now qualifies by declaring their doom. It is painfully natural that desolate Job should first speak of the children of the wicked.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

His family only increases to perish by sword or famine (Jer 18:21; Job 5:20, the converse).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 14. If his children be multiplied] As numerous families were supposed to be a proof of the benediction of the Almighty, Job shows that this is not always the case; for the offspring of the wicked shall be partly cut off by violent deaths, and partly reduced to great poverty.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

14. With the sentiment of this verse compare Job’s former words in regard to the wicked, “Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes. They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. They spend their days in wealth,” ch. Job_21:8 seq.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Bread. Septuagint, "if they grow up to manhood, they shall beg," Psalm xxxvi 25. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

It is for the sword; that they may be cut off by the sword, either of war or of justice.

Shall not be satisfied with bread; shall be starved, or want necessaries. A figure called meiosis.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

If his children be multiplied, it is for the sword. Among the items of prosperity which Job had assigned to the wicked man in one of his previous discourses (Job_21:8, Job_21:11) was a numerous and flourishing offspring. Now he feels forced to admit that, frequently at any rate, this flourishing offspring is overtaken by calamity (Job_21:19) it falls by the sword, either in predatory warfare, to which it was bred up, or as the consequence of a blood-feud inherited from its progenitor. They who "take the sword," either in their own persons or in their posterity, "perish with the sword." And his offspring shall not be satisfied with bread. If they escape this fate, then, mostly, they fall into poverty, and suffer want, no one caring to relieve them, since they have an ill reputation, the memory of their parent"s wickedness clinging to them long after his decease.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

If his sons increase they will increase for the sword. in death They will die amidst suffering and sicknesses, until his widows will be happy at their death and will not weep.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.