Job 14

Guar. XIV. Ver. 1-22. Job reflects on the mortality of man: with some further allusions to a are perhaps as generally known as | first verses of this chapter almost any in the Bible, from their forming part of the Burial Service of the Episcopal Church: and we never so truly feel their force and beauty, as while standing over the grave of a beloved relative, or an esteemed friend. The fairest specimens of human nature are but as a fading flower, and the longest life but as a fleeting shadow. Death is the consequence of sin, and the contemplation of it therefore led Job, very properly, to consider the natural depravity under which he came into the world, and the arduous warfare in which he was engaged, to obtain a victory over it.

He then compares man to a tree, which, if cut down, will sprout again, though its branches should be lopped, and its stock decay: but man shows no sign of revival, while the present state of things endureth. The world must be remodelled, and nature be renewed, before man can be restored to life or happiness; but even of this he entertains a distant hope. Man lieth down and sleepeth in the grave; nor shall he awake till the last trump shall sound— till the Judge appear, and these lower skies shall flee before him. ‘O (says he) that thou wouldest hide me in the grave!’’—appoint (or mark for) me a set time, and remember me. (Then) thou shalt call and I shall answer thee: thou shalt have a desire to (Heb.

‘thou shalt yearn toward’) the work of thine own hands.” Of these last words it seems impossible to give any rational interpretation, without including in them a ‘hope though distant, of “ another and a better world?” and, indeed, what sense can we attach to the idea of awaking from the grave, if death were (as modern infidels would persuade us) an eternal sleep?: From this passage we may also derive a powerful argument against the base and cowardly crime of suicide, to which Job seems at first to have been tempted; but at which he now recoils, notwithstanding all his present sufferings. He considers himself as a soldier, stationed by providence to defend an important post, and he blushes, or rather shudders, at the thought of deserting 1 1 ing it without permission: he will not quit Future state.—The two | his station till relieved by death, and then, in the hope of being is, that “all things change; man, frail and feeble as he is, cannot expect exemption from the common fate of the universe; but all mortal hopes must terminate in the grave.

The last verse, if we mistake not, is highly poetical, and full of beauty; it represents the breath, the soul, as hovering over and bewailing the fate of the body while decaying in the tomb.” Here ends, as is generally reckoned, the second part of this admirable book, and with it the first series of debate between Job and his friends.

Notes on the verses

Chap. XIV. Ver. 3. Dost thou open thine eyes?—Scott (the poet) says, ‘“This expression denotes in (Zechariah 12:4), to look anxiously: we rather conceive it means to look with attention, “to fix the eyes,” like a judge, on a prisoner at his bar.., Ver. 4. Who can bring?—Who can produce innocence or purity from one fallen Adam? So Eben. born in sin? a descendant o’ So Eben Ezra explains it.—" Who can bring one that is pure from a man defiled with = bs Ver, 9. Through the scent of water it will bud.—A passage remarkably similar to this is quoted by Sir William Jones, from the Yajur Veda. It begins, ** Since the tree, when felled, springs again’ still fresher from the root, from what root springs mortal man, when felled by the hand of death?’ Ver.

10.. But man dieth.—{A tree when cut down may shoot forth new branches in the place where it before grew; but when man dieth and his body is reduced to dust, then where is he? So in a beautiful verse in the poet Khosroo: “I passed by the burial place, and wept sorely to think how many of my friends were in the mansions of the dead. And in an agony of grief I cried out, Where are they? And Echo gave answer, and said, Where are they?” |—Bagster. Ver. 11, The sea.—So the Hebrews call all large lakes, as those of Genesareth, Sodom, &c. Ver. 13. Hide me in the grave.—Heb. Shoel, which is alike used for the repository of dead bodies, and the receptacle of departed souls.—Appoint me set time.—Miss Smith renders it, “Set a mark on me;” but it seems rather to mean, “Set a boundary to my troubles.”

Ver. 14. Appointed time.—‘Warfare,” see ch. vii. 1.—Till my change come.—The LXX. render it, “Till I am made anew.” Michaelis thinks Job might here have some reference to a resurrection, which our Lord calls “a regeneration,” (Matthew 19:28). Compare (Acts 3:21). (Chaliphathi, “my change,” or renovation: it is used to denote the springing again of grass after it had been withered, ((Psalms 90:5-6).) which is itself 4 very expressive emblem of the resurrection. |—Bagster. er. 17. Sealed — bag.—It is common in the East, and not uncommon with us, to tell up large sums of money into bags or purses, and seal them: So Job considered his offences as having been told up, sealed, and preserved, to appear against him.

See Harmer. Ver. 22. His flesh upon him shall have pain.—Rather, “*waste,” or rot from off his bones.—And his soul within him shall mourn: this is, doubtless, inapplicable to the state of a dead man. Dr. Good reads, “His soul shall become a waste from him;” which is equally unintelligible. Dr. Boothroyd better, “His inward frame shall waste away.’ Scott is far more ant and poetical, if not too bold. He represents the man’s breath as mourning over him. See Exposition.