Albert Barnes Commentary Job 21:32

"Yet shall he be borne to the grave, And men shall keep watch over the tomb." — Job 21:32 (ASV)

Yet shall he be brought to the grave – with a marginal note suggesting “graves.” This means he is brought with honor and prosperity to the grave. He is not cut down by manifest divine displeasure for his sins. He is conducted to the grave like other people, notwithstanding his enormous wickedness. The object of this is clearly to state that he would not be overwhelmed with calamity, as the friends of Job had maintained, and that nothing could be determined regarding his character from God's dealings with him in this life.

And shall remain in the tomb – with the marginal reading “watch in the heap.” The marginal reading does not make sense, though it seems to be an exact translation of the Hebrew. Noyes renders it, “Yet he still survives upon his tomb.” Professor Lee translates it, “For the tomb was he watchful;” that is, his anxiety was to have an honored and splendid burial. Wemyss offers, “They watch over his tomb;” meaning, he is honored in his death, and his friends visit his tomb with affectionate solicitude and keep watch over his grave. Dr. Good renders it similarly. Jerome translates it: et in congerie mortuorum vigilabit. The Septuagint reads, “And he shall be borne to the graves, and he shall watch over the tombs;” or, he shall cause a watch to be kept over his tomb – ἐπὶ σωρῶν ἠγρύπνησεν epi sōrōn ēgrupnēsen.

Amid this variety of interpretation, it is not easy to determine the true sense of the passage. The general meaning is not difficult.

This general meaning is that he would be honored even in his death; that he would live in prosperity and be buried with magnificence. There would be nothing in his death or burial that would certainly show that God regarded him as a wicked man. However, there is considerable difficulty in determining the exact sense of the original words. The word rendered “tomb” in the text and “heap” in the margin (גדישׁ gâdı̂ysh) occurs only in the following places: Exodus 22:6; Job 5:26; Judges 15:5, where it is rendered “a shock of corn,” and in this passage. The verb in Syriac, Arabic, and Chaldee means “to heap up” (see Castell), and the noun may therefore denote a stack or heap of grain, or a tomb made by a pile of earth or stones.

The ancient “tumuli” were heaps of earth or stone, and such a pile was probably usually made over a grave as a monument. On the meaning of the word used here, the reader may consult Bochart, Hieroz. P. i. L. iii. c. xiii. p. 853. There can be little doubt that it here means a tomb or a monument raised over a tomb.

There is more difficulty with the word rendered “shall remain” (ישׁקוד yı̂shqôd). This properly means to wake, to be watchful, or to be sleepless. So the Chaldee שקד, and the Arabic “dakash.” The verb is commonly rendered in the Scriptures as “watch” or “wakes.” (Psalms 102:7; Jeremiah 31:28; Jeremiah 1:12; Jeremiah 5:6; Jeremiah 44:27; Isaiah 29:20; Ezra 8:29; Daniel 9:14). The word usually carries the notion of “watching” with a view to guarding or protecting, as when one watches a vineyard, a house, or other property.

The sense here is probably that his tomb would be carefully “watched” by friends, and the verb is likely taken impersonally, or used to denote that “someone” would watch over his grave. This might be either as a proof of affection or to keep it in repair. One of the most painful ideas might have been then, as it is now among some Native American cultures (Bancroft’s History of the United States, vol. iii. p. 299), that of having the grave left or violated. It may have been regarded as a special honor to have friends who would come and watch over their sepulchre.

According to this view, the meaning is that the wicked man was often honorably buried, that a monument was reared to his memory, and that every mark of attention was paid to him after he was dead. Numbers followed him to his burial, and friends came and wept with affection around his tomb.

Job’s argument is that there was no such distinction between the lives and deaths of the righteous and the wicked as to make it possible to determine their character. And is it not so still?

The wicked man often dies in a palace, with all the comforts that every clime can furnish to alleviate his pain and soothe him in his dying moments. He lies upon a bed of down; friends attend him with unwearied care; the skill of medicine is exhausted to restore him, and there is every indication of grief at his death.

So, in the place of his burial, a monument of the finest marble, sculptured with all the skill of art, is reared over his grave. An inscription, as beautiful as taste can make it, proclaims his virtues to the traveler and the stranger. Friends go and plant roses over his grave that breathe forth their odors around the spot where he lies.

Who, from the dying scene, the funeral, the monument, and the attendants, would suppose that he was a man whom God abhorred and whose soul was already in hell? This is Job’s argument, and of its solidity no one can doubt.