Job 14:13-22

13 “If only you would hide me in the grave and conceal me till your anger has passed! If only you would set me a time and then remember me!
14 If someone dies, will they live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait for my renewal[a] to come.
15 You will call and I will answer you; you will long for the creature your hands have made.
16 Surely then you will count my steps but not keep track of my sin.
17 My offenses will be sealed up in a bag; you will cover over my sin.
18 “But as a mountain erodes and crumbles and as a rock is moved from its place,
19 as water wears away stones and torrents wash away the soil, so you destroy a person’s hope.
20 You overpower them once for all, and they are gone; you change their countenance and send them away.
21 If their children are honored, they do not know it; if their offspring are brought low, they do not see it.
22 They feel but the pain of their own bodies and mourn only for themselves.”

Job 14:13-22 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 14

Job, having turned himself from his friends to God, continues his address to him in this chapter; wherein he discourses of the frailty of man, the shortness of his life, the troubles that are in it, the sinfulness of it, and its limited duration, beyond which it cannot continue; all which he makes use of with God, that he would not therefore deal rigorously with him, but have pity on him, and cease from severely afflicting him, till he came to the end of his days, which could not be long, Job 14:1-6; he observes of a tree, when it is cut down to the root, yea, when the root is become old, and the stock dies, it will, by means of being watered, bud and sprout again, and produce boughs and branches; but man, like the failing waters of the sea, and the decayed and dried up flood, when he dies, rises not, till the heavens be no more, Job 14:7-12; and then he wishes to be hid in the grave till that time, and expresses hope and belief of the resurrection of the dead, Job 14:13-15; and goes on to complain of the strict notice God took of his sins, of his severe dealings with men, destroying their hope in life, and removing them by death; so that they see and know not the case and circumstances of their children they leave behind, and while they live have continual pain and sorrow, Job 14:16-22.

Cross References 23

  • 1. S Job 7:9
  • 2. Psalms 30:5; Isaiah 26:20; Isaiah 54:7
  • 3. S Genesis 8:1
  • 4. Job 6:8
  • 5. S Job 7:1
  • 6. S 2 Kings 6:33
  • 7. S Job 13:22
  • 8. S Job 10:3
  • 9. S Job 10:4; Psalms 139:1-3; Proverbs 5:21; Jeremiah 16:17; Jeremiah 32:19
  • 10. Job 10:6; 1 Corinthians 13:5
  • 11. Jeremiah 32:10
  • 12. S Deuteronomy 32:34
  • 13. S Job 9:30; S Job 13:23; Hosea 13:12
  • 14. Ezekiel 38:20
  • 15. Job 18:4
  • 16. Ezekiel 13:13
  • 17. S Genesis 7:23
  • 18. S Job 7:6
  • 19. S Job 4:20
  • 20. S Job 7:10; Job 8:18; S Job 12:19; Job 27:19; James 1:10
  • 21. Job 21:21; Ecclesiastes 9:5; Isaiah 63:16
  • 22. Psalms 38:7; Isaiah 21:3; Jeremiah 4:19
  • 23. Job 21:21

Footnotes 1

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