Death and the Grave Our Common Inheritance
R. Ainslie. Job 30:23 For I know that you will bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living. The Coptic version reads thus: — "I know now that death will destroy me, for the earth is the house of all the dead." We have in the text two personifications. "Death will destroy me." "The grave is the house for all the dead." The power to wound and the pleasure of victory are figuratively ascribed to death and the grave. Death is said to be the extinction of life, but that neither defines nor explains it. We know death by its results. Life! Is it important to us, and wherein is its value and importance? The importance of life to every one of us is for our virtue, religion, happiness, and usefulness among our fellowmen, and to determine the character of our responsibility, our afterlife, our destiny. Life, as connected with this world only, is the precious time for the discipline of the passions and affections, the elevation of our nature, the accumulations of virtue, the influence, principles, and power of religion, the happiness that ordinarily accompanies them, and the usefulness suggested and sustained by them. Our virtue, our religious character, the state of our hearts, veiled and unveiled, and the actions of our lives, will determine our everlasting destiny. Our responsibility relates to the honest convictions of our minds and hearts. (R. Ainslie.) Parallel Verses KJV: For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living. WEB: For I know that you will bring me to death, To the house appointed for all living.