Albert Barnes Commentary Job 30:24

"Howbeit doth not one stretch out the hand in his fall? Or in his calamity therefore cry for help?" — Job 30:24 (ASV)

However, he will not stretch out his hand to the grave—Margin, heap. In our common version this verse does not convey a very clear idea, and it is quite evident that its translators despaired of giving it a consistent meaning and attempted merely to translate it literally.

The verse has been rendered by almost every expositor in his own way; and though almost no two of them agree, it is remarkable that the interpretations given are all beautiful and provide a meaning that agrees well with the scope of the passage.

The Vulgate renders it: “But not to their consumption will you send forth your hand; and if they fall, you will save them.” The Septuagint: “For O that I could lay violent hands on myself, or beseech another, and he would do it for me.” Luther renders it: “Yet he shall not stretch out the hand to the charnel house, and they shall not cry before his destruction.” Noyes:

“When he stretches out his hand, prayer
avails nothing;
When he brings destruction, vain is the
Cry for help.”

Umbreit renders it:
Nur mög’ er nicht an den zerstörten Haufen
Hand anlegen!
Oder müssen jene selbst in ihrem
Tode schreien?
“Only if he would not lay his hand upon the
Heaps of the destroyed!
Or must these also cry out in their death?”

According to this interpretation, Job speaks here in bitter irony. “I would gladly die,” says he, “if God would only suffer me to be quiet when I am dead.” He would be willing for the edifice of the body to be taken down, provided the ruins might rest in peace. Rosenmuller gives the same meaning as that expressed by Noyes.

Amid this variety of interpretation, it is by no means easy to determine the true meaning of the passage. The principal difficulty in the exposition lies in the word בעי (b^e‛ı̂y), rendered in the text “in the grave,” and in the margin “heap.”

If that word is compounded of the preposition ב (b^e) and עי (‛ı̂y), it means literally, “in ruins, or in rubbish,” for so the word עי (‛ı̂y) is used in Micah 1:6; Jeremiah 26:18; Micah 3:12; Psalms 79:1; Nehemiah 4:2; and Nehemiah 4:10.

But Gesenius supposes it to be a single word, from the obsolete root בעה, Chaldee בעא, “to pray, to petition”; and according to this the meaning is, “Yes, prayer is nothing when he stretches out his hand; and in his (God’s) destruction, their cry does not avail.”

Prof. Lee understands the word (בעי b^e‛ı̂y) in the same sense, but gives a somewhat different meaning to the whole passage. According to him, the meaning is: “Nevertheless, upon prayer you will not lay your hand; surely, when he destroys, in this alone there is safety.”

Schultens accords very nearly with the sentiment expressed by Umbreit, and renders it: “Yet not even in the tomb would he relax his hand, if in its destruction an alleviation were there.” This sentiment is very strong, borders on impiety, and should not be adopted if it is possible to avoid it.

It looks as if Job felt that God was disposed to pursue his animosity even into the regions of the dead, and that He would have pleasure in carrying on the work of destruction and affliction in the ruins of the grave.

After the most careful examination I have been able to give this difficult passage, it seems probable to me that the following is the correct sense.

Job means to state a general and important principle: that there was rest in the grave. He said he knew that God would bring him down there, but that would be a state of repose. The hand of God producing pain would not reach there, nor would the sorrows experienced in this world be felt there, provided there had been a praying life. Notwithstanding all his afflictions, therefore, and his certain conviction that he would die, he had unwavering confidence in God.

Accordingly, the following paraphrase will convey the true sense: “I know that he will bring me to the grave. Nevertheless (אך 'ak), over the ruins (בעי b^e‛ı̂y)—of my body, the ruins in the grave—he will not stretch out his hand—to afflict me there or to pursue those who lie there with calamity and judgment; if in his destruction (בפידו b^epı̂ydô)—in the destruction or desolation which God brings upon people—among them (להן lâhên)—among those who are thus consigned to the ruins of the grave—there is prayer (שׁוע shûa‛); if there has been supplication offered to him, or a cry for mercy has gone up before him.”

This paraphrase embraces every word of the original, saves the necessity of attempting to change the text (as has often been done), and gives a meaning that accords with the scope of the passage and with the uniform belief of Job that God would ultimately vindicate him and show that He Himself was right in His government.