Job 26:6

Hell [is] naked before him,.... Which may be taken either for the place of the damned, as it sometimes is; and then the sense is, that though it is hidden from men, and they know not where it is, or

Dead things are formed from under the waters, and the inhabitants thereof.

Hell, as this word is frequently used, as , &c. And so it seems to be explained by the following word, destruction, i.e. the place of destruction, which interpreters generally understand of hell, or the place of the damned. Others, the grave, the most secret and obscure places and things. Is naked before him, i.e. it is in his presence, and under his providence. So far am I from imagining that God cannot see through a dark cloud, as you traduced me, , that I very well know that even hell itself, that place of utter darkness, is not hid from his sight. Destruction, i.e. the place of destruction, as it is also used, , by a metonymy of the adjunct. Hath no covering, to wit, such as to keep it out of his sight.

Job 26:6 Hell [is] naked before him, and destruction hath no covering.Ver. 6. Hell and destruction are before him] Here beginneth a magnificent and stately description of the majesty of God; and, 1. From his omniscience; 2. From his omnipotence. For the first, "Hell and destruction are before him." Not the grave only, but the nethermost hell, that most abstruse part of the universe, and most remote from heaven, God’ s court. Of hell we know nothing save only what the Scripture saith of it in general, that there is a hell, and that the pains of it are endless, easeless, and remediless, &c., but God only knoweth who are in hell, and who is yet to be hereafter hurled into it. It is the saints’ happiness that to them there is no such condemnation, Romans 8:1, that over them this second death hath no power, Revelation 20:6. That if hell had already swallowed them up (as they sometimes when deserted feel themselves to be in the very suburbs of it), it could no better hold them than the whale’ s stomach could do Jonah. Luke 22:31, "Satan hath desired to have thee"; sc. to hell, but that he shall never have; for they are the redeemed of the Lord, saved from the wrath to come, and may triumphingly sing, Death, where is thy sting? Hell, where is thy victory? &c. And destruction hath no covering] That is, hell, the place of destruction, the palace of King Abaddon (so the devil is called, Revelation 9:11), and so hell is called in this text, because thereinto are thrust all that are destined to destruction, all the brats of fathomless perdition, such as was Judas the traitor, who went to his place, and all wicked ones, who shall surely be turned into hell, with all those that forget God, Psalms 9:17. This place is not covered, saith Ferus here, but open to God, for whomsoever he will cast thereinto.

Verse 6. Hell is naked before him] Sheol, the place of the dead, or of separate spirits, is always in his view. And there is no covering to Abaddon - the place of the destroyer, where destruction reigns, and where those dwell who are eternally separated from God. The ancients thought that hell or Tartarus was a vast space in the centre, or at the very bottom of the earth. So VIRGIL, AEn. lib. vi., ver. 577: - ___________________ Tum Tartarus ipse Bis patet in praeceps tantum, tenditque sub umbras, Quantus ad aethereum coeli suspectus Olympum Hic genus antiquum terrae, Titania pubes, Fulmine dejecti, fundo volvuntur in imo. "Full twice as deep the dungeon of the fiends, The huge Tartarean gloomy gulf, descends Below these regions, as these regions lie From the bright realms of yon ethereal sky. Here roar the Titan race, th' enormous birth; The ancient offspring of the teeming earth. Pierced by the burning bolts of old they fell, And still roll bellowing in the depths of hell." PITT. And some have supposed that there is an allusion to this opinion in the above passage, as well as in several others in the Old Testament; but it is not likely that the sacred writers would countenance an opinion that certainly has nothing in fact or philosophy to support it. Yet still a poet may avail himself of popular opinions.

6. Hell] is in Heb. Sheol, the place where deceased persons congregate, the world beneath. It is not a place of pain, though a dark and dreary abode, ch. Job 10:21-22. Those there are the dead, who still subsist, though they do not live. “Destruction,” Heb. abaddon, is a synonym for Sheol, ch. Job 28:22. This as well as all things is naked to the eyes of Jehovah. Comp. Amos 9:2; Psalms 139:8.

Hell - Hebrew שׁאול she'ôl, Sheol; Greek ᾅδης Hadēs Hades. The reference is to the abode of departed spirits - the nether world where the dead were congregated; see the notes at Job 10:21-22.

6. Hell — Hebrew, sheol. Naked — Compare Hebrews 4:13.Destruction — Hebrews Abaddon.