John Trapp on Job 3:15

Verſe 15. Or with Princes that had gold] great ſtore of it. Petrarch reporteth of Pope John 22 that his heirs found in his coffers no leſſe then 250 tuns of gold. Boniface the eighth taken priſoner and plundered by the command of Philip the Faire, King of France, had as much gold carried away out of his Palace, as all the Kings of Europe received for one years revenue from their ſubjects, together with their crown-land. What a Maſſe of Treaſure had Cardinal Wolſey gotten here? and before him Cardinall Beauford, who when he ſaw that he muſt needs die, and that his riches could not reprieve him till a further time, asked,Fox Mart. 925. why ſhould I die being ſo rich? fie, will not death be hired? will mony do nothing? The Cardinall Sylberperger took ſo great a pleaſure in mony, that when he was grievouſly tormented with the gout, his onely remedy to eaſe the paine, was to have a baſon full of gold ſet before him, into which he would put his lame hands, turning the gold upſide-down. Of Nugas the Scythian Monarch it is ſtoried, that when Michael Paleologus the Greek Emperour ſent him many rich ornaments for a preſent,Pachymer hiſt. l. 5. he asked whether they could drive away calamities, diſeaſes and death? this becauſe they could not do, he ſlighted them. Theſe Princes that had gold, and filled their houſes with ſiluer, what would not they have given to have bought off death? but riches availe not in the day of wrath: it is righteouſneſſe only that delivereth from death, Prov. 11.4. Thrice happy then are they who are rich to God, as our Saviour phraſeth it, who have the Almighty to be their gold, and who have ſilver of ſtrength, as Eliphaz. ſpeaketh, chap. 22.25.

Who filled their houſes with ſilver] That is, their graves, ſay ſome: called the dead mens houſes, chap. 17.13. The Jewes call the burying-place, Beth-chajin, the houſe of the living: and they uſed not only to adorn their ſepulchers richly, but alſo to put their wealth into the grave with them. Ioſephus ſaith that Hircanus found in Davids ſepulchre three thouſand talents. And Ier. 8.1.Lib. 13. Antiq. cap. 15. & [illegible: 1 word] cap. 11. God threatneth that the Chaldeans ſhal bring out the boxes of the Kings of Iudah, and of his Princes, — out of their graves, as ſearching there for hid treaſure; ſo ſome conceive. Sure it is,Joſephm. that in the ſiege of Jeruſalem, under Ve[illegible: 1 letter]p[illegible: 1 letter]ſian, there was gold found in the entrailes of a Jew that was ſlain, which cauſed above twenty thouſand of them to be ripped up.