Bible Strands
Job 3:18
The captives enjoy their ease; they do not hear the voice of the oppressor.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job speaks in his opening lament, cursing the day of his birth and describing the grave as a realm where earthly burdens vanish. He addresses no specific human audience but declares the conditions of the dead.
The words — אֲסִירִים ('a.si.Rim) translates to "prisoners," and נֹגֵֽשׂ (no.Ges) means "taskmaster." These terms anchor the verse's contrast between captive status and forced labor.
The thread — The motif of escaping an oppressor's voice appears in Job 39:7, where a wild donkey scorns the driver's shouts. It echoes the Exodus narrative where Israelite foremen report Pharaoh's taskmasters in Exodus 5:6 and 5:15.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that death, in this context, functions as an absolute cessation of coercive labor. It asks the reader to confront the stark relief described without moralizing the grave.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.
Cross-references
- Job 39:7 He scorns the tumult of the city and never hears the shouts of a driver.
- Exodus 5:6 That same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen:
- Exodus 5:15 So the Israelite foremen went and appealed to Pharaoh: “Why are you treating your servants this way?
- Judges 4:3 Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD, because Jabin had nine hundred chariots of iron, and he had harshly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years.
- Isaiah 14:3 On the day that the LORD gives you rest from your pain and torment, and from the hard labor into which you were forced,