Job clearly understands no worse than his friends that there are no sinless people in the world...
Job clearly understands no worse than his friends that there are no sinless people in the world (v. 4). He also understands that human life is short and, as a rule, joyless (vv. 1-2). That is why he asks God for mercy toward man (vv. 3, 5-6), because man can do nothing about his own sinfulness. Besides, man is mortal, his life is passing, and he has nothing to hope for (vv. 7-12). Job believes in the resurrection, and he would also like to believe that after the resurrection the situation will change radically (vv. 13-17). Job dreams of the day when God, bringing him out of Sheol, will free him from the power of evil and cleanse him from all sins. Then at last Job will be able to stand face to face with God, and his sinfulness, from which no one can completely free himself, will no longer darken his righteousness. But this hope clearly seems ghostly to Job; he understands that everything will be very different and that there is no hope of better things for him (vv. 18-22).
Such hopelessness against the background of faith in the possibility of resurrection seems strange. But this passage in the Book of Job clearly reflects the spirit of the age in which it was written. Of course, Judaism of the fifth-fourth centuries BC had not completely lost faith in the resurrection and the day of Judgment, just as it had not completely lost its messianism. But this perspective was evidently not very distinct in it. In the Judaism of that age, it most plausibly happened as it did in medieval Christianity, where, unlike the first centuries of Christian history, the expectation of the second coming of Christ was usually not very intense. Job could not have been unaware that Judgment awaited everyone at the end of time, and that the existing order of things was to be replaced by the messianic Kingdom. Yet this knowledge remained somewhat abstract for him, abstract enough that he does not even firmly and unambiguously connect the day of Judgment and the resurrection with the complete transformation of the human person and his cleansing from sin.
Such cleansing, even after the resurrection on the day of Judgment, seems to him an impossible dream. It is no wonder that Job's view of human life in general, and of his own life in particular, proves so pessimistic: outside the context of the messianic perspective in the fullness revealed to the prophets, man truly had nothing to count on before the face of God's eternity. Job understands this, but he cannot change anything. Indeed, the perspective of the Kingdom was revealed to the prophets as part of the revelation they received from God. For Job, however, the main revelation was still ahead, and without it there is no serious way to speak about such things as Judgment, resurrection, and the Kingdom; they will still remain no more than theological abstractions or beautiful fantasies. Job has no time for abstractions or fantasies. He is seeking the answer to the chief question of his life, and he has no time left for anything else.
14 Man's life is but short, sorrowful, and sinful; on which consideration he pleads for mercy, Job 14:1-6.
Other creatures revive, but man does not, Job 14:7-12.
Various wishes and complaints, Job 14:13-22.
14:1 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.
14:2 Flower - 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 in the shadows of night. Of neither do we make any account, in neither do we put any confidence.
14:4 Not one - No man. This is the prerogative of thy grace, which therefore I humbly implore.
14:5 Determined - Limited to a certain period. With thee - In thy power and disposal. Thou hast appointed a certain end of his days, beyond which he cannot prolong his life.
14:6 Turn - Withdraw thine afflicting hand from him, that he may have some present ease. 'Till - He come to the period of his life, which thou hast allotted to him, as a man appoints a set time to an hired servant.
14:8 Die - To outward appearance.
14:9 Scent - By means of water. Scent or smell, is figuratively ascribed to a tree.
14:10 Man - Two words are here used for man. Geber, a mighty man, tho' mighty, dies. Adam, a man of earth, returns to it. Before death, he is dying daily, continually wasting away. In death, he giveth up the ghost, the spirit returns to God that gave it. After death, where is he? Not where he was: his place knows him no more.But is he nowhere? Yes, he is gone to the world of spirits, gone into eternity, gone, never to return to this world!
14:11 As - So it is with man. Or thus, as when the waters fail from the sea, when the sea forsakes the place into which it used to flow, the river which was fed by it, decayeth and drieth up without all hopes of recovery.
14:12 Lieth - In his bed, the grave. 'Till - Until the time of the general resurrection, when these visible heavens shall pass away.
14:13 The grave - The grave is not only a resting - place, but an hiding - place to the children of God. He hides them in the grave, as we hide our treasure in a place of secrecy and safety.Hide me there, not only from the storms of this life, but for the glory of a better. Until thy wrath be past - As long as our bodies lie in the grave, there are some fruits of God's wrath against sin: until the set time comes, for their being remembered, as Noah was remembered in the ark, Gen 8:1. Our bodies shall not be forgotten in the grave, there is a time set for their being enquired after.
14:14 Shall he live? - He shall not in this world. Therefore I will patiently wait 'till that change comes, which will put a period to my calamities.
14:15 Answer thee - Thou shalt call my soul to thyself: and I will chearfully answer, Here I am: knowing thou wilt have a desire to the work of thy hands - A love for the soul which thou hast made, and new - made by thy grace.
14:16 Numbereth - Thou makest a strict enquiry into all my actions.
14:17 Sealed - As writings or other choice things, that they may all be brought forth upon occasion, and not one of them forgotten. Thou keepest all my sins in thy memory. But herein Job speaks rashly.
14:18 And - As when a great mountain falls, by an earthquake or inundation, it moulders away like a fading leaf, (as the Hebrew word signifies) and as the rock, when by the violence of winds or earthquakes it is removed out of its place, and thrown down, is never re - advanced: and as the waters by continual droppings, wear away the stones, so that they can never be made whole again: and as thou wastest away, by a great and violent inundation, the things which grow out of the dust of the earth, herbs, and fruits, and plants, which once washed away are irrecoverably lost; in like manner, thou destroyest the hope of man: when man dies, all hope of his living again in this world is lost.
14:20 Prevailest - When once thou takest away this life, it is gone forever. Sendest - To his long home.
14:21 Knoweth not - Either is ignorant of all such events: or, is not concerned or affected with them. A dead or dying man minds not these things.