Job 3:14

With kings. Job contrasts his miserable condition with the dignity of death. His thought has been well expressed in Bryant’s “Thanatopsis”:

“Yet not to thine eternal resting-place

Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish

Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down

With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings,

The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good,

Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,

All in one mighty sepulcher.”

Desolate places. Brevity makes the discovery of the exact meaning of this expression difficult. Some see in the clause the idea of kings building monuments for themselves by rebuilding ruined, desolate cities (see Isaiah 61:4; Ezekiel 36:10, 33; Malachi 1:4); others, the erecting of edifices that have since become desolate. Others believe that the term is an ironical designation of splendid palaces which, notwithstanding their grandeur, must at last fall in ruins.