16. They shall go down to the bars of the pit.] Those hopes you speak of shall go down with me to the bottom of the grave, and shall rest with me together in the dust. Bp. Hall. You see me dying, and yet you bid me hope for better days; (see chap. v. 19—26; viii. 5—7, 20—22; xi. 15—20;) instead of comforting me with a prospect and hope of a reward hereafter, for mine integrity here. Bp. Wilson. — the bars of the pit.] Or, the hidden recesses of the grave: the same with "the gates of death," chap. xxxviii. 17; and "gates of the grave," Isai. xxxviii. 10. Chappelow. Chap. XVIII. Bildad has nothing to add to the argument, that misery is the lot only of the wicked, except Before CHRIST about 1526. Bildad reproveth him of presumption. CHAP. XVIII. The calamities of the wicked. Before CHRIST about 1520. seal. Or, lamp. hidden. 16. His roots shall be dried up beneath.] He shall be like a withered tree, whose roots being once dried up below, the branches are presently cut down for firewood. Bp. Hall. 17. — he shall have no name in the street.] Perhaps an allusion is here made to the custom of placing monumental inscriptions near the road. Dr. Durell. The word rendered "street," means "an out-place;" "a field:" and it is so translated in the text and margin of chap. v. 10. It seems to allude to the want of a sepulchral monument; for the Eastern nations still bury their dead without their cities, in the fields. Parkhurst. Job complaineth of his friends' cruelty. about 1520. with him. hold on horror. 20. — at his day.] The word "day," without any addition, is frequently used in Scripture to signify an eminently evil day, as in Ps. cxxxvii. 7, "Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem." The meaning of the whole verse is this: As they who lived at the time when God brought those evils upon him were affrighted, so they who come after shall be astonished at him; the former were terrified by the sight of the judgments, the latter shall be astonished at the report of them. Caryl. An allusion is here made to the eighth verse of the former chapter: men will be astonished, not, as Job observed, at the fate of the innocent, but at the severe judgment that befalls the wicked. Michaelis.