Job 17:13
If I look for Sheol as my home, if I spread out my bed in darkness,
BSB
ASV
If I look for Sheol as my house; If I have spread my couch in the darkness;
KJV
If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness.
Ver. 13. If I wait, hell is mine house; and I have made my bed in the darkness. For the former Saints could undergo adversity, and yet could not, when brought out of the body, be at once freed from the regions of hell; in that He had not yet come, Who should descend thereinto without sin, that He might set free those, who were there bound by right of sin.
Wait - For deliverance, I should be disappointed; for I am upon the borders of the grave, I expect no rest but in the dark grave, for which therefore I prepare myself. I endeavour to make it easy, by keeping my conscience pure, by seeing Christ lying in this bed, (so turning it into a bed of spices) and by looking beyond it to the resurrection.
If I wait - Or more accurately, “truly I expect that the grave will be my home.” The word rendered “if” (אם 'ı̂m) is often used in such a sense. The meaning is, “I look certainly to the grave as my home. I have made up my mind to it, and have no other expectation.” The grave - Hebrew שׁאול she'ôl. It may mean here either the grave, or the region of departed spirits, to which he expected soon to descend. Mine house - My home; my permanent abode.
Rather, "if I wait for this grave (Sheol, or the unseen world) as my house, and make my bed in the darkness (Job 17:14), and say to corruption," rather, "to the pit" or "grave," &c. Where then is my hope? [UMBREIT]. The apodosis is at Job 17:15.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Psalms 139:8If I ascend to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there.
leads to
Though they dig down to Sheol, from there My hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, from there I will pull them down.
For His eyes are on the ways of a man, and He sees his every step.
saying: “In my distress I called to the LORD, and He answered me. From the belly of Sheol I called for help, and You heard my voice.
Through
Job 14:14When a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, until my renewal comes.
leads to
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—
Why would any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?
“Is not man consigned to labor on earth? Are not his days like those of a hired hand?
Wait patiently for the LORD; be strong and courageous. Wait patiently for the LORD!
Do not be amazed at this, for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice