Job 14:11-21

11 For the sea wastes in time, and a river fails and is dried up.

12 And man that has lain down shall certainly not rise again till the heaven be dissolved, and they shall not awake from their sleep.

13 For oh that thou hadst kept me in the grave, and hadst hidden me until thy wrath should cease, and thou shouldest set me a time in which thou wouldest remember me!

14 For if a man should die, shall he live , having accomplished the days of his life? I will wait till I exist again?

15 Then shalt thou call, and I will hearken to thee: but do not thou reject the work of thine hands.

16 But thou hast numbered my devices: and not one of my sins shall escape thee?

17 An thou hast sealed up my transgressions in a bag, and marked if I have been guilty of any transgression unawares.

18 And verily a mountain falling will utterly be destroyed, and a rock shall be worn out of its place.

19 The waters wear the stones, and waters falling headlong a heap of the earth: and thou destroyest the hope of man.

20 Thou drivest him to an end, and he is gone: thou settest thy face against him, and sendest him away;

21 and though his children be multiplied, he knows not; and if they be few, he is not aware.

Job 14:11-21 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.