Job 14
About JobWritten by AI
Job is a long poem framed by a short story. A good man loses his wealth, his children, and his health, and no one tells him why. The writer and the date are unknown: the story is set in the age of the patriarchs, but the book may have been written much later, and Christians hold different views on when. Some Jewish tradition credits Moses.
After two prose chapters, Job and three friends trade speeches in rounds. The friends insist suffering must be punishment for sin; Job insists he is innocent and pleads for God to answer him. A younger man, Elihu, speaks next. Then the LORD Himself answers out of the whirlwind, and the story closes in prose.
Read the friends with care. They say many true things about God, but they apply them wrongly, and at the end God says they have not spoken of Him accurately as Job has (42:7). Watch for Job's flashes of hope in the dark: “I know that my Redeemer lives.”
Before you read Job 14Written by AI
Job reflects on how short and troubled human life is. Even a cut down tree can sprout again, but a person who dies does not rise. Yet he wonders aloud whether a person could live again, and longs for a time when God would remember him. Notice this flicker of hope in the gloom.
Job Laments the Finality of Death
“Man, who is born of woman,
is short of days and full of trouble.
Like a flower, he comes forth, then withers away;
like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.
Do You open Your eyes to one like this?
Will You bring him into judgment before You?
Who can bring out clean from unclean?
No one!
Since his days are determined
and the number of his months is with You,
and since You have set limits
that he cannot exceed,
look away from him and let him rest,
so he can enjoy his day as a hired hand.
For there is hope for a tree:
If it is cut down, it will sprout again,
and its tender shoots will not fail.
If its roots grow old in the ground
and its stump dies in the soil,
at the scent of water it will bud
and put forth twigs like a sapling.
But a man dies and is laid low;
he breathes his last, and where is he?
As water disappears from the sea
and a river becomes parched and dry,
so a man lies down
and does not rise.
Until the heavens are no more,
he will not be awakened or roused from sleep.
If only You would hide me in Sheol
and conceal me until Your anger has passed!
If only You would appoint a time for me
and then remember me!
When a man dies, will he live again?
All the days of my hard service I will wait,
until my renewal comes.
You will call, and I will answer;
You will desire the work of Your hands.
For then You would count my steps,
but would not keep track of my sin.
My transgression would be sealed in a bag,
and You would cover over my iniquity.
But as a mountain erodes and crumbles
and a rock is dislodged from its place,
as water wears away the stones
and torrents wash away the soil,
so You destroy a man’s hope.
You forever overpower him, and he passes on;
You change his countenance and send him away.
If his sons receive honor, he does not know it;
if they are brought low, he is unaware.
He feels only the pain of his own body
and mourns only for himself.”