Job 14:3-13

3 Lord, do you need to watch me like this? Must you bring me before you to be judged?

4 No one can bring something clean from something dirty.

5 Our time is limited. You have given us only so many months to live and have set limits we cannot go beyond.

6 So look away from us and leave us alone until we put in our time like a laborer.

7 "If a tree is cut down, there is hope that it will grow again and will send out new branches.

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

9 at the smell of water it will bud and put out new shoots like a plant.

10 But we die, and our bodies are laid in the ground; we take our last breath and are gone.

11 Water disappears from a lake, and a river loses its water and dries up.

12 In the same way, we lie down and do not rise again; we will not get up or be awakened until the heavens disappear.

13 "I wish you would hide me in the grave; hide me until your anger is gone. I wish you would set a time and then remember me!

Job 14:3-13 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.