Job Continues: Death Comes Soon to All
1 Job entreated God for favour, by the shortness of life, and certainty of death. 7 Though life once lost be irrecoverable, yet he waited for his change. 16 By sin the creature is subject to corruption.
Job 14:1 “Mortals, born of woman, are of few days and full of trouble.
Literally, “short of days” (see Ps. 90:10; Gen. 47:9). Full of trouble. This oft-repeated text introduces an eloquent passage on the weakness and frailty of man.
Job 14:2 They spring up like flowers and wither away; like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.
A flower. Bible writers frequently compare life to a flower or grass (see Ps. 37:2; 90:5, 6; 103:15; Isa. 40:6; James 1:10, 11; 1 Peter 1:24). “This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honours thick upon him; The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, And,—when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a-ripening,—nips his root, And then he falls.”—Shakespeare. A shadow. Nothing is more unsubstantial than a shadow (see 1 Chron. 29:15; Ps. 102:11; 144:4; Eccl. 6:12).
Job 14:3 Do you fix your eye on them? Will you bring them before you for judgment?
“Do you scrutinize such an insignificant being for the purpose of punishing him?”
Judgment? That is, should one so frail be called to trial before one so mighty?
Job 14:4 Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!
Job admits his faults, but he inquires, “How can I be expected to be faultless? I belong to a sinful race. Why, then, does God follow me with so much severity?”
Job 14:5 A person’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.
The purpose of the text is to show the frailty of man. His life is limited. In a few years he passes away.
Job 14:6 So look away from him and let him alone, till he has put in his time like a hired laborer.
Job pleads with God to cease watching him so closely, that he may have a brief respite before departing from the earth. The idea is not that of rest, but of having God cease to afflict him. Job wished that God would leave him alone (ch. 10:20).
A Hired laborer. The hireling’s real enjoyment of his day comes when the shadow of evening brings with it the rest that he covets and the wages he has earned. In like manner, Job desires for himself the satisfaction that the end of his toil and sorrow will bring.
Job 14:7 “At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.
Job had seen trees cut down, and he had seen them sprout again and grow up as luxuriant as before. But a man lacks even the hope a tree has.
Job 14:8 Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil,
Job 14:9 yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant.
A season of exceptional rainfall would awaken life in the apparently dead root, and again branches would come forth.
Job 14:10 But a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more.
Man. Heb. geber, “warrior,” “strong man.” Giveth up the ghost. Literally, “die,” or “expire” (see on ch. 3:11). Where is he? Job has difficulty penetrating the veil of the future. The details of a corporeal resurrection were not clearly unveiled until the time of Christ (see John 5:28, 29; 1 Cor. 15:12–56; 1 Thess. 4:13–18; 2 Tim. 1:10).
Job 14:11 As the water of a lake dries up or a riverbed becomes parched and dry,
The figure changes. Man is not like a tree that might sprout again, but like a lake or river that dries up and disappears. The effects of death appear as final as the unchanging heavens.
Job 14:12 so he lies down and does not rise; till the heavens are no more, people will not awake or be roused from their sleep.
Job 14:13 “If only you would hide me in the grave and conceal me till your anger has passed! If only you would set me a time and then remember me!
The dreamless sleep of death was not an object of dread to Job. In his condition he welcomed it. It would be a refuge from the wrath of God. See on Prov. 15:11.
A set time. This is the turning point in the passage. Job expresses the wish that beyond the sleep of death, at a time when divine wrath had ceased, God would remember him. The human spirit cannot be satisfied with the thought of inevitable extinction. Such a thought leads to the conclusion that life is meaningless.
Job 14:14 If someone dies, will they live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal to come.
Job seems to be straining his gaze toward the horizons beyond this life. The spires of that distant city of perpetual life he did not see as clearly as did the NT writers, but he did see enough to give him hope.
All the days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal to come.
The language seems to be borrowed from the life of a soldier. The warrior serves until he is discharged.
Job 14:15 You will call and I will answer you; you will long for the creature your hands have made.
A description of the resurrection. As the sleeper is called to waken in the morning, so Job is confident that one day he will be called to a new life. Job believes that God will not forget His handiwork. This is the basis of his expectation of the resurrection and immortality.
Job 14:16 Surely then you will count my steps but not keep track of my sin.
Job has glimpsed a day when God will remember him in mercy. But the vision fades away, and Job again sees his present suffering and God scrutinizing his life.
Job 14:17 My offenses will be sealed up in a bag; you will cover over my sin.
As a treasurer counts his money, sews it securely in a bag, and places a seal on it indicating the amount, so God takes notice of Job’s every sin. Some interpret vs. 16 and 17 as a description, not of God’s surveillance, but of His promise of forgiveness, and translate the verses thus: “For then thou wouldest number my steps, thou wouldest not keep watch over my sin; my transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and thou wouldest cover over my iniquity.”
Job 14:18 “But as a mountain erodes and crumbles and as a rock is moved from its place,
This verse begins the last stanza of Job’s speech. Job has given expression to hope—even though he may have seen through a glass, darkly (see 1 Cor. 13:12).
Now he accuses God of treating him in such a way in this life that hope is extinguished. The tragedies of life are compared with the falling mountain and rolling rock.
Job 14:19 as water wears away stones and torrents wash away the soil, so you destroy a person’s hope.
As rolling rocks and raging rivers destroy the earth, so the misfortunes of life, that Job attributes to God, destroy man’s hope.
Job 14:20 You overpower them once for all, and they are gone; you change their countenance and send them away. The incessant afflictions ultimately result in death.
Job 14:21 If their children are honored, they do not know it; if their offspring are brought low, they do not see it.
This text is obvious proof that Job considered death as a sleep (see on John 11:11).
Job 14:22 They feel but the pain of their own bodies and mourn only for themselves.”
By poetic personification the body in the grave is said to have pain, and similarly the soul is said to mourn. This is a graphic picture of the ravages of death. This passage must not be interpreted to mean that the dead are capable of sensation. In poetic language intelligence, personality, and feelings are often ascribed to objects or concepts devoid of these attributes (see Judges 9:8–15).