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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 14:1 - 14:1
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
1 Man that is born of a woman,
Short of days and full of unrest,
2 Cometh forth as a flower and is cut down;
He fleeth as a shadow, and continueth not.
3 Moreover, Thou openest Thine eyes upon him,
And Thou drawest me before Thy tribunal.
Even if he yields to the restraint which his suffering imposes on him, to regard himself as a sinner undergoing punishment, he is not able to satisfy himself by thus persuading himself to this view of God's conduct towards him. How can God pass so strict a judgment on man, whose life is so short and full of sorrow, and which cannot possibly be pure from sin? - Job 14:1. אָדָם is followed by three clauses in apposition, or rather two, for אִשָּׁה יְלוּד (lxx γεννητὸς γυναικός, as Mat 11:11; comp. γέννημα γυν. Sir. 10:18) belongs to the subject as an adjectival clause: woman-born man, short-lived, and full of unrest, opens out as a flower. Woman is weak, with pain she brings forth children; she is impure during her lying-in, therefore weakness, suffering, and impurity is the portion of man even from the birth (Job 15:14; Job 25:4). As קְצַר is the constr. of קָצֵר, so (רֹגֶז) שְׂבַע is from שָׂבֵעַ, which here, as Job 10:15, has the strong signification: endowed (with adversity). It is questionable whether וַיִּמָּל, Job 14:2, signifies et marcescit or et succiditur. We have decided here as elsewhere (vid., on Psa 37:2; Psa 90:6, Genesis, S. 383) in favour of the latter meaning, and as the Targ. (אֶתְמֹולַל), translated “he is mown down.” For this meaning (prop. to cut off from above or before, to lop off), - in which the verb מָלַל (מוּל נָמַל) is become technical for the περιτομή, - is most probably favoured by its application in Job 24:24; where Jerome however translates, sicut summitates spicarum conterentur, since he derives ימלו from מלל in the signification not found in the Bible (unless perhaps retained in מְלִילָה ni , Deu 23:25), fricare (Arab. mll, frigere, to parch). At the same time, the signification marcescere, which certainly cannot be combined with praecidere, but may be with fricare (conterere), is not unnatural; it is more appropriate to a flower (comp. נבל ציץ, Isa 40:7); it accords with the parallelism Psa 37:2, and must be considered etymologically possible in comparison with קָ־מֵל אָ־מֵל. But it is not supported by any dialect, and none of the old translations furnish any certain evidence in its favour; יְמֹולֵל, Psa 90:6, which is to be understood impersonally rather than intransitively, does not favour it; and none of the passages in which יִמַּל occurs demand it: least of all Job 24:24, where praeciduntur is more suitable than, and Job 18:16, praeciditur, quite as suitable as, marcescit. For these reasons we also take וַיִּמָּל here, not as fut. Kal from מלל, or, as Hahn, from נָמֵל = נָבֵל, to wither, but as fut. Niph. from מָלַל, to cut down. At the same time, we do not deny the possibility of the notion of withering having been connected with ימל, whether it be that it belonged originally and independently to the root מל, or has branched off from some other radical notion, as “to fall in pieces” (lxx here ἐξέπεσεν, and similarly also Job 18:16; Job 24:24; comp. מְלָחִים, rags, נִמְלַח, to come to pieces, to be dissolved) or “to become soft” (with which the significations in the dialects, to grind and to parch, may be connected). As a flower, which having opened out is soon cut or withered, is man: אף, accedit quod, insuper. This particle, related to ἐπὶ, adds an enhancing cumulat. More than this, God keeps His eye open (not: His eyes, for the correct reading, expressly noted by the Masora, is עֵינֶךָ without Jod plur.), עַל־זֶה, super hoc s. tali, over this poor child of man, who is a perishable flower, and not a “walking light, but a fleeting shadow” (Gregory the Great), to watch for and punish his sins, and brings Job to judgment before himself, His tribunal which puts down every justification. Elsewhere the word is pointed בַמשׁפט, Job 9:32; Job 22:4; here it is בְמשׁפט, because the idea is rendered determinate by the addition of עמך.