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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Job 14:1 - 14:12
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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.
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.