Job 14:2-12

2 He comes up like a flower and withers away, flees like a shadow, doesn't last.

3 You fix your eyes on a creature like this? You drag him to court with you?

4 Who can bring what is pure from something impure? No one!

5 Since his days are fixed in advance, the number of his months is known to you, and you have fixed the limits which he can't cross;

6 look away from him, and let him be; so that, like a hired worker, he can finish his day in peace.

7 "For a tree, there is hope that if cut down, it will sprout again, that its shoots will continue to grow.

8 Even if its roots grow old in the earth and its stump dies in the ground,

9 yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth branches like a young plant.

10 But when a human being grows weak and dies, he expires; and then where is he?

11 Just as water in a lake disappears, as a river shrinks and dries up;

12 so a person lies down and doesn't arise until the sky no longer exists; it will not awaken, it won't be roused from its sleep.

Job 14:2-12 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.