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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 14:7 - 14:7
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7 For there is hope for a tree:
If it is hewn down, it sprouts again,
And its shoot ceaseth not.
8 If its root becometh old in the ground,
And its trunk dieth off in the dust:
9 At the scent of water it buddeth,
And bringeth forth branches like a young plant.
As the tree falleth so it lieth, says a cheerless proverb. Job, a true child of his age, has a still sadder conception of the destiny of man in death; and the conflict through which he is passing makes this sad conception still sadder than it otherwise is. The fate of the tree is far from being so hopeless as that of man; for (1) if a tree is hewn down, it (the stump left in the ground) puts forth new shoots (on הֶֽחֱליף, vid., on Psa 90:6), and young branches (יֹונֶקֶת, the tender juicy sucker μόσχος) do not cease. This is a fact, which is used by Isaiah (Isa 6:1-13) as an emblem of a fundamental law in operation in the history of Israel: the terebinth and oak there symbolize Israel; the stump (מצבת) is the remnant that survives the judgment, and this remnant becomes the seed from which a new sanctified Israel springs up after the old is destroyed. Carey is certainly not wrong when he remarks that Job thinks specially of the palm (the date), which is propagated by such suckers; Shaw's expression corresponds exactly to לא תחדל: “when the old trunk dies, there is never wanting one or other of these offsprings to succeed it.” Then (2) if the root of a tree becomes old (חִזְקִין inchoative Hiphil: senescere, Ew. §122, c) in the earth, and its trunk (גֶּזַע also of the stem of an undecayed tree, Isa 40:24) dies away in the dust, it can nevertheless regain its vitality which had succumbed to the weakness of old age: revived by the scent (רֵיחַ always of scent, which anything exhales, not, perhaps Son 1:3 only excepted, odor = odoratus) of water, it puts forth buds for both leaves and flowers, and brings forth branches (קָצִיר, prop. cuttings, twigs) again, כמו נָֽטַע, like a plant, or a young plant (the form of נֶטַע in pause), therefore, as if fresh planted, lxx ὥσπερ νεόφυτον. One is here at once reminded of the palm which, on the one hand, is pre-eminently a φιλυδρον φυτόν,
(Note: When the English army landed in Egypt in 1801, Sir Sydney Smith gave the troops the sure sign, that wherever date-trees grew there must be water; and this is supported by the fact of people digging after it generally, within a certain range round the tree within which the roots of the tree could obtain moisture from the fluid. - Vid., R. Wilson's History of the Expedition to Egypt, p. 18.)
on the other hand possesses a wonderful vitality, whence it is become a figure for youthful vigour. The palm and the phoenix have one name, and not without reason. The tree reviving as from the dead at the scent of water, which Job describes, is like that wondrous bird rising again from its own ashes (vid., on Job 29:18). Even when centuries have at last destroyed the palm - says Masius, in his beautiful and thoughtful studies of nature - thousands of inextricable fibres of parasites cling about the stem, and delude the traveller with an appearance of life.