Job 14:1

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

Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. Woman - feeble, and in the East looked down upon (Genesis 2:21).

JOB CHAPTER 14 Man’ s natural misery, sin, and short life, our plea with God not to disturb us by his power, but suffer us to accomplish our appointed time, . The other creatures decay and revive; but man, once dead, returneth not till the end of all things, . He wisheth to be hid in the grave, in hopes of the resurrection, ; for that here God was strict in marking his iniquity, and prevailed against him, . Man’ s misery with respect to his children, ,22. 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, , and withal corrupt and sinful, and of that sex by which sin and calamity was brought into the world. See ,14. Or, 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.

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, Genesis 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.) 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, Hebrews 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.

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.

CHAPTER XIV The shortness, misery, and sinfulness of man's life, 14. 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.

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 (Genesis 3:16) must also be weak and doomed to trouble, cf. ch. Job 15:14, Job 25:4.

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.

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.