Albert Barnes Commentary Job 36:14

"They die in youth, And their life [perisheth] among the unclean." — Job 36:14 (ASV)

They die in youth - Margin, “Their soul dies.” The word “soul” or “life” in Hebrew is used to denote oneself. The meaning is that they would soon be cut down and share the lot of the openly wicked. If they amended their lives, they might be spared and continue to live in prosperity and honor; if they did not, whether openly wicked or hypocrites, they would be cut off early.

And their life is among the unclean - Margin, “Sodomites.” The idea is that they would be treated in the same way as the most abandoned and vile of the race. No special favor would be shown to them because they were “professors” of religion, nor would this fact be a shield against the treatment they deserved. They could not be classed with the righteous and must, therefore, share the fate of the most worthless and wicked of the race. The word rendered “unclean” (קדשׁים qâdêsh) is from קדשׁ qâdash—“to be pure or holy”; and in the Hiphil, to regard as holy, to consecrate, or devote to the service of God, as, for example, a priest (Exodus 28:41; Exodus 29:1). Then it means to consecrate or devote to “any” service or purpose, such as to an idol god.

Hence, it means one consecrated or devoted to the service of Astarte, the goddess of the Sidonians or Venus, and as this worship was corrupt and licentious, the word means one who is licentious or corrupt (1 Kings 14:24; Genesis 38:21–22). Here it means the licentious, the corrupt, the abandoned; and the idea is that if hypocrites did not repent under the inflictions of divine judgment, they would be dealt with in the same way as the most abandoned and vile. On the evidence that licentiousness constituted a part of the ancient worship of idols, see Spencer “de Legg. ritual Hebraedor.” Lib. ii. cap. iii. pp. 613, 614, Ed. 1732. Jerome renders this, “intereffoeminatos.” The Septuagint strangely enough has: “Let their life be wounded by angels.”