“Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.
He grows up like a flower, and is cut down. He also flees like a shadow, and doesn’t continue.
Do you open your eyes on such a one, and bring me into judgment with you?
Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.
Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his bounds that he can’t pass;
Look away from him, that he may rest, until he accomplishes, as a hireling, his day.
“For there is hope for a tree if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, that the tender branch of it will not cease.
Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stock dies in the ground,
yet through the scent of water it will bud, and sprout boughs like a plant.
But man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he?
As the waters fail from the sea, and the river wastes and dries up,
so man lies down and doesn’t rise. Until the heavens are no more, they will not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep.
“Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would keep me secret until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time and remember me!
If a man dies, will he live again? I would wait all the days of my warfare, until my release should come.
You would call, and I would answer you. You would have a desire for the work of your hands.
But now you count my steps. Don’t you watch over my sin?
My disobedience is sealed up in a bag. You fasten up my iniquity.
“But the mountain falling comes to nothing. The rock is removed out of its place;
The waters wear the stones. The torrents of it wash away the dust of the earth. So you destroy the hope of man.
You forever prevail against him, and he departs. You change his face, and send him away.
His sons come to honor, and he doesn’t know it. They are brought low, but he doesn’t perceive it of them.
But his flesh on him has pain, and his soul within him mourns.”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 6, 10, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 22 Taking occasion of his adversary’s words, he describeth the…
Taking occasion of his adversary’s words, he describeth the state of man’s life from his birth to his death.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–22 Job 14:1 Man [that is] born of a woman…
Job 14:1 Man [that is] born of a woman [is] of few days, and full of trouble.
Ver. 1. Man that is born of a woman, &c.] Or, that is borne about by a woman in her womb. Job’s design is here to set forth the misery of man (whom in the last verse of the former chapter he had compared, 1. To a rotten thing; 2. To a moth eaten garment), ab exordio ad exodium, from his conception to his dissolution. Man, earthly man, that is born of a woman, or mannesse, that weaker vessel, who both breedeth, beareth, and bringeth forth in sorrow a weak sorry man, Gen 3:16, and is (as Gregory expresseth it) ante partum onerosa, in partu dolorosa, post partum laboriosa, every way calamitous; neither is her babe in a better condition, but born with a cross on his back (as the story is told of Frederick, the Elector of Saxony), and having his whole life overspread with sins and miseries, as with a filthy leprous eruption. (Joh. Manl. loc. com.)
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Is of few days] Heb. Short of days. Short indeed, everything reckoned; for, 1. Childhood and youth are vanity. 2. Sleep, as a publican, takes off a third part of our time. 3. All the days of the afflicted are evil, and Mortis habet vices quae trahitur vita gemitibus (Aug. de Civ. Dei, lib. ix. c. 10); it is not a life, but a death rather that is spent in sorrow; in which regard Plotinus, the philosopher, held mortality a mercy, that we may not always be held uuder the miseries of this life present. 4. Scarce one of a thousand live that little time that they are here, but woefully waste the flower of their age, the strength of their bodies, the vigour of their spirits, in sinful pleasures and sensual delights, and then either sit and sing all too late, and in vain,
O mihi praeteritos referat si Iupiter annos!
or else complain with old Themistocles, that now they must die when they do but begin only to be wise. The life of a wicked man runneth out as the sand in an hour glass, that doth little good; he considereth not that upon this little point of time hangs the crown of eternity; and that the very next moment he may be cut off from all possibility of repentance, acceptation, and grace for ever. Hence his many troubles here; all which are but typical of those hereafter; besides the fear of death, which maketh him all his lifetime subject to bondage, Heb 2:15. It were much to be wished that men would consider their time is short, their task long, and that, therefore, they should use all speed and diligence; lest (so as children have usually torn their books) they have ended their lives before they have learned their lessons.
And full of trouble] Or, of indignation, commotion, perturbation. Those three vultures, fear, anger, grief, are frequently feeding upon his heart while he is in this world; and, like a ship in a storm, he is tossed much, but faileth little or nothing. Few and evil are the days of my pilgrimage, saith good old Jacob, Gen 47:9. And she in the poet could say as much of her son Achilles:
Nυν θ αμα ωκυμορος, και υιζυρος περι παντων Eπλεο - (Thetis ap. Hom. lliad).
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22 That is born of a woman. This expression is…
That is born of a woman. This expression is here used, either,
1. To intimate the cause of man’s misery, that he was born of a woman, a weak creature, 1Pe 3:7, and withal corrupt and sinful, and of that sex by which sin and calamity was brought into the world. See Job 15:14; Gen 3:17; 1Ti 2:13,14. Or,
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2. To note the universality of the thing; every man, every mother’s son, as we use to speak. Men’s fathers are ofttimes unknown and uncertain, but their mothers are always definite and certain. One man was then to be born, and afterwards was born, without an earthly father, to wit, our Lord and Saviour Christ; but no man was ever born without a mother.
Of few days; a short-lived creature in himself, and therefore needs no violent hand to cut him off, because he withereth so soon of his own accord.
Full of trouble; and therefore a fitter object for Divine compassion, than for his fury or severity. He chiefly intendeth himself; but he expresseth it thus generally, partly to relieve himself with the thoughts of the common calamities of mankind; and partly to move God with the consideration of the frailty and misery of human nature, and consequently of his condition.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 16 We are here led to think,
We are here led to think,
I. Of the original of human life. God is indeed its great original, for he breathed into man the breath of life and in him we live; but we date it from our birth, and thence we must date both its frailty and its pollution. 1. Its frailty: Man, that is born of a woman, is therefore of few days, Job 14:1. This may refer to the first woman, who was called Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Of her, who being deceived by the tempter was first in the transgression, we are all born, and consequently derive from her that sin and corruption which both shorten our days and sadden them. Or it may refer to every man's immediate mother. The woman is the weaker vessel, and we know that partus sequitur ventrem - the child takes after the mother. Let not the strong man therefore glory in his strength, or in the strength of his father, but remember that he is born of a woman, and that, when God pleases, the mighty men become as women, Jer 51:30. 2. Its pollution (Job 14:4): Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? If man be born of a woman that is a sinner, how can it be otherwise than that he should be a sinner? See Job 25:4. How can he be clean that is born of a woman? Clean children cannot come from unclean parents any more than pure streams from an impure spring or grapes from thorns. Our habitual corruption is derived with our nature from our parents, and is therefore bred in the bone. Our blood is not only attainted by a legal conviction, but tainted with an hereditary disease. Our Lord Jesus, being made sin for us, is said to be made of a woman, Gal 4:4.
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II. Of the nature of human life: it is a flower, it is a shadow, Job 14:2. The flower is fading, and all its beauty soon withers and is gone. The shadow is fleeting, and its very being will soon be lost and drowned in the shadows of the night. Of neither do we make any account; in neither do we put any confidence.
III. Of the shortness and uncertainty of human life: Man is of few days. Life is here computed, not by months or years, but by days, for we cannot be sure of any day but that it may be our last. These days are few, fewer than we think of, few at the most, in comparison with the days of the first patriarchs, much more in comparison with the days of eternity, but much fewer to most, who come short of what we call the age of man. Man sometimes no sooner comes forth than he is cut down - comes forth out of the womb than he dies in the cradle - comes forth into the world and enters into the business of it than he is hurried away as soon as he has laid his hand to the plough. If not cut down immediately, yet he flees as a shadow, and never continues in one stay, in one shape, but the fashion of it passes away; so does this world, and our life in it, Co1 7:31.
IV. Of the calamitous state of human life. Man, as he is short-lived, so he is sad-lived. Though he had but a few days to spend here, yet, if he might rejoice in those few, it were well (a short life and a merry one is the boast of some); but it is not so. During these few days he is full of trouble, not only troubled, but full of trouble, either toiling or fretting, grieving or fearing. No day passes without some vexation, some hurry, some disorder or other. Those that are fond of the world shall have enough of it. He is satur tremore - full of commotion. The fewness of his days creates him a continual trouble and uneasiness in expectation of the period of them, and he always hangs in doubt of his life. Yet, since man's days are so full of trouble, it is well that they are few, that the soul's imprisonment in the body, and banishment from the Lord, are not perpetual, are not long. When we come to heaven our days will be many, and perfectly free from trouble, and in the mean time faith, hope, and love, balance the present grievances.
V. Of the sinfulness of human life, arising from the sinfulness of the human nature. So some understand that question (Job 14:4), Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? - a clean performance from an unclean principle? Note, Actual transgressions are the natural product of habitual corruption, which is therefore called original sin, because it is the original of all our sins. This holy Job here laments, as all that are sanctified do, running up the streams to the fountain (Psa 51:5); and some think he intends it as a plea with God for compassion: "Lord, be not extreme to mark my sins of human frailty and infirmity, for thou knowest my weakness. O remember that I am flesh!" The Chaldee paraphrase has an observable reading of this verse: Who can make a man clean that is polluted with sin? Cannot one? that is, God. Or who but God, who is one, and will spare him? God, by his almighty grace, can change the skin of the Ethiopian, the skin of Job, though clothed with worms.
VI. Of the settled period of human life, v. 5.
1. Three things we are here assured of: - (1.) That our life will come to an end; our days upon earth are not numberless, are not endless, no, they are numbered, and will soon be finished, Dan 5:26. (2.) That it is determined, in the counsel and decree of God, how long we shall live and when we shall die. The number of our months is with God, at the disposal of his power, which cannot be controlled, and under the view of his omniscience, which cannot be deceived. It is certain that God's providence has the ordering of the period of our lives; our times are in his hand. The powers of nature depend upon him, and act under him. In him we live and move. Diseases are his servants; he kills and makes alive. Nothing comes to pass by chance, no, not the execution done by a bow drawn at a venture. It is therefore certain that God's prescience has determined it before; for known unto God are all his works. Whatever he does he determined, yet with a regard partly to the settled course of nature (the end and the means are determined together) and to the settled rules of moral government, punishing evil and rewarding good in this life. We are no more governed by the Stoic's blind fate than by the Epicurean's blind fortune. (3.) That the bounds God has fixed we cannot pass; for his counsels are unalterable, his foresight being infallible.
2. These considerations Job here urges as reasons, (1.) Why God should not be so strict in taking cognizance of him and of his slips and failings (Job 14:3): "Since I have such a corrupt nature within, and am liable to so much trouble, which is a constant temptation from without, dost thou open thy eyes and fasten them upon such a one, extremely to mark what I do amiss? Job 13:27. And dost thou bring me, such a worthless worm as I am, into judgment with thee who art so quick sighted to discover the least failing, so holy to hate it, so just to condemn it, and so mighty to punish it?" The consideration of our own inability to contend with God, of our own sinfulness and weakness, should engage us to pray, Lord, enter not into judgment with thy servant. (2.) Why he should not be so severe in his dealings with him: "Lord, I have but a little time to live. I must certainly and shortly go hence, and the few days I have to spend here are, at the best, full of trouble. O let me have a little respite! Job 14:6. Turn from afflicting a poor creature thus, and let him rest awhile; allow him some breathing time, until he shall accomplish as a hireling his day. It is appointed to me once to die; let that one day suffice me, and let me not thus be continually dying, dying a thousand deaths. Let it suffice that my life, at best, is as the day of a hireling, a day of toil and labour. I am content to accomplish that, and will make the best of the common hardships of human life, the burden and heat of the day; but let me not feel those uncommon tortures, let not my life be as the day of a malefactor, all execution-day." Thus may we find some relief under great troubles by recommending ourselves to the compassion of that God who knows our frame and will consider it, and our being out of frame too.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–22 Man that is born of a woman,.... Man, Adam;…
Man that is born of a woman,.... Man, Adam; not the first man, so called, for he was made and created out of the dust of the earth, and not born of a woman; the woman was made out of him, and not he of her; "earthly man", as Mr. Broughton translates it, as every descendant of Adam is; as is the earth, such are they that are earthy, everyone of which is born of a woman; yet not as opposed unto and distinguished from the heavenly One, or the Lord from heaven, for he also as man was made and born of a woman: this, though a proper description of all mankind, there being none but what are born of a woman, see Mat 11:11; yet Job chiefly designs himself; for having spoken of his wasting circumstances in which he was, in Job 13:28, goes on in this to treat of his frailty and mortality, and to improve it into an argument with God for pity and mercy, as appears from Job 14:3; where he speaks of himself in the first person, as here in the third, and all along: he may have respect in this clause to Eve, the mother of all living, from whom all descend, and of whom, in a sense, they may be said to be born; or else to his immediate parent, he and every man being born of a woman; no man, but the first, ever came into the world in any other way; there is one that came into the world without an earthly father, and that is our Lord Jesus Christ, but none without a mother; nor lie, who indeed was born of a virgin, and so in an extraordinary and miraculous manner; and this is observed, not so much on account of natural descent, or to denote that, as being reckoned from the mother, she having so great a concern in the production of man, conceiving, bearing, and bringing him forth; nor to remark the sinfulness of nature, though one born of a sinful woman must needs be so too, since this is expressed clearly in Job 14:4; but the weakness and frailty of man; as is the creature that generates, such is that that is generated; creatures born of strong ones are strong, and of weak ones weak; a creature born of a lion is a strong one; and man, born of a woman, must be weak and feeble, and no wonder he is short lived, as follows:
is of few days; or "short of days" (c); comes short of the days he might have lived, if man had never sinned, and comes short of the days the first man did live, and which those before the flood generally lived, who most of them lived upwards of nine hundred years; whereas now, and ever since the times of Moses, and about which Job lived, the days of the years of man are but threescore and ten; and such are shorter of days still, who live not more than half this time, who are cut off in the bloom and prime of life, the days of whose youth are shortened, who die in their youth, or in their childhood and infancy; and such especially are short of days who are carried from the womb to the grave, or die as soon as born; and those that live the longest, their days are but few, when compared with the days of eternity, or with those men shall live in another world, either good men in heaven, or wicked men in hell, which will be for ever; and especially with respect to God, with whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, and therefore the days and age of man are as nothing before him. Job has here also a respect to himself, whose days in his own apprehension were very few, and just at an end, and therefore craves pity and compassion, see Job 10:20; and what aggravates the shortness of man's days is, as it follows:
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and full of trouble; man is born to it, being born in sin; sin and trouble go together, where there is sin there is trouble; sin entered into the world, and death by it, with the numerous train of afflictions and miseries which issue in it: all men have their troubles, some of one sort, and some of another; wicked men are not indeed in trouble as other men, as good men are; they have not the same sort of trouble, yet are not exempt from all; they are "full of commotion" (d) disquietude and uneasiness, as the word signifies; they are restless, and ever in motion; they are like the troubled sea, that cannot rest, but is continually casting up mire and dirt; some are of such tempers and dispositions, that they cannot sleep unless they do mischief; and though they are many of them prosperous in their worldly circumstances, there are others that are reduced to poverty and distress, are attended with diseases and disorders, pains and sores, and blaspheme that God that has power over them; and these are of all men the most miserable, having no interest in God, in his loving kindness, nor any enjoyment of his presence, and so nothing to support them in, and carry them through their troubles; and though they are generally without any sense of sin or danger, have no remorse of conscience, and their hearts are hardened; yet at times they are "full of trembling" (e), as some render the words; are seized with a panic through the judgments of God that are upon them, or are coming upon them, or when death is made the king of terrors to them: and good men they have their troubles; besides those in common with others, they have inward troubles arising from the vanity of their minds and thoughts, the impurity of their hearts, and the power of indwelling sin in them, and especially from the breaking forth of it in words and deeds; from the weakness of their graces, from the hidings of God's face, and the temptations of Satan: in short, Job's meaning is, that men in the ordinary course of things meet with so much trouble, that there is no need of any extraordinary afflictions to be laid on them, such as his were.
(c) "brevis dierum", Montanus, Schmidt, Michaelis, Schultens; so Beza, Vatablus, Drusius, Mercerus. (d) "satur commotione", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius, Schmidt, Michaelis. (e) "Saturus tremore", Montanus; "satur trepidi tumultus", Schultens.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21 Man's life is but short, sorrowful, and sinful; on…
Man's life is but short, sorrowful, and sinful; on which consideration he pleads for mercy, ver, 1-6. Other creatures revive, but man does not, ver. 7-12. Various wishes and complaints, ver. 13-22.
Man - A weak creature, and withal corrupt and sinful, and of that sex by which sin and all other calamity was brought into the world.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 The shortness, misery, and sinfulness of man's life, 14.
CHAPTER XIV
The shortness, misery, and sinfulness of man's life, 14.
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The unavoidable necessity of death; and the hope of a general
resurrection, 5-15.
Job deplores his own state, and the general wretchedness of
man, 16-22.
NOTES ON CHAP. XIV
Verse 1. Man-born of a woman] There is a delicacy in the original, not often observed: אדם ילוד אשה Adam yelud ishah, "Adam born of a woman, few of days, and full of tremor." Adam, who did not spring from woman, but was immediately formed by God, had many days, for he lived nine hundred and thirty years; during which time neither sin nor death had multiplied in the earth, as they were found in the days of Job. But the Adam who springs now from woman, in the way of ordinary generation, has very few years. Seventy, on an average, being the highest term, may be well said to be few in days; and all matter of fact shows that they are full of fears and apprehensions, רגז rogez, cares, anxieties, and tremors. He seems born, not indeed to live, but to die; and, by living, he forfeits the title to life.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22 Job 14:1. Man that is born of a woman…
Job 14:1. Man that is born of a woman — A weak creature; and, withal, corrupt and sinful, and of that sex by which sin and all other calamities were brought into the world. Is of few days — Few at the most, in comparison with the days of the first patriarchs, much more in comparison with the days of eternity. Man is now a short-lived creature in himself, and withers so soon of his own accord, that he needs no violent hand to cut him off. And full of trouble — Liable to a variety of miseries. He is not only troubled, but full of trouble, Hebrew, שׂבע רגז, sebang rogez, satur trepidæ corporis et animi commotionis, full of disquietude and commotion in mind and body; exposed to labour and toil, affliction and pain, grief and fear: a day seldom passing without some cause of vexation and distress, some disorder, some calamity or other. And, therefore, Job intimates, man is a fitter object for God’s compassion than for his anger or severity.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–22 Man that is born of a woman - See…
Man that is born of a woman - See the notes at Job 13:28. The object of Job in these verses, is to show the frailty and feebleness of man. He, therefore, dwells on many circumstances adapted to this, and this is one of the most stirring and beautiful. He alludes to the delicacy and feebleness, of the female sex, and says that the offspring of one so frail must himself be frail; the child of one so feeble must himself be feeble. Possibly also there may be an allusion here to the prevailing opinion in the Oriental world of the inferiority of the female sex. The following forcible lines by Lord Bacon, express a similar sentiment:
The world’s a bubble, and the life of man
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Less than a span,
In his conception wretched, from the womb
So to the tomb.
Curst from the cradle, and brought up to years
With cares and fears.
Who then to frail mortality shall trust.
But limns the water, or but writes in dust.
Of few days - Hebrew “Brief of days;” compare Psa 90:10; Gen 47:9.
And full of trouble - Compare the notes at Job 3:17. Who cannot bear witness to this? How expressive a description is it of life! And even too where life seems most happy; where the sun of prosperity seems to shine on our way, and where blessings like drops of dew seem to descend on us, how true is it still theft life is full of trouble, and that the way of man is a weary way! Despite all that he can do - all his care, and skill, and learning and wealth, life is a weary pilgrimage, and is burdened with many woes. “Few and evil have the days of the years of my pilgrimage been, ‘ said the patriarch Jacob, and they who have advanced near the same number of years with him can utter with deep emotion the same beautiful language. Goethe, the celebrated German, said of himself in advanced age, “They have called me a child of fortune, nor have I any wish to complain of the course of my life. Yet it has been nothing but labor and sorrow, and I may truly say that in seventy-five years I have not had four weeks of true comfort. It was the constant rolling of a stone that was always to be lifted anew. When I look back upon my earlier and middle life, and consider how few are left of those that were young with me, I am reminded of a summer visit to a watering-place. On arriving one makes the acquaintance of those who have been already some time there, and leave the week following. This loss is painful. Now one becomes attached to the second generation, with which one lives for a time and becomes intimately connected. But this also passes away and leaves us solitary with the third, which arrives shortly before our own departure, and with which we have no desire to have much contact.” - Rauch’s Psychology, p. 343.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22 Man. He exposes to God the common miseries of…
Man. He exposes to God the common miseries of mankind. (Calmet) --- They cannot avoid many miseries in their short life, yet may be brought to heaven. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (Psa 90:6; see on Job 8:9).
(Psa 90:6; see on Job 8:9).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–22 Second strophe — Man’s physical and moral estate (the…
Second strophe — Man’s physical and moral estate (the best he possesses) pleads with God that he should rather turn from (look away from him) than deign even to open his eye upon so contemptible a creature, Job_14:1-6. “Job’s appeal is for mercy; his argument is weakness, constitutional and moral.” — Davidson.
1. Born of a woman — Like produces like. If woman be frail, feeble, and subject to suffering and infirmity, man, her offspring, shall be subjected to like frailty. “Every one,” says an Arabian poet, “who is born of woman, however long his prosperity may endure, must one day be carried forth on a bier.”
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Full of trouble — Or, unrest, רגז. The famous hymn which resounds in heaven when the luminous rays of the smile of Buddha penetrate through the clouds is, “All is transitory, all is misery, all is void, all is without substance.” — Max Muller. The estimate of life that the Buddhist thus sings is not more sad than that of Goethe, “They have called me a child of fortune, nor have I any wish to complain of the course of my life. Yet it has been nothing but labour and sorrow; and I may truly say, that in seventy-five years I have not had four weeks of true comfort. It was the constant rolling of a stone that was always to be lifted anew.” — Cited by Rauch.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 Ch. Job_14:1. In the last verse of ch. 13.…
Ch. Job_14:1. In the last verse of ch. 13. Job thought of himself as one of the race of men, and now he speaks of the characteristics of this race.
born of a woman] The offspring of one herself weak and doomed to sorrow (Gen_3:16) must also be weak and doomed to trouble, cf. ch. Job_15:14, Job_25:4.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 6, 11, 14, 16 (1) Man that is born of a woman is…
XIV.
(1) Man that is born of a woman is of few days.—He now takes occasion to dilate on the miserable estate of man generally, rising from the particular instance in himself to the common lot of the race. It is not improbable that these words should be connected with the last of the former chapter. He, as a rotten thing, consumeth—a man born of woman, short of days and full of trouble, who came forth as a flower and was (began to be) cut off (at once); who fled as the shadow that abideth not. After having resolved to come into judgment with God, he pictures to himself the miserable creature with whom God will have to contend if He contends with him.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 Vers. 1-22. This chapter, in which Job concludes the…
Vers. 1-22. This chapter, in which Job concludes the fourth of his addresses, is characterized by a tone of mild and gentle expostulation, which contrasts with the comparative vehemence and passion of the two preceding chapters. It would seem that the patriarch, having vented his feelings, experiences a certain relief, an interval of calm, in which, his own woes pressing less heavily upon him, he is content to moralize on the general condition of humanity.
Man that is born of a woman. In this fact Job sees the origin of man"s inherent weakness. He is "born of a woman," who is "the weaker vessel". (1Pe_3:7) He is conceived by her in uncleanness, (Psa_51:5; comp. below, ver. 4) brought forth in sorrow and pain (Gen_3:16) suckled at her breasts, placed for years under her guidance. No wonder that he shares the weakness of which she is a sort of type. Is of few days; literally, short of days. Length and shortness of days are, no doubt, relative; and it is difficult to say what term of life would not have seemed short to men as they looked back upon it. To Jacob, at the age of a hundred and thirty, it appeared that few and evil had the days of the years of his life been". (Gen_47:9) Methuselah, perhaps, thought the same. We all, as we come towards old age, and death draws manifestly near, feel as if we had only just begun to live, as if, at any rate, we had not done half our work, and were about to be cut off before our time. But would the case be seriously different if our tale of years were doubled? And fall of trouble. (comp. Job_5:7)
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Vers. 1-6. Job to God: 2. The death-wail of humanity.
I THE WAIL OF HUMANITY IN THE EAR OF GOD.
1. The constitutional frailty of man. Moses, in the Book of Genesis, (Gen_1:26 Gen_2:7) sets forth the dignity of man (Adam) as the crown of creation, (Psa_8:6) as the handiwork of God, (Job_10:8 Psa_100:3 Isa_15:1-2) as the image of his Maker. (Act_17:29 1Co_11:7) Job here supplies the companion picture of the misery of man by representing him as:
(1) Descended from woman, who was not only taken out of weak man, but is expressly declared to be the weaker vessel, (1Pe_3:7) and is the subject of a special doom of weakness in herself and offspring in consequence of having been first in the transgression (Gen_3:16 1Ti_2:14) all which may be said to entail on the human race, as it were by a threefold necessity, the pitiable heritage of frailty.
(2) Sprung from the dust, out of which man emerged, and still emerges, like a flower, (Psa_103:15 Isa_40:6 Jam_1:10) and to which again, like the flower, he shall in due course return; (Gen_3:19) in the meanwhile, as he hovers between the cradle and the grave, his birthplace and his place of sepulture, being like the flower, a structure of exquisite loveliness and of admirable symmetry, (Psa_139:14) but after all delicate and tender as a flower, being, like it, only a handful of dexterously fashioned and beautifully painted dust.
(3) Insubstantial as a shadow, which is not so much a thing as the image and reflection of a thing, the projection on the ground of an opaque body whose dark form intercepts the light of heaven, a metaphor applied already by Bildad to man"s days, (Job_8:9; cf. Psa_102:11 Psa_144:4) but here with greater boldness appropriated to depict the utter insignificance of man himself.
2. The extreme brevity of human life. The period of man"s continuance on earth is sorrowfully exhibited as:
(1) Of definite extension. (ver. 5; cf. Job_7:1, Job_7:2) Uncertain in the eye of man himself, (Ecc_9:11, Ecc_9:12) the hour of each one"s departure from this sublunary scene is accurately known by God, (Jer_28:16) in whose hands are not only the souls of all living things and the breath of all mankind, (Job_12:10) but their times as well, (Psa_31:15) to whose all-seeing eye the number of their months is as well known as the number of their hairs, (Luk_12:7) who hath not only appointed the bounds of their habitation, (Act_17:26) but also determined their days, setting a bound to their goings on the face of the earth as effectually as he does to the waves of the sea. (Job_38:11) And this doctrine of each man on earth having a predestined career is as philosophical as it is scriptural, the foreordination of the Almighty not interfering with the operation of natural laws and secondary causes. Nor is it contradicted by those texts of Scripture which seem to teach that the limit of man"s pilgrimage is determined by purely accidental circumstances. (Job_15:32 Job_22:16 Psa_55:23 Ecc_7:17)
(2) Of short duration (vers. 1, 2, 5, 6). Whether the expression, "of few days," literally, "curtailed as to days," contains an allusion to the fact that human life was shorter than it would have been had man continued innocent, or that in Job"s time it was shorter than it had been i, the world"s infancy, it is certain that an exceedingly impressive picture is presented by the phrases and images here employed, human life at the Longest being characterized as "months," then "days," and these only "few," and after that as "a day," as the brief season during which a flower blooms, as the short time during which the shadow runs. Contrasted with the age of the race, the duration of the earth, the lifetime of God, yea, contrasted with itself in prospective anticipation, the life of man, especially in the retrospect, is "but a handbreadth". (Psa_39:5)
(3) Of quick transition. Coming forth like a flower, man has scarcely begun to bloom when he is cut down (cf. " Henry VIII," Ac 3. sc. 2). The few days that God allots him to live refuse to linger, but hurry on, like the shadow on the dial, never hasting, never resting, but ever moving, moving, moving on. "Tis but an hour ago since it was nine; And after one hour more, "twill be eleven; And so, from hour to hour. we ripe and ripe, And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot. ("As You Like It," act 2. sc. 5.)
3. The intense severity of human sorrow. Besides being of few days, woman-born man is full of trouble, literally, "full of unrest," of inward commotion and of outward motion, its inevitable sequence and result. Though perhaps it is not true of any that their existence on earth is so completely "satiated with sorrow," that no interludes of joy remain, it is yet true of most that affliction forms a principal ingredient in their cup, (Job_5:7) while of all it may be said that a considerable portion of their troubles springs from the spirit of unrest with which they are surcharged, and of which the primal cause is sin. "A few seem favourites of fate, in pleasure"s lap caressed," though even these are not "likewise truly blest" in the highest sense of the expression. "But oh! what crowds in every land Are wretched and forlorn, through bodily disease, mental anxiety, domestic sorrow, through "man"s inhumanity to man," through the fierce raging of inward passion, through the terrible cankerworm of sin!
4. The inherited corruption of man"s moral nature. "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one?" (ver. 4). Read as a wish, "Oh that a pure one could come from an impure!" (Delitzsch), the idea is the same, that purity is impossible to man because of his origin. Descended from woman, he brings with him into life a legacy of physical frailty, and, what is worse, of uncleanness. The language may perhaps be regarded as giving enunciation to the doctrine of original sin, i.e. of the hereditary corruption of human nature a doctrine pervading Scripture; (Gen_5:3 Gen_6:5 Psa_51:5 1Co_15:22 Rom_5:12-20 Eph_2:3) involved in the universal prevalence of sin; (Psa_58:3 Rev_22:15) presupposed in the necessity of regeneration; (Joh_3:6) confirmed by the experience of God"s people; (Job_40:4 Psa_51:5 Isa_6:5 Rom_7:14) and harmonizing with the all-pervading law of nature that like begets like.
II THE APPEAL OF HUMANITY TO THE HEART OF GOD.
1. Deprecating judgment. "And dost thou open thine eyes upon such a one, and bringest me into judgment with thee?" (ver. 3). A favourite idea with Job that the very frailty and sinfulness of man should have been his protection against the Divine inspection and judicial visitation, that it was scarcely worthy of the Divine Majesty to set a watch upon a creature so insignificant and feeble as man, or consistent with equity to arraign at his bar a being whose weakness was constitutional and hereditary. But that original sin or hereditary weakness does not destroy the consciousness of individual responsibility, is proclaimed by Scripture, (Gen_4:7 Exo_32:33Jo Exo_31:3 Eze_18:4) attested by conscience, and believed by society. And, though man is frail, he is neither powerless for evil, nor unimportant as a factor in the history of earth. Hence he cannot safely be overlooked. Neither is he unjustly brought into judgment. Still God allows himself to be moved to compassionate forbearance by both a contemplation of man"s frailty, (Psa_103:14) and a consideration of his inherited corruption. (Gen_6:3, Gen_6:5)
2. Supplicating mercy. "Turn from him literally, "look away from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as a hireling, his day" (ver. 6). Considering that man has only a short day to live, Job entreats that that day may be mercifully exempted from such special sufferings as spring from a Divine marking and punishing of sin, in order that man, the poor hireling, may be able to perform his appointed task. On human life as a term of hard service, and man as a miserable hired drudge, see Job_7:1 (homiletics). The prayer tells us that no man can adequately execute the tasks assigned him by God on earth whose body is racked by pain and whose mind is tormented by spiritual fear. The soul that cannot look on God as a Friend, or upon whom God seems to look as an enemy, can never be at perfect rest. (Isa_57:21) But he from whom God averts his face in the sense of not marking iniquity, (Psa_32:1) and much more upon whom God makes his face to shine in loving favour, (Job_33:26 Psa_89:15 Joh_16:22 Act_2:28) possesses the true secret of happiness, and the noblest inspiration for Christian work In Christ the face of God is turned mercifully away from human sin, and compassionately towards human sorrow.
Learn:
1. There is no room for pride of ancestry in man, since all alike are woman-born.
2. The lowly origin of man should impress the heart with humility.
3. Since man"s days are so full of trouble, it is a mercy they are few; and since they are so few, man should study to be patient under trouble.
4. The swift approach of death should stimulate to diligence and promote heavenly-mindedness.
5. The heart of God can be touched with a feeling of our infirmities.
6. God will never open his eyes to judge their sins who first open their eyes to behold his mercy.
7. One special reason of our requiring mercy is our inherited corruption, since it proves that we are, root and branch, depraved.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-12. 1. Self-defence before God: 2. Plaint of the weakness and vanity of mankind.
Job"s troubles are typical of the common doom of mankind the "subjection, to vanity." And again (comp. Job_3:7 Job_7:1-5) he bursts forth into lamentation over the universal doom of sorrow.
I HIS NATURAL WEAKNESS. (Vers. 1-2) His origin is in frailty; he is "born of woman." His course is brief, and full of unrest. He sees himself mirrored in all natural things that fleet and pass:
(1) in the flower of the field, briefly blooming, doomed to the speedy scythe;
(2) in the shadow, like that of a cloud, resting for a moment on the ground, then vanishing with its substance. "Man is a bubble," said the Greek proverb (pomfolux o anyrwpov ). He is like a morning mushroom, soon thrusting up its head into the air, and as soon turning into dust and forgetfulness (Jeremy Taylor). Homer calls man a leaf; Pindar, the "dream of a shadow.
II HIS MORAL WEAKNESS. (Vers. 3, 4) On the natural frailty is founded the moral. And this poor, weak being is made accountable, dragged before the tribunal of God. And yet, asks Job, how is it possible that purity should be exacted of him? How can the product be diverse from the cause; the stream be of purer quality than the source?
III REASONING AND EXPOSTULATION FOUNDED ON THESE FACTS. (Vers. 5, 6) If man, then, is so weak, and his life determined by so narrow bounds, were it not the part of Divine compassion and justice to give him some release and respite until his brief day of toil and suffering be altogether spent? (comp. Job_7:17 Job_10:20) It seems to Job, in the confusion of his bewildered thought, that God is laying on him a special and extraordinary weight of suffering, which makes his lot worse than that of the common hireling.
IV FURTHER IMAGES OF DESPONDENCY. (Vers. 7-12) Casting his eye upon the familiar scenes of nature, it seems that all things reflect the sad thought of the transiency and hopelessness of man"s fate, and even to exaggerate it.
1. Image of the tree The tree may be hewn down, but scions and suckers spring from its well-nourished root; an image used by the prophet to symbolize the spiritual Israel. The stump of the oak represents the remnant that survives the judgment, and this is the source whence the new Israel springs up after the destruction of the old. (Isa_6:13) But when man is broken down and falls like the trunk of the tree, there is an end of him. This is undoubtedly a morbid perversion of the suggestion of nature. She by the sprouting scion teaches at least the great truth of the continuity and perpetual self-renewal of life, if she can tell no more.
2. Image of the dried-up waters. (Ver. 11) These forsake their wonted channels and flow in them no more. (comp. Job_7:9) So, it seems to the eye of nature, man passes away in a mist from the earthly scene and leaves no trace behind.
3. Image of the abiding heavens. (Ver. 12) This is introduced, not in illustration of the transient life of man, but in contrast to it. (comp. Psa_89:29, Psa_89:36, Psa_89:37) The heavens appear eternally fixed, in contrast to the fluctuating scene below. They look calmly down, while man passes into the sleep of death, and into Sheol, whence there is no return. But when man rises into the full consciousness of his spiritual nature through the revelation of life and immortality, all seems passing compared with the life in God. The heavens shall vanish away like smoke, but God"s salvation shall not be abolished. He that doeth the will of God shall abide for ever. J.
HOMILIES BY R. GREEN Vers. 1, 2. Lessons from the brevity of human life.
These words are consecrated to a supreme moment. Chosen to be the words spoken at the side of the grave, "while the corpse is made ready to be laid in the earth," they hear a solemn and overwhelming testimony to a truth men are apt, in the heat of the day, to forget. So many are the duties and toils of men that the hurry of a short life is hardly noticed, save when, by enforced attention, the thoughts recur to it. The truth is established man"s life is short, it is sorrowful, its early promise is destroyed, it hurriedly passeth away, it lacks permanence and stability. What, then, is the proper course of conduct to pursue in such circumstances?
I IT IS WISE TO BE DILIGENT IN THE FULFILMENT OF DUTY. Days lost cannot be recovered. The duty omitted cannot be afterwards attended to without entrenching upon some other. A watchfulness over the moments saves the hours. Diligence prevents waste, and the days are numbered. Diligence is imperative if life"s large work is to be done in its little time. He learns the value of time who diligently applies himself to his work. And no one has any time to lose.
II The brevity of life is AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO PATIENCE UNDER TROUBLE, The way is not long. The strength is taxed, but not for long. The lit e of "few days" is "full of trouble." Happily it is but for a "few days." Life is not stretched out beyond endurance. And the vision of immortality may gild the horizon as the light of a setting sun. All the future to the humble and obedient is bright, and the present weary march is not longer than can be borne, even by feeble human strength.
III The brevity of human life may properly act as A SALUTARY CHECK AGAINST ENTERTAINING TOO HIGH AN ESTIMATE OF EARTHLY THINGS. The things of time have their importance their very great and solemn importance. And he who has a just view of the future will be the more likely to place a just estimate on the present. But he will "sit loose" to things of time. He will remember he is but a sojourner. That the goods and possessions he now calls his own will soon be held by other hands. He will therefore see that he must not put so high a price upon the present as to barter away the future and more durable possessions for it. Life opens to him like a flower in its beauty; it "cometh forth like a flower" in its promise, but it "is cut down." It is vain to build too confidently on such a hope. It is unwise to live wholly for so uncertain a tenure, that fleeth as a shadow and continueth not.
IV The brevity of human life MAKES IT NEEDFUL THAT MEN SHOULD LOSE NO OPPORTUNITY OF LAYING HOLD ON THE LIFE IMMORTAL. The true preparation for the life to come the permanent and enduring life is to occupy this present one with careful and diligent fidelity. Great issues depend upon it. The condition of the future; the attainment of character; the recorded history; the everlasting approval or disapproval of the manner in which life has beer held, which the eternal Judge will pass upon it, and which will be reflected in the solitudes of the individual conscience. R.G.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY Vers. 1, 2. The flower and the shadow.
I WHERE IS A COMMON CHARACTER IN ALL HUMAN LIFE. Job seems to be suffering from exceptional troubles. Yet he regards his condition as typical of that of mankind generally. He turns from himself to "man that is born of a woman." We differ in external circumstances, possessions, honours; in bodily, mental, and moral characteristics. But in our fundamental constitution we are alike. The points of resemblance are more numerous than the points of difference.
1. All born of women come in the common descent from the first parents.
2. All are frail and short-lived.
3. All suffer from the troubles of life.
4. All sin.
5. All have Christ for their brother, able and willing to be also their Saviour.
6. All may enter the eternal life and dwell for ever in the love of God, on the same conditions of repentance and faith.
II MAN SHARES THE CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE. Job sees in nature types of human life. We are a part of nature, and the laws of nature apply to us. This fact should save us from amazement when trouble comes upon us. It is just in the course of nature. We have not been singled out for a miracle of judgment. It is not that God is writing bitter things against us in particular. Oars is part of the general experience of all nature. Our greatest evil, however, is not that which befalls us in the course of nature, but that which we bring upon ourselves unnaturally. There is something monstrous about sin. We feel a gentle pathos in natural sorrow, but we recognize a terrible tragedy, a dark and dreadful curse, in our self made sorrow of sin. That is infinitely worse than the lading of flowers and the fleeing of shadows.
III NATURE SETS FORTH THE SAD SIDE OF LIFE.
1. Brevity. Man is "of few days." The age of nature is maintained by succession, not by continuance. The race goes on, the individual passes.
2. Trouble. "Full of trouble." "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together". (Rom_8:22) The advance of nature is through conflict and struggle.
3. Frailty. Man is born of a woman, "the weaker vessel". (1Pe_3:7) The flower, which is the most beautiful thing in nature, is the most fragile. Crushed by a careless step, or nipped by frost, or withered by the very sun that drew out its life and painted its loveliness, it is yet the type of human life. The most exquisite flowers may be the most delicate, and the finest souls the most sensitive. The hot Southern sun quickly turns a garden into a desert. The same fate is found among the most cultivated and valued lives. The flowers are not saved by their beauty and fragrance. Some of the most precious lives are cut down in their prime. The scythe that mows the meadows cuts off the summer flowers in the height of their short-lived beauty. The rough, common fate of man is indiscriminate, laying low the best of men together with their less-valued companions.
4. Unreality. A mere shadow! and a moving shadow! What could be more unsubstantial anti transient? Yet the frailty and changefulness of life make our human existence appear no more real.
CONCLUSION. Observe another side of the scene. The very melancholy of the picture suggests that it does not cover the whole field. Nature is not dissatisfied with her changefulness. The flowers do not bewail their untimely end. Man alone looks with sorrow on his fate. The reason is that he is made for something greater. The Divine instinct of immortality is in him. lie is more than a part of nature. A child of God, he is called to share a larger life than that of the natural world. The Christian who is cut down as a frail flower on earth will yet bloom as an immortal flower in Paradise. W.F.A.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22 Man that is born of a woman is of…
Job_14:1-2
Man that is born of a woman is of few days.
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The brevity and burden of life
The knowledge and the conduct of mankind are very frequently at variance. How general is the conviction of the brevity of human life and of the certainty of death! How wise, virtuous, and happy would the human species be were their conduct conformable to this conviction! But how rarely is this the case! Do not the generality live as if their life were never to have an end?
1. Our life is of short duration. Many are snatched away by death while children. A considerable portion of mankind fall a prey to the grave in the liveliest period of their youth. Many are taken off by sudden disease. If a man lives long, how short life appears to him on review of it.
2. Our life is full of trouble. To how many evils and dangers, how many calamities are we not subject from our birth to our death! How often are our joys converted into sorrows! Our life is interwoven with many perils and distresses. Let us never add to their number by a disorderly and criminal conduct. If life then be so short and so insecure, how irrational is it to confine our hopes to these few moments, and to seek the whole of our happiness here on earth! We impose upon ourselves in thinking to build our felicity on the unstable possession and enjoyment of these fugacious objects. We are formed for eternity. Our present condition is only a state of preparation and discipline; it only contains the first act of our life which is never to terminate. The blessed, undecaying life should be the object of our affections, our views and our exertions; it should be the principal ground of our hopes and our comfort. (G. J. Zollikofer.)
The brevity and troubles of human life
I. Mans days are few. Time is a word of comparison. Time is a portion of eternity, or unlimited duration. But who can form a just conception of eternity? That which we call time we may attempt to illustrate by observing that when one event has reference to and is connected with another which precedes it, the distance between them is marked, and the portion of duration is designated time. Eternity was, before the sun and moon were made, eternity is now, and eternity will continue to be, when suns and moons shall have finished their course. To aid our meditations on the shortness of time, we may endeavour to contemplate eternity. We may draw a circle, place our finger upon any part of it, then follow by tracing the line, but when shall we reach the termination of that line? Round and round the circle we may move, but we shall come to no end. Such is eternity, it has no limits. Turning from the thought of the vastness of eternity, while contemplating which we cannot but feel our own insignificance, let us see if, in comparison, time be not a very little thing, less than a drop of water compared with the ocean, or a grain of sand with the dimensions of the globe. In the short period of a few years one generation passes away, and another and another succeed. Few are mans days, but long and important is the train of events dependent upon the manner in which they are spent.
II. The days of man are full of trouble. The troubles of man commence at a very tender age. In mans daily movements he is liable to many personal dangers. He is brought through distressing scenes. No stage of life is exempt from troubles, from infancy to grey hairs; but although this is a state and condition of sorrow, it need not be one of despair. Trials and troubles are our portion, but there is a state to which we may attain which will far more than compensate for all we may be called to endure here below, and true wisdom consists in securing to ourselves this inestimable blessing. (Sir Wm. Dunbar.)
The brevity and burden of life
That life is of short continuance and disquieted by many molestations every man knows, and every man feels. But truth does not always operate in proportion to its reception. Truth, possessed without the labour of investigation, like many of the general conveniences of life, loses its estimation by its easiness of access. Many things which are not pleasant may be salutary, and among them is the just estimate of human life, which may be made by all with advantage, though by few, very few, with delight. Since the mind is always of itself shrinking from disagreeable images, it is sometimes necessary to recall them; and it may contribute to the repression of many unreasonable desires, and the prevention of many faults and follies, if we frequently and attentively consider--
I. That man born of a woman is of few days. The business of life is to work out our salvation; and the days are few in which provision must he made for eternity. Our time is short, and our work is great. We must use all diligence to make our calling and election sure. But this is the care of only a few. If reason forbids us to fix our hearts upon things which we are not certain of retaining, we violate a prohibition still stronger when we suffer ourselves to place our happiness in that which must certainly be lost; yet such is all that this world affords us. Pleasures and honours must quickly fail us, because life itself must soon be at an end. To him who turns his thoughts late to the duties of religion, the time is not only shorter, but the work is heavier. The more sin has prevailed, with the more difficulty is its dominion resisted. Habits are formed by repeated acts, and therefore old habits are always strongest. How much more dreadful does the danger of delay appear, when it is considered that not only life is every day shorter, and the work of reformation every day greater, but that strength is every day less. It is absolutely less by reason of natural decay. In the feebleness of declining life, resolution is apt to languish. One consideration ought to be deeply impressed upon every sluggish and dilatory lingerer. The penitential sense of sin, and the desire of a new life, when they arise in the mind, are to be received as monitions excited by our merciful Father, as calls which it is our duty to hear and our interest to follow; that to turn our thoughts away from them is a new sin.
II. That man born of a woman is full of trouble. The immediate effect of the numerous calamities with which human nature is threatened, or afflicted, is to direct our desires to a better state. Of the troubles incident to mankind, everyone is best acquainted with his owe share. Sin and vexation are still so closely united, that he who traces his troubles to their source will commonly find that his faults have produced them, and he is then to consider his sufferings as the mild admonitions of his Heavenly Father, by which he is summoned to timely repentance. Trouble may, sometimes, be the consequence of virtue. In times of persecution this has happened. The frequency of misfortunes and universality of misery may properly repress any tendency to discontent or murmuring. We suffer only what is suffered by others, and often by those who are better than ourselves. We may find opportunities of doing good. Many human troubles are such as God has given man the power of alleviating. The power of doing good is not confined to the wealthy. He that has nothing else to give, may often give advice. A wise man may reclaim the vicious and instruct the ignorant, may quiet the throbs of sorrow, or disentangle the perplexities of conscience. He may compose the resentful, encourage the timorous, and animate the hopeless. (John Taylor, LL. D.)
The brevity and uncertainty of mans life
Mans life is short.
1. Comparatively. Our fathers before the flood lived longer. Compared with the duration of the world. Compared with the years that some irrational creatures live. Eagles and ravens among birds, stags and elephants among beasts. Compared with those many days that most men abide in the grave, in the land of oblivion. Compared with the life to come.
2. Absolutely. It is a great while before he really lives, and he is a long time alive before he knows it, and understands where he is. When he comes to five, the whole work of life has to be dispatched in a short compass. Man is made of discordant elements, which jar and fall out with one another, and thereby procure his dissolution. So that it is no wonder that he drops into the grave so soon.
3. Mans life is thus short by the just judgment of God. By reason of Adams sin and our own.
4. Mans life is abbreviated by the mercy and favour of God. Apply--
(1) Be thoroughly convinced of this truth, and often revolve it in your minds.
(2) Complain not of the shortness of life.
(3) Make this doctrine serviceable to all holy and religious purposes.
Seeing life is so short and uncertain, how absurd a thing is it for a man to behave himself as if he should live forever! Do not defer repentance. (J. Edwards.)
The proper estimate of human life
Jobs beautiful and impressive description of human life contains no exaggerated picture. It is a just and faithful representation of the condition of man on earth.
I. Man is of few days. The short duration of human life, and its hasty progress to death and the grave, has in every age been the pathetic complaint of the children of men. If he escape the dangers which threaten his tenderer years, he soon advances to the maturity of his existence, beyond which he cannot expect that his life will be much prolonged. He must fall, as does the ripe fruit from the tree. No emblem of human life can be finer than this used in the text, as a flower; as a shadow. How rapid the succession of events which soon carry man into the decline of life! How frequently is the hopeful youth cut off in the very pride and beauty of life!
II. Mans days are full of trouble. Trouble and distress are our inevitable inheritance on earth. In every period, and under every circumstance of human existence, their influence on happiness is more or less perceptible. Some reflections--
1. Since man is of few days and full of trouble, we should sit loose to the world and its enjoyments; we should moderate our desires and pursuits after sublunary objects.
2. Instead of indulging in immoderate sorrow for the loss of relations or friends, we should rejoice that they have escaped from the evils to come.
3. We should rejoice that our abode is not to be always in this world. The present state is but the house of our pilgrimage.
4. We should prepare for the close of life by the exercise of faith, love, and obedience to our Saviour; by the regular discharge of all the duties of piety; by the sincere and unremitting practice of every Christian grace; and by having our conversation at all times becoming the Gospel. (G. Goldie.)
On the shortness and troubles of human life
I. The shortness. When God first built the fabric of a human body, He left it subject to the laws of mortality; it was not intended for a long continuance on this side the grave. The particles of the body are in a continual flux. Subtract from the life of man the time of his two infancies and that which is insensibly passed away in sleep, and the remainder will afford very few intervals for the enjoyment of real and solid satisfaction. Look upon man under all the advantages of its existence, and what are threescore years and ten, or even fourscore? He cometh up like a flower, and is cut down. An apt resemblance of the transient gaieties and frailties of our state. The impotencies and imperfections of our infancy, the vanities of youth, the anxieties of manhood, and the infirmities of age, are so closely linked together by one continued chain of sorrow and disquietude, that there is little room for solid and lasting enjoyment.
II. The troubles and miseries that attend human life. These are so interspersed in every state of our duration that there are very few intervals of solid repose and tranquillity of mind. Even the best of us have scarcely time to dress our souls before we must put off our bodies. We no sooner make our appearance on the stage of life, but are commanded by the decays of nature to prepare for another state. There is a visible peculiarity in our disposition which effectually destroys all our enjoyments, and consequently increases our calamities. We are too apt to fret and be discontented under our own condition, and envy that of other men. If successful in obtaining riches and pleasures, we find inconveniencies and miseries attending them. And whilst we are grasping at the shadow, we may be losing the substance. And we are uneasy and querulous under our condition, and know not how to enjoy the present hour. Substantial happiness has no existence on this side the grave. The shortness of life ought to remind us of the duty of making all possible improvements in religion and virtue. (W. Adey.)
Jobs account of the shortness and troubles of life
Never man was better qualified to make just and noble reflections upon the shortness of life and the instability of human affairs than Job was, who had himself waded through such a sea of troubles, and in his passage had encountered many vicissitudes of storms and sunshine, and by turns had felt both the extremes of all the happiness and all the wretchedness that mortal man is heir to. Such a concurrence of misfortunes is not the common lot of many. The words of the text are an epitome of the natural and moral vanity of man, and contain two distinct declarations concerning his state and condition in each respect.
I. That he is a creature of few days. Jobs comparison is that man cometh forth like a flower. He is sent into the world the fairest and noblest part of Gods work. Man, like the flower, though his progress is slower, and his duration something longer, yet has periods of growth and declension nearly the same, both in the nature and manner of them. As man may justly be said to be of few days, so may he be said to flee like a shadow and continue not, when his duration is compared with other parts of Gods works, and even the works of his own hands, which outlast many generations.
II. That he is full of trouble. We must not take our account from the flattering outside of things. Nor can we safely trust the evidence of some of the more merry and thoughtless among us. We must hear the general complaint of all ages, and read the histories of mankind. Consider the desolations of war; the cruelty of tyrants; the miseries of slavery; the shame of religious persecutions. Consider mens private causes of trouble. Consider how many are born into misery and crime. When, therefore, we reflect that this span of life, short as it is, is chequered with so many troubles, that there is nothing in this world which springs up or can be enjoyed without a mixture of sorrow, how insensibly does it incline us to turn our eyes and affections from so gloomy a prospect, and fix them upon that happier country, where afflictions cannot follow us, and where God will wipe away all tears from off our faces forever and ever. (Laurence Sterne.)
Mans state and duty
I. Mans present state.
1. Its limited duration, expressed by the term few days. How short life often is! In sleep alone one-third is consumed. The period of infancy must be deducted, and the time lost in indolence, listlessness, and trifling employment, in which much of every passing day is wasted. The varied employments in which men are compelled to labour for the bread that perisheth rarely furnish either pleasure or spiritual improvement.
2. The frailty of mans state. He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down. The allusion is to mans physical origin and condition.
3. It is full of trouble. It has been remarked that man enters the present life with a cry, strangely prophetic of the troubles through which he must pass on his way to the grave. No stage of life is exempted from trouble.
II. Mans duty. His chief business on earth is--
1. To prepare for death.
2. To dread sin.
3. To be humble.
4. To be grateful to the Saviour. (Peter Samuel.)
The shortness and misery of life
We should hardly imagine this verse to be correct if we were to judge of its truth by the conduct of mankind at large. The text is more awfully true, because men willingly allow their senses to be stupefied by the pleasures, or distracted by the cares of this their fleeting existence. Ever and anon, however, we are startled from our stupor, and awake in some degree to our real position.
I. The shortness of life. In the first ages of the world, the term allotted to man was much longer than it is at present. In the sight of God, the longest life is but, as it were, a handbreadth. Life is compared to a vapour, or fog, which is soon scattered by the rising sun; to a swift ship; to an eagle hastening to its prey. Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
II. The troubles of life. These come alike to all. All may say, Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been. Man is full of trouble. But we must discriminate between the saint and the sinner. When we think and talk of death, we should ever connect it with that which follows. We must stand before the judgment seat of Christ. May you all be found standing with your lamps burning, and with your loins girded, like men that wait for the coming of their Lord. (C. Clayton, M. A.)
The fragility of human life
I. The important ideas suggested.
1. That human life is flattering in its commencement. Man cometh forth like a flower. Imagery more appropriate could not have been selected. Children are like flowers in the bud, unfolding their beauty as days and months increase; the expansion of the mind, and acquisition of new ideas, fascinate and involuntarily allure the affections of their parents, who watch over them with the tenderest anxiety. The flower is cut down (Psa_103:15-16; Isa_40:6-7; Jam_1:10-11; 1Pe_1:24).
2. Disastrous in its continuance. Full of trouble.
3. Contracted in its span. Few days. Life, in its longest period, is but a short journey from the cradle to the tomb (Gen_47:9). Various are the figures employed to illustrate the shortness of human life; it is compared to a step (1Sa_20:3), a post (Job_9:25), a tale that is told (Psa_90:9), a weavers shuttle (Job_7:6), and a vapour (Jam_1:14).
4. Incessant in its course. Fleeth as a shadow. Human life is measured by seconds, hours, days, weeks, months, and years. These periodical revolutions roll on in rapid succession. Some suppose it the shadow of the sun-dial; but whether we consider it as the shadow of the evening, which is lost when night comes on; or the shadow on a dial plate, which is continually moving onward; or the shadow of a bird flying, which stays not; the figure fully represents the life of man, which is passing away, whether we are loitering or active, careless or serious, killing or improving time.
5. Eventful in its issue. Death introduces us into the fixed state of eternity, and puts a final period to all earthly enjoyments and suffering; the soul, dismissed from its clay tabernacle, is introduced into a world of spirits, from whence there is no return.
II. Improve them by practical inferences. Such being the character of human life, it is the duty and wisdom of piety--
1. To enrich the juvenile mind with religious instruction. Man cometh forth as a flower, therefore let instruction drop as the rain and fall as the dew: no time must be lost.
2. Improve the dispensations of providence.
3. Be diligent.
4. Maintain a noble detachment from the world.
5. Live in a constant readiness for your change. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)
Human life troublous and brief
Goethe was considered by his compeers a man highly favoured of providence. Yet, what said he, as he drew near his end, and passed in review his departed years? They have called me a child of fortune, nor have I any wish to complain of the course of my life. Yet it has been nothing but sorrow and labour; and I may truly say that in seventy-five years I have not had four weeks of true comfort. It was the constant rolling of a stone that was always to be lifted anew. When I look back upon my earlier and middle life, and consider how few are left of those that were young with me, I am reminded of a summer visit to a watering place. On arriving one makes the acquaintance of those who have already been some time there, and leave the week following. This loss is painful. Now one becomes attached to the second generation, with which one lives for a time and becomes intimately connected. But this also passes away, and leaves us solitary with the third, which arrives shortly before our own departure, and with which we have no desire to have much intercourse.
And is cut down.--Never a day passes but we are presented with objects which ought to make us reflect on our final exit. And serious reflections on this important event would never fail to have a due influence on our conduct here, and, consequently, on our happiness hereafter. But such is the depravity of our nature, that, regardless of the future, wholly engrossed by the present, we are captivated by the vain and empty pleasures which this world affords us. If man were capable of no higher happiness than what arises from the gratification of his carnal appetites, then to vex and torment himself with the thoughts of death would serve no other purpose but to interrupt him in the enjoyment of his sensual pleasures. But if, on the contrary, man is not only capable of but evidently designed by his Creator for a happiness of the most lasting and durable, as well as the most noble and exalted nature, then it is the greatest madness not to lay to heart and seriously to consider this great event, which is big with the fate of eternity. There is nothing in nature so full of terror as death to the wicked man. But to the righteous man death is divested of all its terrors; the certainty of the mercy of God, and the love of his blessed Redeemer, fill his soul with the most entire resignation, enable him to meet death with the most undaunted courage, and even to look upon it as the end of his sorrow and vexation, and the commencement of pleasures which will last when the whole frame of this universe shall be dissolved.
1. Some particulars that ought to make us reflect on death. Such as the decay of the vegetable world. There seems to be a surprising resemblance between the vegetable and animal systems. The Scriptures make frequent allusions to this resemblance, e.g., the grass. Sleep is another thing which ought to make us mindful of death. Death and sleep are equally common to all men, to the poor, as well as to the rich. We ought never to indulge ourselves in slumber till we have laid our hand on our breast, and in the most serious manner asked ourselves whether we are prepared alike to sleep or die.
2. The decay of our bodies, by sickness or old age, ought to make us reflect on our last change. The life of every man is uncertain; and the life of the aged and infirm much more than that of others; they, therefore, in a peculiar manner, ought to devote their meditations to this subject.
3. The death of others is another circumstance which ought to lead us to reflect on our own. From attending to these circumstances, and improving the feelings described, we may be enabled to appreciate the discoveries and embrace the consolations of the Gospel, which alone can enable us to conquer the fear of death, and to look forward with devout gratitude to that happy state where sorrow and death shall be known no more. (W. Shiels.)
Frailty of life
Some things last long, and run adown the centuries; but what is your life? Even garments bear some little wear and tear; but what is your life? A delicate texture; no cobweb is a tithe as frail. It will fail before a touch, a breath. Justinian, an Emperor of Rome, died by going into a room which had been newly painted; Adrian, a pope, was strangled by a fly; a consul struck his foot against his own threshold, his foot mortified, so that he died thereby. There are a thousand gates to death; and, though some seem to be narrow wickets, many souls have passed through them. Men have been choked by a grape stone, killed by a tile falling from the roof of a house, poisoned by a drop, carried off by a whiff of foul air. I know not what there is too little to slay the greatest king. It is a marvel that man lives at all. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 I. Pleads the common infirmity of human nature (Job_14:1-4).
CONTINUATION OF JOB’S PLEADING WITH GOD
I. Pleads the common infirmity of human nature (Job_14:1-4).
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Man, from the very nature of his birth, frail and mortal, suffering and sinful. “Born of a woman.” Allusion to the sentence pronounced on Eve after the fall (Gen_3:16), “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children.” Like parent, like child. Such a birth a plea with the Almighty for lenience and forbearance. Three evils resulting to humanity from that birth—
1. Mortality. “Of few days.” Man ever since the fall has been short-lived. Jacob’s testimony at the age of a hundred and thirty—“Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been” (Gen_47:9). The longest life short—
(1) In comparison with eternity;
(2) As compared with what it would have been but for the fall. Man’s death the result of sin. Probably the tree of life in the garden of Eden a symbol of man’s immortality, and a means of effecting it. Death among the lower animals no argument against the doctrine that man’s death is the wages of sin. As easy for God to make man’s body immortal as to make it at all. If man reaching the age of Adam and Methuselalr was short-lived, what is he now? Sad insanity, for the sake of this short span, to throw away a blissful eternity!
2. Suffering. “Full of trouble.” Man’s life on earth not merely sprinkled with with trouble, but saturated with it. The first scene disclosed by Scripture after the Fall is,—Adam and Eve weeping tears of anguish over a son slaughtered by the hand of his brother. A representative event. Man’s history, even under an economy of mercy and the operation of grace, a record of blood and tears. “Few and evil,” the description of most men’s lives. The “trouble” both inward and outward. Disquietude and unrest the natural man’s daily experience. No peace to the wicked. Man’s soul a sea continually agitated by the winds of passion. The name of external troubles “Legion.” Bodily diseases a part of that death which is the wages of sin. Death itself a prominent element in the troubles of life. Life clouded by the fear and apprehension of it, in respect either to ourselves or our friends. Deep trouble through its inroads into the domestic or social circle. Man’s inhumanity, unkindness, and wrong to his fellow-man. Reverses of fortune, poverty, want. Not least, the trouble superinduced by our own conduct. Suffering produced by sin as heat by fire. Trouble as man’s lot on earth a fact of universal experience. “The world is an abode which if it make thee smile to-day, will make thee weep to-morrow” [Hariri, an Arabian poet].
Man’s frailty and mortality set forth under two impressive figures:—
1. A flower (Job_14:2). “He cometh forth as a flower and is cut down.” Man compared to a flower—
(1) From its origin, the earth;
(2) Its beauty;
(3) Its delicate texture and construction, contrasted with the fruit;
(4) Its frailty;
(5) Its end. If allowed to grow, soon fades and falls off, but liable also to many casualties,—from the hand of men, the tooth of animals, the nipping frost, the mower’s scythe. Man the goodliest flower framed by his Maker’s hand. “Godlike, erect, with native honour clad.” His goodliness as the flower of the field. Like the blossom, which opens, expands, reaches its perfection, fades, and then falls to its native earth. More frequently is prematurely “cut down.” His life exposed to a thousand casualties. The flower however falls off only to make way for the fruit. If prepared by grace, man dies only to ripen in a happier sphere.
2. A shadow. “He fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not.” Time early measured by the shadow of a dial or a spear stuck in the ground. The shadow on the dial-plate never stands still. Glideson from hour to hour, from morning to noon, and from noon to night. The motion imperceptible, but constant and progressive. Neither stands still nor goes back. Only terminated by the setting of the sun or an unexpected cloud. So man’s passage from the cradle to the grave. Hastens to the evening of death, which however often arrives unexpectedly before it is noon. The primæval sentence in continual execution,—“Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” The shadow an appropriate emblem also of the pleasures and pursuits of time, as empty and unsubstantial.—Lessons:—
(1) To form a true estimate of the enjoyments and interests of time and eternity.
(2) To improve our fleeting stay in this world to the preparation for a better.
(3) To make a diligent use of present moments which alone are ours.
(4) To stand always prepared for life’s unexpected termination.
Human frailty employed by Job as a plea for leniency and forbearance (Job_14:3). “And dost thou open thine eyes upon (—pay rigid attention to) such an one (—one so frail, miserable, and short-lived)? and bringest me (or him) into judgment with thee” (—accusing and contending with him for his faults against thee)? The plea acknowledged by God (Psa_78:39; Psa_103:14; Isa_57:16; Gen_6:3). God however has opened His eyes on frail and suffering man, but differently from what Job intended. Has opened them in love and pity, so as to provide deliverance from man’s wretched condition. So in regard to typical Israel (Exo_3:7-8). God’s eyes opened graciously on every humble and contrite soul (Isa_66:2). On his covenant people, to watch over, defend, and bless them (Zec_12:4).
3. Depravity,—the third evil resulting to man from his birth (Job_14:4). “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.” From sinful parents can come only a sinful offspring. The plant must be according to the seed—the fruit according to the tree. God created Adam in His own likeness; Adam, after the Fall, begat children, not in God’s likeness, but his own (Gen_5:3). Men now shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin (Psa_51:5). “In Adam all die,”—spiritually as well as physically and legally (1Co_15:22). The corruption of human nature in its root acknowledged by the heathen. “Nobody is born without vices,”—the saying of a heathen poet. Man found everywhere and in all circumstances, corrupt and depraved. Savage and civilized partake of the same general character. Only to be accounted for by a common depraved nature. Children exhibit the same depravity as their parents. Deceit, envy, coveting, and self-will, common in early childhood. No outward restraint or appliances able to remove or overcome this innate depravity. No clean or holy thing ever brought forth out of man’s sinful nature. “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts,” &c. “A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit.” Grapes not gathered from thorns. What is holy may proceed from a sinful man, but not from a sinful nature. God does not produce the fruits of the Spirit from man’s old sinful nature, but from a new one imparted. Two distinct and opposite natures, the old man and the new, in a child of God, each producing its own proper fruits. The presence of the new makes the man a saint; that of the old a sinner. The believer is holy, and produces holy fruits in virtue of his new and holy nature; he is still sinful, and produces sinful fruits in virtue of his old and sinful one. Hence the Saviour’s teaching: “Ye must be born again.” The old nature crucified in a believer and destined to die; the new nature victorious even now, and ultimately alone in the field.
II. Pleads for removal or relaxation of his sufferings (Job_14:5-12).
His prayer, and the grounds of it.
1. His prayer (Job_14:6). “Turn from him” (or, “look away from him,” i.e., from Job himself), that he may rest (obtain relief from suffering, or rest in death), till he accomplish as an hireling his day” (or, ‘that he may enjoy,’ as far as a hireling may do so, ‘his appointed period’ of labour, viz., the present life, or find the rest of evening after his toil, viz., in death). Human life already spoken of as “the days of a hireling” (ch. Job_7:1);—
(1) As a certain definite period;
(2) As a period of toil and endurance. Job’s day now felt to be especially oppressive. The burden and heat of the day for day-labourers in the East, especially severe (Mat_20:12). The rest of evening greatly longed for (ch. Job_7:2). Job fluctuates between desire for alleviation of the burden, and for rest in the grave. So also in ch. Job_6:8-9; Job_7:19; Job_10:20. Times in a believer’s experience when life seems especially burdensome. The feeling of David (Psa_55:6); of Elijah (1Ki_19:4); of Jonah (Jon_4:3; Jon_4:8); of Jeremiah (Jer_9:2; Jer_12:5). Once the feeling of Jesus (Mat_17:17). Christ at such times, as “a river of waters in a dry place, and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” Believers not tempted above what they are enabled to bear. In the day of the rough wind, the cast wind stayed. Strength made equal to our day. “My grace is sufficient for thee.”
2. Grounds of the prayer (verse Job_14:7-12).
(1) The time of our stay on earth fixed by God himself (Job_14:5). “Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass.” Job troubled with no doubts on the subject of
Predestination
That God appointed the-bounds of man’s life as certain with Job as that He made him at all. This belief held firmly by the Arabians to the present day. The doctrine of the Bible. Our time in God’s hand. Man unable to add a cubit to his stature, an hour to his age. Consistent with the operation of second causes and natural laws. Means appointed along with the end. “Man’s life no more governed by the Stoics blind fate than by the Epicuræan’s blind fortune” [M. Henry]. The fact pleaded by Job as a ground for the mitigation of his sufferings. The few short years allotted on earth may be graciously spared such excessive, accumulated, and continued affliction. It is still with God to say both how long and how severe our sufferings on earth shall be. Predestination perfectly consistent with
Prayer
The Almighty not, like the God of the Stoics, bound by fate. May not change His purpose, but may alter His procedure. Changes in His out ward procedure already in His secret purpose. The thread of man’s life in God’s hands, to lengthen or shorten it according to circumstances already foreseen. Hence full scope for the exercise of prayer. Prayer and its answers no interference with God’s purposes. Not only what God does, but how He does it, already predetermined. Believing prayer one of the means appointed with the end. God builds up Zion at the “set time” to favour her, because He regards “the prayer of the destitute” (Psa_102:13-17). The duty and prevalence of prayer a fact as well of experience as of revelation. Prayer and its efficacy an instinct of human nature. One of the great moral laws under which God has placed His intelligent creatures. Man’s inability to reconcile it with his philosophy no argument against it. Man must pray; and God is the hearer of prayer.
(2.) Our departure from this world final and irrevocable. Man’s case at death is—(i.) contrasted with that of a felled tree (Job_14:7). “For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch (or shoot) thereof will not cease; though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die (to all appearance) in the ground; yet through the scent of water (—its gentle contact, like an exhalation or an odour,) it will bud and bring forth boughs (Heb. ‘a crop’ of shoots) like a plant (or, ‘as if it had been planted.’) But man (even in his best estate—Heb. ‘the strong man’) dieth and wasteth away (or, ‘is prostrated and gone’—loses all inward power of recovery or revival); yea, man (Heb.—man as sprung from the earth, ‘Adam’) giveth up the ghost and where is he?” (i.e., is no more to be seen—a Biblical and Arab phrase).—(ii.) Compared to water disappearing by evaporation, absorption, or otherwise (Job_14:11). “As the waters fail from the sea (or lake,—the term applied to any considerable collection of water, Jer_51:36; Isa_19:5); and the flood (or winter-torrent) decayeth and drieth up (in summer); so man lieth down (in the grave) and riseth not; till the heavens be no more they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.” Man at death disappears for ever as a resident of this present world. No return to a mortal life. “The bourne whence no traveller returns.” That needs to be well done that can be done only once. (See also ch. Job_7:9-10).
The question asked (Job_14:14)—“If a man shall die, shall he live again?”—capable of a double answer. In regard to the present world, or the world in its present state, No; in regard to a future resurrection, Yes. The fact of such resurrection, however, probably not, at least distinctly, in Job’s mind.
The doctrine of the
Resurrection
One of gradual development. Death viewed by most nations of antiquity as a “perpetual sleep.” Revelation assures us of an awaking out of it (Dan_12:2; 1Th_4:14-17). That awaking at the Lord’s appearing, when “the heavens shall pass away with a great noise” (2Pe_3:7; 2Pe_3:10-11). New heavens and a new earth the promised abode of resurrection saints (2Pe_3:13; Rev_21:1). Resurrection only to follow the sin-atoning and death-destroying death on the cross. Hence the slight knowledge of it by Old Testament saints. The knowledge of it to be only according to the knowledge of that which was the foundation of it. Life and immortality brought to light by Christ Himself (2Ti_1:10). As in Adam all die, so only in Christ shall all be made alive. Christ rose as the first-fruits of them that slept. Christ the first-fruits; afterwards they that are Christ’s at His coming (1Co_15:20-23). Only faint and occasional glimpses of the resurrection obtained by Old Testament believers. David’s hope expressed prophetically of the Messiah’s resurrection, rather than personally of his own (Psa_16:8; Act_2:25-31). The Lord’s second appearing, and His people’s resurrection as bound up with it, the blessed hope of New Testament believers. Vague and dim apprehension now exchanged for glorious certainty (2Co_5:1; Php_3:21).
State after death
The question “Where is he? (Job_14:10), solemn and important in relation to the man, viewed as possessing an immortal spirit. Only two states after death. Lazarus is carried into Abraham’s bosom. The rich man lifts up his eyes in hell, being in torments. “The wicked is driven away in his wickedness,” Where? Judas went to his own place. “The righteous hath hope in his death.” The penitent thief was in Paradise, while his lifeless body was cast into a pit. Where was his companion who died in his sins? Psa_9:17 gives the solemn answer. “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.”
III. Job desires a temporary concealment in the grave (Job_14:13).
“O that thou wouldst hide me in the grave until thy wrath be past (—the present affliction viewed as a token of that wrath); that thou wouldst appoint me a set time and remember me.” Has doubts as to the possibility of this wish being accomplished. “If a man die, shall he live again?” (Job_14:14).—Returns to his wish and states what would be the result of its being granted. “All the days of my appointed time (or warfare, as ch. Job_7:1) will (or would) I wait till my change (dismission or renovation) come. Thou shalt (or shouldst) call and I will (or would) answer; thou wilt (or wouldst) have a desire to the work of thine hands.” A confused wish of Job’s troubled spirit. Apparently inconsistent with his previous statements about man’s irrevocable departure out of this world. Prayer, especially in deep affliction, often without much reflection. Even believers sometimes know not what they ask. Yet a great truth in his words, though but dimly apprehended by himself. Truths often uttered through the presence of the Spirit, when but imperfectly understood by the speaker (1Pe_1:12).
“To the imagination may be given
The type and shadow of an awful truth.”
Much more when the human spirit is in intimate communion with the divine. God’s saints actually hidden for a time in the grave and the spirit-world. The words of the prophet (Isa_26:20), almost an echo of the patriarch’s. A set time actually appointed to God’s people for their recall from the grave. God remembers them there as he did Noah in the Ark (Gen_8:1). Their death precious in his sight. Their names engraven on the palms of his hands. Zion’s wall’s, though lying in ruins, continually before him (Isa_49:16). Living saints at the Lord’s appearing not caught up till dead ones have been raised (1Th_4:15-17). The righteous, previous to the last and great tribulation, mostly taken away from the evil to come. Hidden in their chambers for a little moment till the indignation be overpast (Isa_26:20). Observe—
1. Job’s faith and patience (Job_14:14). “All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come. Faith foresees the change for the better, and patience waits for it. Three “changes” in a believer’s experience—
(1) When he is born again, and passes from spiritual death to life.
(2) When he falls asleep in Jesus and enters the heavenly rest.
(3) When he rises from the grave to be made in body and spirit entirely like Christ, and to be ever with the Lord. Probably the third of these vaguely and dimly indicated in Job’s words. For this, as well as the change for the better at death, were his wish to be granted, he would patiently wait. Deliverance decreed for God’s people from all trouble and from death itself. The time of that deliverance in God’s hands. To be patiently waited for. Patient waiting the posture of believers in this world (Rom_8:23-25; 1Th_1:10; Heb_10:36). The vision is for an appointed time. The promise, Behold I come quickly. Blessed is he that waiteth. The change at a believer’s death worth patient waiting for; much more the change at the Lord’s appearing. At death we are unclothed, at the resurrection clothed upon (2Co_5:2).
2. Job’s joyous anticipation, should his wish be granted (Job_14:15). “Thou shalt call.” No awaking from the sleep of death but at the Divine call. “A wake and sing, ye that dwell in dust” (Isa_26:19). For the call, see also Joh_5:28; 1Co_15:52; 1Th_4:14-17. The call of the Bridegroom (Son_2:10-13).—A ready response given by believers to the call. “And I will answer.” The language of conscience innocence in the case of Job; of conscious acceptance “in the Beloved” in the case of every believer.—The reason of that Divine call—“Thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands.” Believers especially the work of God’s hands—
(1) In creation. Man’s body a masterpiece of Divine skill directed by Divine benevolence.
“In their looks Divine
The image of their glorious Maker shone;
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure.”
(2) In regeneration and sanctification. Believers God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus (Eph_2:10). The expression frequent in Isaiah as applied to God’s people (Isa_29:23; Isa_45:11; Isa_60:21; Isa_61:3). Believers a more costly work than all creation besides. Required the incarnation, suffering, and death of the Creator. The heavens the work of God’s fingers, believers the work of God’s hands (Psa_8:3). To this work of His hands God has a special desire. That desire one of—
(1) Pity and benevolence;
(2) Yearning affection;
(3) Complacency and delight. The Father’s desire is to them as His children; the Son’s, as His Bride and the purchase of His blood; the Spirit’s as His especial work. Faith unable, in the darkest time, to give up the idea of God’s loving fatherhood. Looks through the gloomy passage of the grave, and sees more or less clearly a light shining at the farther end.
IV. Complains again of God’s present severity (Job_14:16-17).
“For (or, ‘but’) now thou numberest my steps (taking strict account of all my actions); dost thou not watch over my sin (in order to punish it)? My transgression is sealed up in a bag (as if so much treasure, that none may be lost or left unpunished, or as so much evidence preserved against me); and thou sewest up mine iniquity” (in order carefully to keep it for future punishment). A constant recurrence of God’s present apparent severity. Remembered now, either as the reason for Job’s wish for concealment in the grave (Job_14:13), or as the contrast of its fulfilment (‘but now’ &c.). Hard to get over present grievances. All Job’s sufferings viewed as the result of God’s resolution to punish his every failure. Observe—
(1) “Faith and unbelief view God’s character and dealings in an opposite light;
(2) A time of darkness and trouble unfavourable for a right judgment. Job’s present view of God’s character and dealings entirely a mistaken one. His character is—“Slow to anger;” “Ready to forgive;” “Delighting in mercy.” Sin, however, in order to its being forgiven, thus dealt with in the case of the Surety. The iniquities of all the redeemed laid upon Him. Strict account taken of sin by God in dealing with the Sin-bearer. No sin pardoned in the sinner without being punished in the Substitute. God just while justifying the ungodly. Job’s view true in a dispensation of simple law. Not true in a dispensation of mercy and under the covenant of grace. Sad to live under a dispensation of mercy and not to avail oneself of its benefits. The worst of all cases, to have the guilt of a rejected Saviour added to all other transgressions.
V. Again bewails man’s mortality and wretchedness (Job_14:18-22).
First by comparison with the mutability everywhere visible in Nature.
(1) The mountain and the rock, that seem the firmest of all earthly objects. These, or at least portions of them, torn away from the rest by earthquakes or other agencies, fall and then lie mouldering and crumbling on the ground (Job_14:18). “And surely (or ‘but’) the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed,” &c.
(2) Stones, the hardest of earthly materials, are worn away by the slow continual action of water (Job_14:19). “The waters wear the stones.”
(3) The very soil forming the loose surface of the earth, with the trees, grain, &c., that grow in it, is washed away by floods. “Thou washest away the things that grow out of the dust of the earth” (or, “the floods sweep away the dust,” &c).
Man, a partaker of the general corruptibility and decay. “And (or, ‘so’) thou destroyest the hope of man” (—‘wretched’ man’s hope and expectation of prolonging his life on the earth). Human mortality in in keeping with the decay of all visible nature. Man ordinarily thinks of death as at a distance from him. “All men think all men mortal but themselves.” The hope of evading the last enemy vain. The sentence has gone forth, Dust thou art, &c. (Job_14:20). “Thou prevailest for ever against him (—‘always,’ or, ‘to complete victory’), and he passeth,” (or, “he is gone,”—departs of this world). Man properly uses his endeavour to prolong his life. Battles against the sentence, “unto dust shalt thou return.” In vain. The victory always with God who executes his own sentence. Three stages in this victory—
(1) Disease. “Thou changest his countenance.” Sickness alters the state of our frame, and the aspect of our face. Instead of the glow and plumpness of health comes the paleness and emaciation of disease. Job himself at the time an example of his own words.
(2) Death. “Thou sendest him away.” Death is God’s dismission. “Return ye children of men.” The world “a stage where every man must play his part.” The time for his exit in God’s hand.
(3) The disembodied state in the
World of Spirits
Represented by Job—
1. As a state of ignorance of what takes place on earth, especially as regards surviving relatives (verge 21). “His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.” Parents naturally very deeply interested in the prosperity or adversity of their children. In the spirit-world, ignorant of and unaffected by either. Absolute separation from all the living and the creatures of the present world. This however not necessarily to be regarded as a divine declaration of the real state of the case. Rather the utterance—(a) Of Job’s own melancholy spirit at the time; (b) Of the views generally entertained on the subject at that early period. The knowledge possessed by the departed in reference to survivors still a mystery. Among “the spirits of the just,” probably more of such knowledge than we are aware of. Joy among the angels of God over one repenting sinner. Naturally also among departed saints. Hence, still more, over a repenting relative. Such knowledge an obvious increase to their joy and praise. Angels constant attendants on believers in life, and their escort to paradise at death. Departed saints therefore probably made acquainted by angels, if not more directly, with the circumstances of converted relatives on earth. The mere worldly prosperity or adversity of surviving relatives, however, even if known, probably, as such, a matter of the utmost insignificance to departed saints.
2. As a state of suffering and grief (Job_14:22). “But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn” (or, “only his flesh shall have pain on account of himself, and his soul on account of himself shall mourn”). The dead man represented as occupied with his own concerns, not those of his surviving friends. His state not one of pleasure but of pain; his experience not one of joy but of grief. Spoken of man in general without reference to distinction of character. Also spoken according to the view then entertained of the state of departed spirits. That state one of anything but comfort or joy (see ch. Job_10:21-22). The “flesh” and “soul” here viewed as making up the man, who is regarded as still conscious in the spirit-world. That consciousness, however, one only of discomfort. Hence, the desire for life so prevalent in Old Testament times. Almost any kind of life regarded as preferable to an abode in the world of spirits. Such views natural, apart from revelation. Even still the views of many living under the Gospel but ignorant of its truths. The experience of the body transferred to the departed spirit, as if partaking of it. The thing dreaded in death—“To lie in cold abstraction and to rot.” Views of the spirit-world entirely changed since the Advent of Him who is both the Life and the Light. Life and immortality brought by Him to light through the Gospel. The kingdom of heaven opened to all believers. The spirit-world now their Father’s house—the better country—Paradise—the rest from labour—the Mount Zion—the place of Divine worship and communion—the heavenly Jerusalem—the general assembly and church of the first-born—the innumerable company of angels—the presence of Jesus, the Elder Brother and Mediator of the New Covenant. The views of Job more correctly applicable in reference to the unsaved dead. The rich man in hell (or Hades) lifted up his eyes, being in torment. Compared with the condition of an unsaved soul in the world of spirits—
“The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That ache, age, penury and imprisonment Can lay on Nature, is a paradise.”
Lessons:—
1. The comparative insignificance of worldly prosperity or adversity in view of the eternal world.
2. The infinite importance of seeming a place of happiness beyond the grave—
(1) For ourselves;
(2) For our children and friends.
3. The value of the Gospel, and the duty of making ourselves acquainted with its precious contents.
4. The paramount necessity of a personal interest in Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. Consider some of the grounds for believing that…
Job 14:14
I. Consider some of the grounds for believing that the soul of man is immortal. (1) The main current of human opinion sets strongly and steadily towards belief in immortality. (2) The master-minds have been strongest in their affirmation of it. (3) The longing of the soul for life and its horror at the thought of extinction. There must be correlation between desire and fulfilment. (4) The action of the mind in thought begets a sense of continuous life. All things are linked together, and the chain stretches either way into infinity. It is unreasonable to suppose that we are admitted to this infinite feast only to be thrust away before we have well tasted it. (5) A parallel argument is found in the nature of love. It cannot tolerate the thought of its own end. Love has but one symbol—For ever! its logic is, There is no death. (6) There are in man latent powers, and others half revealed, for which human life offers no adequate explanation. There is within us a strange sense of expectancy. A Divine discontent is wrought into us—Divine because it attends our highest faculties. (7) The imagination carries with it a plain intimation of a larger sphere than the present. The same course of thought applies to the moral nature.
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II. If we turn from human nature to the Divine nature, we shall find a like, but immeasurably clearer, group of intimations. (1) Without immortality there is failure in the higher purposes of God respecting the race; God’s ends are indicated, but not reached. (2) The fact that justice is not done upon the earth involves us in the same conclusion. (3) Man is less perfect than the rest of creation, and, relatively to himself, is less perfect in his higher than in his lower faculties. (4) As love is the strongest proof of immortality on the manward side of the argument, so is it on the Godward side. Divine, as well as human, love has but one symbol in language—For ever!
T. T. Munger, The Freedom of Faith, p. 237.
There is no distinct answer to be had to this question apart from God’s word. The inquiry may be presented as a twofold one: Is the soul immortal? Will the body be raised again?
I. As to the immortality of the soul, revelation alone can give a satisfactory answer. We may reason from the mind’s faculties, we may talk of its powers, and we may know the analogies that abound in nature. Still the doubt comes back again—a doubt so strong that it never dispelled the fears of antiquity. In Holy Writ alone we find that man is immortal, and that the breath which the eternal Jehovah breathed into man shall last as long as eternity.
II. In answering the second question, too, we must appeal to the declarations of Holy Writ, for if it occur, it is beyond the power of nature, and must be by supernatural power, and hence God alone can give the answer whether or not a resurrection of the dead can take place. In the New Testament the resurrection of the body is not only explicitly declared, but the doctrine of it is recognised as being the foundation of Christian faith. It is also made clear to our comprehension by the resurrection of Christ from the dead.
III. The Christian faith stands on the word of God. But while we rest it there, there are analogies in nature to help our minds, and, if possible, to impress more clearly this doctrine upon us. There is the sleep of winter, the reawakening in spring. There are the strange transformations in animal life, which, though analogies, are not proofs, for even these creatures shall die and be no more. They are not proofs, but they are illustrations of what almighty power can do.
IV. Without the resurrection God’s plan would be incomplete. If death were to reign, there would be no need of resurrection, but Christ was revealed "to destroy the works of the devil;" He became life to man; He became the second Adam to restore us. There needs to be a reunion, in order that the triumph through Christ shall be complete. Christ came to be a perfect Conqueror, to make no compromise with the enemy, to release man from under the curse of the Law, and as such He restores the soul to fellowship with God here, and by-and-bye He will call to the grave, and it shall give up its prey.
Bishop Matthew Simpson, Sermons, p. 331.
References: Job 14:14.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 432, and vol. xiii., No. 764; Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 127; R. D. B. Rawnsley, Sermons in Country Churches, 2nd series, p. 208.
Job 14:14-15
It was one of the accurate adjustments of God’s dealings that the man whose body was the most humiliated by suffering of all mankind was also the man who of all the Old Testament saints received the clearest revelation of the body’s future beauty and loftiness.
I. Job considered that even in its intermediate state the body would be precious to God. "Thou wilt have a desire to the work of Thine hands." Of that separate state we know but little. (1) That it will be a state of consciousness is evident, both from universal instinct and from the nature of spirit. Spirit can only exist in motion, and therefore the ancients called spirit perpetual motion. It is evident also from the general necessity that a creature once made to glorify God can never cease to glorify Him. (2) In the intermediate state the spirit must be happy. How can it be conscious and with Christ, and not happy? So that our Saviour doubly proves it when He says, "To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise."
II. Consider that broad foundation thought on which the patriarchs rested for everything, having the resurrection as its base, "Thou wilt have a desire to the work of Thine hands." It is upon this principle that we at once see the unspeakable comfort there is in the full, simple recognition of the doctrines of grace. Once let any part of the work of grace have man in it, and in the same degree it has uncertainty in it. Man does not return to his own designs. Man does not finish his own work. But God does. If therefore the beginnings are entirely God’s, "the ends" are perfectly sure.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 10th series, p. 265.
Reference: Job 14:15.—H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2161.
Job 14:19
I. As "the waters wear the stones," they teach us a lesson of perseverance. They write upon the rocks a parable of patient diligence. There are some things which must be done at a stroke, on the spur of the moment, or the opportunity is gone for ever. But the eye to see what is to be done, the skill to aim the stroke, the strength to give it, the coolness and courage to be as steady and self-possessed at the moment as if you had plenty of time to spare—these can come only by slow, patient, persevering work, like that with which "the waters wear the stones."
II. The waters as they wear the stones may teach us a parable of life. They may remind us what little things may in time do great mischief. Not a few homes could be found in which it would pay to have this motto put up in golden letters, if only everybody would learn its lessons. They seem to lack nothing that is needed for a happy home. What is amiss? Only this, that no one has learned how much both the happiness and the unhappiness of life depend on little things. Little opportunities for a kind action, a kind word, a kind look, slip by continually. And so, because life is mostly made up of little things, the happiness of home is bit by bit destroyed, even as "the waters wear the stones."
III. The water-worn rock teaches us another parable—a parable of character. Our character depends chiefly on the habits we form. There are good habits and bad habits. And how do these habits grow? Little by little, as "the waters wear the stones." The Bible speaks of a "stony heart"—that is, a heart hardened in sinful habits, in unbelief and forgetfulness of God. We cannot change the past, but God can forgive it. Tears of repentance cannot wash away one sin, but the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin.
E. R. Conder, Drops and Rocks, p. 1.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v14 Job 14:14. - Joh 11:25 - Joh 11:26.
Job
JOB’S QUESTION, JESUS’ ANSWER
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Job 14:14. - Joh 11:25 - Joh 11:26.
Job’s question waited long for an answer. Weary centuries rolled away; but at last the doubting, almost despairing, cry put into the mouth of the man of sorrows of the Old Testament is answered by the Man of Sorrows of the New. The answer in words is this second text which may almost be supposed to allude to the ancient question. The answer, in fact, is the resurrection of Christ. Apart from this answer there is none.
So we may take these two texts to help us to grasp more clearly and feel more profoundly what the world owes to that great fact which we are naturally led to think of to-day.
I. The ancient and ever returning question.
The Book of Job is probably a late part of the Old Testament. It deals with problems which indicate some advance in religious thought. Solemn and magnificent, and for the most part sad; it is like a Titan struggling with large problems, and seldom attaining to positive conclusions in which the heart or the head can rest in peace. Here all Job’s mind is clouded with a doubt. He has just given utterance to an intense longing for a life beyond the grave. His abode in Sheol is thought of as in some sense a breach in the continuity of his consciousness, but even that would be tolerable, if only he could be sure that, after many days, God would remember him. Then that longing gives way before the torturing question of the text, which dashes aside the tremulous hope with its insistent interrogation. It is not denial, but it is a doubt which palsies hope. But though he has no certainty, he cannot part with the possibility, and so goes on to imagine how blessed it would be if his longing were fulfilled. He thinks that such a renewed life would be like the ‘release’ of a sentry who had long stood on guard; he thinks of it as his swift, joyous ‘answer’ to God’s summons, which would draw him out from the sad crowd of pale shadows and bring him back to warmth and reality. His hope takes a more daring flight still, and he thinks of God as yearning for His creature, as His creature yearns for Him, and having ‘a desire to the work of His hands,’ as if His heaven would be incomplete without His servant. But the rapture and the vision pass, and the rest of the chapter is all clouded over, and the devout hope loses its light. Once again it gathers brightness in the twenty-first chapter, where the possibility flashes out starlike, that ‘after my skin hath been thus destroyed, yet from my flesh shall I see God.’
These fluctuations of hope and doubt reveal to us the attitude of devout souls in Israel at a late era of the national life. And if they show us their high-water mark, we need not suppose that similar souls outside the Old Testament circle had solid certainty where these had but a variable hope. We know how large a development the doctrine of a future life had in Assyria and in Egypt, and I suppose we are entitled to say that men have always had the idea of a future. They have always had the thought, sometimes as a fear, sometimes as a hope, but never as a certainty. It has lacked not only certainty but distinctness. It has lacked solidity also, the power to hold its own and sustain itself against the weighty pressure of intrusive things seen and temporal.
But we need not go to the ends of the earth or to past generations for examples of a doubting, superficial hold of the truth that man lives through death and after it. We have only to look around us, and, alas! we have only to look within us. This age is asking the question again, and answering it in many tones, sometimes of indifferent disregard, sometimes flaunting a stark negative without reasoned foundation, sometimes with affirmatives with as little reason as these negatives. The modern world is caught in the rush and whirl of life, has its own sorrows to front, its own battles to fight, and large sections of it have never come as near an answer to Job’s question as Job did.
II. Christ’s all-sufficing answer.
He gave it there, by the grave of Lazarus, to that weeping sister, but He spoke these great words of calm assurance to all the world. One cannot but note the difference between His attitude in the presence of the great Mystery and that of all other teachers. How calmly, certainly, and confidently He speaks!
Mark that Jesus, even at that hour of agony, turns Martha’s thoughts to Himself. What He is is the all-important thing for her to know. If she understands Him, life and death will have no insoluble problems nor any hopelessness for her. ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life.’ She had risen in her grief to a lofty height in believing that ‘even now’-at this moment when help is vain and hope is dead-’whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee,’ but Jesus offers to her a loftier conception of Him when He lays a sovereign hand on resurrection and life, and discloses that both inhere in Him, and from Him flow to all who shall possess them. He claims to have in Himself the fountain of life, in all possible senses of the word, as well as in the special sense relevant at that sad hour. Further, He tells Martha that by faith in Him any and all may possess that life. And then He majestically goes on to declare that the life which He gives is immune from, and untouched by, death. The believer shall live though he dies, the living believer shall never die. It is clear that, in these two great statements, to die is used in two different meanings, referring in the former case to the physical fact, and in the latter carrying a heavier weight of significance, namely the pregnant sense which it usually has in this Gospel, of separation from God and consequently from the true life of the soul. Physical death is not the termination of human life. The grim fact touches only the surface life, and has nothing to do with the essential, personal being. He that believes on Jesus, and he only, truly lives, and his union with Jesus secures his possession of that eternal life, which victoriously persists through the apparent, superficial change which men call death. Nothing dies but the death which surrounds the faithful soul. For it to die is to live more fully, more triumphantly, more blessedly. So though the act of physical death remains, its whole character is changed. Hence the New Testament euphemisms for death are much more than euphemisms. Men christen it by names which drape its ugliness, because they fear it so much, but Faith can play with Leviathan, because it fears it not at all. Hence such names as ‘sleep,’ ‘exodus,’ are tokens of the victory won for all believers by Jesus. He will show Martha the hope for all His followers which begins to dawn even in the calling of her brother back from the grip of death. And He shows us the great truth that His being the ‘Life’ necessarily involved His being also the ‘Resurrection,’ for His life-communicating work could not be accomplished till His all-quickening vitality had flowed over into, and flooded with its own conquering tides, not only the spirit which believes but its humble companion, the soul, and its yet humbler, the body. A bodily life is essential to perfect manhood, and Jesus will not stay His hand till every believer is full-summed in all his powers, and is perfect in body, soul, and spirit, after the image of Him who redeemed Him.
III. The pledge for the truth of the answer.
The words of Jesus are only words. These precious words, spoken to that one weeping sister in a little Jewish village, and which have brought hope to millions ever since, are as baseless as all the other dreams and longings of the heart, unless Jesus confirms them by fact. If He did not rise from the dead, they are but another of the noble, exalted, but futile delusions of which the world has many others. If Christ be not risen, His words of consolation are swelling words of emptiness; His whole claims are ended, and the age-old question which Job asked is unanswered still, and will always remain unanswered. If Christ be not risen, the hopeless colloquy between Jehovah and the prophet sums up all that can be said of the future life: ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ And I answered, ‘O Lord God, Thou knowest!’
But Christ’s resurrection is a fact which, taken in connection with His words while on earth, endorses these and establishes His claims to be the Declarer of the name of God, the Saviour of the world. It gives us demonstration of the continuity of life through and after death. Taken along with His ascension, which is but, so to speak, the prolongation of the point into a line, it declares that a glorified body and an abode in a heavenly home are waiting for all who by faith become here partakers in Jesus and are quickened by sharing in His life.
So in despite of sense and doubt and fear, notwithstanding teachers who, like the supercilious philosophers on Mars Hill, mock when they hear of a resurrection from the dead, we should rejoice in the great light which has shined into the region of the shadow of death, we should clasp His divine and most faithful answer to that old, despairing question, as the anchor of our souls, and lift up our hearts in thanksgiving in the triumphant challenge, ‘O death! where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory?’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Job's Third Speech (concluded)
Job's Third Speech (concluded)
1-6. Job pleads for God's forbearance on the grounds of man's shortness of life and sinful nature.
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1, 2. The well-known Sentence in the Burial Service.
3. Open thine eyes] i.e. watch so vigilantly: cp. Job_14:16, Job_14:17.
4. Job pleads the innate sinfulness of man.
5, 6. Let man spend his days in peace, seeing that his time is but short: cp. Job 7.
7-12. A tree has a chance of a second growth after it is cut down. Not so man. With him death is final. Job here reaches the depth of despair.
13-22. Despairing of any return to God's favour before death, Job is seized with a longing to remain in the place of the departed (Sheol) until God's wrath is past, when he should be forgiven and restored to His favour. Notice how Job assumes that God's hostility to him will not be permanent. He pictures God as conscious of this and as, in view of the future love He would feel for him, sheltering him in Sheol from His present anger. Yet though he dwells upon a possible return from Sheol to life in fellowship with God, he does not dream that it is more than an enchanting thought. If only a man might die and live again! No, that is impossible.
14. Will I wait] RV 'would I wait.' Come] RV 'should come.'
15. RV 'Thou shouldest call and I would answer thee: Thou wouldest have a desire to the work of thine hands.'
16, 17. These vv. probably are not, as AV and RV take them, the present contrast to the glowing picture of the future that he has been wishing might be true, but a continuation of that picture. Render, 'For then Thou wouldest number my steps; Thou wouldest not watch over my sin; my transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and Thou wouldest cover over my iniquity.' God would number his steps in kindly care (cp. 'the very hairs of your head are all numbered'). He would no longer treasure up his sin against him, but bide it away out of sight.
18, 19. And] render, 'But.' Under God's visitation the hopes of men come to nought, like undermined mountains or water-worn rocks.
20-22. A description of what happens after the death change passes over the face and the spirit goes away to Sheol. The dead have lost all knowledge, all interest in the things of earth, even in the fortunes of their own children (cp. Sir_19:5-6). In the grave the body passes through the painful process of decomposition, the pain of which is also felt by its shade in Sheol.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v13 Heb. "Sheol," (See Scofield "Hab 2:5").
grave
Heb. "Sheol," (See Scofield "Hab 2:5").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 13 A Complaint over Life’s Troubles
A Complaint over Life’s Troubles
v. 1. Man that is born of a woman, feeble, frail mortal that he is, is of few days and full of trouble, Psa 90:10.
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v. 2. He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down, coming up quickly, maturing rapidly, and withering as soon; he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not, as the shadow of a cloud hastens over the landscape in a moment of time. The entire first verse is really the subject of the second, the clauses showing man’s frailty, his mortality, and his natural affliction modifying the subject "man. "
v. 3. And dost Thou open Thine eyes upon such an one, watching him only for the sake of punishing him, feeble and frail as he is, and bringest me into judgment with Thee? Job, who considered himself a particularly wretched example of the human race, was placed before the tribunal of God’s justice, where he knew that it was impossible for him to maintain his cause.
v. 4. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. It is a deep cry of misery over the universal sinfulness of the human race, which caused the unpitying severity of God to strike them all, and Job in particular. The human race having once been contaminated by sin, not one pure person will ever come forth in the natural line of development; the wrath and punishment of God rests on all mortals.
v. 5. Seeing his days are determined, cut off, sharply bounded, the number of his months are with Thee, also established beforehand by God; Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass, the term of his earthly life is set, and he cannot change it; this being so, then
v. 6. turn from him that he may rest, have surcease from sorrow and misery, till he shall accomplish, as an hireling, his day, that he at least, while this life lasts, may enjoy it, as a day-laborer finds pleasure in his day, namely, in the rest which the shadow of evening brings after the day’s task is finished.
v. 7. For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, the stump sending up a new shoot, and that the tender branch thereof, the suckling which is thus growing up, will not cease. The date-palm of the Orient is especially noted for its great vitality in this respect.
v. 8. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, apparently yielding to decay, and the stock thereof die in the ground, the trunk decaying down to the roots,
v. 9. yet through the scent of water it will bud, it will sprout with new life as soon as the rainy season brings the vigor of water, and bring forth boughs like a plant, just like a sapling but recently planted.
v. 10. But man dieth and wasteth away, lying there prostrate; yea, man giveth up the ghost, expiring miserably, without the hope of rejuvenation, and where is he? What becomes of him, of his proud body? Cf Ecc 3:21.
v. 11. As the waters fail from the sea, literally, "the waters roll off," disappear, out of the sea, and the flood, a stream, decayeth and drieth up, the evaporating of even large bodies of water during the dry season being no uncommon phenomenon in the torrid regions of the Orient,
v. 12. so man lieth down and riseth not, there will be no return for him to this earthly life, till the heavens be no more; they shall not awake nor be raised out of their sleep, they sleep the long sleep of death, which will be terminated only by the great catastrophe at the end of the world. For the ordinary person there is only the dark night of the grave ahead, a poor improvement upon the miserable present. Only the believer has something more and better to hope for.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 15, 18, 20 General Information:
General Information:
This chapter continues Job's speech, which started in Job 12:1. Job is speaking to God.
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Man, who is born of woman
This refers to all people, both men and women; all are born into this world. (See: When Masculine Words Include Women)
lives only a few days
This is an exaggeration to emphasize that people live only a short time. AT: "lives only a very short time" (See: Hyperbole and Generalization)
is full of trouble
Being "full of trouble" represents experiencing much trouble. AT: "has many troubles" or "suffers much" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
He sprouts from the ground like a flower and is cut down
Like the life of a flower, a person's life is short and is easily killed. (See: Simile)
he flees like a shadow and does not last
A person's short life is compared to a shadow that disappears quickly. (See: Simile)
Do you look at any of these?
Job implies that he does not want God to pay so much attention to him. AT: "You do not look at any of these." or "You do not pay so much attention to these. Please do not pay so much attention to me." (See: Rhetorical Question)
look at
Here looking at some one represents paying attention to him in order to judge him. AT: "pay attention to" or "look for faults in"
Do you bring me into judgment with you?
Job uses this question to show his surprise that God judges him even though Job is so insignificant like the flowers. AT: "But you judge me." (See: Rhetorical Question)
translationWords
life
trouble
shadow
judge
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 12, 13, 16, 17, 22 14:1-2 The flower is an image of life’s brevity…
14:1-2 The flower is an image of life’s brevity (Pss 90:5-6; 103:15-16; Isa 40:6-7). • A shadow passes swiftly (1 Chr 29:15; Ps 102:11).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.