Job 17:16 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

They; either,

1. They that would see my hope, they must go into the grave to behold it. Or rather,

2. My hopes; of which he spoke in the singular number, Job 17:15, which he here changeth into the plural, as is very usual in these poetical books. To the bars of the pit, i.e. into the closest and innermost parts of the pit: my hopes are dying, and will be buried in my grave. When our rest together is in the dust: so the sense is, when those spectators, together with myself, shall be in our graves. Heb. seeing that (as this Hebrew particle im oft signifies; or, certainly, as it is used Numbers 17:13 Job 6:13, and elsewhere) our rest shall be together in the dust, i.e. I and my hopes shall be buried together.

Job 17:16

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