Job 29:18 - Exposition

Then I said, I shall die in my nest . The metaphor of "nest" for "dwelling-place" occurs in Numbers 24:21 ; Jeremiah 49:16 : Obadiah 1:4 ; and Habakkuk 2:9 . It is also employed by Healed ('Op. et Di.,' 1.301). And I shall multiply my days as the sand. Some translate, "I shall multiply my days as the phoenix," the fabulous bird which was supposed to live for five hundred years (Herod; 2:72), to burn itself on a funeral pile of spices, and then to rise again from its ashes. But the view seems to be a mere rabbinical tradition, and is unsupported by etymology. Khol ( חוֹל ) means "sand" in Genesis 22:17 ; Jeremiah 33:22 ; and elsewhere. It is taken in this sense by Rosenmuller, Schultens, Professor Lee, Canon Cook, and our Revisers.