Job 3:19

The small and great are there,.... Both as to age, and with respect to bulk and strength of body, and also to estate and dignity; children and men, or those of low and high stature, or in a mean or

The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master. The small and great are there - on the same footing, without distinction of rank (Proverbs 22:2). Servant. The slave is there manumitted from slavery.

The small and great, i.e. persons of all qualifies and conditions, whether higher or lower. Are there, in the same place and state, all those kinds of distinctions and differences being for ever abolished.

Job 3:19 The small and great are there; and the servant [is] free from his master.Ver. 19. The small and the great are there] In Calvary are skulls of all sizes, say the Hebrews. Stat sua cuique dies (Virg. Aeneid, lib. 1 0). It is appointed for all once to die, be they great or small, low or high. Mors sceptra ligonibus aequat, death makes no difference; kings and captives, lords and lowlies come, then under an equal parity; death takes away all distinctions. William the Conqueror’ s corpse lay unburied three days; his interment was hindered by one that claimed the ground to be his (Daniel). King Stephen was interred at Feversham monastery; but since his body, for the gain of the lead, wherein it was coffined, was cast into the river, where at length it rested; as did likewise the dead corpse of Edward V, and his brother, smothered in the Tower by Richard III, and cast into a place called the black deeps at the Thames’ mouth (Speed.). The servant is free from his master] Servant is a name of office. He is not his own to dispose of, but the master’ s instrument, saith Aristotle, and wholly his, till he please to free him: if he do not, yet death will; and by taking away his life, give him his liberty. His body resteth from all servile offices for a season howsoever: and if with good will he hath done service as to the Lord, and not to men, he shall receive of the Lord the reward of inheritance, even a child’ s part, Colossians 3:24.

Verse 19. The small and great are there.] All sorts and conditions of men are equally blended in the grave, and ultimately reduced to one common dust; and between the bond and free there is no difference. The grave is "The appointed place of rendezvous, where all These travellers meet." Equality is absolute among the sons of men in their entrance into and exit from the world: all the intermediate state is disparity. All men begin and end life alike; and there is no difference between the king and the cottager. A contemplation of this should equally humble the great and the small. The saying is trite, but it is true: - Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas, Regumque turres. HOR. Odar. lib. i., Od. iv., ver. 13. "With equal pace impartial Fate Knocks at the palace as the cottage gate." Death is that state, "Where they an equal honour share Who buried or unburied are. Where Agamemnon knows no more Than Irus he contemn'd before. Where fair Achilles and Thersites lie, Equally naked, poor, and dry." And why do not the living lay these things to heart? There is a fine saying in Seneca ad Marciam, cap. 20, on this subject, which may serve as a comment on this place: MORS-servitutem invito domino remittit; haec captivorum catenas levat; haec e carcere eduxit, quos exire imperium impotens vetuerat. Haec est in quo nemo humilitatem suam sensit; haec quae nulli paruit; haec quae nihil quicquam alieno fecit arbitrio. Haec, ubi res communes fortuna male divisit, et aequo jure genitos alium alii donavit, exaequat omnia. "Death, in spite of the master, manumits the slave. It loosens the chains of the prisoners. It brings out of the dungeon those whom impotent authority had forbidden to go at large. This is the state in which none is sensible of his humiliation. Death obeys no man. It does nothing according to the will of another. It reduces, by a just law, to a state of equality, all who in their families and circumstances had unequal lots in life."

19. small and great are there] i. e. are there alike, the same.

The small and the great are there - The old and the young, the high and the low. Death levels all. It shows no respect to age; it spares none because they are vigorous, young, or beautiful.

19. The first clause reads, literally, “The small and great, there (is) he,” in the sense that they are the same, or on the same level. So in Psalms 22:9. “Thou art he,” that is, the same.