O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!
Ver. 13. O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave] As in a sweet and safe repository (Sepulchrum est quasi scrinium vel capsa in quam reponitur corpus), sanctuary! my soul meanwhile living and reigning with thee in heaven, expecting a glorious resurrection, and saying, How long, Lord, holy and true? The fable or fancy of Psychopannychia hath been long since hissed out, though lately revived by some libertines, that last brood of Beelzebub; our mortalists especially, who say, that the body and soul die together. But what saith the apostle, Rom 8:10 ? "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." Now that Job thus woos death, and petitions for the grave, it is manifest that he saw some good in it, and that he promised himself by it malorum ademptionem, bonorum adeptionem, freedom from evil, and fulness of good. We should learn to familiarize death to ourselves, and put the grave under the fairest and easiest apprehensions, that we hear God speaking to us, as once he did Jacob, Fear not to go down to Egypt (so down to the grave), for I will go with thee, and will surely bring thee up again, Genesis 46:3,4. Or as he did his labouring Church, Isaiah 26:20, "Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast."
That thou wouldest keep me secret] In limbo Patrum, say the Papists, in parabola ovis capras suas quaerentes.
Until thy wrath be past] For it is such as I can of myself neither avoid nor abide. Turn it away, therefore, or turn it into gentleness and kindness, Psalms 6:4, and be friends again, Jeremiah 2:35. Or, secrete and secure me till the resurrection, when all thy wrath will be gone from me.
That thou wouldest appoint me a set time] Heb. Set me a statute; set down even what time thou pleasest, either to send me to bed, or to call me up again, so that thou wilt but be sure at last to remember me.
And remember me] Job is willing to die out of the world, but not to die out of God's memory; to be out of sight, but not out of mind; that God should bury him in the grave, but not bury his thoughts of him; he could be content to be free among the dead, free of that company, but not as the slain that lie in the grave, whom God remembereth no more, Psalms 88:5. Job would be remembered for good, as Nehemiah prayeth, and be dealt with as Moses was, whose body, once hid in the valley of Moab, did afterwards appear glorious in mount Tabor at the transfiguration.