Job 3:17

There the wicked cease [from] troubling,.... At death, and in the grave; such who have been like the troubled sea, that cannot rest, have always been either devising or doing mischief while living,

There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest. The wicked - originally meaning those ever restless, full desires (Isaiah 57:20-21).

There, i.e. in the grave, which though not expressed, yet is clearly implied in the foregoing verses. The wicked cease from troubling; the great oppressors and troublers of the world cease from all those vexations, rapines, and murders which here they procured. There the weary be at rest; those who were here molested and tired out with their tyrannies, now quietly sleep with them, or by them.

Job 3:17 There the wicked cease [from] troubling; and there the weary be at rest.Ver. 17. There the wicked cease from troubling] Here they are restless, as being acted and agitated by the devil, who being a discontented, turbulent creature, maketh ado in the world, and setteth his imps awork to do mischief, and to vex others, øשׁòéí The word here rendered wicked signifieth vexatious persons, that worry and weary out others, molestuous and mischievous. In the grave they shall cease from so doing. That was a strange mind of our Edward I, who adjured his son and nobles, that if he died in his journey into Scotland, they should carry his corpse with them about Scotland, and not suffer it to be interred till they had absolutely subdued the country (Daniel’ s Hist. 201). This was a desire more martial than Christian, saith the chronicler, showing a mind so bent to the world, as he would not make an end when he had done with it, but designeth his travel beyond his life. And there the weary be at rest] Hence some heathens also have counted mortality a mercy, and some of them appointed contrary ceremonies to those now in use; for they brought their friends into the world with mournful obsequies, but they carried them out of the world with joyful exequies, all sorts of sports and pastimes, because then they conceived they were at rest, and out of gunshot (Plotin. ap. Aug. de C. D. l. 9, c. 10; Quintil. Inst. lib. 5; Herod. l. 5; Val. Max.).

(17) There—i.e., in the grave, the place indicated, but not distinctly expressed.

Verse 17. There the wicked cease] In the grave the oppressors of men cease from irritating, harassing, and distressing their fellow creatures and dependents. And there the weary be at rest.] Those who were worn out with the cruelties and tyrannies of the above. The troubles and the troubled, the restless and the submissive, the toils of the great and the labours of the slave, are here put in opposition.

17. cease from troubling] That is, probably, not from troubling others, but from the unquiet of their own evil. Job 3:17-19 contain the two main ideas, first, that all, evil and good, great and small, are the same in the place of the dead; and second, that this common condition is one of profound rest. Even the wicked there are no more agitated by the turbulence of their passions. Comp. Isaiah 57:20. the weary] lit. the wearied as to strength, the exhausted.

There the wicked cease - from “troubling.” In the grave - where kings and princes and infants lie. This verse is often applied to heaven, and the language is such as will express the condition of that blessed world.

c. Then and there, for the first time, the inequalities in life’s allotments are brought to an end, Job 3:17-19.17. There — In the grave. The wicked — The man who rages.