Job 14

Job speaks to God about how brief and frail human life is. He wishes God would give him rest, and he longs for a hope beyond the grave, though he cannot yet see one clearly. The chapter swings between a flicker of hope in verses 13-17 and deep sorrow in verses 18-22.

Job 14:1

Job begins with the human condition in general. Every person comes from a mother, lives only a few days, and is crowded with trouble. He is not just complaining about himself; he is describing all of us before God.

BSA: trouble (“turmoil, commotion”): Life is pictured as restless and stormy, not merely sad.

See also: Psalm 90:10.

Job 14:2

Two pictures show how fragile life is. A flower blooms and is cut down. A shadow slips across the ground and is gone. Neither stays. Job feels how little there is to hold on to.

BSA: fleeting (“passing, transient”): The shadow does not stay; it moves on and disappears.

See also: Psalm 103:15-16; James 4:14.

Job 14:3

Job is amazed that God would fix His searching eyes on someone so small and then put him on trial. He asks whether so frail a creature is worth such close judgment.

BSA: judgment (“a place of justice”): Job imagines himself standing in God’s courtroom.

See also: Psalm 143:2.

Job 14:4

Job admits that no one can produce purity from an impure source. Every human being is born with a sinful nature, so no one can make himself clean. The verse points to a need only God can meet.

BSA: unclean (“impure, sinful, tainted with evil”): The problem is moral stain, not just weakness.

See also: Psalm 51:5; Romans 5:12.

Job 14:5

Job says God has already fixed the length of our lives. Our months are counted, and we cannot step past the boundary He has set. Job takes this as a reason for God to be gentle with us.

BSA: limits (“boundaries, statutes”): God has set a firm decree around each life.

Job 14:6

Job asks God to look away and leave him alone for a while. He wants the rest a hired laborer gets at the end of a hard day. His plea is for relief, not for an end to his relationship with God.

BSA: hired hand (“hireling, laborer, like a servant working for payment”): A worker at least looks forward to the end of his shift, and Job longs for the same.

See also: Job 7:1-2.

Job 14:7-9

A tree has hope. Even when cut down and apparently dead, it can sprout again. The smell of water is enough to wake it. Job points to nature to show what he longs for himself.

BSA: scent (“aroma, fragrance”): Even the faintest trace of water revives the stump.

See also: Isaiah 11:1.

Job 14:10

Human beings seem different from trees. A man dies, is laid low, and is gone. Job’s question, where is he, is the cry of every mourner who has watched someone breathe a last breath.

BSA: laid low (“becomes weak, decays, or wastes away”): Death strips a person of all strength.

See also: Psalm 39:13.

Job 14:11-12

A lake or river can dry up and leave nothing behind. In the same way, a person lies down in death and does not get up in this age. Job says this will continue until the heavens are gone, a distant, final horizon.

BSA: sleep (“a state of unconsciousness, death”): Death is pictured as sleep, which hints that waking may someday come.

See also: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14.

Job 14:13

Job makes a bold wish. He wants God to hide him in Sheol, the realm of the dead, until His anger passes, and then to set a time and remember him. He sees the grave as a shelter and trusts God to remember.

BSA: Sheol (“the underworld, grave”): It is the place where the dead wait, out of sight. remember (“recall, mark”): To be remembered by God means He acts on your behalf.

Hebrew: שְׁאוֹל (sheʾol, H7585) — “the realm of the dead.” The Old Testament uses this word for the unseen place where all the dead go. Job treats it as a place where God could still hold him until the time He chose.

See also: Genesis 8:1.

Job 14:14

Job asks the great question: if a man dies, will he live again? He answers with patience, not proof. He will wait through his hard service, his time of trouble, until his renewal comes. It is a reaching toward resurrection hope.

BSA: renewal (“change, release”): Job hopes for a change that frees him from his present condition. service (“time of trouble”): Job sees his suffering as a hard tour of duty with an end.

Hebrew: חֲלִיפָה (chaliphah, H2487) — “change, renewal, relief.” The word is used for a change of clothes or a relief shift of soldiers. Job pictures his waiting as a watch that someone will end.

See also: Job 19:25-27; 1 Corinthians 15:51-52.

Job 14:15

Job pictures a day when God calls and he answers. The Creator will long for the creature He made. The thought is tender: God has not lost interest in the work of His hands.

BSA: desire (“long for, yearn to see”): God is pictured as missing His creature and wanting him back.

See also: Psalm 138:8.

Job 14:16-17

In that hoped-for time, God would no longer watch for Job’s sins. They would be sealed in a bag, locked away, and covered over. Job reaches toward forgiveness that God Himself provides.

BSA: sealed (“fastened, locked”): The sin is shut away like a document that cannot be reopened. cover (“smear, conceal”): The word suggests plastering over so the sin is hidden.

See also: Psalm 32:1; Micah 7:19.

Job 14:18-19

Hope fades again. Mountains crumble, rocks slide, and water wears down stone. Job feels that God likewise wears away a person’s hope little by little. The picture shows how heavily his suffering presses on him.

BSA: hope (“cord, expectancy, waiting”): Hope is pictured as a cord stretched tight, which is slowly worn through.

Job 14:20

Job says God overpowers a man once and for all. His face changes in death, and he is sent away. This is Job’s honest feeling, not a final judgment about God. He speaks his dark thoughts to God, not about Him.

BSA: countenance (“face, appearance”): Death alters the look of a person.

Job 14:21-22

Job closes with the dead knowing nothing of what happens to their children, and with a person feeling only his own pain and sorrow. The chapter ends in gloom. It shows that this grief needed answers that came more fully later.

BSA: unaware (“does not perceive, lacks discernment”): Job thinks the dead can no longer perceive what is happening on earth.

See also: Ecclesiastes 9:5.