14 He shall be rooted out of his tent where he trusts. He shall be brought to the king of terrors.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle - Security shall forsake his dwelling, and he shall be subject to constant alarms. There shall be nothing there in which he can confide, and all that he relied on as sources of safety shall have fled.
And it shall bring him - That is, he shall be brought.
To the king of terrors - There has been much variety in the explanation of this verse. Dr. Noyes renders it, "Terror pursues him like a king." Dr. Good, "Dissolution shall invade him like a monarch." Dr. Stock says. "I am sorry to part with a beautiful phrase in our common version, the king of terrors, as descriptive of death, but there is no authority for it in the Hebrew text." Wemyss renders it, "Terror shall seize him as a king." So Schultens translates it, "Gradientur in eum, instar regis, terrores." Rosenmuller renders it as it is in our version. The Vulgate: Et calcet super eum, quasi rex, interitus - "destruction shall tread upon him as a king." The Septuagint "and distress shall lay hold on him with the authority of a king" - αἰτίᾳ βασιλικῃ satia basilikē. The Chaldee renders it, "shall be brought to the king of terrors" - רגושתא למלך is not evident, therefore, that we are to give up the beautiful phrase, "king of terrors."
The fair construction of the Hebrew, as it seems to me, is that which is conveyed in our common version - meaning, that the wicked man would be conducted, not merely to death, but to that kind of death where a fearful king would preside - a monarch infusing terrors into his soul. There is something singularly beautiful and appropriate in the phrase, "the king of terrors." Death is a fearful monarch. All dread him. He presides in regions of chilliness and gloom. All fear to enter those dark regions where he dwells and reigns, and an involuntary shudder seizes the soul on approaching the confines of his kingdom. Yet all must be brought there; and though man dreads the interview with that fearful king, there is no release. The monarch reigns from age to age - reigns over all. There is but one way in which he will cease to appear as a terrific king. - It is by confidence in Him who came to destroy death; that great Redeemer who has taken away his "sting," and who can enable man to look with calmness and peace even on the chilly regions where he reigns. The idea here is not precisely that of the Roman and Grecian mythologists, of a terrific king, like Rhadamanthus, presiding over the regions of the dead but it is of death personified - of death represented as a king fitted to inspire awe and terror.
His confidence shall be rooted out - His dwelling-place, how well soever fortified, shah now he deemed utterly insecure.
And it shall bring him to the king of terrors - Or, as Mr. Good translates, "And dissolution shall invade him as a monarch." He shall be completely and finally overpowered. The phrase king of terrors has been generally thought to mean death; but it is not used in any such way in the text. For למלך בלהות lemelech ballahoth, to the king of destructions, one of De Rossi's MSS. has כמלך kemelech, "as a king;" and one, instead of בלהות ballahoth, with ו vau holem, to indicate the plural, terrors or destructions, has בלהות ballahuth, with ו vau shurek, which is singular, and signifies terror, destruction. So the Vulgate seems to have read, as it translates, Et calcet super eum, quasi rex, interitis; "And shall tread upon him as a king or destroyer. Or as a king who is determined utterly to destroy him." On this verse the bishop of Killala, Dr. Stock, says, "I am sorry to part with a beautiful phrase in our common version, the king of terrors, as descriptive of death; but there is no authority for it in the Hebrew text." It may however be stated that death has been denominated by similar epithets both among the Greeks and Romans.
So Virgil, Aen. vi., ver. 100. -
Quando hic inferni janua regi Dicitur.
"The gates of the king of hell are reported to be here."
And Ovid, Metam. lib. v., ver. 356, 359.
Inde tremit tellus: et rex pavit ipse silentum.
Hanc metuens cladem, tenebrosa sede tyrannus Exierat.
"Earth's inmost bowels quake, and nature groans;
His terrors reach the direful King of Hell.
Fearing this destruction, the tyrant left hisgloomy court."
And in Sophocles, (Oedip. Colon., ver. 1628, edit. Johnson).
Εννυχιων αναξ,
Αιδωνευ.
"O Pluto, king of shades."
That is, the invisible demon, who dwells in darkness impenetrable. Old Coverdale translates: Very fearfulnesse shall bringe him to the kynge.
His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the (i) king of terrors.
(i) That is, with great fear.
His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle,.... That which his confidence was placed in, his wealth and riches, his family, particularly his children, in all which he placed his confidence of future prosperity and happiness; these should be all taken away from him, and his house cleared of them all; or his good, sound, and healthful constitution, on account of which he promised himself long life, this he should be deprived of, and it should be taken out of the tabernacle of his body; or his hope and confidence of eternal happiness in another world, this should perish, and be as the giving up of the ghost: or the words may be rendered, "he shall be rooted out of his tabernacle which was his confidence" (b); that is, his soul shall be taken out of his body by death, in which it dwelt as in a tabernacle, and where he hoped to have had a long continuance; death is a rooting of a man out of it, and even out of the world, see Psalm 52:5;
and it shall bring him to the king of terrors; either famine, by which his strength is weakened, or destruction that is at his side, or the firstborn of death, or his vain confidence: or this may be the sense, "thou (O God) wilt bring him", or "cause him to go to the king of terrors" (c); to death; all men are brought unto it, but not all unto it as a king of terrors; as good men, such as Simeon, the Apostle Paul, and others, but wicked men. Death is a king: it reigns, it has a large empire, even the whole world; its subjects are numerous, all, high and low, rich and poor, great and small; and the duration of its reign is long, it reigned from Adam to Moses, from Moses to the coming of Christ, and from thence to this day, and will to the end of the world, and it reigns with an irresistible power: and this king is a king of terrors to wicked men; it is, as Aristotle (d) calls it, the most terrible of terribles; it is terrible to nature, being a dissolution of it; and it must be terrible to mere natural men, who have nothing to support them under it, and no views beyond the grave to comfort them, and cause them to go cheerful through it; but, on the other hand, have not only the bitterness of death to endure, but have terrible apprehensions of a future judgment that comes after it. Some render it, "the king of darkness" (e), extreme darkness, blackness of darkness, utter darkness, which wicked men at death are brought unto. Jarchi interprets it of the king of demons, the devil; and to be brought to him is to be brought to hell and eternal damnation: so some render it, "terrors shall bring him to his king" (f), the devil; or rather "terrors shall come upon him like a king" (g), in a very grand, powerful, and formidable manner.
(b) Michaelis. (c) De Dieu. (d) Ethic. l. 3. c. 9. (e) "ad regem caliginum", Cocceius. (f) Schmidt. (g) "Instar regis", Schultens; "quasi rex", V. L.
confidence--all that the father trusted in for domestic happiness, children, fortune, &c., referring to Job's losses.
rooted out--suddenly torn away, it shall bring--that is, he shall be brought; or, as UMBREIT better has, "Thou (God) shalt bring him slowly." The Hebrew expresses, "to stride slowly and solemnly." The godless has a fearful death for long before his eyes, and is at last taken by it. Alluding to Job's case. The King of terrors, not like the heathen Pluto, the tabled ruler of the dead, but Death, with all its terrors to the ungodly, personified.
Confidence - All the matter of his confidence, his riches, and children. Terrors - To death, which even Aristotle called, The most terrible of all terribles. And this it will do, either because it will expose him to his enemies, who will kill him; or because the sense of his disappointments, and losses, and dangers, will break his heart.
*More commentary available at chapter level.