Job 14 commentary

Job enlarges upon the condition of man, addressing himself also to God. Every man of Adam's fallen race is short-lived. All his show of beauty, happiness, and splendour falls before the stroke of sickness or death, as the flower before the scythe; or passes away like the shadow. How is it possible for a man's conduct to be sinless, when his heart is by nature unclean? Here is a clear proof that Job understood and believed the doctrine of original sin. He seems to have intended it as a plea, why the Lord should not deal with him according to his own works, but according to His mercy and grace. It is determined, in the counsel and decree of God, how long we shall live. Our times are in his hands, the powers of nature act under him; in him we live and move. And it is very useful to reflect seriously on the shortness and uncertainty of human life, and the fading nature of all earthly enjoyments. But it is still more important to look at the cause, and remedy of these evils. Until we are born of the Spirit, no spiritually good thing dwells in us, or can proceed from us. Even the little good in the regenerate is defiled with sin. We should therefore humble ourselves before God, and cast ourselves wholly on the mercy of God, through our Divine Surety. We should daily seek the renewing of the Holy Ghost, and look to heaven as the only place of perfect holiness and happiness.

Though a tree is cut down, yet, in a moist situation, shoots come forth, and grow up as a newly planted tree. But when man is cut off by death, he is for ever removed from his place in this world. The life of man may fitly be compared to the waters of a land flood, which spread far, but soon dry up. All Job's expressions here show his belief in the great doctrine of the resurrection. Job's friends proving miserable comforters, he pleases himself with the expectation of a change. If our sins are forgiven, and our hearts renewed to holiness, heaven will be the rest of our souls, while our bodies are hidden in the grave from the malice of our enemies, feeling no more pain from our corruptions, or our corrections.

Job's faith and hope spake, and grace appeared to revive; but depravity again prevailed. He represents God as carrying matters to extremity against him. The Lord must prevail against all who contend with him. God may send disease and pain, we may lose all comfort in those near and dear to us, every hope of earthly happiness may be destroyed, but God will receive the believer into realms of eternal happiness. But what a change awaits the prosperous unbeliever! How will he answer when God shall call him to his tribunal? The Lord is yet upon a mercy-seat, ready to be gracious. Oh that sinners would be wise, that they would consider their latter end! While man's flesh is upon him, that is, the body he is so loth to lay down, it shall have pain; and while his soul is within him, that is, the spirit he is so loth to resign, it shall mourn. Dying work is hard work; dying pangs often are sore pangs. It is folly for men to defer repentance to a death-bed, and to have that to do which is the one thing needful, when unfit to do anything.

CHAPTER 14

Job 14:1-22. Job Passes from His Own to the Common Misery of Mankind.

1. woman--feeble, and in the East looked down upon (Ge 2:21). Man being born of one so frail must be frail himself (Mt 11:11).

few days--(Ge 47:9; Psa 90:10). Literally, "short of days." Man is the reverse of full of days and short of trouble.

2. (Psa 90:6; see on Job 8:9).

3. open ... eyes upon--Not in graciousness; but, "Dost Thou sharply fix Thine eyes upon?" (See on Job 7:20; also see on Job 1:7). Is one so frail as man worthy of such constant watching on the part of God? (Zec 12:4).

me--so frail.

thee--so almighty.

4. A plea in mitigation. The doctrine of original sin was held from the first. "Man is unclean from his birth, how then can God expect perfect cleanness from such a one and deal so severely with me?"

5. determined--(Job 7:1; Is 10:23; Da 9:27; 11:36).

6. Turn--namely, Thine eyes from watching him so jealously (Job 14:3).

hireling--(Job 7:1).

accomplish--rather, "enjoy." That he may at least enjoy the measure of rest of the hireling who though hard worked reconciles himself to his lot by the hope of his rest and reward [Umbreit].

7. Man may the more claim a peaceful life, since, when separated from it by death, he never returns to it. This does not deny a future life, but a return to the present condition of life. Job plainly hopes for a future state (Job 14:13; Job 7:2). Still, it is but vague and trembling hope, not assurance; excepting the one bright glimpse in Job 19:25. The Gospel revelation was needed to change fears, hopes, and glimpses into clear and definite certainties.

9. scent--exhalation, which, rather than the humidity of water, causes the tree to germinate. In the antithesis to man the tree is personified, and volition is poetically ascribed to it.

like a plant--"as if newly planted" [Umbreit]; not as if trees and plants were a different species.

10. man ... man--Two distinct Hebrew words are here used; Geber, a mighty man: though mighty, he dies. Adam, a man of earth: because earthly, he gives up the ghost.

wasteth--is reduced to nothing: he cannot revive in the present state, as the tree does. The cypress and pine, which when cut down do not revive, were the symbols of death among the Romans.

11. sea--that is, a lake, or pool formed from the outspreading of a river. Job lived near the Euphrates: and "sea" is applied to it (Jr 51:36; Is 27:1). So of the Nile (Is 19:5).

fail--utterly disappeared by drying up. The rugged channel of the once flowing water answers to the outstretched corpse ("lieth down," Job 14:12) of the once living man.

12. heavens be no more--This only implies that Job had no hope of living again in the present order of the world, not that he had no hope of life again in a new order of things. Psa 102:26 proves that early under the Old Testament the dissolution of the present earth and heavens was expected (compare Ge 8:22). Enoch before Job had implied that the "saints shall live again" (Jude 14; He 11:13-16). Even if, by this phrase, Job meant "never" (Psa 89:29) in his gloomier state of feelings, yet the Holy Ghost has made him unconsciously (1Pe 1:11, 12) use language expressing the truth, that the resurrection is to be preceded by the dissolution of the heavens. In Job 14:13-15 he plainly passes to brighter hopes of a world to come.

13. Job wishes to be kept hidden in the grave until God's wrath against him shall have passed away. So while God's wrath is visiting the earth for the abounding apostasy which is to precede the second coming, God's people shall be hidden against the resurrection glory (Is 26:19-21).

set time--a decreed time (Ac 1:7).

14. shall he live?--The answer implied is, There is a hope that he shall, though not in the present order of life, as is shown by the words following. Job had denied (Job 14:10-12) that man shall live again in this present world. But hoping for a "set time," when God shall remember and raise him out of the hiding-place of the grave (Job 14:13), he declares himself willing to "wait all the days of his appointed time" of continuance in the grave, however long and hard that may be.

appointed time--literally, "warfare, hard service"; imlying the hardship of being shut out from the realms of life, light, and God for the time he shall be in the grave (Job 7:1).

change--my release, as a soldier at his post released from duty by the relieving guard (see on Job 10:17) [Umbreit and Gesenius], but elsewhere Gesenius explains it, "renovation," as of plants in spring (Job 14:7), but this does not accord so well with the metaphor in "appointed time" or "warfare."

15. namely, at the resurrection (Joh 5:28; Psa 17:15).

have a desire to--literally, "become pale with anxious desire:" the same word is translated "sore longedst after" (Ge 31:30; Psa 84:2), implying the utter unlikelihood that God would leave in oblivion the "creature of His own hands so fearfully and wonderfully made." It is objected that if Job knew of a future retribution, he would make it the leading topic in solving the problem of the permitted afflictions of the righteous. But, (1) He did not intend to exceed the limits of what was clearly revealed; the doctrine was then in a vague form only; (2) The doctrine of God's moral government in this life, even independently of the future, needed vindication.

16. Rather, "Yea, thou wilt number my steps, and wilt not (as now) jealously watch over my sin." Thenceforward, instead of severe watching for every sin of Job, God will guard him against every sin.

number ... steps--that is, minutely attend to them, that they may not wander [Umbreit] (1Sa 2:9; Psa 37:23).

17. sealed up--(Job 9:7). Is shut up in eternal oblivion, that is, God thenceforth will think no more of my former sins. To cover sins is to completely forgive them (Psa 32:1; 85:2). Purses of money in the East are usually sealed.

sewest up--rather, "coverest"; akin to an Arabic word, "to color over," to forget wholly.

18. cometh to naught--literally, "fadeth"; a poetical image from a leaf (Is 34:4). Here Job falls back into his gloomy bodings as to the grave. Instead of "and surely," translate "yet"; marking the transition from his brighter hopes. Even the solid mountain falls and crumbles away; man therefore cannot "hope" to escape decay or to live again in the present world (Job 14:19).

out of his place--so man (Psa 103:16).

19. The Hebrew order is more forcible: "Stones themselves are worn away by water."

things which grow out of--rather, "floods wash away the dust of the earth." There is a gradation from "mountains" to "rocks" (Job 14:18), then "stones," then last "dust of the earth"; thus the solid mountain at last disappears utterly.

20. prevailest--dost overpower by superior strength.

passeth--dieth.

changest countenance--the change in the visage at death. Differently (Da 5:9).

21. One striking trait is selected from the sad picture of the severance of the dead from all that passes in the world (Ec 9:5), namely, the utter separation of parents and children.

22. "Flesh" and "soul" describe the whole man. Scripture rests the hope of a future life, not on the inherent immortality of the soul, but on the restoration of the body with the soul. In the unseen world, Job in a gloomy frame anticipates, man shall be limited to the thought of his own misery. "Pain is by personification, from our feelings while alive, attributed to the flesh and soul, as if the man could feel in his body when dead. It is the dead in general, not the wicked, who are meant here."

Man - born of a woman - There is a delicacy in the original, not often observed: אדם ילוד אשה Adam yelud ishah, "Adam born of a woman, few of days, and full of tremor." Adam, who did not spring from woman, but was immediately formed by God, had many days, for he lived nine hundred and thirty years; during which time neither sin nor death had multiplied in the earth, as they were found in the days of Job. But the Adam who springs now from woman, in the way of ordinary generation, has very few years. Seventy, on an average, being the highest term, may be well said to be few in days; and all matter of fact shows that they are full of fears and apprehensions, רגז rogez, cares, anxieties, and tremors. He seems born, not indeed to live, but to die; and, by living, he forfeits the title to life.

He cometh forth like a flower - This is a frequent image both in the Old and New Testament writers; I need not quote the places here, as the readers will find them all in the margin.

He fleeth also as a shadow - Himself, as he appears among men, is only the shadow of his real, substantial, and eternal being. He is here compared to a vegetable; he springs up, bears his flower is often nipped by disease, blasted by afflictions and at last cut down by death. The bloom of youth, even in the most prosperous state, is only the forerunner of hoary hairs, enfeebled muscles, impaired senses, general debility, anility, and dissolution. All these images are finely embodied, and happily expressed, in the beautiful lines of a very nervous and correct poet, too little known, but whose compositions deserve the first place among what may be called the minor poets of Britain. See at the end of the chapter, Job 14:22 (note).

Dost thou open thine eyes upon such a one - The whole of this chapter is directed to God alone; in no part of it does he take any notice of his friends.

Who can bring a clean thing - This verse is thus rendered by the Chaldee: "Who will produce a clean thing from man, who is polluted with sins, except God, who is one?" By Coverdale thus: Who can make it cleane, that commeth of an uncleane thinge? No body. The text refers to man's original and corrupt nature. Every man that is born into the world comes into it in a corrupt or sinful state. This is called original sin; and is derived from fallen Adam, who is the stock, to the utmost ramifications of the human family. Not one human spirit is born into the world without this corruption of nature. All are impure and unholy; and from this principle of depravity all transgression is produced; and from this corruption of nature God alone can save. The Septuagint, in the Codex Alexandrinus, reads the verse thus: Τις γαρ εσται καθαρο· απο ῥυπου; ουδε εἱς, εαν και μιας ἡμερας γενηται ὁ βιος αυτου επι της γης; "Who is pure from corruption? Not one, although he had lived but one day upon the earth."

Seeing his days are determined - The general term of human life is fixed by God himself; in vain are all attempts to prolong it beyond this term. Several attempts have been made in all nations to find an elixir that would expel all the seeds of disease, and keep men in continual health; but all these attempts have failed. Basil, Valentine, Norton, Dastin, Ripley, Sandivogius, Artephius, Geber, Van Helmont, Paracelsus, Philalethes, and several others, both in Europe and Asia, have written copiously on the subject, and have endeavored to prove that a tincture might be produced, by which all imperfect metals may be transmuted into perfect; and an elixir by which the human body may be kept in a state of endless repair and health. And these profess to teach the method by which this tincture and this elixir may be made! Yet all these are dead; and dead, for aught we know, comparatively young! Artephius is, indeed, said to have lived ninety years, which is probable; but some of his foolish disciples, to give credit to their thriftless craft, added another cipher, and made his age nine hundred! Man may endeavor to pass the bound; and God may, here and there, produce a Thomas Parr, who died in 1635, aged one hundred and fifty-two; and a Henry Jenkins, who died in 1670, aged one hundred and sixty-nine; but these are rare instances, and do not affect the general term. Nor can death be avoided. Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return, is the law, and that will ever render nugatory all such pretended tinctures and elixirs. But, although man cannot pass his appointed bounds, yet he may so live as never to reach them; for folly and wickedness abridge the term of human life; and therefore the psalmist says, Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out Half their days, Psa 55:23, for by indolence, intemperance, and disorderly passions, the life of man is shortened in cases innumerable. We are not to understand the bounds as applying to individuals, but to the race in general. Perhaps there is no case in which God has determined absolutely that man's age shall be so long, and shall neither be more nor less. The contrary supposition involves innumerable absurdities.

Turn from him, that he may rest - Cease to try him by afflictions and distresses, that he may enjoy some of the comforts of life, before he be removed from it: and thus, like a hireling, who is permitted by his master to take a little repose in the heat of the day, from severe labor, I shall also have a breathing time from affliction, before I come to that bound over which I cannot pass. See Job 10:20 (note), where there is a similar request.

For there is hope of a tree - We must not, says Calmet, understand this of an old tree, the stem and roots of which are dried up and rotted: but there are some trees which grow from cuttings, and some which, though pulled out of the earth, and having had their roots dried and withered by long exposure to the sun and wind, will, on being replanted, take root and resume their verdure. There are also certain trees, the fibres of which are so solid, that if after several years they be steeped in water, they resume their vigor, the tubes dilate, and the blossoms or flowers which were attached to them expand; as I have often witnessed in what is called the rose of Jericho. There are few trees which will not send forth new shoots, when the stock is cut down level with the earth.

Through the scent of water it will bud - A fine metaphor: the water acts upon the decaying and perishing tree, as strong and powerful odors from musk, otto of roses, ammonia, etc., act on a fainting or swooning person.

But man dieth - No human being ever can spring from the dead body of man; that wasteth away, corrupts, and is dissolved; for the man dies; and when he breathes out his last breath, and his body is reduced to dust, then, where is he? There is a beautiful verse in the Persian poet Khosroo, that is not unlike this saying of Job: - "I went towards the burying ground, and wept

To think of the departure of friends which were captives to death;

I said, Where are they! and Fate

Gave back this answer by Echo, Where are they?

Thus paraphrased by a learned friend: -

Beneath the cypress' solemn shade,

As on surrounding tombs I gazed,

I wept, and thought of friends there laid,

Whose hearts with warmest love had blazed.

Where are those friends my heart doth lack,

Whose words, in grief, gave peace? Ah, where?

And Fate, by Echo, gave me back

This short but just reply, Ah, where?

The waters fail from the sea - I believe this refers to evaporation, and nothing else. As the waters are evaporated from the sea, and the river in passing over the sandy desert is partly exsiccated, and partly absorbed; and yet the waters of the sea are not exhausted, as these vapors, being condensed, fall down in rain, and by means of rivers return again into the sea: so man is imperceptibly removed from his fellows by death and dissolution; yet the human race is still continued, the population of the earth being kept up by perpetual generations.

So man lieth down - He falls asleep in his bed of earth.

And riseth not - Men shall not, like cut down trees and plants, reproduce their like; nor shall they arise till the heavens are no more, till the earth and all its works are burnt up, and the general resurrection of human beings shall take place. Surely it would be difficult to twist this passage to the denial of the resurrection of the body. Neither can these expressions be fairly understood as implying Job's belief in the materiality of the soul, and that the whole man sleeps from the day of his death to the morning of the resurrection. We have already seen that Job makes a distinction between the animal life and rational soul in man; and it is most certain that the doctrine of the materiality of the soul, and its sleep till the resurrection, has no place in the sacred records. There is a most beautiful passage to the same purpose, and with the same imagery, in Moschus's epitaph on the death of Bion: - Αι, αι ται μαλαχαι μεν επαν κατα καπον ολωνται, Η τα χλωρα σελινα, το τ' ευθαλες ουλον ανηθον, Ὑστερον αυ ζωοντι, και εις ετος αλλο φυοντι· Αμμες δ', οἱ μεγαλοι, και καρτεροι, η σοφοι ανδρες, Ὁπποτε πρωτα θανωμες, ανακοοι εν χθονι κοιλα Εὑδομες ευ μαλα μακρον, ατερμονα, νηγρετον ὑπνον.

Idyll. iii., ver. 100.

Alas! alas! the mallows, when they die,

Or garden herbs, and sweet Anethum's pride,

Blooming in vigor, wake again to life,

And flourish beauteous through another year:

But we, the great, the mighty, and the wise,

When once we die, unknown in earth's dark womb

Sleep long and drear, the endless sleep of death.

J. B. B. C.

A more cold and comfortless philosophy was never invented. The next verse shows that Job did not entertain this view of the subject.

O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave - Dreadful as death is to others, I shall esteem it a high privilege; it will be to me a covert from the wind and from the tempest of this affliction and distress.

Keep me secret - Hide my soul with thyself, where my enemies cannot invade my repose; or, as the poet expresses it: - "My spirit hide with saints above,

My body in the tomb."

Job does not appear to have the same thing in view when he entreats God to hide him in the grave; and to keep him secret, until his wrath be past. The former relates to the body; the latter to the spirit.

That thou wouldest appoint me a set time - As he had spoken of the death of his body before, and the secreting of his spirit in the invisible world, he must refer here to the resurrection; for what else can be said to be an object of desire to one whose body is mingled with the dust?

And remember me! - When my body has paid that debt of death which it owes to thy Divine justice, and the morning of the resurrection is come, when it may be said thy wrath, אפך appecha, "thy displeasure," against the body is past, it having suffered the sentence denounced by thyself: Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die; then remember me - raise my body, unite my spirit to it, and receive both into thy glory for ever.

If a man die, shall he live again? - The Chaldee translates, If a wicked man die, can he ever live again? or, he can never live again. The Syriac and Arabic thus: "If a man die, shall he revive? Yea, all the days of his youth he awaits till his old age come." The Septuagint: "If a man die, shall he live, having accomplished the days of his life? I will endure till I live again." Here is no doubt, but a strong persuasion, of the certainty of the general resurrection.

All the days of my appointed time - צבאי tsebai, "of my warfare;" see on Job 7:1 (note). Will I await till חליפתי chaliphathi, my renovation, come. This word is used to denote the springing again of grass, Psa 90:5, Psa 90:6, after it had once withered, which is in itself a very expressive emblem of the resurrection.

Thou shalt call - Thou shalt say There shall be time no longer: Awake, ye dead! and come to judgment!

And I will answer thee - My dissolved frame shall be united at thy call; and body and soul shall be rejoined.

Thou wilt have a desire - תכסף tichsoph, "Thou wilt pant with desire;" or, "Thou wilt yearn over the work of thy hands." God has subjected the creature to vanity, in hope; having determined the resurrection. Man is one of the noblest works of God. He has exhibited him as a master-piece of his creative skill, power, and goodness. Nothing less than the strongest call upon justice could have induced him thus to destroy the work of his hands. No wonder that he has an earnest desire towards it; and that although man dies, and is as water spilt upon the ground that cannot be gathered up again; yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him. Even God is represented as earnestly longing for the ultimate reviviscence of the sleeping dust. He cannot, he will not, forget the work of his hands.

For now thou numberest my steps - כי עתה ki attah, Although thou, etc. Though thou, by thy conduct towards me, seemest bent on my utter destruction, yet thou delightest in mercy, and I shall be saved.

My transgression is sealed up in a bag - An allusion to the custom of collecting evidence of state transgressions, sealing them up in a bag, and presenting them to the judges and officers of state to be examined, in order to trial and judgment. Just at this time (July, 1820) charges of state transgressions, sealed up in a Green Bag, and presented to the two houses of parliament, for the examination of a secret committee, are making a considerable noise in the land. Some suppose the allusion is to money sealed up in bags; which is common in the East. This includes two ideas:

1. Job's transgressions were all numbered; not one was passed by.

2. They were sealed up; so that none of them could be lost. These bags were indifferently sewed or sealed, the two words in the text.

The mountain falling cometh to naught - Every thing in nature is exposed to mutability and decay: - even mountains themselves may fall from their bases, and be dashed to pieces; or be suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake; and, by the same means, the strongest and most massive rocks may be removed.

The waters wear the stones - Even the common stones are affected in the same way. Were even earthquakes and violent concussions of nature wanting, the action of water, either running over them as a stream, or even falling upon them in drops, will wear these stones. Hence the proverb: -

Gutta cavat lapidem non vi sed saepe cadendo. "Constant droppings will make a hole in a flint." Εκ θαμινης ραθαμιγγος, ὁκως λογος, αιες ιοισας, Χ' ἁ λιθος ες ρωχμον κοιλαινεται. "From frequent dropping, as the proverb says, perpetually falling, even a stone is hollowed into a hole."

Thou washest away the things - Alluding to sudden falls of rain occasioning floods, by which the fruits of the earth are swept away; and thus the hope of man - the grain for his household, and provender for his cattle, is destroyed.

Thou prevailest for ever against him - It is impossible for him to withstand thee: every stroke of thine brings him down.

Thou changest his countenance - Probably an allusion to the custom of covering the face, when the person was condemned, and sending him away to execution. See the case of Haman, in the note on Esther, Est 7:8 (note).

His sons come to honor - When dead, he is equally indifferent and unconscious whether his children have met with a splendid or oppressive lot in life; for as to this world, when man dies, in that day all his thoughts perish.

But his flesh upon him shall have pain - The sum of the life of man is this, pain of body and distress of soul; and he is seldom without the one or the other, and often oppressed by both. Thus ends Job's discourse on the miserable state and condition of man. The last verse of the preceding chapter has been differently translated and explained. Mr.

Good's version is the following, which he vindicates in a learned note: -

For his flesh shall drop away from him;

And his soul shall become a waste from him.

The Chaldee thus: "Nevertheless his flesh, on account of the worms, shall grieve over him; and his soul, in the house of judgment, shall wail over him." In another copy of this version it is thus: "Nevertheless his flesh, before the window is closed over him, shall grieve; and his soul, for seven days of mourning, shall bewail him in the house of his burial." I shall give the Hebrew: - אך בשרו עליו יכאב

Ach besaro alaiv yichab, ונפשו עליו תאבל

Venaphsho alaiv teebal.

Which Mr. Stock translates thus, both to the spirit and letter: -

But over him his flesh shall grieve;

And over him his breath shall mourn. "In the daring spirit of oriental poetry," says he, "the flesh, or body, and the breath, are made conscious beings; the former lamenting its putrefaction in the grave, the latter mourning over the mouldering clay which it once enlivened."

This version is, in my opinion, the most natural yet offered. The Syriac and Arabic present nearly the same sense: "But his body shall grieve over him; and his soul be astonished over him."

Coverdale follows the Vulgate: Whyle he lyveth his flesh must have travayle; and whyle the soul is in him, he must be in sorowe.

On Job 14:2. I have referred to the following beautiful lines, which illustrate these finely figurative texts: -

He cometh forth as a Flower, and is Cut Down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.

All flesh is Grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the Flower of the field.

The Grass withereth, the Flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

The morning flowers display their sweets,And gay their silken leaves unfold;

As careless of the noonday heats,As fearless of the evening cold.

Nipp'd by the wind's untimely blast,Parch'd by the sun's directer ray,

The momentary glories waste,The short-lived beauties die away.

So blooms the human face divine,When youth its pride of beauty shows;

Fairer than spring the colors shine,And sweeter than the virgin rose.

Or worn by slowly-rolling years,Or broke by sickness in a day,

The fading glory disappears,The short-lived beauties die away.

Yet these, new rising from the tomb,With lustre brighter far shall shine;

Revive with ever-during bloom,Safe from diseases and decline.

Let sickness blast, let death devour,If heaven must recompense our pains:

Perish the grass and fade the flower,If firm the word of God remains.

See a Collection of Poems on Sundry Occasions, by the Rev. Samuel Wesley, Master of Blundell's School, Tiverton.

Man - A weak creature, and withal corrupt and sinful, and of that sex by which sin and all other calamity was brought into the world.

Flower - The flower is fading, and all its beauty soon withers and is gone. The shadow is fleeting, and its very being will soon be lost in the shadows of night. Of neither do we make any account, in neither do we put any confidence.

Not one - No man. This is the prerogative of thy grace, which therefore I humbly implore.

Determined - Limited to a certain period. With thee - In thy power and disposal. Thou hast appointed a certain end of his days, beyond which he cannot prolong his life.

Turn - Withdraw thine afflicting hand from him, that he may have some present ease. 'Till - He come to the period of his life, which thou hast allotted to him, as a man appoints a set time to an hired servant.

Die - To outward appearance.

Scent - By means of water. Scent or smell, is figuratively ascribed to a tree.

Man - Two words are here used for man. Geber, a mighty man, tho' mighty, dies. Adam, a man of earth, returns to it. Before death, he is dying daily, continually wasting away. In death, he giveth up the ghost, the spirit returns to God that gave it. After death, where is he? Not where he was: his place knows him no more. But is he nowhere? Yes, he is gone to the world of spirits, gone into eternity, gone, never to return to this world!

As - So it is with man. Or thus, as when the waters fail from the sea, when the sea forsakes the place into which it used to flow, the river which was fed by it, decayeth and drieth up without all hopes of recovery.

Lieth - In his bed, the grave. 'Till - Until the time of the general resurrection, when these visible heavens shall pass away.

The grave - The grave is not only a resting - place, but an hiding - place to the children of God. He hides them in the grave, as we hide our treasure in a place of secrecy and safety. Hide me there, not only from the storms of this life, but for the glory of a better. Until thy wrath be past - As long as our bodies lie in the grave, there are some fruits of God's wrath against sin: until the set time comes, for their being remembered, as Noah was remembered in the ark, Gen 8:1. Our bodies shall not be forgotten in the grave, there is a time set for their being enquired after.

Shall he live? - He shall not in this world. Therefore I will patiently wait 'till that change comes, which will put a period to my calamities.

Answer thee - Thou shalt call my soul to thyself: and I will chearfully answer, Here I am: knowing thou wilt have a desire to the work of thy hands - A love for the soul which thou hast made, and new - made by thy grace.

Numbereth - Thou makest a strict enquiry into all my actions.

Sealed - As writings or other choice things, that they may all be brought forth upon occasion, and not one of them forgotten. Thou keepest all my sins in thy memory. But herein Job speaks rashly.

And - As when a great mountain falls, by an earthquake or inundation, it moulders away like a fading leaf, (as the Hebrew word signifies) and as the rock, when by the violence of winds or earthquakes it is removed out of its place, and thrown down, is never re - advanced: and as the waters by continual droppings, wear away the stones, so that they can never be made whole again: and as thou wastest away, by a great and violent inundation, the things which grow out of the dust of the earth, herbs, and fruits, and plants, which once washed away are irrecoverably lost; in like manner, thou destroyest the hope of man: when man dies, all hope of his living again in this world is lost.

Prevailest - When once thou takest away this life, it is gone forever. Sendest - To his long home.

Knoweth not - Either is ignorant of all such events: or, is not concerned or affected with them. A dead or dying man minds not these things.

1. MAn that is born of a Woman , is of few days , and full of trouble .

This expression is here used either, 1. To intimate the cause of Mans Misery, that he was born of Woman, a weak Creature, 1 Pet. 3. 7. and withal corrupt and sinful, and of that Sex by which sin and all calamity was brought into the world. See Ch. 15. 14. & Gen. 3. 17. 1 Tim. 2. 13, 4. Or 2. To note the Universality of the thing, Every man, every Mothers Son, as we use to speak. Mens Fathers are oft times unknown and uncertain, but their Mothers are always definite and certain. One man was then to be born, and afterwards was born without an earthly Father, to wit, our Lord and Saviour Christ; but no man was ever born without a Mother.

A short liv'd Creature in himself, and therefore needs no violent hand to cut him off, because he withereth so soon of his own accord.

And therefore a fitter Object for divine Compassion, than for his [illegible: 1+ letters]ury or severity. He chiefly intendeth himself, but he expresseth it thus generally, partly to relieve himself with the thoughts of the common Calamities of Mankind; and partly to move God with the consideration of the frailty and misery of humane Nature, and consequently of his condition.

Marginal references: Heb. [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] days.; Eccles. 2. 23.

2. He cometh forth like a Flower , and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow , and continueth not.

Out of his Mothers Womb, Ch. 1. 21.

Which quickly groweth up and maketh a fair shew, but soon withereth, or is cut down.

Which being made by the Sun, follows its motions, and is in perpetual variation until at last it quite vanish and disappear.

Marginal references: Chap. [illegible: 1+ letters]. 9. P[illegible: 1+ letters]. 90. 5, 6. & 102. 11. & 103. 15. & 144. 4. Isa. 4[illegible: 1+ letters]. 6. Jam. 1. 10, 11. 1 Pet. 1. [illegible: 1+ letters]4.

3. And dost thou open thine Eyes upon such an one , and bringest me into judgment with thee ?

Either 1. To take thought or care about him. Or rather 2. To observe all his ways, that thou maist find cause of Punishment. He is not a fit match for thee. It is below thee to contend with him, and to use thy infinite Wisdom and Power to crush him. This seems best to suit with the scope and context.

i. e. Pleadest with me by thy Judgments, and thereby, in a manner, forcest me to plead with thee, without granting me those Two necessary and favourable conditions, expressed Ch. 13. 20, 21.

4. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? Not one .

I do not say, I am clean, as Zophar pretendeth, Ch. 11. 4. but confess that I am a very unclean Creature, and therefore liable to thy Justice, if thou wiltst deal rigorously with me: but remember that this is not my peculiar case, but the common lot of every Man, who, coming from sinful Parents, and being infected with original Corruption, must unavoidably be unclean. Why then doest thou inflict such peculiar and extraordinary Judgments upon me, for that which is common to all men? And although my original Corruption do not excuse my actual Sins. yet I hope it may procure some mitigation to my punishments, and move thy divine Pitty, which oft sheweth itself upon such occasions. See Gen. 8. 21.

i. e. No man can cleanse himself, or any other from all sin. See 1 Kin. 8. 46. Psal. 14. 3. Eccles. 7. 21. This is the Prorogative of thy Grace, which therefore I humbly implore of thee.

Marginal references: Heb. [illegible: 1 word], will give.; Gen. 5. 3. Psal. 51. 5. Joh. 3. 6. Rom. 5. 12. Ephes. 2. 3.

5. Seeing his days are determined , the number of his Months are with thee , thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass .

The days, or (as it follows) months of his Life.

Are by thy Sentence and Decree limited to a certain period.

i. e. Exactly known to thee. Or, in thy power and disposal.

Thou hast appointed a certain end of his days beyond which he cannot prolong his Life. And therefore let this short Life, and unavoidable Death suffice for mans punishment, and do not add further and sorer Calamities.

Marginal references: Ch. 7. 1.

6. Turn from him that he may rest , till he shall accomplish as an hireling his day .

Withdraw thine afflicting Hand from him.

That he may have some present comfort and ease. Or, and let it cease, to wit, the affliction, which is sufficiently implied. Others, and let him cease, to wit, to live, i. e. Take away my life. But that seems not to agree with the following clause of this Verse, nor with the succeeding Verses.

Give him some respite, till he finish his course and come to the period of his Life, which thou hast allotted to him, as a man appoints a set time to a mercenary servant.

Marginal references: Ch. 7. 16, 19.; Heb. [illegible: 1 word].; Chap. [illegible: 1+ letters]. 1.

7. For there is hope of a Tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again , and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.

But man, though a far nobler Creature, is in a much worse condition, and when once he loseth this present and Worldly Life, he never recovers it: Therefore shew some pity to him, and give him some Comfort whilest he lives.

8. Though the root thereof wax old in the Earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground:

Begin to wither and decay.

To wit, in outward appearance.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word]

9. Yet through the sent of Water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a Plant .

i. e. By means of Water. Sent or Smell is figuratively ascribed to a Tree.

Like a Tree newly planted.

10. But man dieth, and wasteth away : yea, man giveth up the Ghost, and where is he ?

His body by degrees rotting away, Or, and is cut off, as this word is used, Exod. 17. 13. Isa. 14. 12.

i. e. He is no where, or, he is not, to wit, in this World, as that Phrase is commonly used. See Iob 3. 16. & 7. 8, 21.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 span].

11. As the Waters fail from the Sea, and the flood decayeth, and drieth up :

This may be understood, either 1. By way of opposition, The Waters go, or flow out of the Sea, and return thither again, Eccles. 1. 7. and a Lake, or River sometimes decayeth, and drieth up; but afterwards is recruited and replenished. But man lieth, &c. as it follows. Or 2. By way of resemblance. As Waters, i. e. some portion of Waters, fail from the [illegible: 1+ letters]a, being either exhaled or drawn up by the Sun, or received and sunk into the dry and thirsty Earth, or overflowing its Banks; and as the Flood or a River, or a Pond, (for the word signifies any considerable confluence of Waters) in a great drought decayeth, and is dried up: in both which cases the self same Waters never return to their former places. So it is with man. Or thus, as when the Waters fail from the Sea, i. e. when the Sea forsakes the place into which it used to flow, the River which was fed by it, Eccles. 1. 7. decayeth and drieth up without all hopes of Recovery. So man, when once the Fountain of his radical moisture is dried up, dies, and never revives again.

12. So man lieth down , and riseth not , till the Heavens be no more , they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their Sleep.

To wit, in his Bed, the Grave, or to sleep the sleep of Death▪ as this Phrase is used, Gen. 46. 30. Deut. 31. 16. 2 Sam. 7. 12. 1 Kin. 1. 21.

To wit, to this Life: For he speaks not here of the Life to come, nor of the Resurrection of the Body after death by the divine Power; of his belief whereof he giveth sufficient evidences in divers places.

i. e. Either 1. Never; because the Heavens, though they shall be changed in their Qualities, yet shall never cease to be as to the Substance of them. And therefore everlasting and unchangeable things are expressed by the duration of the Heavens; of which see Psal. 72. 5, 7, 17. & 89. 30, 36, 37. Mat. 5. 18. & 24. 35. Or 2. not until the time of the general Resurrection, and the restitution of things, when these visible Heavens shall pass away, and be no more, at least in the same form and manner as now they are: of which see Psal. 102. 26. Luk. 21. 33. 2 Pet. 3. 7, 10. Rev. 21. 1.

13. O that thou wouldest hide me in the Grave , that thou wouldst keep me secret , until thy Wrath be past , that thou wouldst appoint me a set time , and remember me .

Either 1. In some dark Vault under ground, such as good men hide themselves in, in times of Persecution. Heb. 11. 38. Lord hide me in some hiding place from thy Wrath, and all the intolerable effects of it, which are upon me: for I cannot be hid from thee but by thee. Or 2. In the Grave, properly so called. Though I know Life once lost is irrecoverable, yet I heartily desire Death rather than to continue in these Torments. And if the next words and wish seem to suppose the continuance of his Life, that is not strange: For he speaks like one almost distracted with his miseries, sometimes wishing one thing, sometimes another, and the quite contrary, as such persons use to do. And these Wishes may be understood disjunctively, I wish either that I were dead, or that God would give me Life free from these torments. Or the place may be understood thus, I could wish, if it were possible, that I might lie in the Grave for a time, till these storms be blown over, and then be restored to a comfortable Life.

In some secret and safe place, under the shadow of thy Wings and favour. that I may have some support and comfort from thee.

Whilst I am oppressed with such grievous and various Calamities, which he calls Gods Wrath, because they were, or seemed to be, the effects of his Wrath.

To wit, to my sufferings, as thou hast done to my Life, v. 5.

i. e. Wherein thou wiltst remember me, to wit, in mercy, o[illegible: 1+ letters] so as to deliver me: For it is well known that God is frequently said to forget those whom he suffers to continue in misery, and to remember those whom he delivers out of it.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word].

14. If a man die, shall he live again ? all the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come .

i. e. He shall not▪ namely in this World, as was said before. The affirmative question is equivalent to an absolute denial, as Gen. 18. 17. Psal. 56. 7. Ier. 5. 9. and every where.

Seeing Death puts an end to all mens hopes of any comfortable being here, because man once dead never returns to Life; I will therefore wait on God, and hope for his favour whilest I live, and it is possible to enjoy it, and will continue waiting from time to time, until my change come, i. e. either 1. Death, the great and last change; which is expressed by the Root of this word, Iob 10. 17. Or 2. The change of my condition for the better, which you upon your Terms encourage me to expect, and which I yet trust in God I shall enjoy; for this word properly signifies Vicissitudes or Changes in ones condition, and this seems to suit best with the following verse. And this Change, or a comfortable Life here Iob so heartily wisheth, not only from that love of Life and Comfort which is naturally implanted in all men, good and bad, and is not forbidden by God, which also was stronger in those Old Testament Saints when the discoveries of Gods Grace to sinners, and of eternal Life, were much darker than now they are; but also because this would be an effectual vindication of his own Integrity, and Good-name, and of the honour of Religion, both which did suffer some Eclipse from Iob's extream Calamities, as is evident from the discourses of his Friends.

Marginal references: Heb. my warfare.

15. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee : thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands .

I trust there is a time coming when thou wiltst grant me the mercy which now thou deniest me, to wit, a favourable hearing, when thou wiltst call to me to speak for my self, and I shall answer thee; which I know will be to thy Satisfaction and my Comfort. Compare this with Chap. 13. 22. where the same words are used in this same Sense. Or, thou shalt call me out of the Grave of my Calamities, and I shall answer thee, and say, Here I am, raised out of the Pit in which I was buried by thy powerful and gracious Command.

i. e. To me who am thy Workmanship in divers respects, from whom thou now seemest to have an aversion and abhorrency, but I doubt not thou wiltst have a desire, i. e. shew thy Affection or Good-will to me; or a desire to look upon me, and to deliver me. Nor is it strange that Iob, who lately was upon the brink of despair, doth now breath out words of Hope, such Ebbings and Flowings being usual, both with Iob elsewhere, as Ch. 13. 15, 16. and with David frequently in the Psalms, and with others of God's People.

Marginal references: Chap. 40. 3.

16. For now thou numbrest my steps , dost thou not watch over my sin ?

So this is a reason of his desire of Death, v. 13. Or rather, But now; for this seems to be added by way of opposition. I believe thou wiltst pitty and help me, but for the present it is far otherwise with me.

Thou makest a strict enquiry into all my Actions, that thou maist find out all mine Errours, and punish them. Compare Iob 13. 27. & 31. 4. & 34. 21. Psal. 56. 6.

i. e. Dost thou not watch for my Haltings, or Miscarriages, as if thou wast glad of an occasion to punish me? Or, thou dost not delay the punishment of my sin: For the same Hebrew word signifies both sin, and its punishments.

Marginal references: Psa. 139. 2, 3. Chap. 13. 27. Prov. 5. 21. Jer. 32. 19.

17. My transgression is sealed up in a bag , and thou sewest up mine iniquity .

As Writings or other choice things, that they may be safely kept, and all of them brought forth upon occasion, and not one of them forgotten or lost. Compare Deut. 32. 34. Iob 37. 7. Hos. 13. 12.

i. e. Thou keepest all my sins in thy memory, and fastenest the guilt of them upon my Conscience. Or, thou addest to my sin, one sin to another, the follies of my youth, Iob 13. 26. to those of my riper Years. Or, thou addest to my punishment, i. e. thou punishest me more than mine Iniquities deserve, all things considered. For this sinful thought seems somtimes to have risen in Iob's Mind, as may be gathered from divers parts of this Book: which therefore Zophar decries, and disproves, Iob. 11. 6.

18. And surely as the Mountain falling cometh to nought : and the Rock is removed out of his place:

As when a great Mountain falls, either by an Earthquake or Inundation of Waters, or from any other cause, it moulders away like a fading Leaf, (as the Hebrew word signifies) and never recovers its former height and stability, and as the Rock when by the violence of Winds or Earthquake, &c. it is removed out of its place, and thrown down is never readvanced. And as the waters by continual droppings, or violent and frequent assaults, wear away, or break the stones to pieces, so as they can never be made whole again: And as thou washest away, to wit, by a great and violent Inundation which thou sendest, the things which grow out of the dust of the Earth, to wit, Herbs, & Fruits, & Plants, which once washed away are irrecoverably lost, and, or so (as this particle is oft used, i. e. in like manner, to wit, irrecoverably,) thou destroyest the hope of man; i. e. So when man dies all hope of living again in this World is utterly lost, And this seems to be the plain meaning of these two Verses. And as before he declared the hopelesness of mans restauration from death to this animal life, by way of opposition to such things as did rise in a manner from death to life, v. 7▪ &c. so now he declares it by way of similitude or resemblance to such things as being once lost and gone, are past all hopes of recovery.

Marginal references: Heb. sad[illegible: 1+ letters].

20. Thou prevailest for ever against him , and he passeth : thou changest his Countenance , and sendest him away .

When once thou takest away this life it is gone for ever: For he speaks not here of man's future and eternal life in another World.

i. e. He dieth or is about to die: Man's death is oft called a passage or a going; to intimate that it is not an annihilation, but only a translation of him into another place and state.

Either 1 his Visage, which by death and its Harbingers, is quite transformed in colour and shape, as we see by daily experience. Or 2. the face and state of his Affairs, as to worldly riches and pleasures, and honours, all which he leaves behind him.

To his long home by death.

21. His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not ; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.

Either 1. is ignorant of all such events: Or, 2. is not concerned nor affected with them. A dead or dying man minds not these things.

22. But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn .

This is mans condition, he is miserable [illegible: 1+ letters]oth when he dies, because he dies without hope of returning to life, as he had discoursed before; and (as he now adds) whilest he lives, whilest his flesh is upon him, and his soul within him; whilest the soul is clothed with or united to the body, he feels sharp pain in his body, and bitter grief in his soul, Seeing therefore the state of man upon earth is so vain and unhappy every way, Lord give me some comfort to sweeten my life, or take away my life from me.

Job 14:1-3   1  Man that is born of a woman,

Short of days and full of unrest,   2  Cometh forth as a flower and is cut down;

He fleeth as a shadow, and continueth not.   3  Moreover, Thou openest Thine eyes upon him,

And Thou drawest me before Thy tribunal.

Even if he yields to the restraint which his suffering imposes on him, to regard himself as a sinner undergoing punishment, he is not able to satisfy himself by thus persuading himself to this view of God’s conduct towards him. How can God pass so strict a judgment on man, whose life is so short and full of sorrow, and which cannot possibly be pure from sin? - Job 14:1. אדם is followed by three clauses in apposition, or rather two, for אשּׁה ילוּד (lxx γεννητὸς γυναικός, as Mat 11:11; comp. γέννημα γυν. Sir. 10:18) belongs to the subject as an adjectival clause: woman-born man, short-lived, and full of unrest, opens out as a flower. Woman is weak, with pain she brings forth children; she is impure during her lying-in, therefore weakness, suffering, and impurity is the portion of man even from the birth (Job 15:14; Job 25:4). As קצר is the constr. of קצר, so (רגז) שׂבע is from שׂבע, which here, as Job 10:15, has the strong signification: endowed (with adversity). It is questionable whether ויּמּל, Job 14:2, signifies et marcescit or et succiditur. We have decided here as elsewhere (vid., on Psa 37:2; Psa 90:6, Genesis, S. 383) in favour of the latter meaning, and as the Targ. (אתמולל), translated “he is mown down.” For this meaning (prop. to cut off from above or before, to lop off), - in which the verb מלל (מוּל נמל) is become technical for the περιτομή, - is most probably favoured by its application in Job 24:24; where Jerome however translates, sicut summitates spicarum conterentur, since he derives ימלו from מלל in the signification not found in the Bible (unless perhaps retained in מלילה ni , Deu 23:25), fricare (Arab. mll , frigere, to parch). At the same time, the signification marcescere, which certainly cannot be combined with praecidere, but may be with fricare (conterere), is not unnatural; it is more appropriate to a flower (comp. נבל ציץ, Isa 40:7); it accords with the parallelism Psa 37:2, and must be considered etymologically possible in comparison with ק־מל א־מל. But it is not supported by any dialect, and none of the old translations furnish any certain evidence in its favour; ימולל, Psa 90:6, which is to be understood impersonally rather than intransitively, does not favour it; and none of the passages in which ימּל occurs demand it: least of all Job 24:24, where praeciduntur is more suitable than, and Job 18:16, praeciditur, quite as suitable as, marcescit. For these reasons we also take ויּמּל here, not as fut. Kal from מלל, or, as Hahn, from נמל = נבל, to wither, but as fut. Niph. from מלל, to cut down. At the same time, we do not deny the possibility of the notion of withering having been connected with ימל, whether it be that it belonged originally and independently to the root מל, or has branched off from some other radical notion, as “to fall in pieces” (lxx here ἐξέπεσεν, and similarly also Job 18:16; Job 24:24; comp. מלחים, rags, נמלח, to come to pieces, to be dissolved) or “to become soft” (with which the significations in the dialects, to grind and to parch, may be connected). As a flower, which having opened out is soon cut or withered, is man: אף, accedit quod, insuper. This particle, related to ἐπὶ, adds an enhancing cumulat. More than this, God keeps His eye open (not: His eyes, for the correct reading, expressly noted by the Masora, is עינך without Jod plur.), על־זה, super hoc s. tali, over this poor child of man, who is a perishable flower, and not a “walking light, but a fleeting shadow” (Gregory the Great), to watch for and punish his sins, and brings Job to judgment before himself, His tribunal which puts down every justification. Elsewhere the word is pointed במשׁפט, Job 9:32; Job 22:4; here it is במשׁפט, because the idea is rendered determinate by the addition of עמך.

Job 14:4-6   4  Would that a pure one could come from an impure!

Not a single one -  -   5  His days then are determined,

The number of his months is known to Thee,

Thou hast appointed bounds for him that he may not pass over:   6  Look away from him then, and let him rest,

Until he shall accomplish as a hireling his day.

Would that perfect sinlessness were possible to man; but since (to use a New Testament expression) that which is born of the flesh is flesh, there is not a single one pure. The optative מי־יתּן seems to be used here with an acc. of the object, according to its literal meaning, quis det s. afferat, as Job 31:31; Deu 28:67; Psa 14:7. Ewald remarks (and refers to §358, b, of his Grammar) that לא, Job 14:4, must be the same as לוּ; but although in 1Sa 20:14; 2Sa 13:26; 2Ki 5:17, לא might be equivalent to the optative לו, which is questionable, still אחד לא here, as an echo of אין גם־אחד, Psa 14:3, is Job’s own answer to his wish, that cannot be fulfilled: not one, i.e., is in existence. Like the friends, he acknowledges an hereditary proneness to sin; but this proneness to sin affords him no satisfactory explanation of so unmerciful a visitation of punishment as his seems to him to be. It appears to him that man must the rather be an object of divine forbearance and compassion, since absolute purity is impossible to him. If, as is really the case, man’s days are חרוּצים, cut off, i.e., ἀποτόμως, determined (distinct from חרוצים with an unchangeable Kametz: sharp, i.e., quick, eager, diligent), - if the number of his months is with God, i.e., known by God, because fixed beforehand by Him, - if He has set fixed bounds (Keri חקּיו) for him, and he cannot go beyond them, may God then look away from him, i.e., turn from him His strict watch (מן שׁעה, as Job 7:19; מן שׁית, Job 10:20), that he may have rest (יחדּל, cesset), so that he may at least as a hireling enjoy his day. Thus ירצה is interpreted by all modern expositors, and most of them consider the object or reason of his rejoicing to be the rest of evening when his work is done, and thereby miss the meaning.

Hahn appropriately says, “He desires that God would grant man the comparative rest of the hireling, who must toil in sorrow and eat his bread in the sweat of his brow, but still is free from any special suffering, by not laying extraordinary affliction on him in addition to the common infirmities beneath which he sighs. Since the context treats of freedom from special suffering in life, not of the hope of being set free from it, comp. Job 13:25-27; Job 14:3, the explanation of Umbreit, Ew., Hirz., and others, is to be entirely rejected, viz., that God would at least permit man the rest of a hireling, who, though he be vexed with heavy toil, cheerfully reconciles himself to it in prospect of the reward he hopes to obtain at evening time. Job does not claim for man the toil which the hireling gladly undergoes in expectation of complete rest, but the toil of the hireling, which seems to him to be rest in comparison with the possibility of having still greater toil to undergo.” Such is the true connection.In honour of our departed friend, whose Commentary on Job abounds in observations manifesting a delicate appreciation of the writer’s purpose and thought, we have quoted his own words.

Man’s life - this life which is as a hand-breadth (Psa 39:6), and in Job 7:1. is compared to a hireling’s day, which is sorrowful enough - is not to be overburdened with still more and extraordinary suffering.

It must be asked, however, whether ריה seq. acc. here signifies εὐδοκεῖν (τὸν βίον, lxx), or not rather persolvere; for it is undeniable that it has this meaning in Lev 26:34 (vid., however Keil [Pent., en loc.]) and elsewhere (prop. to satisfy, remove, discharge what is due). The Hiphil is used in this sense in post-biblical Hebrew, and most Jewish expositors explain ירצה by ישלים. If it signifies to enjoy, עד ought to be interpreted: that (he at least may, like as a hireling, enjoy his day). But this signification of עד (ut in the final sense) is strange, and the signification dum (Job 1:18; Job 8:21) or adeo ut (Isa 47:7) is not, however, suitable, if ירצה is to be explained in the sense of persolvere, and therefore translate donec persolvat (persolverit). We have translated “until he accomplish,” and wish “accomplish” to be understood in the sense of “making complete,” as Col 1:24, Luther (“vollzählig machen”) = ἀνταναπληροῦν.

Job 14:7-9  7  For there is hope for a tree:

If it is hewn down, it sprouts again,

And its shoot ceaseth not.   8  If its root becometh old in the ground,

And its trunk dieth off in the dust:   9  At the scent of water it buddeth,

And bringeth forth branches like a young plant.

As the tree falleth so it lieth, says a cheerless proverb. Job, a true child of his age, has a still sadder conception of the destiny of man in death; and the conflict through which he is passing makes this sad conception still sadder than it otherwise is. The fate of the tree is far from being so hopeless as that of man; for (1) if a tree is hewn down, it (the stump left in the ground) puts forth new shoots (on החליף, vid., on Psa 90:6), and young branches (יונקת, the tender juicy sucker μόσχος) do not cease. This is a fact, which is used by Isaiah (Isa 6:1-13) as an emblem of a fundamental law in operation in the history of Israel: the terebinth and oak there symbolize Israel; the stump (מצבת) is the remnant that survives the judgment, and this remnant becomes the seed from which a new sanctified Israel springs up after the old is destroyed. Carey is certainly not wrong when he remarks that Job thinks specially of the palm (the date), which is propagated by such suckers; Shaw’s expression corresponds exactly to לא תחדל: “when the old trunk dies, there is never wanting one or other of these offsprings to succeed it.” Then (2) if the root of a tree becomes old (חזקין inchoative Hiphil: senescere, Ew. §122, c) in the earth, and its trunk (גּזע also of the stem of an undecayed tree, Isa 40:24) dies away in the dust, it can nevertheless regain its vitality which had succumbed to the weakness of old age: revived by the scent (ריח always of scent, which anything exhales, not, perhaps Sol 1:3 only excepted, odor = odoratus) of water, it puts forth buds for both leaves and flowers, and brings forth branches (קציר, prop. cuttings, twigs) again, כמו נטע, like a plant, or a young plant (the form of נטע in pause), therefore, as if fresh planted, lxx ὥσπερ νεόφυτον. One is here at once reminded of the palm which, on the one hand, is pre-eminently a φιλυδρον φυτόν,When the English army landed in Egypt in 1801, Sir Sydney Smith gave the troops the sure sign, that wherever date-trees grew there must be water; and this is supported by the fact of people digging after it generally, within a certain range round the tree within which the roots of the tree could obtain moisture from the fluid. - Vid., R. Wilson’s History of the Expedition to Egypt, p. 18. on the other hand possesses a wonderful vitality, whence it is become a figure for youthful vigour. The palm and the phoenix have one name, and not without reason. The tree reviving as from the dead at the scent of water, which Job describes, is like that wondrous bird rising again from its own ashes (vid., on Job 29:18). Even when centuries have at last destroyed the palm - says Masius, in his beautiful and thoughtful studies of nature - thousands of inextricable fibres of parasites cling about the stem, and delude the traveller with an appearance of life.

Job 14:10-12 10  But man dieth, he lieth there stretched out,

Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? 11  The waters flow away from the sea,

And a stream decayeth and dryeth up: 12  So man lieth down and riseth not again;

Till the heavens pass away they wake not,

And are not aroused from their sleep.

How much less favoured is the final lot of man! He dies, and then lies there completely broken down and melted away (חלשׁ( yaw, in the neuter signification, confectum esse, rendered in the Targum by אתּבר and אתמקמק). The fut. consec. continues the description of the cheerless results of death: He who has thus once fallen together is gone without leaving a trace of life. In Job 14:11. this vanishing away without hope and beyond recovery is contemplated under the figure of running water, or of water that is dried up and never returns again to its channel. Instead of אזלוּ Isaiah uses נשּׁתוּ (Job 19:5) in the oracle on Egypt, a prophecy in which many passages borrowed from the book of Job are interwoven. The former means to flow away (related radically with נזל), the latter to dry up (transposed נתּשׁ, Jer 18:14). But he also uses יחרב, which signifies the drying in, and then ויבשׁ, which is the complete drying up which follows upon the drying in (vid., Genesis, S. 264). What is thus figuratively expressed is introduced by waw (Job 14:12), similar to the waw adaequationis of the emblematic proverbs mentioned at Job 5:7; Job 11:12 : so there is for man no rising (קוּם), no waking up (הקיץ), no ἐγείρεσθαι (נעור), and indeed not for ever; for what does not happen until the heavens are no more (comp. Psa 72:7, till the moon is no more), never happens; because God has called the heavens and the stars with their laws into existence, לעד לעולם (Psa 148:6), they never cease (Jer 31:35.), the days of heaven are eternal (Psa 89:30). This is not opposed to declarations like Psa 102:27, for the world’s history, according to the teaching of Scripture, closes with a change in all these, but not their annihilation. What is affirmed in Job 14:10-12 of mankind in general, is, by the change to the plural in Job 14:12, affirmed of each individual of the race. Their sleep of death is עזלם שׁנת (Jer 51:39, Jer 51:57). What Sheôl summons away from the world, the world never sees again. Oh that it were otherwise! How would the brighter future have comforted him with respect to the sorrowful present and the dark night of the grave!

Job 14:13-16 13  Oh that Thou wouldst hide me in Sheôl,

That Thou wouldst conceal me till Thine anger change,

That Thou wouldst appoint me a time and then remember me! 14  If man dieth, shall he live again?

All the days of my warfare would I wait,

Until my change should come. 15  Thou wouldst call and I would answer,

Thou wouldst have a desire for the work of Thy hands - 16  For now thou numberest my steps,

And dost not restrain thyself over my sins.

The optative יתּן מי introduces a wish that has reference to the future, and is therefore, as at Job 6:8, followed by futt.; comp. on the other hand, Job 23:3, utinam noverim. The language of the wish reminds one of such passages in the Psalms as Psa 31:21; Psa 27:5 (comp. Isa 26:20): “In the day of trouble He hideth me in His pavilion, and in the secret of His tabernacle doth He conceal me.” So Job wishes that Hades, into which the wrath of God now precipitates him for ever, may only be a temporary place of safety for him, until the wrath of God turn away (שׁוּב, comp. the causative, Job 9:13); that God would appoint to him, when there, a חק, i.e., a terminus ad quem (comp. Job 14:5), and when this limit should be reached, again remember him in mercy. This is a wish that Job marks out for himself. The reality is indeed different: “if (ἐὰν) a man dies, will he live again?” The answer which Job’s consciousness, ignorant of anything better, alone can give, is: No, there is no life after death. It is, however, none the less a craving of his heart that gives rise to the wish; it is the most favourable thought, - a desirable possibility, - which, if it were but a reality, would comfort him under all present suffering: “all the days of my warfare would I wait until my change came.” צבא is the name he gives to the whole of this toilsome and sorrowful interval between the present and the wished-for goal, - the life on earth, which he likens to the service of the soldier or of the hireling (Job 7:1), and which is subject to an inevitable destiny (Job 5:7) of manifold suffering, together with the night of Hades, where this life is continued in its most shadowy and dismal phase. And חליפה does not here signify destruction in the sense of death, as the Jewish expositors, by comparing Isa 2:18 and Sol 2:11, explain it; but (with reference to צבאי, comp. Job 10:17) the following after (Arab. chlı̂ft, succession, successor, i.e., of Mohammed), relief, change (syn. תּמוּרה, exchange, barter), here of change of condition, as Psa 55:20, of change of mind; Aquila, Theod., ἄλλαγμα. Oh that such a change awaited him! What a blessed future would it be if it should come to pass! Then would God call to him in the depth of Sheôl, and he, imprisoned until the appointed time of release, would answer Him from the deep. After His anger was spent, God would again yearn after the work of His hands (comp. Job 10:3), the natural loving relation between the Creator and His creature would again prevail, and it would become manifest that wrath is only a waning power (Isa 54:8), and love His true and essential attribute. Schlottman well observes: “Job must have had a keen perception of the profound relation between the creature and his Maker in the past, to be able to give utterance to such an imaginative expectation respecting the future.”

In Job 14:16, Job supports what is cheering in this prospect, with which he wishes he might be allowed to console himself, by the contrast of the present. עתּה כּי is used here as in Job 6:21; כי is not, as elsewhere, where עתה כי introduces the conclusion, confirmatory (indeed now = then indeed), but assigns a reason (for now). Now God numbers his steps (Job 13:27), watching him as a criminal, and does not restrain himself over his sin. Most modern expositors (Ew., Hlgst, Hahn, Schlottm.) translate: Thou observest not my sins, i.e., whether they are to be so severely punished or not; but this is poor. Raschi: Thou waitest not over my sins, i.e., to punish them; instead of which Ralbag directly: Thou waitest not for my sins = repentance or punishment; but שׁמר is not supported in the meaning: to wait, by Gen 37:11. Aben-Ezra: Thou lookest not except on my sins, by supplying רק, according to Ecc 2:24 (where, however, probably משׁיאכל should be read, and מ after אדם, just as in Job 33:17, has fallen away). The most doubtful is, with Hirzel, to take the sentence as interrogative, in opposition to the parallelism: and dost Thou not keep watch over my sins? It seems to me that the sense intended must be derived from the phrase אף שׁמר, which means to keep anger, and consequently to delay the manifestation of it (Amo 1:11). This phrase is here so applied, that we obtain the sense: Thou keepest not Thy wrath to thyself, but pourest it out entirely. Mercerus is substantially correct: non reservas nec differs peccati mei punitionem.

Job 14:17-19 17  My transgression is sealed up in a bag,

And Thou hast devised additions to my iniquity. 18  But a falling mountain moveth indeed,

And a rock falleth from its place. 19  Water holloweth out stone,

Its overflowings carry away the dust of the earth,

And the hope of man - Thou destroyest.

The meaning of Job 14:17 is, not that the judgment which pronounces him guilty lies in the sealed-up bag of the judge, so that it requires only to be handed over for execution (Hirz., Ew., Renan), for although פּשׁע (though not exactly the punishment of sin, which it does not signify even in Dan 9:24) can denote wickedness, as proved and recorded, and therefore metonomically the penal sentence, the figure is, however, taken not from the mode of preserving important documents, but from the mode of preserving collected articles of value in a sealed bag. The passage must be explained according to Hos 13:12; Deu 32:34; Rom 2:5, comp. Jer 17:1. The evil Job had formerly (Job 13:26) committed according to the sentence of God, God has gathered together as in a money bag, and carefully preserved, in order now to bring them home to him. And not this alone, however; He has devised still more against him than his actual misdeeds. Ewald translates: Thou hast sewed up my punishment; but טפל (vid., on Job 13:4) signifies, not to sew up, but: to sew on,patch on, and gen. to add ( טפל , Rabb. accidens, a subordinate matter, opp. עקּר), after which the lxx translates ἐπεσημήνω (noted in addition), and Gecatilia Arab. ḥftṣt (added to in collecting). It is used here just as in the Aramaic phrase טפל שׁקרא (to patch on falsehood, to invent scandal).

The idea of the figures which follow is questionable. Hahn maintains that they do not describe destruction, but change, and that consequently the relation of Job 14:19 to what precedes is not similarity, but contrast: stones are not so hard, that they are not at length hollowed out, and the firm land is not so firm that it cannot be carried away by the flood; but man’s prospect is for ever a hopeless one, and only for him is there no prospect of his lot ever being changed. Thus I thought formerly it should be explained: considering the waw, Job 14:19, as indicative not of comparison, but of contrast. But the assumption that the point of comparison is change, not destruction, cannot be maintained: the figures represent the slow but inevitable destruction wrought by the elements on the greatest mountains, on rocks, and on the solid earth. And if the poet had intended to contrast the slow but certain changes of nature with the hopelessness of man’s lot, how many more appropriate illustrations, in which nature seems to come forth as with new life from the dead, were at his command! Raschi, who also considers the relation of the clauses to be antithetical, is guided by the right perception when he interprets: even a mountain that is cast down still brings forth fruit, and a rock removed from its place, even these are not without some signs of vitality in them, יבּול = (יבוּל) יעשׂהבוּל, which is indeed a linguistic impossibility. The majority of expositors are therefore right when they take the waw, Job 14:19, similarly to Job 5:7; Job 11:12; Job 12:11, as waw adaequationis. With this interpretation also, the connection of the clause with what precedes by ואוּלם (which is used exactly as in Job 1:11; Job 11:5; Job 12:7, where it signifies verum enim vero or attamen) is unconstrained. The course of thought is as follows: With unsparing severity, and even beyond the measure of my guilt, hast Thou caused me to suffer punishment for my sins, but (nevertheless) Thou shouldst rather be gentle and forbearing towards me, since even that which is firmest, strongest, and most durable cannot withstand ultimate destruction; and entirely in accordance with the same law, weak, frail man (אנושׁ) meets an early certain end, and at the same time Thou cuttest off from him every ground of hope of a continued existence. The waw, Job 14:19, is consequently, according to the sense, more quanto magis than sic, placing the things to be contrasted over against each other. הר־נופL is a falling, not a fallen (Ralbag) mountain; and having once received the impetus, it continues gradually to give way; Renan: s'effondre peu à peu. Carey, better: “will decay,” for נבל (cogn. נבל) signifies, decrease from external loses; specially of the falling off of leaves, Isa 34:4. The second figure, like Job 18:4, is to be explained according to Job 9:5 : a rock removes (not as Jerome translates, transfertur, which would be יעתק, and also not as lxx παλαιωθήσεται, Schlottm.: becomes old and crumbles away, although in itself admissible both as to language and fact; comp. on Job 21:7) from its place; it does not stand absolutely, immovably fast. In the third figure אבנים is a prominent object, as the accentuation with Mehupach legarmeh or (as it is found in correct Codd.) with Asla legarmeh rightly indicates שׁחק signifies exactly the same as Arab. sḥq , attere, conterere. In the fourth figure, ספיח must not be interpreted as meaning that which grows up spontaneously without re-sowing, although the Targum translates accordingly: it (the water) washes away its (i.e., the dust of the earth’s) after-growth (כּתהא), which Symm. follows (τὰ παραλελειμνένα). It is also impossible according to the expression; for it must have been עפר הארץ. Jerome is essentially correct: et alluvione paullatim terra consumitur. It is true that ספח in Hebrew does not mean effundere in any other passage (on this point, vid., on Hab 2:15), but here the meaning effusio or alluvio may be supposed without much hesitation; and in a book whose language is so closely connected with the Arabic, we may even refer to ספח = Arab. sfḥ (kindred to Arab. sfk, שׁפך), although the word may also (as Ralbag suggests), by comparison with מטר סחף, Pro 28:3, and Arab. sḥı̂qt, a storm of rain, be regarded as transposed from חיפיה, from סחף in Arab. to tear off, sweep away, Targ. to thrust away (= רחף), Syr., Talm. to overthrow, subvertere (whence s'chifto, a cancer or cancerous ulcer). The suffix refers to מים, and תּשׁטף before a plural subject is quite according to rule, Ges. §146, 3. ספיחיה is mostly marked with Mercha, but according to our interpretation Dechî, which is found here and there in the Codd., would be more correct.

The point of the four illustrations is not that not one of them is restored to its former condition (Oetinger, Hirz.), but that in spite of their stability they are overwhelmed by destruction, and that irrecoverably. Even the most durable things cannot defy decay, and now even as to mortal man - Thou hast brought his hope utterly to nought (האבדת with Pathach in pause as frequently; vid., Psalter ii. 468). The perf. is praegnans: all at once, suddenly - death, the germ of which he carries in him even from his birth, is to him an end without one ray of hope, - it is also the death of his hope.

Job 14:20-22 20  Thou siezest him for ever, then he passeth away;

Thou changest his countenance and castest him forth. 21  If his sons come to honour, he knoweth it not;

Or to want, he observeth them not. 22  Only on his own account his flesh suffereth pain,

And on his own account is his soul conscious of grief.

The old expositors thought that תּתקפהוּ must be explained by תתקף נמנו (Thou provest thyself stronger than he, according to Ges. §121, 4), because תּקף is intrans.; but it is also transitive in the sense of seizing forcibly and grasping, Job 15:24; Ecc 4:12, as Talm. תּקף (otherwise commonly אתקף as החזיק), Arab. taqifa, comprehendere. The many sufferings which God inflicts on him in the course of his life are not meant; לנצח does not signify here: continually, without intermission, as most expositors explain, but as Job 4:20; Job 20:7, and throughout the book: for ever (Rosenm., Hahn, Welte). God gives him the death-stroke which puts an end to his life for ever, he passes away βαίνει, οἴχεται (comp. Job 10:21); disfiguring his countenance, i.e., in the struggle of death and in death by the gradual working of decay, distorting and making him unlike himself, He thrusts him out of this life (שׁלּח like Gen 3:23). The waw consec. is used here as e.g., Psa 118:27.

When he is descended into Hades he knows nothing more of the fortune of his children, for as Ecc 9:6 says: the dead have absolutely no portion in anything that happens under the sun. In Job 14:21 Job does not think of his own children that have died, nor his grandchildren (Ewald); he speaks of mankind in general. כּבד and צער are not here placed in contrast in the sense of much and little, but, as in Jer 30:19, in the wider sense of an important or a destitute position; כּבד, to be honoured, to attain to honour, as Isa 66:5. בּין (to observe anything) is joined with ל of the object, as in Psa 73:17 (on the other hand, להּ, Job 13:1, was taken as dat. ethicus). He neither knows nor cares anything about the welfare of those who survive him: “Nothing but pain and sadness is the existence of the dead; and the pain of his own flesh, the sadness of his own soul, alone engage him. He has therefore no room for rejoicing, nor does the joyous or sorrowful estate of others, though his nearest ones, affect him” (Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, i. 495). This is certainly, as Ewald and Psychol. S. 444, the meaning of Job 14:22; but עליו is hardly to be translated with Hofmann “in him,” so that it gives the intensive force of ἴδιος to the suff. For it is improbable that in this connection, - where the indifference of the deceased respecting others, and the absolute reference to himself of the existence of pain on his own account, are contrasted, - עליו, Job 14:22, is to be understood according to Job 30:16 (Psychol. S. 152), but rather objectively (over him). On the other hand, Job 14:22 is not to be translated: over himself only does his flesh feel pain (Schlottm., Hirz., and others); for the flesh as inanimate may indeed be poetically, so to speak zeugmatically, represented as conscious of pain, but not as referring its pain to another, and consequently as self-conscious. On this account, עליו, Job 14:22, is to be taken in the signification, over him = upon him, or as Job 14:22 (beyond him), which is doubtful; or it signifies, as we have sought to render it in our translation in both cases, propter eum. Only on his own account does his flesh suffer, i.e., only applying to himself, only on his own account does his soul mourn, i.e., only over his own condition. He has no knowledge and interest that extends beyond himself; only he himself is the object of that which takes place with his flesh in the grave, and of that on which his soul reflects below in the depths of Hades. According to this interpretation אך belongs to עליו, after the hyperbaton described at Job 2:10, comp. Job 13:15, Isa 34:15. And he עליו, Job 14:22, implies the idea (which is clearly expressed in Isa 66:24, and especially in Judith 16:17: δοῦναι πῦρ καὶ σκώληκας εἰς σάρκας αὐτῶν καὶ κλαύσονται ἐν αἰσθήσει ἕως αἰῶνος) that the process of the decomposition of the body is a source of pain and sorrow to the departed spirit, - a conception which proceeds from the supposition, right in itself, that a connection between body and soul is still continued beyond the grave, - a connection which is assumed by the resurrection, but which, as Job viewed it, only made the future still more sorrowful.

This speech of Job (Job 12-14), which closes here, falls into three parts, which correspond to the divisions into chapters. In the impassioned speech of Zophar, who treats Job as an empty and conceited babbler, the one-sided dogmatical standpoint of the friends was maintained with such arrogance and assumption, that Job is obliged to put forth all his power in self-defence. The first part of the speech (Job 12) triumphantly puts down this arrogance and assumption. Job replies that the wisdom, of which they profess to be the only possessors, is nothing remarkable, and the contempt with which they treat him is the common lot of the innocent, while the prosperity of the ungodly remains undisturbed. In order, however, to prove to them that what they say of the majesty of God, before which he should humble himself, can neither overawe nor help him, he refers them to creation, which in its varied works testifies to this majesty, this creative power of God, and the absolute dependence of every living thin on Him, and proves that he is not wanting in an appreciation of the truth contained in the sayings of the ancients by a description of the absolute majesty of God as it is manifested in the works of nature, and especially in the history of man, which excels everything that the three had said. This description is, however, throughout a gloomy picture of disasters which God brings about in the world, corresponding to the gloomy condition of mind in which Job is, and the disaster which is come upon himself.

As the friends have failed to solace him by their descriptions of God, so his own description is also utterly devoid of comfort. For the wisdom of God, of which he speaks, is not the wisdom that orders the world in which one can confide, and in which one has the surety of seeing every mystery of life sooner or later gloriously solved; but this wisdom is something purely negative, and repulsive rather than attractive, it is abstract exaltation over all created wisdom, whence it follows that he puts to shame the wisdom of the wise. Of the justice of God he does not speak at all, for in the narrow idea of the friends he cannot recognise its control; and of the love of God he speaks as little as the friends, for as the sight of the divine love is removed from them by the one-sidedness of their dogma, so is it from him by the feeling of the wrath of God which at present has possession of his whole being. Hegel has called the religion of the Old Testament the religion of sublimity (die Religion der Erhabenheit); and it is true that, so long as that manifestation of love, the incarnation of the Godhead, was not yet realized, God must have relatively transcended the religious consciousness. From the book of Job, however, this view can be brought back to its right limits; for, according to the tendency of the book, neither the idea of God presented by the friends nor by Job is the pure undimmed notion of God that belongs to the Old Testament. The friends conceive of God as the absolute One, who acts only according to justice; Job conceives of Him as the absolute One, who acts according to the arbitrariness of His absolute power. According to the idea of the book, the former is dogmatic one-sidedness, the latter the conception of one passing through temptation. The God of the Old Testament consequently rules neither according to justice alone, nor according to a “sublime whim.”

After having proved his superiority over the friends in perception of the majesty of God, Job tells them his decision, that he shall turn away from them. The sermon they address to him is to no purpose, and in fact produces an effect the reverse of that intended by them. And while it does Job no good, it injures them, because their very defence of the honour of God incriminates themselves in the eyes of God. Their aim is missed by them, for the thought of the absolute majesty of God has no power to impart comfort to any kind of sufferer; nor can the thought of His absolute justice give any solace to a sufferer who is conscious that he suffers innocently. By their confidence that Job’s affliction is a decree of the justice of God, they certainly seem to defend the honour of God; but this defence is reversed as soon as it is manifest that there exists no such just ground for inflicting punishment on him. Job’s self-consciousness, however, which cannot be shaken, gives no testimony to its justice; their advocacy of God is therefore an injustice to Job, and a miserable attempt at doing God service, which cannot escape the undisguised punishment of God. It is to be carefully noted that in Job 13:6-12 Job seriously warns the friends that God will punish them for their partiality, i.e., that they have endeavoured to defend Him at the expense of truth.

We see from this how sound Job’s idea of God is, so far as it is not affected by the change which seems, according to the light which his temptation casts upon his affliction, to have taken place in his personal relationship to God. While above, ch. 9, he did not acknowledge an objective right, and the rather evaded the thought, of God’s dealing unjustly towards him, by the desperate assertion that what God does is in every case right because God does it, he here recognises an objective truth, which cannot be denied, even in favour of God, and the denial of which, even though it were a pientissima fraus, is strictly punished by God. God is the God of truth, and will therefore be neither defended nor honoured by any perverting of the truth. By such pious lies the friends involve themselves in guilt, since in opposition to their better knowledge they regard Job as unrighteous, and blind themselves to the incongruities of daily experience and the justice of God. Job will therefore have nothing more to do with them; and to whom does he now turn? Repelled by men, he feels all the more strongly drawn to God. He desires to carry his cause before God. He certainly considers God to be his enemy, but, like David, he thinks it is better to fall into the hands of God than into the hands of man (2Sa 24:14). He will plead his cause with God, and prove to Him his innocence: he will do it, even though he be obliged to expiate his boldness with his life; for he knows that morally he will not be overcome in the contest. He requires compliance with but two conditions: that God would grant a temporary alleviation of his pain, and that He would not overawe him with the display of His majesty. Job’s disputing with God is as terrible as it is pitiable. It is terrible, because he uplifts himself, Titan-like, against God; and pitiable, because the God against which he fights is not the God he has known, but a God that he is unable to recognise, - the phantom which the temptation has presented before his dim vision instead of the true God. This phantom is still the real God to him, but in other respects in no way differing from the inexorable ruling fate of the Greek tragedy. As in this the hero of the drama seeks to maintain his personal freedom against the mysterious power that is crushing him with an iron arm, so Job, even at the risk of sudden destruction, maintains the stedfast conviction of his innocence, in opposition to a God who has devoted him, as an evil-doer, to slow but certain destruction. The battle of freedom against necessity is the same as in the Greek tragedy. Accordingly one is obliged to regard it as an error, arising from simple ignorance, when it has been recently maintained that the boundless oriental imagination is not equal to such a truly exalted task as that of representing in art and poetry the power of the human spirit, and the maintenance of its dignity in the conflict with hostile powers, because a task that can only be accomplished by an imagination formed with a perception of the importance of recognising ascertained phenomena.Vid., Arnold Ruge, Die Academie, i. S. 29.

In treating this subject, the book of Job not only attains to, but rises far above, the height attained by the Greek tragedy: for, on the one hand, it brings this conflict before us in all the fearful earnestness of a death-struggle; on the other, however, it does not leave us to the cheerless delusion that an absolute caprice moulds human destiny. This tragic conflict with the divine necessity is but the middle, not the beginning nor the end, of the book; for this god of fate is not the real God, but a delusion of Job’s temptation. Human freedom does not succumb, but it comes forth from the battle, which is a refining fire to it, as conqueror. The dualism, which the Greek tragedy leaves unexplained, is here cleared up. The book certainly presents much which, from its tragic character, suggests this idea of destiny, but it is not its final aim - it goes far beyond: it does not end in the destruction of its hero by fate; but the end is the destruction of the idea of this fate itself.

We have seen in this speech (comp. Job 13:23, Job 13:26; Job 14:16.), as often already, that Job is as little able as the friends to disconnect suffering from the idea of the punishment of sin. If Job were mistaken or were misled by the friends respecting his innocence, the history of his sufferings would be no material for a drama, because there would be no inner development. But it is just Job’s stedfast conviction of his innocence, and his maintenance of it in spite of the power which this prejudice exercises over him, that makes the history of his affliction the history of the development of a new and grand idea, and makes him as the subject, on whom it is developed, a tragic character. In conformity with his prepossession, Job sees himself put down by his affliction as a great sinner; and his friends actually draw the conclusion from false premises that he is such. But he asserts the testimony of his conscience to his innocence; and because this contradicts those premises, the one-sidedness of which he does not discern, God himself appears to him to be unjust and unmerciful. And against this God, whom the temptation has distorted and transformed to the miserable image of a ruler, guided only by an absolute caprice, he struggles on, and places the truth and freedom of his moral self-consciousness over against the restraint of the condemnatory sentence, which seems to be pronounced over him in the suffering he has to endure. Such is the struggle against God which we behold in the second part of the speech (ch. 13): ready to prove his innocence, he challenges God to trial; but since God does not appear, his confidence gives place to despondency, and his defiant tone to a tone of lamentation, which is continued in the third part of the speech (ch. 14).

While he has raised his head towards heaven with the conscious pride of a תמים צדיק, first in opposition to the friends and then to God, he begins to complain as one who is thrust back, and yielding to the pressure of his affliction, begins to regard himself as a sinner. But he is still unable to satisfy himself respecting God’s dealings by any such forcible self-persuasion. For how can God execute such strict judgment upon man, whose life is so short and full of care, and who, because he belongs to a sinful race, cannot possibly be pure from sin, without allowing him the comparative rest of a hireling? How can he thus harshly visit man, to whose life He has set an appointed bound, and who, when he once dies, returns to life no more for ever? The old expositors cannot at all understand this absolute denial of a new life after death. Brentius erroneously observes on donec coelum transierit: ergo resurget; and Mercerus, whose exposition is free from all prejudice, cannot persuade himself that the elecus et sanctus Dei vir can have denied not merely a second earthly life, but also the eternal imperishable life after death. And yet it is so: Job does not indeed mean that man when he dies is annihilated, but he knows of no other life after death but the shadowy life in Sheôl, which is no life at all. His laments really harmonize with those in Moschos iii. 106ff.: Αἲ αἲ, ταὶ μαλάχαι μὲν ἐπὰν κατὰ κᾶπον ὄλωνται, Ἤ τὰ χλωρὰ σέλινα, τό τ ̓ εὐθαλὲς οὖλον ἄνηθον, Ὕστερον αὖ ζώοντι καὶ εἰς ἔτος ἄλλο φύοντι· Ἄμμες δ ̓ οἱ μεγάλοι καὶ καρτεροὶ ἢ σοφοὶ ἄνδρες, Ὁππότε πρῶτα θάνωμες, ἀνάκοοι ἐν χθονὶ κοίλᾳ Εὔδομες εὖ μάλα μακρὸν ἀτέρμονα νήγρετον ὕπνον.

Alas! alas! the mallows, after they are withered in the garden,

Or the green parsley and the luxuriant curly dill,

Live again hereafter and sprout in future years;

But we men, the great and brave, or the wise,

When once we die, senseless in the bosom of the earth

We sleep a long, endless, and eternal sleep.

And with that of Horace, Od. iv. 7, 1:Nos ubi decidimus Quo pius Aeneas, quo dives Tullus et Ancus, Pulvis et umbra sumus;

Or with that of the Jagur Weda: “While the tree that has fallen sprouts again from the root fresher than before, from what root does mortal man spring forth when he has fallen by the hand of death?”Vid., Carey, The Book of Job, p. 447. We append here an extract from a letter of Consul Wetzstein, as giving an explanation of Job 14:7-9, derived from personal observation: “The practice of cutting down the trees in order to obtain a new and increased use from them, is an important part of husbandry in the country east of the Jordan. It is, however, now almost confined to the region round Damascus, in consequence of the devastation of the country. This operation is called gemm (גמם), and is performed only with the axe, because the stump would decay away if sawn. When the vine, after bearing from sixty to eighty years, loses its fruitfulness and begins to decay, it is cut down close to the ground in the second kânûn (January). The first year it bears little or nothing, but throws out new branches and roots; and afterwards it bears plenteously, for the vine-stock has renewed its youth. The fig-tree (tı̂ne) and the pomegranate (rummâne), when old and decayed, are cut down in like manner. Their shoots are very numerous, and in the following winter as many as ten young plants may be taken from the pomegranate. Those that are left on the old stem bear fruit in the fourth year. The walnut-tree (gôze) ceases to bear much after 100 years, and becomes hollow and decayed. It is then cut down to within two or three yards from the ground. If the trees are well watered, the new shoots spring up in a year in uncommon luxuriance, and bear fruit in the second year. The new shoot is called darbûne. From many trees, as the citron (lı̂mûne), ash (dardâre), and mulberry (tûte), this new shoot often attains a length of twelve feet in the first year, provided the tree has the conditio sine qua non which Job styles ריח מים - a plentiful supply of water.”

These laments echo through the ancient world from one end to the other, and even Job is without any superior knowledge respecting the future life. He denies a resurrection and eternal life, not as one who has a knowledge of them and will not however know anything about them, but he really knows nothing of them: our earthly life seems to him to flow on into the darkness of Sheôl, and onward beyond Sheôl man has no further existence.

We inquire here: Can we say that the poet knew nothing of a resurrection and judgment after death? If we look to the psalms of the time of David and Solomon, we must reply in the negative. Since, however, as the Grecian mysteries fostered and cherished ἡδυστέρας ἐλπίδας, the Israelitish Chokma also, by its constant struggles upwards and onwards, anticipated views of the future world which reached beyond the present (Psychol. S. 410): it may be assumed, and from the book of Job directly inferred, that the poet had a perception of the future world which went beyond the dim perception of the people, which was not yet lighted up by any revelation. For, on the one hand, he has reproduced for us a history of the patriarchal period, not merely according to its external, but also according to its internal working, with as strict historical faithfulness as delicate psychological tact; on the other, he has with a master hand described for us in the history of Job what was only possible from an advanced standpoint of knowledge, - how the hope of a life beyond the present, where there is no express word of promise to guide it, struggles forth from the heart of man as an undefined desire and longing, so that the word of promise is the fulfilment and seal of this desire and yearning. For when Job gives expression to the wish that God would hide him in Sheôl until His anger turn, and then, at an appointed time, yearning after the work of His hands, raise him again from Sheôl (Job 14:13-17), this wish it not to be understood other than that Sheôl might be only his temporary hiding-place from the divine anger, instead of being his eternal abode. He wishes himself in Sheôl, so far as he would thereby be removed for a time from the wrath of God, in order that, after an appointed season, he might again become an object of the divine favour. He cheers himself with the delightful thought, All the days of my warfare would I wait till my change should come, etc.; for then the warfare of suffering would become easy to him, because favour, after wrath and deliverance from suffering and death, would be near at hand. We cannot say that Job here expresses the hope of a life after death; on the contrary, this hope is wanting to him, and all knowledge respecting the reasons that might warrant it. The hope exists only in imagination, as Ewald rightly observes, without becoming a certainty, since it is only the idea, How   glorious it would be if it were so, that is followed up. But, on the one side, the poet shows us by this touching utterance of Job how totally different would be his endurance of suffering if he but knew that there was really a release from Hades; on the other side, he shows us, in the wish of Job, the incipient tendency of the growing hope that it might be so, for what a devout mind desires has a spiritual power which presses forward from the subjective to the objective reality. The hope of eternal life is a flower, says one of the old commentators, which grows on the verge of the abyss. The writer of the book of Job supports this. In the midst of this abyss of the feeling of divine wrath in which Job is sunk, this flower springs up to cheer him. In its growth, however, it is not hope, but only at first a longing. And this longing cannot expand into hope, because no light of promise shines forth in that night, by which Job’s feeling is controlled, and which makes the conflict darker than it is in itself. Scarcely has Job feasted for a short space upon the idea of that which he would gladly hope for, when the thought of the reality of that which he has to fear overwhelms him. He seems to himself to be an evil-doer who is reserved for the execution of the sentence of death. If it is not possible in nature for mountains, rocks, stones, and the dust of the earth to resist the force of the elements, so is it an easy thing for God to destroy the hope of a mortal all at once. He forcibly thrust him hence from this life; and when he is descended to Hades, he knows nothing whatever of the lot of his own family in the world above. Of the life and knowledge of the living, nothing remains to him but the senseless pain of his dead body, which is gnawed away, and the dull sorrow of his soul, which continues but a shadowy life in Sheôl.

Thus the poet shows us, in the third part of Job’s speech, a grand idea, which tries to force its way, but cannot. In the second part, Job desired to maintain his conviction of innocence before God: his confidence is repulsed by the idea of the God who is conceived of by him as an enemy and a capricious ruler, and changes to despair. In the third part, the desire for a life after death is maintained; but he is at once overwhelmed by the imagined inevitable and eternal darkness of Sheôl, but overwhelmed soon to appear again above the billows of temptation, until, in ch. 19, the utterance of faith respecting a future life rises as a certain confidence over death and the grave: the γνῶσις which comes forth from the conflict of the πίστις anticipates that better hope which in the New Testament is established and ratified by the act of redemption wrought by the Conqueror of Hades.

Brevity and Frailty of Human Life. (b. c. 1520.)

1 Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. 2 He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not. 3 And dost thou open thine eyes upon such an one, and bringest me into judgment with thee? 4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one. 5 Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass; 6 Turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as a hireling, his day.

We are here led to think,

I. Of the original of human life. God is indeed its great original, for he breathed into man the breath of life and in him we live; but we date it from our birth, and thence we must date both its frailty and its pollution. 1. Its frailty: Man, that is born of a woman, is therefore of few days, v. 1. This may refer to the first woman, who was called Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Of her, who being deceived by the tempter was first in the transgression, we are all born, and consequently derive from her that sin and corruption which both shorten our days and sadden them. Or it may refer to every man's immediate mother. The woman is the weaker vessel, and we know that partus sequitur ventrem—the child takes after the mother. Let not the strong man therefore glory in his strength, or in the strength of his father, but remember that he is born of a woman, and that, when God pleases, the mighty men become as women, Jer. li. 30. 2. Its pollution (v. 4): Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? If man be born of a woman that is a sinner, how can it be otherwise than that he should be a sinner? See ch. xxv. 4. How can he be clean that is born of a woman? Clean children cannot come from unclean parents any more than pure streams from an impure spring or grapes from thorns. Our habitual corruption is derived with our nature from our parents, and is therefore bred in the bone. Our blood is not only attainted by a legal conviction, but tainted with an hereditary disease. Our Lord Jesus, being made sin for us, is said to be made of a woman, Gal. iv. 4.

II. Of the nature of human life: it is a flower, it is a shadow, v. 2. The flower is fading, and all its beauty soon withers and is gone. The shadow is fleeting, and its very being will soon be lost and drowned in the shadows of the night. Of neither do we make any account; in neither do we put any confidence.

III. Of the shortness and uncertainty of human life: Man is of few days. Life is here computed, not by months or years, but by days, for we cannot be sure of any day but that it may be our last. These days are few, fewer than we think of, few at the most, in comparison with the days of the first patriarchs, much more in comparison with the days of eternity, but much fewer to most, who come short of what we call the age of man. Man sometimes no sooner comes forth than he is cut down—comes forth out of the womb than he dies in the cradle—comes forth into the world and enters into the business of it than he is hurried away as soon as he has laid his hand to the plough. If not cut down immediately, yet he flees as a shadow, and never continues in one stay, in one shape, but the fashion of it passes away; so does this world, and our life in it, 1 Cor. vii. 31.

IV. Of the calamitous state of human life. Man, as he is short-lived, so he is sad-lived. Though he had but a few days to spend here, yet, if he might rejoice in those few, it were well (a short life and a merry one is the boast of some); but it is not so. During these few days he is full of trouble, not only troubled, but full of trouble, either toiling or fretting, grieving or fearing. No day passes without some vexation, some hurry, some disorder or other. Those that are fond of the world shall have enough of it. He is satur tremore—full of commotion. The fewness of his days creates him a continual trouble and uneasiness in expectation of the period of them, and he always hangs in doubt of his life. Yet, since man's days are so full of trouble, it is well that they are few, that the soul's imprisonment in the body, and banishment from the Lord, are not perpetual, are not long. When we come to heaven our days will be many, and perfectly free from trouble, and in the mean time faith, hope, and love, balance the present grievances.

V. Of the sinfulness of human life, arising from the sinfulness of the human nature. So some understand that question (v. 4), Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?—a clean performance from an unclean principle? Note, Actual transgressions are the natural product of habitual corruption, which is therefore called original sin, because it is the original of all our sins. This holy Job here laments, as all that are sanctified do, running up the streams to the fountain (Ps. li. 5); and some think he intends it as a plea with God for compassion: "Lord, be not extreme to mark my sins of human frailty and infirmity, for thou knowest my weakness. O remember that I am flesh!" The Chaldee paraphrase has an observable reading of this verse: Who can make a man clean that is polluted with sin? Cannot one? that is, God. Or who but God, who is one, and will spare him? God, by his almighty grace, can change the skin of the Ethiopian, the skin of Job, though clothed with worms.

VI. Of the settled period of human life, v. 5.

1. Three things we are here assured of:— (1.) That our life will come to an end; our days upon earth are not numberless, are not endless, no, they are numbered, and will soon be finished, Dan. v. 26. (2.) That it is determined, in the counsel and decree of God, how long we shall live and when we shall die. The number of our months is with God, at the disposal of his power, which cannot be controlled, and under the view of his omniscience, which cannot be deceived. It is certain that God's providence has the ordering of the period of our lives; our times are in his hand. The powers of nature depend upon him, and act under him. In him we live and move. Diseases are his servants; he kills and makes alive. Nothing comes to pass by chance, no, not the execution done by a bow drawn at a venture. It is therefore certain that God's prescience has determined it before; for known unto God are all his works. Whatever he does he determined, yet with a regard partly to the settled course of nature (the end and the means are determined together) and to the settled rules of moral government, punishing evil and rewarding good in this life. We are no more governed by the Stoic's blind fate than by the Epicurean's blind fortune. (3.) That the bounds God has fixed we cannot pass; for his counsels are unalterable, his foresight being infallible.

2. These considerations Job here urges as reasons, (1.) Why God should not be so strict in taking cognizance of him and of his slips and failings (v. 3): "Since I have such a corrupt nature within, and am liable to so much trouble, which is a constant temptation from without, dost thou open thy eyes and fasten them upon such a one, extremely to mark what I do amiss? ch. xiii. 27. And dost thou bring me, such a worthless worm as I am, into judgment with thee who art so quick sighted to discover the least failing, so holy to hate it, so just to condemn it, and so mighty to punish it?" The consideration of our own inability to contend with God, of our own sinfulness and weakness, should engage us to pray, Lord, enter not into judgment with thy servant. (2.) Why he should not be so severe in his dealings with him: "Lord, I have but a little time to live. I must certainly and shortly go hence, and the few days I have to spend here are, at the best, full of trouble. O let me have a little respite! v. 6. Turn from afflicting a poor creature thus, and let him rest awhile; allow him some breathing time, until he shall accomplish as a hireling his day. It is appointed to me once to die; let that one day suffice me, and let me not thus be continually dying, dying a thousand deaths. Let it suffice that my life, at best, is as the day of a hireling, a day of toil and labour. I am content to accomplish that, and will make the best of the common hardships of human life, the burden and heat of the day; but let me not feel those uncommon tortures, let not my life be as the day of a malefactor, all execution-day." Thus may we find some relief under great troubles by recommending ourselves to the compassion of that God who knows our frame and will consider it, and our being out of frame too.

Death Anticipated. (b. c. 1520.)

7 For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. 8 Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; 9 Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant. 10 But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? 11 As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: 12 So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. 13 O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! 14 If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. 15 Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands.

We have seen what Job has to say concerning life; let us now see what he has to say concerning death, which his thoughts were very much conversant with, now that he was sick and sore. It is not unseasonable, when we are in health, to think of dying; but it is an inexcusable incogitancy if, when we are already taken into the custody of death's messengers, we look upon it as a thing at a distance. Job had already shown that death will come, and that its hour is already fixed. Now here he shows,

I. That death is a removal for ever out of this world. This he had spoken of before (ch. vii. 9, 10), and now he mentions it again; for, though it be a truth that needs not be proved, yet it needs to be much considered, that it may be duly improved.

1. A man cut down by death will not revive again, as a tree cut down will. What hope there is of a tree he shows very elegantly, v. 7-9. If the body of the tree be cut down, and only the stem or stump left in the ground, though it seem dead and dry, yet it will shoot out young boughs again, as if it were but newly planted. The moisture of the earth and the rain of heaven are, as it were, scented and perceived by the stump of a tree, and they have an influence upon it to revive it; but the dead body of a man would not perceive them, nor be in the least affected by them. In Nebuchadnezzar's dream, when his being deprived of the use of his reason was signified by the cutting down of a tree, his return to it again was signified by the leaving of the stump in the earth with a band of iron and brass to be wet with the dew of heaven, Dan. iv. 15. But man has no such prospect of a return to life. The vegetable life is a cheap and easy thing: the scent of water will recover it. The animal life, in some insects and fowls, is so: the heat of the sun retrieves it. But the rational soul, when once retired, is too great, too noble, a thing to be recalled by any of the powers of nature; it is out of the reach of sun or rain, and cannot be restored but by the immediate operations of Omnipotence itself; for (v. 10) man dieth and wasteth, away, yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? Two words are here used for man:—Geber, a mighty man, though mighty, dies; Adam, a man of the earth, because earthy, gives up the ghost. Note, Man is a dying creature. He is here described by what occurs, (1.) Before death: he wastes away; he is continually wasting, dying daily, spending upon the quick stock of life. Sickness and old age are wasting things to the flesh, the strength, the beauty. (2.) In death: he gives up the ghost; the soul leaves the body, and returns to God who gave it, the Father of spirits. (3.) After death: Where is he? He is not where he was; his place knows him no more; but is he nowhere? So some read it. Yes, he is somewhere; and it is a very awful consideration to think where those are that have given up the ghost, and where we shall be when we give it up. It has gone to the world of spirits, gone into eternity, gone to return no more to this world.

2. A man laid down in the grave will not rise up again, v. 11, 12. Every night we lie down to sleep, and in the morning we awake and rise again; but at death we must lie down in the grave, not to awake or rise again to such a world, such a state, as we are now in, never to awake or arise until the heavens, the faithful measures of time, shall be no more, and consequently time itself shall come to an end and be swallowed up in eternity; so that the life of man may fitly be compared to the waters of a land-flood, which spread far and make a great show, but they are shallow, and when they are cut off from the sea or river, the swelling and overflowing of which was the cause of them, they soon decay and dry up, and their place knows them no more. The waters of life are soon exhaled and disappear. The body, like some of those waters, sinks and soaks into the earth, and is buried there; the soul, like others of them, is drawn upwards, to mingle with the waters above the firmament. The learned Sir Richard Blackmore makes this also to be a dissimilitude. If the waters decay and be dried up in the summer, yet they will return again in the winter; but it is not so with the life of man. Take part of his paraphrase in his own words:— A flowing river, or a standing lake, May their dry banks and naked shores forsake; Their waters may exhale and upward move, Their channel leave to roll in clouds above; But the returning water will restore What in the summer they had lost before: But if, O man! thy vital streams desert Their purple channels and defraud the heart, With fresh recruits they ne'er will be supplied, Nor feel their leaping life's returning tide. II. That yet there will be a return of man to life again in another world, at the end of time, when the heavens are no more. Then they shall awake and be raised out of their sleep. The resurrection of the dead was doubtless an article of Job's creed, as appears, ch. xix. 26, and to that, it should seem, he has an eye here, where, in the belief of that, we have three things:—

1. A humble petition for a hiding-place in the grave, v. 13. It was not only a passionate weariness of this life that he wished to die, but in a pious assurance of a better life, to which at length he should arise. O that thou wouldst hide me in the grave! The grave is not only a resting-place, but a hiding-place, to the people of God. God has the key of the grave, to let in now and to let out at the resurrection. He hides men in the grave, as we hide our treasure in a place of secresy and safety; and he who hides will find, and nothing shall be lost. "O that thou wouldst hide me, not only from the storms and troubles of this life, but for the bliss and glory of a better life! Let me lie in the grave, reserved for immortality, in secret from all the world, but not from thee, not from those eyes which saw my substance when first curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth," Ps. cxxxix. 15, 16. There let me lie, (1.) Until thy wrath be past. As long as the bodies of the saints lie in the grave, so long there are some remains of that wrath which they were by nature children of, so long they are under some of the effects of sin; but, when the body is raised, it is wholly past—death, the last enemy, will then be totally destroyed. (2.) Until the set time comes for my being remembered, as Noah was remembered in the ark (Gen. viii. 1), where God not only hid him from the destruction of the old world, but reserved him for the reparation of a new world. The bodies of the saints shall not be forgotten in the grave. There is a time appointed, a time set, for their being enquired after. We cannot be sure that we shall look through the darkness of our present troubles and see good days after them in this world; but, if we can but get well to the grave, we may with an eye of faith look through the darkness of that, as Job here, and see better days on the other side of it, in a better world.

2. A holy resolution patiently to attend the will of God both in his death and his resurrection (v. 14): If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait until my change come. Job's friends proving miserable comforters, he set himself to be the more his own comforter. His case was now bad, but he pleases himself with the expectation of a change. I think it cannot be meant of his return to a prosperous condition in this world. His friends indeed flattered him with the hopes of that, but he himself all along despaired of it. Comforts founded upon uncertainties at best must needs be uncertain comforts; and therefore, no doubt, it is something more sure than that which he here bears up himself with the expectation of. The change he waits for must therefore be understood either, (1.) Of the change of the resurrection, when the vile body shall be changed (Phil. iii. 21), and a great and glorious change it will be; and then that question, If a man die, shall he live again? must be taken by way of admiration. "Strange! Shall these dry bones live! If so, all the time appointed for the continuance of the separation between soul and body my separate soul shall wait until that change comes, when it shall be united again to the body, and my flesh also shall rest in hope." Ps. xvi. 9. Or, (2.) Of the change at death. "If a man die, shall he live again? No, not such a life as he now lives; and therefore I will patiently wait until that change comes which will put a period to my calamities, and not impatiently wish for the anticipation of it, as I have done." Observe here, [1.] That it is a serious thing to die; it is a work by itself. It is a change; there is a visible change in the body, its appearance altered, its actions brought to an end, but a greater change with the soul, which quits the body, and removes to the world of spirits, finishes its state of probation and enters upon that of retribution. This change will come, and it will be a final change, not like the transmutations of the elements, which return to their former state. No, we must die, not thus to live again. It is but once to die, and that had need be well done that is to be done but once. An error here is fatal, conclusive, and not again to be rectified. [2.] That therefore it is the duty of every one of us to wait for that change, and to continue waiting all the days of our appointed time. The time of life is an appointed time; that time is to be reckoned by days; and those days are to be spent in waiting for our change. That is, First, We must expect that it will come, and think much of it. Secondly, We must desire that it would come, as those that long to be with Christ. Thirdly, We must be willing to tarry until it does come, as those that believe God's time to be the best. Fourthly, We must give diligence to get ready against it comes, that it may be a blessed change to us.

3. A joyful expectation of bliss and satisfaction in this (v. 15): Then thou shalt call, and I will answer thee. Now, he was under such a cloud that he could not, he durst not, answer (ch. ix. 15, 35; xiii. 22); but he comforted himself with this, that there would come a time when God would call and he should answer. Then, that is, (1.) At the resurrection, "Thou shalt call me out of the grave, by the voice of the archangel, and I will answer and come at the call." The body is the work of God's hands, and he will have a desire to that, having prepared a glory for it. Or, (2.) At death: "Thou shalt call my body to the grave, and my soul to thyself, and I will answer, Ready, Lord, ready—Coming, coming; here I am." Gracious souls can cheerfully answer death's summons, and appear to his writ. Their spirits are not forcibly required from them (as Luke xii. 20), but willingly resigned by them, and the earthly tabernacle not violently pulled down, but voluntarily laid down, with this assurance, "Thou wilt have a desire to the work of thy hands. Thou hast mercy in store for me, not only as made by thy providence, but new-made by thy grace;" otherwise he that made them will not save them. Note, Grace in the soul is the work of God's own hands, and therefore he will not forsake it in this world (Ps. cxxxviii. 8), but will have a desire to it, to perfect it in the other, and to crown it with endless glory.

Complainings of Job. (b. c. 1520.)

16 For now thou numberest my steps: dost thou not watch over my sin? 17 My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity. 18 And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place. 19 The waters wear the stones: thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man. 20 Thou prevailest for ever against him, and he passeth: thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away. 21 His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them. 22 But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.

Job here returns to his complaints; and, though he is not without hope of future bliss, he finds it very hard to get over his present grievances.

I. He complains of the particular hardships he apprehended himself under from the strictness of God's justice, v. 16, 17. Therefore he longed to go hence to that world where God's wrath will be past, because now he was under the continual tokens of it, as a child, under the severe discipline of the rod, longs to be of age. "When shall my change come? For now thou seemest to me to number my steps, and watch over my sin, and seal it up in a bag, as bills of indictment are kept safely, to be produced against the prisoner." See Deut. xxxii. 34. "Thou takest all advantages against me; old scores are called over, every infirmity is animadverted upon, and no sooner is a false step taken than I am beaten for it." Now, 1. Job does right to the divine justice in owning that he smarted for his sins and transgressions, that he had done enough to deserve all that was laid upon him; for there was sin in all his steps, and he was guilty of transgression enough to bring all this ruin upon him, if it were strictly enquired into: he is far from saying that he perishes being innocent. But, 2. He does wrong to the divine goodness in suggesting that God was extreme to mark what he did amiss, and made the worst of every thing. He spoke to this purport, ch. xiii. 27. It was unadvisedly said, and therefore we will not dwell too much upon it. God does indeed see all our sins; he sees sin in his own people; but he is not severe in reckoning with us, nor is the law ever stretched against us, but we are punished less than our iniquities deserve. God does indeed seal and sew up, against the day of wrath, the transgression of the impenitent, but the sins of his people he blots out as a cloud.

II. He complains of the wasting condition of mankind in general. We live in a dying world. Who knows the power of God's anger, by which we are consumed and troubled, and in which all our days are passed away? See Ps. xc. 7-9, 11. And who can bear up against his rebukes? Ps. xxxix. 11.

1. We see the decays of the earth itself. (1.) Of the strongest parts of it, v. 18. Nothing will last always, for we see even mountains moulder and come to nought; they wither and fall as a leaf; rocks wax old and pass away by the continual beating of the sea against them. The waters wear the stones with constant dropping, non vi, sed sæpe cadendo—not by the violence, but by the constancy with which they fall. On this earth every thing is the worse for the wearing. Tempus edax rerum—Time devours all things. It is not so with the heavenly bodies. (2.) Of the natural products of it. The things which grow out of the earth, and seem to be firmly rooted in it, are sometimes by an excess of rain washed away, v. 19. Some think he pleads this for relief: "Lord, my patience will not hold out always; even rocks and mountains will fail at last; therefore cease the controversy."

2. No marvel then if we see the decays of man upon the earth, for he is of the earth, earthy. Job begins to think his case is not singular, and therefore he ought to reconcile himself to the common lot. We perceive by many instances, (1.) How vain it is to expect much from the enjoyments of life: "Thou destroyest the hope of man," that is, "puttest an end to all the projects he had framed and all the prospects of satisfaction he had flattered himself with." Death will be the destruction of all those hopes which are built upon worldly confidences and confined to worldly comforts. Hope in Christ, and hope in heaven, death will consummate and not destroy. (2.) How vain it is to struggle against the assaults of death (v. 20): Thou prevailest for ever against him. Note, Man is an unequal match for God. Whom God contends with he will certainly prevail against, prevail for ever against so that they shall never be able to make head again. Note further, The stroke of death is irresistible; it is to no purpose to dispute its summons. God prevails against man and he passes away, and lo he is not. Look upon a dying man, and see, [1.] How his looks are altered: Thou changest his countenance, and this in two ways:—First, By the disease of his body. When a man has been a few days sick what a change is there in his countenance! How much more when he has been a few minutes dead! The countenance which was majestic and awful becomes mean and despicable—that was lovely and amiable becomes ghastly and frightful. Bury my dead out of my sight. Where then is the admired beauty? Death changes the countenance, and then sends us away out of this world, gives us one dismission hence, never to return. Secondly, By the discomposure of his mind. Note, The approach of death will make the strongest and stoutest to change countenance; it will make the most merry smiling countenance to look grave and serious, and the most bold daring countenance to look pale and timorous. [2.] How little he is concerned in the affairs of his family, which once lay so near his heart. When he is in the hands of the harbingers of death, suppose struck with a palsy or apoplexy, or delirious in a fever, or in conflict with death, tell him then the most agreeable news, or the most painful, concerning his children, it is all alike, he knows it not, he perceives it not, v. 21. He is going to that world where he will be a perfect stranger to all those things which here filled and affected him. The consideration of this should moderate our cares concerning our children and families. God will know what comes of them when we are gone. To him therefore let us commit them, with him let us leave them, and not burden ourselves with needless fruitless cares concerning them. [3.] How dreadful the agonies of death are (v. 22): While his flesh is upon him (so it may be read), that is, the body he is so loth to lay down,: it shall have pain; and while his soul is within him, that is, the spirit he is so loth to resign, it shall mourn. Note, Dying work is hard work; dying pangs are, commonly, sore pangs. It is folly therefore for men to defer their repentance to a death-bed, and to have that to do which is the one thing needful when they are really unfit to do any thing: but it is true wisdom by making our peace with God in Christ and keeping a good conscience, to treasure up comforts which will support and relieve us against the pains and sorrows of a dying hour.

CHAP. XIIII. Verſe 1. Man that is born of a woman &c.]

Or, THat is born about by a woman in her wombe. Jobs deſign is here to ſet forth the miſery of man (whom in the laſt verſe of the former chapter he had compared 1. To a rotten thing. 2. To a moth-eaten garment) ab exordio ad exodium, from his conception to his diſſolution. Man, Earthly man, that is born of a woman, Gen. 3.16. or manneſſe that weaker veſſel, who both breedeth, beareth, and bringeth forth in partu doloroſa, poſt partum laborioſa, every way calamitous: neither is her babe in a better condition, but born with a croſs on his back (as it is ſtoried of Frederick the Elector of Saxony) and having his whole life over-ſpread with ſins and miſeries,Job. Manl. los. com[illegible: 1 letter] as with a filthy morphew.

Is of few dayes] Heb. ſhort of dayes. Short indeed, every thing reckoned: For 1. Child-hood and youth are vanity. 2. Sleep, as a publican, takes off a third part of our time. 3. All the dayes of the afflicted are evil, and M[illegible: 4 letters] [illegible: 1 letter]abet vicer quae trabitur vit[illegible: 1 letter] gemitibus; it is not a life, but a death rather that is ſpent in ſorrow:Aug. de civ. Dei lib. 9. c. 10. in which regard Plotinus the Philoſopher held mortality a mercy, that we may not alwaies be held under the miſeries of this life preſent. 4. Scarce one of a thouſand live that little time that they are here, but wofully waſte the flower of their age, the ſtrength of their bodies, the vigour of their ſpirits in ſinful pleaſures, and ſenſual delights; and then either ſit and ſing all too late and in vain, O mihi praterites ref[illegible: 1 letter]rat ſi Juppiter ann[illegible: 1 letter]s!

Or elſe complain with old Themistocles, that now they muſt die when they do but begin only to be wiſe: the life of a wicked man runneth out, as the ſand in an hourglaſſe that doth little good: He conſidereth not that upon this little point of time hangs the crown of eternity; and that the very next moment, he may be cut off from all poſſibility of repentance, acceptation and grace for ever. Hence his many troubles here: all which are but typical of thoſe hereafter; beſides the fear of death, which maketh him all his life time ſubject to bondage, Heb. 2.15. It were much to bee wiſhed that men would conſider their time is ſhort, their taske long, and that therefore they ſhould uſe all ſpeed and diligence; leſt (ſo as children have uſually torn their books) they have ended their lives before they have learned their leſſons.

And full of trouble] Or, of indignation, commotion, perturbation. Thoſe three vultures, Fear, Anger, Griefe, are frequently feeding upon his heart whiles he is in this world; and like a ſhip in a ſtorm, he is toſſed much, but ſaileth little or nothing. Few and evil are the dayes of my pilgrimage, ſaith good old Jacob, Gen. 47.9.Th[illegible: 1 letter]tis ap. Hom. Iliad. And ſhe in the Poet could ſay as much of her ſon Achilles.

[non-Latin text not transcribed] [non-Latin text not transcribed]—

Verſe 2. He cometh forth like a flower] What he had aſſerted concerning the ſhortneſſe of mans life is here illuſtrated by two elegant ſimilitudes frequently uſed, not in Scripture only,Iſa. 28.1. and 40.6. Jam. 1.10, 11. 1 Pet. 1.24. but in Heathen Authors, as were eaſie to inſtance. A flower hath a ſpring and a fall: ſo have men their times and their turns; their riſe, and their ruine. Why, and how man in his flouriſh is like to a flower, See Pſal. 103.15, 16. where he is compared to a flower of the field (which lies open to all inconveniencies) not of the garden, which is much ſheltered from ſharpe winds, fenced from the teeth and feet of beaſts, from the hands of children, ſtrangers, &c.

And is cut down] Heb. cut round, or circumciſed, ſc, by ſome nipping or blaſting wind, ſuch as that Eaſt-wind, Gen. 41.23. or ſome cropping hand, or its own fading nature, and then it is not, ſaith David, Pſalm 103.16. that is, it neither continues any longer in being, nor returns any more into being: no more doth man, though in his time never ſo flouriſhing.

He fleeth alſo] With poſt-baſte, as one that fleeth for life; ſo doth he from life, every moment yeilding ſomewhat unto death: Orimur, morimur, finiſque ab origire pendet; Life, as faſt as it increaſeth, decreaſeth. It is improper, ſaith one, to ask when we ſhall dye, but rather when we ſhall make an end of dying?

As a ſhadow] As the ſhadow of a dial: our lives are continually haſting to their period, and never make ſtop. By theſe, and many the like compariſons (common in this book, and other Scriptures) we ſee how much God deſireth that we ſhould mind our mortality: too blame then are thoſe who have one leg in the grave, and the other in hell, and yet do put far away thoughts of death, and under gray hairs nouriſh green hopes and deſires: neither may young men be excuſed who bind upon long life,Vitae ſumma brevis ſpem ne[illegible: 1 letter] vetat inchoare longam. and boaſt of to morrow, Prov. 27.1. ſith they know not what a great-bellied day may bringforth. The Jewes have a proverb, that many times old camels carry young camels skins to the market. And how often ſee we elder folk carry young mens and childrens bodies to the graves?

And continueth not] Heb. ſtandeth not, as a pillar, but vaniſheth as a ſhadow, yea,Hor. lib. 1. corm. 4. [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Pindar. as a dream of a ſhadow, as the Greek Poet hath it. The Vulgar tranſlateth, He continueth not in the ſame ſtate. To have no ſhadow of turning, noteth the perfection of God, Jam. 1.17.

Verſe 3. And doſt thou open thine eyes upon ſuch a one?] ſc. to obſerve his faults ſtrictly, and to puniſh him for the ſame ſeverely? doth this become ſo great a Majeſty? This Job ſpeaketh non citra ſtomachum, not without ſtomack, as forgetting himſelf through impatiency, ſaith Mercer, and ſeeking to eaſe himſelf any way of the pains and colours he ſuſtained, being carried out of himſelf by his unruly paſſions. By this queſtion Job doth nontam admirari quum arguere, ſaith Brentiús; not ſo much wonder, as warble with God, that he ſhould care for ſo poor a creature, whom it might beſeem him rather to contemn. But Job ſhould have remembred, that God openeth his eyes upon man, not to puniſh him only, but to help and relieve him, Pſalm 31.15. And at another time Job could ſet it upon the ſcore of Gods favours to man that he viſiteth him every morning (viz. by his fatherly chaſtiſements) and trieth him every moment, chap. 7.17, 18.

And bringeſt me into judgment with thee] Poor me. who am [non-Latin text not transcribed],Me graviſſimit tuis judiciis extra ordinem divexas. Merl. thrice a man: that is, moſt miſerable, even me thou queſtioneſt in the rigour of thy righteous judgment. See a like expoſtulation, Pſalm 89. and all to move God to compaſſion. Our frailty is a good pleadable argument to this purpoſe.

Verſe 4. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.] q. d. I confeſs I am unclean: but what can I do withal? or how can I do otherwiſe, ſith I do but my kind? But was this a ſufficient plea? David was of another mind, when he alledged this as a great aggravation of his blood-guiltineſſe, Behold, I was ſhapen in iniquity, and in ſin did my mother conceive me, Pſalm 51.5. q. d. I have not only fallen into theſe foul ſins, but I have done it out of the venemouſneſſe and vitioſity of my nature, commonly called original, and by the Apoſtle inhabiting ſin, Rom. 7.17. as by the Schools peccatum peccans, the ſinning ſin, as that which is the ſource and ſeminary of all actual diſobediences. And becauſe this uncleanneſſe is natural to us, therefore it maketh us as loathſome to God, as a toad is to us, becauſe poiſon is in the nature of it. Papiſts ſay, (but not truly) that Original ſin is the ſmalleſt of all ſins, not deſerving any more of Gods wrath then only a want of his beatifical preſence; and that too without any pain or ſorrow of mind from the apprehenſion of ſo great a loſſe. They hold alſo thoſe motions of the heart not conſented to, to be no ſins, but neceſſary conditions, ariſing from our conſtitution, and ſuch as Adam had in his innocency. Contrary-wiſe, Job here grants a birth-blot upon all, and layes his hand upon it as the cauſe of the length of mens troubles, and ſhortneſſe of their lives: only he forgetteth himſelf (ſaith Mercer here) when hee pleadeth that hee ſhould rather bee pitied, then thus ſharply puniſhed, [non-Latin text not transcribed]. Ethic. lib. 3. cap. 5. becauſe hee was naturally enclined to ſinne, and cannot avoid it. For as Aristotle ſaith of drunkards, that they deſerve double puniſhments; firſt, for their drunkenneſſe, and then for the ſin committed in and by their drunkenneſſe: ſo do all men deſerve double damnation; firſt, for the corruption of Nature (ſignified by thoſe legall pollutions, by bodily iſſues) and then for the curſed effects of it, Gen. 6.5. Rom. 7.8. But it may bee Job here had an eye to that promiſe made to Noah after the flood, Gen. 8.21. where the Lord moveth himſelf to mercy by conſideration of mans native corruption, even from his child-hood, for he knoweth our frame &c. Pſalm 103.14. that is (as the Chaldee Paraphraſt explaineth it) he knoweth our evill figment or thought which impelleth to ſin: hee knoweth it, and weigheth it. See the like Iſa. 48.8, 9. Wee may beſeech the Lord to ſpare us when we act ſin, becauſe our natures are ſinful: but let not any go about either to palliate or extenuate their acts of ſinne by the ſinfulneſs of their natures; as thoſe doe, who being told of their evil pranks and practiſes, plead for them, ſaying, Wee are fleſh and blood, &c.

Not one] Fortes creantur fortibus & bonis; but no meer man can bring forth a clean child out of unclean ſeed. Adam begat a ſon after his own image (Gen. 5.3.) Corruptus corruptum, That which is of the fleſh is fleſh, John 3. Sin is propagated, and proceedeth from the union of body and ſoul into one man. That phraſe Warmedin ſinne, Pſalm 51.5. is meant of the preparation of the body, as an inſtrument of evil, which is not ſo actually till the ſoul come. But we ſhould not be ſo inquiſitive how ſin came in, as how to be rid of it; like as when a fire is kindled in a city, all men are more careful to quench it, then to queſtion where, and how it began. Now there is one only way of ridding our hearts of ſinne, viz. to run to Chriſt, and to believe in him: For if the Son make you free, ye ſhall [illegible: 1 word] indeed: and hereunto, both the Chaldee Paraphraſt had reſpect (likely) when he rendred this text, Cannot One? that is, Cannot God? As alſo the Vulgar Latine, Nonne tu qui ſolus es? Canſt not thou alone? ſc. by thy merit and Spirit, according to that of the Apoſtle, 1 Cor. 6.11.

Verſe 5. Seeing his dayes are determined &c.] God hath ſet every man both his time (whether ſhorter, called here his dayes, or longer, the number of his months, they have both their bounds which none can paſſe) and alſo his task, Acts 13.25.Hieron. ep. ad Fu. John fulfilled his courſe, & in brevi vitae ſpatia tempora virtutum multa replevit, and he lived long in a little ſpace; he wrought hard, as not willing to be taken with his task undone. So verſe 36. David, after hee had ſerved his owne generation, and had done all the will of God, fell on ſleep. See more of this on chap. 7.1.

Thou haſt appointed his bounds] Heb. His ſtatutes; It is appointed for all men once to die, Heb. 9.27. once for all, and for ever it is appointed, and this ſtatute is irrepealable. Here then we ſee the cauſe why ſome, likely to live long, die ſoon, and others more infirme live longer. God hath ſet the bounds of each ones life to a very day.Virg. The bounds may be paſſed which our natural complexion ſetteth; the bounds cannot be paſſed which the providence and will of God ſetteth. Stat ſua cuique dies.—

Verſe 6. Turn from him that he may reſt] Heb. Look away from him, i. e. from me; look not ſo narrowly, and with ſuch a critical eye upon mine out-ſtrayes, thus to hold me ſtill on the rack; look not ſo angerly, afflict me not ſo heavily, but let me reſt or ceaſe from my preſent preſſures, and doleful complaints, and ſpend the ſpan of this tranſitory life with ſome comfort, and then let the time of my departure come when thou pleaſeſt.

Till he ſhall accompliſh, as an hireling, his dayes.] That is, ſaith the Gloſſe, till I am as willing to die, as a labouring man is to go to ſupper, and to bed. The word rendred accompliſh, ſignifieth properly to acquieſce, and reſt in a thing, and vehemently to deſire it. The Saints, when they die, ſhall reſt in their beds, Iſ[illegible: 1 letter]i. 57.2. they reſt from their labours, Rev. 14.13. and that [non-Latin text not transcribed] preſently, ſtraight upon the ſtroke of death; no ſooner have they paſſed under the flaming ſword of that puniſhing Angel, but they are forthwith in Paradiſe. Here they are ſeldome quiet, but toſſed up and down as the ball upon the racket, or ſhip upon the waves: and hence it is that they ſometimes fret or faint, as Job, and ſpeak unadviſedly with their lips; theſe firm mountains are moved with earth-quakes, theſe calm ſeas are ſtirred with tempeſts; and truly, whoſoever hath ſet himſelf to do every dayes work with Chriſtian diligence, to bear every dayes croſſes with Chriſtian patience, and is ſenſible of his failings in both; libentèr ex vita, & qunſi pleno paſſu egredietur, ſaith one, he will be full glad to be gone hence, and be as weary of his life, as ever any hireling was of his work. See the Notes on chap. 7.1, 2.

Verſe 7. For there is hope of a tree &c.] Here Job ſetteth on his requeſt, verſe 6. with a reaſon: God loveth a reaſonable ſervice, and liketh well that we reverently reaſon it out with him. And for the literal ſenſe, all things, ſaith Gregory, are ſo plain, that there is no need to ſay any thing to that, it being no more then this; either I ſhall have comfort in this world before I die, or never here: therefore grant me reſt now. This argument Job illuſtrateth 1. By a diſſimilitude here. 2. By a ſimilitude,Merlin. verſe 11, 12. The diſſimilitude betwixt a tree and a man, is this; a tree may be hewed and felled, yet feel no pain. Again, ſucciſa repullulat, imbribus irrigata, a tree cut down, if well watered, will ſpring and ſprout up again. But now man, as he is very ſenſible of every ſtroke of Gods hand, neither can he ſuffer ſickneſs or other affliction without ſmart, ſo when once cut down by death, he can by no means be recovered; he cannot revive without a miracle.

Verſe 8. Though the roots thereof wax old in the earth] And ſo the more unlikely to ſhoot forth again. Trees alſo have their old age wherein they decay.

[non-Latin text not transcribed].

And the ſtock thereof die in the ground] Heb. in the duſt, as it needs muſt, when cut off from the root, it lieth along on the earth. It was by a miracle that Aaro[illegible: 1 letter]s rod flouriſhed: not only all the plants of Gods ſetting, but the very boughs cut off from the body of them, ſhall [illegible: 1 word] and be fruitful.

Verſe 9. Yet through the ſent of water it will bud] Heb. from the ſmell of waters; a ſweet Metaphor, ſaith Merlin, ſenſe being attributed to things ſenſeleſſe, as ſmelling to the fire, Judg. 16.9. and here to trees, which are ſaid to turn themſelves and their roots after a ſort, to take in the ſmel of the water, and thereby refreſhed to bud and bring forth boughs, like a plant. This is check to thoſe that live under the droppings of the ordinances, and yet are like the Cypreſs-tre[illegible: 1 letter], which the more it is watered, proves the leſſe fruitful, and being once out down, it never ſprings again: whence the Romans, who believed not a reſurrection, were wont to place a Cypreſſe-tree at the threſhold of the houſe of death, as Pliny and Ser[illegible: 1 letter]i[illegible: 1 letter]s tell us.Serv. in Virg. l. 4. Plin. lib. 16. cap. 32.

Verſe 10. But man dieth and waſteth away] Heb. ſtrong and luſty man, Homo quantumvis roouſtus. Vat. dieth and waſteth away, or is cut off, ſc. worſe then a tree, for he growes no more, or is diſcomfited, vanquiſhed, (as Exod. 17.13. and 32.18.) ſc. by death, and ſo carried clean out of this world.

Yea, man giveth up the ghoſt] Homo vulgaris & plebeius; All of all ſorts muſt die, whether noble, or ignoble, as Rabbi Abraham here obſerveth. Job is very much in this diſcourſe about death: and ſurely, as Nazianzen wiſheth of hell, ſo could I of death, Ʋtinam ubique de morte diſſereretur! oh that it were more in mens minds and mouths then it is!

And where is he?] q. d. No where above ground; or if he be, putrefit & teterrimè olet, he putrifies and ſtinks filthily: and as his life is taken away, ſo is his glory: yea, being once out of ſight, he growes by little and little out of mind too, little thought of, leſs ſpoken of, many times not ſo much as his name mentioned or remembred in the next generation, Eccleſ. 1.11. There is no remembrance of former things (or men) neither ſhall there be any remembrance &c. So Eccleſ. 2.16. and 8.10. and 9.5. Hence the ſtate of the dead is called the land of forgetfulneſſe, Pſalm 88.12. And Pſalm 31.12. I am forgotten, as a dead man out of mind: Heathens alſo ſay the ſame.Hor. lib. 4. Carm. 7.

Cum ſomel occideris, & de te ſplendida Minos Fecerit arbitria, Non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te Restituet pietas.

Verſe 11. As the water fall from the ſea] He ſets forth the ſame truth by an elegant ſimilitude drawn from the drying up of waters. Look how theſe after ſome exundation of the ſea, or ſome great river, are ſeparated and left (upon the reflux thereof) behind the reſt upon the land, which cannot return (for then they muſt aſcend, which is impoſſible to nature) nor continue, but do utterly dry up,Sanctius Abbot. and evaporate: So &c. verſe 12. Others read it thus, As when the waters from the feafail, the flood decaieth, and dryeth up: ſo when mans life is taken away, it returns no more while this world lasteth. God hath made in the bowels of the earth certain ſecret wayes, paſſages, and veins through which water conveigheth it ſelf from the ſea to all parts, and hath its ſaltneſſe taken away in the paſſage. Thence are our ſprings, and from them our rivers: but in hot countryes, and dry ſeaſons, ſprings are dry, and rivers want water exceedingly; as at this time they do, March 7. 1653. So when natural moiſture decayeth in man, he faileth, and dieth: the radical humor, that ſupplement and oyl of life, is dried up, and can be no more renewed till the laſt day, when yet it ſhall not be reſtored to the ſame ſtate and moiſture, but inſtead of natural, riſe ſpiritual, 1 Cor. 15.

Verſe 12. So man lieth down] ſc. in the duſt of death, or in the bed of the grave; his dormitory, till the laſt day.

Ʋt ſomnus mortis, ſic lectus imago ſepulchri.

And riſeth not] ſcil. To live again among men: ſo Pſalm 78. Man is compared to a wind, which when it is paſt, returneth not again. If it be objected, that we read of three in the old Teſtament, and five in the new raiſed from death to life: beſides, thoſe many that aroſe and came out of the graves after Chriſts reſurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many, Matth. 27.52, 53. It is anſwered, 1. Theſe few raiſed by Gods extraordinary power, do not infringe the truth of what the Scripture here and elſewhere affirmeth of all mankind according to the ordinary courſe of nature. 2. Even thoſe men alſo afterwards died again, and vaniſhed; no more to return or appear again in this world.

Till the heavens be no more] i. e. Never (ſay ſome interpreters) to wit, vi ſuâ by his own ſtrength, and to a better condition in the land of the living: ſo the word until is uſed, 2 Sam. 6.13. Matth. 5.26. and 1.25. ut piè credimus. How ſound and clear Job was in the point of the Reſurrection, we ſhall ſee, chap. 19. and becauſe he falls upon it in the words next following here, ſome underſtand theſe words thus, They ſhall not riſe till the general reſurrections, when theſe heavens ſhall be changed, and renewed, Pſalm 102.25, 26. Iſaiah 65.17. 2 Peter 3.7.10, 11. Rev. 21.1.

They ſhall not awake] Out of the ſleep of death: nor be raiſed] viz. by the ſound of the laſt trump, till the laſt day. But raiſed they ſhall be, and ſleep no more, viz. when the heavens ſhall be no more. And till that time the bodies of the Saints are laid in the grave, as in a bed of down; or of ſpices, to mellow and ripen: this is matter of joy and triumph, Iſa. 26.19. Dan. 12.2. when they were to loſe all: ſo Heb. 11.35. The wicked alſo ſleep in the grave, Dan. 12.2. but ſhall awake to everlaſting ſhame and contempt, ib. their ſick ſleep ſhall have a woful waking, for they ſhall be raiſed by vertue of Chriſts judiciary power, and by the curſe of the law, to look upon him whom they have pierced, and to hear from him that dreadful diſcedite, Depart ye curſed &c.

Verſe 13. O that thou wouldſt hide me in the grave] As in a ſweet and ſafe repoſitory, ſanctuary!Sepulchrum eſt quaſi ſcrinium vel capſa in quam reponitur corpus. my ſoul mean-while living and raigning with thee in heaven, expecting a glorious Reſurrection, and ſaying, How long, Lord, Holy, and True? The fable or fancy of Pſychopannychia hath been long ſince hiſſed out, though lately revived by ſome Libertines, that laſt brood of Beelzebub; our Mortaliſts eſpecially, who ſay, that the body and ſoul die together. But what ſaith the Apoſtle, Rom. 8.10? If Chriſt be in you, the body is dead becauſe of ſinne; but the ſpirit is life becauſe of righteouſneſſe. Now that Job thus woos death, and petitions for the grave, it is manifeſt that he ſaw ſome good in it, and that he promiſed himſelf by it Malorum ademptionem, bonorum adeptionem, freedom from evil, and fulneſſe of good: we ſhould learn to familiarize death to our ſelves, and put the grave under the faireſt and eaſieſt apprehenſions, think we hear God beſpeaking us as once hee did Jacob, Fear not to go down to Egypt (ſo down to the grave) for I will go with thee, and will ſurely bring thee up again, Gen. 46.4. Or as he did his labouring Church, Iſa. 26.20. Come my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and ſhut thy doors about thee: hide thy ſelf, as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpaſt.

That thou wouldſt keep me ſecret] In limbo Patrum, ſay the Papiſts, in parabola ovis capras ſuas quaerentes.

Ʋntil thy wrath be paſſed] For it is ſuch, as I can of my ſelf neither avoid nor abide. Turn it away therefore, or turn it into gentleneſſe and kindneſſe, Pſal 6.4. and be friends again, Jer. 2.35. Or, ſecret and ſecure me til the reſurrection, when all thy wrath will be gone from me.

That thou wouldſt appoint me a ſet time] Heb. ſet me a ſtatute: ſet down even what time thou pleaſeſt, either to ſend me to bed, or to call me up again, ſo that thou wilt but be ſure at laſt to remember me.

And remember me] Job is willing to die out of the world, but to die out of Gods memory; to be out of ſight, but not out of mind; that God ſhould bury him in the grave, but not bury his thoughts of him: he could be content to be free among the dead, free of that company, but not as the ſlain that lie in the grave, whom God remembreth no more, Pſal. 88.5. Job would be remembred for good, as Nehemiah prayeth, and be dealt with as Moſes was, whoſe body once hid in the valley of Moab, did afterwards appear glorious in Mount Tabor at the transfiguration.

Verſe 14. If a man dye, ſhall he li[illegible: 1 letter]e again?] This he ſpeaketh in way of admiration at that glorious work of the Reſurrection. See the like queſtion chap. 15.11. Gen. 3.1. and 17.17. So the Apoſtle Rom. 8.30, 31. having ſpoken of thoſe glorious things, predeſtination, vocation, juſtification, glorification, concludeth in theſe words, What ſhall we ſay then? We cannot tell what to ſay to theſe things, ſo much we are amazed at the greatneſſe of Gods goodneſſe in them. Surely, as they have a lovely ſcarlet bluſh of Chriſts blood upon them, ſo they are rayed upon with a beam of divine love, to them that are in Chriſt. We read of that godly and learned Scotch-Divine Mr. John Knox, that a little before his death, he gat up out of his bed, and being asked by his friends, why being ſo ſick, he would offer to riſe, and not rather take his reſt? he anſwered, that he had all the laſt night been taken up in the meditation of the Reſurrection, and that he would now go up into the pulpit, that hee might im part to others the comforts which thereby himſelf had received. And ſurely if he had been able to have done as he deſired, I know not what text fitter for his purpoſe he could have taken, then theſe words of Job, If a man die, ſhall he live again? He ſhall without queſtion; and thoſe that deny it or doubt of it (as the Sadduces of old, and ſome brain-ſick people of late) they erre, not knowing the Scriptures (this among the reſt) which are expreſs for it, and the power of God. Mat. 22.29. being herein worſe then divels which believe it and tremble; worſe then ſome heathens, who held there would be a reſurrection, as Zoroaſtres, Theopompus, Plato, &c. worſe then Turks, who at this day confeſſe and wait for a reſurrection of the body at ſuch a time as the fearful trumpet (which they call Soor ſhal be ſounded by Mahomet, ſay they, at the commandment of the great God of the judgment.

All the dayes of mine appointed time (or warfare) will I wait till my change come] i. e. till my death (Prov. 31.8. men appointed to die, are called in the original children of change) or till the reſurrection come, when we ſhall all be changed, 1 Cor. 15.51. our vile bodies ſhall be changed and conformed to Chriſts moſt glorious body (the ſtandard) Philip. 3.23. in beauty, agility, impaſſibility, and other Angelical perfections. When I awake, ſaith David, ſc. at that general Reſurrection, I ſhall be full of thine image; Pſalm 17.15. I ſhall be brought from the jawes of death, to the joyes of eternal life, where are riches without ruſt, pleaſures without pain &c. Three glimpſes of this glorious change were ſeen. 1. In Moſes his face. 2. In Chriſts transfiguration. 3. In Stevens countenance when he ſtood before the council. Such a change as this is well worth waiting for: what would not a man do? what would he not ſuffer with thoſe noble profeſſors, Heb. 11. to obtain a better reſurrection? I would ſwim through a ſea of brimſtone, ſaith one, that I might come to heaven at laſt. The ſtone will fall down to come to its own place, though it break it ſelf in twenty pieces: ſo we, that we may get to our center which is upwards &c. Surſum curſum noſtrum dirigamus; & manantem, imminentem & exterminantem mortem attendamus: ne ſimul, cum corporis fractura, animae jacturam faciamus. Let us wait and wiſh every one for himſelf, as he once did.

Mî ſine nocte diem, vitam ſine morte, quietem Det ſine fine, dies, vita, quiéſque Deus.

Verſe 15. Thou ſhalt call, and I will anſwer thee] At the Reſurrection of the juſt thou ſhalt call me out of the grave by thine All-powerful voice, uttered by that Archangel, with the trump of God, 1 Theſ. 4.16. 1 Cor. 15.52. Pſalm 50.3, 4. and thou ſhalt not need to call twice: for as I ſhall not need then to fear (as the hypocrites will) to ſhew my face: ſo I will readily anſwer, Here I am; Mr. Boroughs. yea (as that dying Saint did ſo) I will ſay, I come, I come, I come, I will even leap out of the grave to obey thine orders: and I doubt not but to draw me out of that dark priſon, thou wilt lend me that hand of thine, whereof I have the honour to be the workmanſhip.

Thou wilt have a deſire to the work of thine hands] I know that thou thy ſelf (for the love thou beareſt me, of thy goodneſſe, who am thy creature,Abbot. and on whom thou haſt ſhewn favour, and reprinted thine image) wilt long after the conſummation of my happineſſe; for then I ſhall be like unto thee (more like then ever) for I ſhall ſee thee as thou art, and appear with thee in glory, Col. 3.4.1 John 3.2. being next unto thee, Luke 22.30. Yea, one with thee, John 17.21. and ſo above the moſt glorious Angels, Heb. 1.14. The King ſhall greatly deſire my beauty, Pſal. 45.11. and rejoyce over me, as the bridegrom doth over his bride, Iſa. 62.5. See chap. 10.3. The word here rendred Thou wilt have a deſire, ſignifieth, Thou wilt deſire as men do after ſilver: The Lord ſeemed to deal by Job, as men do by droſſe, to put him away as wicked, Pſalm 119.119. nevertheleſſe, he believed that he would look upon him as ſilver: and although he now cruſhed him together, and brake him to pieces, as the ſilver-ſmith doth an old piece of plate which he means to melt; yet that he would in the grave, as in a furnace refine him, and at the Reſurrection bring him out of a new faſhion. Lo this is the right Logick of faith, to make concluſions of life in death, and of light in darkneſſe, to gather one contrary out of another.

Verſe 16. For now thou numbreſt my ſteps] Or, But now thou numbreſt &c. thou keepeſt an exact account of every ſin of mine, of every ſtep that I have trod awry; yea, though it be but ſome wry motion of my mind (as the Septuagint here tranſlate) ſo curious art thou and critical in thine obſervations of mine out-ſtrayes, [non-Latin text not transcribed] See chap. 10.14. But is this Job that ſpeaketh, or ſome other? How confident was he [illegible: 1 word]-while, and comfortable in the hope of a glorious reſurrection! but now, down again upon all four, as we ſay; and like an aguiſh man in a great fit of impatiency, which holdeth him to the end of the chapter? But for this; who knoweth not that every new man, is two men? that in the Saints, the fleſh is ever luſting againſt the ſpirit, and the ſpirit againſt the fleſh? that in the Shulamite, is as it were, the company of two armies maintaining a continual conteſt, Cant. 0.13? [illegible: 1 letter]ſaid, I am caſt out of they ſight: yet I will look againe toward thine holy Temple, Jon. 2.4. See the Note there.

Doſt thou not watch over my ſin?] This is the ſame with the former, but without a figure. The Rabbines have a ſaying, that there is not any doubt in the law, but may be reſolved by the context: the Scripture is its owne beſt Interpreter.

Verſe 17. My tranſgreſſion is ſealed up in a bag] As the writings or informations of a proceſſe which is ready to be ſentenced, Deut. 32.34. Hoſ. 13.12. Thou haſt, as it were, ſealed up, and made ſure work with all my ſins, ſaith Job, to have them forth-coming for the increaſe of my puniſhment. Look how the Clark of Aſſizes (ſaith one) ſeals up the indictments of men, and at the Aſſizes brings his bag, and takes them out to read the ſame againſt them: ſo God dealt with Job, in his conceit at leaſt. The truth is, God had not ſealed his tranſgreſſions in a bag, but had caſt them behind his back: a bag God hath for mens ſins, and a bottle he hath for their tears, Pſalm 56.8. Now Job was one of thoſe penitents that helped to fill Gods bottle, and therefore he ſaw at length (though now he were benighted) all his ſins, bag, and all thrown into the ſea, and ſinking as a waighty milſtone in thoſe mighty waters of free-grace, and undeſerved mercy.

And thou ſoweſt up mine iniquity] Adſuèſne aliquid iniquitati meae? ſo the Tigurines tranſlate, i. e. Wilt thou ſew or adde any thing to mine iniquity? wilt thou tye to it that tag (as a Martyr phraſeth it) of the Lawes malediction, conjoyning the puniſhment to the ſin?Adſuere ad iniquitatem, eſt poenas poenis continenter adjungere. Merl. Some make this an explication of the former, q. d. the bag is not only ſealed, but for more ſurety, ſewed too, and that purpoſely for a purchaſe of puniſhment, as ſome ſenſe it.

Verſe 18. And ſurely the mountain falling cometh to nought] q. d. If thou, Lord, proceed to deal thus rigidly with me, viz. to number or cipher up my ſteps, to watch over my ſins, to ſeal them up in a bag &c. and all this in fierce wrath, that thou mayeſt lay load upon me; what mountain, what rock, what other creature is ever able to abide it?chap. 6.12. chap. 7.12. Job had ſaid before, Is my ſtrength the ſtrength of ſtones? Am I a ſea, or a whale? Were I theſe, or any the like robuſtuous creatures, yet could not I expect to ſtand before the diſpleaſed Omnipotency, who takeſt the hills like tennis-balls, and crackeſt the rocks like a Nut-ſhell. See Hab. 1.4, 5, 6. with the Notes.

And the rock is removed out of his place] As in earth-quakes it ſometimes falleth out. See on chap. 9.5. or by reaſon of the ſea underlaking, it decayeth in time, and waxeth old, as the Hebrew word ſignifieth.

Verſe 19. The waters weare the ſtones] Gutta cavat lapidem &c. the weakeſt things wear out the hardeſt by often falling upon them, or continual running over them: ſo doth Gods wrath though let out in minnums, ſecretly, but ſurely conſume, Hoſ. 5.12. I will be unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the houſe of Judah as rottenneſſe, or that little worm (teredo) that eats into the heart of wood, and rots it. Thus he plagued the Egyptians by lice and flies. There may be much poiſon in little drops.

Thou waſheſt away the things that grow out of the earth] Or, Thou ever-floweſt, as once in the general deluge (when the face of the earth was grown ſo foul, that God was forc'd to waſh it with a flood) and frequently ſince, we ſee that after great rains there are huge floods that marre whole meadows and corne fields, not only diſcolouring, but drowning all their beauty and plenty. This is the fourth compariſon uſed in this and the former verſe; where a man would wonder, ſaith an Interpreter,Olymp. audire Jobum in medus [illegible: 1 letter]rumuis philoſophantem to hear Job in the midſt of his miſeries, making uſe of his philoſophy, and travelling thus in his thoughts, for illuſtrations of his own caſe, over mountains, and rocks, &c.

Thou destroyeſt the hope of man] viz. In deſtroying the things above-mentioned: or, ſo thou destroyeſt &c. though ſome reſerve the raddition to the next ver[illegible: 2 letters], ſo Thou prevaileſt againſt him, &c. i.e. So thou never ceaſeſt with thy might to caſt down ſorry men, till ſuch time as they changing countenance, and departing with an heavy and ſorrowful heart, thou violently throweſt them out, their lives and hope ending together, if they have been wicked: as if godly, yet their vain and groundleſſe hopes of proſperity and plenty, &c. come to nothing; though over the red ſea, yet Gods people may be made to tack about two and forty times in the wilderneſſe.

Verſe 20. Thou prevaileſt for ever againſt him.] This and the reſt of the words to the end of the Chapter, ſome make to be the Application of the Similitudes; Others an Amplification only of what he had ſaid, Thou deſtroyeſt the hope of man. Thou muſt needs, when thou overmatcheſt and over-maſtereſt him, and art never worſted. Exod. 15.3. the Lord is called, A Man of War; the Chaldee there hath it, The Lord and Victor of Wars. And the word here rendred, Ever, cometh from a root that ſignifieth to finiſh, conquer, and triumph.

And he paſſeth.] ſcil. Out of the world by a violent or untimely death,Violen[illegible: 2 letters] mort[illegible: 1 letter] aut certe immaturà. Merlin. with as ill a will many times as the unjuſt Steward did out of his Office, as the Jebuſites did out of the Fort of Zion, or as the Devil out of the Demoniack. S[illegible: 1 letter]d voluntas Dei, neceſſit[illegible: 1 letter]s rei; he paſſeth, becauſe he can neither will nor chuſe, as they ſay.

Thou changeſt his countenance, and ſendeſt him away.] Eleganter vero mors notatur, immutandi verbo, ſaith one, Elegant is death ſet forth by changing the countenance: for death taketh away the faire and freſh colour of a man, and makes him look wan and withered, pale and ghaſtly. It is eaſ[illegible: 1 letter]e to ſee death many times (before it come) in the ſick man[illegible: 1 letter]face, in his ſharp noſtrils, thin cheeks, hollow eyes, &c.Facies Hippocratica. thoſe Harbingers of death, whereby God ſendeth for him, and ſo ſendeth him away, (extrudit & amandet, as once he did Adam out of Paradiſe. Lavaters Note here, is, Propone tihi ſemper horribileus ſpeciem mortis, ut eò minus pecces, Set before thy ſelf alwayes the horrid face of death, to reſtraine thee from ſin.

Verſe 21. His ſons come to honour, and he knoweth it not.] Whilſt he lyeth ſick,Omnis in Aſcanio chari ſtatcura parentis. Vir. he regardeth no earthly thing, no not what becometh of his children (formerly his greateſt care) whether they be advanced or impaired in their outward condition. As when he is dead he can take no knowledge of any thing done in this world, Iſai. 63.16 Eccleſ. 2.19. and 96. be his children or friends rich or poor, high or low, he is both ignorant and inſenſible. It was a baſe ſlander publiſhed by a Jeſuit, ſome years after Queen Elizabeths death, That as ſhe died without ſenſe or feeling of Gods mercies,Cambd. Eliz. Prefat. ſo that ſhe wiſhed ſhe might after her death hang a while in the Aire, to ſee what ſtriving would be for her Kingdome. As for that opinion of ſome Papiſts, That the dead do ſometimes returne into the Land of the living, that they know how things go here, and make report thereof to thoſe in heaven, it is contrary to the whole Scripture.

Verſe 22. But his fleſh upon him ſhall have pain.] That is, (ſay ſome) But as long as he is living, his body is afflicted with a thouſand evils; and though his ſoul, by the condition of her creation, be exempt from them, yet ſhe beares a part in them and becomes miſerable with it. A dying man hath ſorrow without, and ſorrow within; the whole man is in miſery, as Job here felt himſelf. Others hold,Aben-Ezra. Mercer Deodate that this Poetical repreſentation hath no other meaning, but that the dead have no manner of communication with the living. Broughtou rendreth it, His fleſh is grieved for it ſelf, and his ſoul will mourn for it ſelf; q.d. he takes no thought or care for his children or neereſt relations.