Job 36:14

Job 36:14 They die in youth, and their life [is] among the unclean.

Ver. 14. They die in youth] They die before their time, as Solomon expresseth it; then, when it were better for them to do anything than to die, for they are killed with death, as Jezebel’s children were, Rev 2:20-23. Their soul dieth, as the Hebrew here hath it. Their soul perisheth among the boys, their life among the Sodomites, as Beza translateth this text, and thus paraphraseth. Therefore as accursed before God they die, and are reckoned among those impure young men whose youth, being spent in all filthiness and uncleanness, was subject to that most abominable lust which is not to be named. The sum of all is, saith Brentius, Hypocrita peribit turpiter, The hypocrite shall once come to a shameful end. And when the foul sinner shall be damned, what shall become of the fair professor? God will lead such forth with the workers of iniquity, yea, with the worst kind of sinners, Sodomites, for instance, shall he punish them.

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.

They die of some vile death, and that before they come to age.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Rather (Deu 23:17), Their life is (ended) as that of (literally, "among") the unclean, prematurely and dishonorably. So the second clause answers to the first. A warning that Job make not common cause with the wicked (Job 34:36).

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. They die in youth] Exactly what the psalmist says, "Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days," Ps 55:23. Literally, the words of Elihu are, "They shall die in the youth of their soul."

Their life is among the unclean.] בקדשים bakedeshim, among the whores, harlots, prostitutes, and sodomites. In this sense the word is used, though it also signifies consecrated persons; but we know that in idolatry characters of this kind were consecrated to Baal and Ashtaroth, Venus, Priapus, &c. Mr. Good translates the rabble. The Septuagint: Their life shalt be wounded by the angels.

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

14. They die] lit. their soul dieth. They perish in the midst of their days.

is among the unclean] Or, perisheth among the unclean, i. e. like the unclean. They die prematurely or in debasement like the hierodouloi in the temples of Baal, comp. 1Ki_14:24; 1Ki_15:12.

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.

They die in youth,.... They, or "their soul" (u); which, though that dies not, being immaterial and immortal; yet being the principal part of man, is put for the whole person, and which being taken away, the body dies. All men must die, but all do not die at an age; there is a common term of human life, Psa 90:10; some few exceed it, multitudes arrive not to it; such who die before it may be said to die in youth; it seems to signify premature and untimely death: the word signifies an "excussion", or violent shaking out; and the Vulgate Latin version is, "in a tempest"; in a tempest of divine wrath, and in a storm in their consciences, Job 27:20. Jarchi interprets it by suffocation or strangling;

and their life is among the unclean: all men are by nature unclean, and all that is in them; some are more notoriously and openly so than others, who give themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness; such as whoremongers and fornicators, of whom Mr. Broughton understands those unclean persons; or Sodomites, of whom the word is sometimes used, Deu 23:17. And this may be understood either of the present life of hypocrites before they die; who are unclean persons themselves, whatever show of purity they make, and love to live and converse, at least privately, if not openly, with unclean persons, and die while they live with such and in their sins: or of their life after death; for wicked men live after death; their souls live in hell, and their bodies at the resurrection will be raised to life, and be reunited to their souls, and both together will live in endless punishment; and the life of hypocrites will be among such; as is a man in life, so he is at and after death; if filthy, filthy still; and such will have no admittance into the heavenly state, and with such impure ones, hypocrites will live for ever, Rev 21:8.

(u) "anima eorum", Pagninus, Montanus, Tigurine version, Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, &c.

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

They die in youth - Margin, “Their soul dieth.” The word “soul” or “life” in the Hebrew is used to denote oneself. The meaning is, that they would soon be cut down, and share the lot of the openly wicked. If they amended their lives they might be spared, and continue to live in prosperity and honor; if they did not, whether openly wicked or hypocrites. they would be early cut off.

And their life is amnong the unclean - Margin, “Sodomites.” The idea is, that they would be treated in the same way as the most abandoned and vile of the race. No special favor would be shown to them because they were “professors” of religion, nor would this fact be a shield against the treatment which they deserved. They could not be classed with the righteous, and must, therefore, share the fate of the most worth mss and wicked of the race. The word rendered “unclean” (קדשׁים qâdêsh) is from קדשׁ qâdash, “to be pure or holy”; and in the Hiphil to regard as holy, to consecrate, or devote to the service of God, as e. g. a priest; Exo 28:41; Exo 29:1. Then it means to consecrate or devote to “any” service or purpose, as to an idol god. Hence, it means one consecrated or devoted to the service of Astarte, the goddess of the Sidonians or Venus, and as this worship was corrupt and licentious, the word means one who is licentious or corrupt compare Deu 23:18; 1Ki 14:24; Gen 38:21-22. Here it means the licentious, the corrupt, the abandoned; and the idea is, that if hypocrites did not repent under the inflictions of divine judgment, they would be dealt with in the same way as the most abandoned and vile. On the evidence that licentiousness constituted a part of the ancient worship of idols, see Spencer “de Legg. ritual Hebraedor.” Lib. ii. cap. iii. pp. 613, 614, Ed. 1732. Jerome renders this, “intereffoeminatos.” The Septuagint strangely enough has: “Let their life be wounded by angels.”

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

Storm. Hebrew and Septuagint, "in youth," (Haydock) being suddenly cut off, without having deplored the sins of their youth. (Calmet) --- Effeminate. Hebrew, "the consecrated" to prostitution. Eliu compares those who will not attend unto God, to the most infamous characters. (Calmet) --- Septuagint, "and let their life be taken away by the angels" (Haydock) of death, chap. xxxiii. 23. (Calmet) --- He may allude to the impure Sodomites. (Menochius)

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).

They die in youth; they provoke God to cut them off before their time. Heb. Their soul (i.e. they themselves) shall die in youth. Their life is; or, their life shall die or be extinct; which verb is understood out of the former clause, after the manner of the Hebrews.

The unclean; or, the filthy, or whoremongers, or sodomites; to whose destruction (which happened not long before this time) he may seem to allude. The sense is, they shall die by some dreadful and exemplary stroke of Divine vengeance.

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

14. They die — Better, as in margin, their soul dieth. (Hengstenberg, Hitzig, etc.) Soul is here in contrast with life in the second clause. “Passages like it in the Proverbs would support the idea of spiritual death.” — Tayler Lewis. Hypocrisy enervates, undermines, and destroys man’s moral being no less certainly than licentiousness does his physical being. The divine mind may class hypocrisy and licentiousness more closely together than we would deem possible, even as the hypocrite and catamite are here linked together in oneness of spiritual death.

The unclean — Or as in margin. Literally, the word means “those consecrated to the service of heathen deities.” It is a sad comment on idolatrous worship that it should enlist for its support the prostitution not only of women, but of men. The קדושׁים, “saints,” are those devoted to the worship of God: — the קדשׁים, the unclean, are those devoted to the worship of gods. The slight divergence of the words (the difference of a vav, ו) points back to a time when a divergence in the objects of worship took place, while still the philological link, at least, was one of consecration. The indescribable degradation developed through the worship of idols sets forth the heinousness of all vice which builds upon the perversion of true faith. Elihu introduces these degraded beings simply to point the moral that the seemingly righteous, whose true character affliction discloses, die, like these catamites, a premature and ugly death. The masculine vice referred to in the text spread its desolating blight over the most enlightened nations of antiquity, as still appears from the classics. The Persians, according to Herodotus, (i, 135,) learned it from the Greeks.

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

They die in youth; literally, their sold dieth in youth. The result is that, while they are still young, the vital strength of their soul is sapped; they "come to a premature end, like youths who have destroyed the spring of life by licentiousness" (Cook). And their life is among the unclean. (On the particular "uncleanness" intended, see Deu_23:17)

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

Die - They provoke God to cut them off before their time. Unclean - Or, Sodomites; to whose destruction, he may allude. They shall die by some exemplary stroke of Divine vengeance. Yea, and after death, their life is among the unclean, the unclean spirits, the devil and his angels, forver excluded from the new Jerusalem, into which no unclean thing shall enter.

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

shall die by strangulation Their soul [shall die] by the strangulation that is upon them,

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.