Job 17:16

They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust.

They - namely, my hopes, shall be buried with me.

Bars - (Isaiah 38:10, "I shall go to the gates of the grave;" Jonah 2:6, "The earth with her bars was about me for ever"). Rather, the wastes, or solitudes [badiym] of the pit ( shª'owl (H7585), the unseen world).

Rest together - the rest of me and my hopes is in, etc. Both expire together. The word "rest" implies that man's ceaseless hopes only rob him of rest.

Remarks:

(1) Stung to the quick by the mockings of his professed friends, and apparently on the verde of the grave, Job appeals from man to God. The believer, though tempted by sore trials to think that God is against him, arid that his afflictions are proofs of God's displeasure, yet boldly, by faith, rises above the suggestions of sense, implores the very God who afflicts him to vindicate his cause: he begs that the Great Being who wounds him, as though He were his adversary, should become his surety, and be answerable for him (Job 17:3). Marvellous to say, no pleas can there be which is more effectual with our God! Looking off from self to Christ, our surety, we may each say, with holy confidence, Thou Wilt answer for me, O Lord.

(2) Neither the prosperity of the ungodly nor the afflictions of the godly can make the believer swerve from the right path. As it was said of Fabricius, It is easier to turn the sun from his course than Fabricius from the path of honour; so it is true of the righteous (Job 17:9), that he draws strength even from opposing influences to "hold on his way" the more steadfastly. The very means which Satan adopts for shaking the faith of the people of God-namely, the infliction of unmerited sufferings on the righteous-are overruled to the confirmation of their faith; so that seeing with what patient and heroic fortitude their afflicted bretheren have cleaved to their integrity, in spite of grievous suffering the godly in general have waxed the more confident (Philippians 1:14) and resolute in their holy course.

(3) The grave is the house which ere long awaits all who shall not be found among the living at Christ's second coming. The thought that our bodies are so closely allied to the worm and corruption (Job 17:14), should lead us less to build our holes on earthly things, which shall soon crumble in the dust like ourselves (Job 17:14), and more to look for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour (Titus 2:13) - "the hope laid up for us in heaven" (Colossians 1:5)