Job 3:15

Or with princes that had gold,.... A large abundance of it while they lived, but now, being dead, were no longer in the possession of it, but on a level with those that had none; nor could their

Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver: Filled their houses with silver. Some take this of the treasures which the ancients used to bury with their dead. But see the last verse.

Job 3:15 Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver:Ver. 15. Or with princes that had gold] Great store of it. Petrarch reporteth of Pope John XXII, that his heirs found in his coffers no less than 250 tons of gold. Boniface VIII, taken prisoner and plundered by the command of Philip the Fair, king of France, had as much gold carried away out of his palace as all the kings of Europe received for one year’ s revenue from their subjects, together with their crown land. What a mass of treasure had Cardinal Wolsey gotten here! and before him Cardinal Beaufort, who when he saw that he must needs die, and that his riches could not reprieve him till a further time, asked, Why should I die, being so rich? fie, will not death be hired? will money do nothing? The Cardinal Sylberperger took so great a pleasure in money, that when he was grievously tormented with the gout, his only remedy to ease the pain was to have a bason full of gold set before him, into which he would put his lame hands, turning the gold upside down. Of Nugas, the Scythian monarch, it is said, that when Michael Paleologus, the Greek emperor, sent him many rich ornaments for a present, he asked whether they could drive away calamities, diseases, and death? this because they could not do, he slighted them. These princes that had gold, and filled their houses with silver, what would not they have given to have bought off death? but riches avail not in the day of wrath; it is righteousness only that delivereth from death, Proverbs 11:4. Thrice happy, then, are they who are rich to God, as our Saviour phraseth it, who have the Almighty to be their gold; and who have silver of strength, as Eliphaz speaketh, Job 22:25. Who filled their houses with silver] That is, their graves, say some; called the dead men’ s houses, Job 17:13. The Jews call the burying place Bethchajin, the house of the living; and they used not only to adorn their sepulchres richly; but also to put their wealth into the grave with them. Josephus saith that Hircanus found in David’ s sepulchre three thousand talents and, Jeremiah 8:1, God threateneth that the Chaldeans shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and of his princes, out of their graves, as searching there for hid treasure; so some conceive. Sure it is, that in the siege of Jerusalem, under Vespasian, there was gold found in the entrails of a Jew that was slain, which caused over twenty thousand of them to be ripped up.

Verse 15. Or with princes that had gold] Chief or mighty men, lords of the soil, or fortunate adventurers in merchandise, who got gold in abundance, filled their houses with silver, left all behind, and had nothing reserved for themselves but the empty places which they had made for their last dwelling, and where their dust now sleeps, devoid of care, painful journeys, and anxious expectations. He alludes here to the case of the covetous, whom nothing can satisfy, as an Asiatic writer has observed, but the dust that fills his mouth when laid in the grave. - SAADY.

15. their houses with silver] There is no reason for supposing that “houses” means mausoleums or tombs. The reference is not to the practice of burying treasures along with the dead, nor to the idea that the pomp of riches could thus be perpetuated in death. It is those who were famous in this life with whom Job, had he died, would have been in company in death.

Or with princes that had gold - That is, he would have been united with the rich and the great. Is there not here too also a slight evidence of the fondness for wealth, which might have been one of the errors of this good man?

15. Their houses — Meaning, their tombs; thus Rosenmuller, Hirtel, and Hitzig. In like manner Isaiah (Isaiah 14:18) and Diodorus Siculus, (i, 51,) according to whom the Egyptians called their graves houses, οικοι.