Death is Terrible
Joseph Caryl. Job 18:14 His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the king of terrors. Under a threefold consideration. 1. If we consider the antecedents, the forerunners or harbingers of death, which are pains, sicknesses, and diseases. 2. If we consider the nature of death. What is death? Death is a disunion; all disunions are troublesome, and some are terrible. Those are most terrible which rend that from us which is nearest to us. Death is also a privation, and a total privation. Death is such a privation, as from which there can be no return to nature. 3. In regard of the consequents. Rottenness and corruption consume the dead, and darkness covers them in the grave. We may ranks a threefold gradation of the terribleness of death. (1) To a godly man, when his spiritual state is unsettled. (2) When his worldly estate is well settled, when he hath deeply engaged in the creature, and his earthly mountain apparently stands strong. (3) Death is most terrible to those who, though they have the knowledge of God, and outwardly profess the Gospel of Christ, yet walk contrary to it. It should be our study, as it is our wisdom, to make this "king of terrors" a kind of "king of comfort" to us. Many believers have attained to this.A believer moves on these principles. 1. That death cannot break the bond of the covenant between God and us. 2. Death may break the union between the soul and the body, but it cannot break the union between the soul and Christ. This outlives death. 3. The apostle asserts that the sting of death is out. 4. Scripture calls death a sleep or rest. 5. Death puts a period to our earthly sorrows, and we have no reason to be sorry for that. 6. It is called a "going to God," in whom we shall have an eternal enjoyment. 7. It is a dying to live, as well as a dying from life. (Joseph Caryl.). Parallel Verses KJV: His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the king of terrors. WEB: He shall be rooted out of his tent where he trusts. He shall be brought to the king of terrors.