Job 27:23

Job 27:23 [Men] shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place.

Ver 23. Men shall clap their hands at him, &c.] Heb. He shall clap, &c. Every he shall, or God shall, as some read it. God shall kick him off this stage of the world, and then men shall clap and hiss at him in sign of detestation; as they did once at Sejanus, Phocas, Richard III, whose miseries were a part of other men’s happiness, who looked upon them as wolves and public pests.

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.

Job_27:23

Men shall clap their hands at him; and shall hiss him out of his place.

Hissed off the stage

This allusion seems to be dramatic. The Bible more than once makes such allusions. Paul says, We are made a theatre or spectacle to angels and to men. It is evident from the text that some of the habits of theatre goers were known in Job time, because he describes an actor hissed off the stage. The impersonator comes on the boards and, either through lack of study of the part he is to take or inaptness or other incapacity, the audience is offended, and expresses its disapprobation and disgust by hissing. Men shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place. My text suggests that each one of us is put on the stage of this world to take some part. What hardship and suffering and discipline great actors have undergone year after year that they might be perfected in their parts, you have often read. But we, put on the stage of this life to represent charity and faith and humility and helpfulness--what little preparation we have made, although we have three galleries of spectators, earth, and heaven, and hell! Have we not been more attentive to the part taken by others than to the part taken by ourselves, and, while we needed to be looking at home and concentring on our own duty, we have been criticising the other performers, and saying that was too high, or too low, or too feeble, or too extravagant, or too tame, or too demonstrative, while we ourselves were making a dead failure and preparing to be ignominiously hissed off the stage. Each one is assigned a place; no supernumeraries hanging around the drama of life to take this or that or the other part, as he may be called upon. No one can take our place. We can take no other place. Neither can we put off our character; no change of apparel can make us anyone else than that which we eternally are.

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Job 27:23. Men — Who shall see and observe these things; shall clap their hands at him — In token of their joy, at the removal of such a public pest and tyrant; and by way of astonishment, as also in contempt and scorn; all which this action signifies in Scripture. And shall hiss him out of his place — In token of detestation and derision.

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

clap . . . hands--for joy at his downfall (Lam 2:15; Nah 3:19).

hiss--deride (Jer 25:9). Job alludes to Bildad's words (Job 18:18).

In the twenty-seventh chapter Job had tacitly admitted that the statement of the friends was often true, that God vindicated His justice by punishing the wicked here; but still the affliction of the godly remained unexplained. Man has, by skill, brought the precious metals from their concealment. But the Divine Wisdom, which governs human affairs, he cannot similarly discover (Job 28:12, &c.). However, the image from the same metals (Job 23:10) implies Job has made some way towards solving the riddle of his life; namely, that affliction is to him as the refining fire is to gold.

Next: Job Chapter 28

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 23. Men shall clap their hands at him] These two verses refer to the storm, which is to sweep away the ungodly; therefore the word God, in Job 27:22, and men in this verse, should be omitted.

Ver. 22: "For it shall fall upon him, and not spare: flying from its power he shall continue to fly.

Ver. 23. It shall clap its hands against him, and hiss, וישרק veyishrok, shriek, him out of his place."

Here the storm is personified and the wicked actor is hissed and driven by it from off the stage. It seems it was an ancient method to clap the hands against and hiss a man from any public office, who had acted improperly in it. The populace, in European countries, express their disapprobation of public characters who have not pleased them in the same manner to the present day, by hisses, groans, and the like.

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

23. men shall clap their hands] Clapping the hands is a token of malignant gladness, Lam_2:15, and “hissing” a token of scorn and dislike, Jer_49:17. See ch. Job_18:18, Job_20:27. Comp. what Job says of his own treatment by men, ch. Job_17:6, Job_30:9-14.

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.

Men shall clap their hands at him - That is, they shall combine to drive him out of the world, and rejoice when he is gone. The same sentiment was also expressed by Bildad, Job 18:18 :

“He shall be driven fromm light into darkness,

And chased out of the world.”

There can be no doubt, I think, that Job alludes to that sentiment, and that his object in quoting it is to show its incorrectness. He does not indeed go into a formal reply to it in the following chapters, but he seems to consider that he had already replied to it by the statements which he had made, and which showed the incorrectness of the views which his friends had taken. He had demonstrated in the previous chapters that their main position was incorrect, and he asks (in Job 27:12 of this chapter), how it was possible that they could hold such sentiments as these, in the midst of all the facts which surrounded them? The whole current of events was against their opinion, and in the close of this chapter he enumerates the sentiments which they had advanced, which he regarded as so strange, and which he felt that he had now shown to be erroneous. In deed, they seem to have regarded themselves as confuted, for they were silent. Job had attacked and overthrown their main position, that people were treated according to their character in this life, and that consequently extraordinary sufferings were proof of extraordinary guilt, and, that being overthrown, they had nothing more to say. Having silenced them, and shown the error of the opinions which he has here enumerated, be proceeds in the following chapters to state his own views on important topics connected with the providence of God, mainly designed to show that we are not to expect fully to comprehend the reason of his dispensations.

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

Place. God having waited patiently a long time, at last displays the effects of his indignation, with a sort of contempt, Proverbs i. 26., and Ezechiel v. 13. (Calmet) (Psalm ii. 4.) (Menochius) (Pineda) --- Every passenger who shall witness his fall, and his now abandoned place, shall also testify his approbation. (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).

Men, who shall see and observe these things,

shall clap their hands; partly, in token of their joy at the removal of such a public pest and tyrant; and partly, by way of astonishment; and partly, in contempt, and scorn, or derision; all which this gesture signifies in Scripture use; of which see Lam 2:15; Eze 25:6; Nah 3:19.

Shall hiss him, in token of their amazement, detestation, and derision. See 1Ki 9:8; 2Ch 29:8; Jer 25:9; Mic 6:16.

Out of his place; now that he is out of his place and power, which they durst not do whilst he was in his place. Or, the men of his place, that lived with him or near him, and daily felt the effects of his tyranny.

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

23. Men shall clap — It or he, used collectively. In the opinion of some, the storm is personified and represented as acting after the manner of men when they condemn and hiss a public character. The text properly supplies the word men. The accumulation of the terminations emo and omo (says Delitzsch) gives a tone of thunder and a gloomy impress to this conclusion of the description of judgment, as those terminations frequently occur in the book of Psalms, where moral depravity is mourned and divine judgment threatened.

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

Men shall clap their hands at him. Applauding, i.e. the just judgment of God upon him. And shall hiss him out of his place. Accompany with hisses his final ruin and downfall hissing him, while they applaud the action of God in respect to him.

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

Clap - In token of their joy at the removal of such a publick pest, by way of astonishment: and in contempt and scorn, all which this gesture signifies in scripture use. His - In token of detestation and derision.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

They clap their hands over them Those who knew [him] long ago and now see his ruin.

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.