Albert Barnes Commentary Job 27:15

"Those that remain of him shall be buried in death, And his widows shall make no lamentation." — Job 27:15 (ASV)

Those that remain of him – Those that survive him.

Shall be buried in death – Hebrew: “shall be buried BY death” (במות bamâveth), that is, “Death shall be the grave-digger” – or, they shall have no friends to bury them; they shall be unburied.

The idea is highly poetical, and the expression is very tender.

They would have no one to weep over them and no one to prepare a grave for them. There would be no procession, no funeral dirge, no train of weeping attendants; even the members of their own family would not weep over them.

To be unburied has always been regarded as a dishonor and calamity (compare the notes at Isaiah 14:19) and is often referred to as such in the Scriptures (Jeremiah 14:16; Jeremiah 16:4, Jeremiah 16:6).

The passage here has a striking resemblance to Jeremiah 22:18-19:

“They shall not lament for him, saying,
Ah! my brother! or, Ah! sister!
They shall not lament for him, saying,
Ah! lord! or, Ah! his glory!
With the burial of an ass shall he be buried,
Drawn out and cast beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”

And his widows shall not weep – The plural “widows” here is proof that polygamy was then practiced.

It is probable that Job here alludes to the shrieks of domestic grief heard throughout the house among the women in the East upon the death of the master of the family, or to the train of women that usually followed the corpse to the grave.

A man’s standing in society was indicated by the length of the train of mourners, and particularly by the number of wives and concubines that followed him as weepers.

Job refers to this as the sentiment of his friends: that when a wicked man died, he would die with such evident marks of divine displeasure that even his own family would not mourn for him, or that they would be cut off before his death, and none would be left to grieve.