Job 14:1

Job 14 closes Job’s long reply to Zophar, which began in chapter 12. In that reply Job has argued with his friends and pleaded with God to meet him. Now he widens his view from himself to all mankind. The word for man, ʼâdâm, comes from a root meaning “ruddy” and is used for a single person or for the whole human race. Job is describing everyone, and he says it out of his own grief.

“Man that is born of a woman” names where each of us begins. Every person enters the world the same way, weak and dependent, with a life that will end. This condition belongs to all of us from birth, and that quietly answers Job’s friends, who traced his suffering to some sin of his own.

The word behind “few” is qâtsêr, short, used for what is short in size, number, life, strength or temper. Our life is short of days. “Trouble” is rôgez, commotion, restlessness or disquiet, and in some places anger. Job is saying that the short span is crowded with turmoil. The prayer of Moses in Psalm 90 dwells on the same brevity, and it says, “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away” (Psalm 90:10). Earlier in this book we read, “Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7), and James asks, “For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away” (James 4:14).

Job gives two pictures of the same truth, and the second half of verse 2 repeats and deepens the first. “He cometh forth like a flower” uses yâtsâʼ, the everyday verb to go or come out, here of a person coming into the world as a flower comes up out of the ground. People who lived off the land knew how quickly flowers open and wilt in a dry country. “And is cut down” is nâmal, to be clipped, and so cut down or cut off, and with a flower it can describe its fading as well as its cutting. Life comes, and before long it is gone.

The second picture is the shadow. The word tsêl means shadow or shade, and in other places it is used for the shelter that shade gives. Here it is a shadow that “fleeth”. A shadow is without substance and is gone as soon as the light moves. The last words, “and continueth not”, close the verse on the plain fact that our life on earth passes.

The Psalms use the same pictures. Men are “like grass which groweth up. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth” (Psalm 90:3–6). “As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more” (Psalm 103:15–16). The shadow returns in “My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass” (Psalm 102:11), and Ecclesiastes speaks of “all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow” (Ecclesiastes 6:12).

A few verses on, Job sets man beside a tree. A tree that is cut down can sprout again, for “through the scent of water it will bud” (Job 14:7–9), but “man lieth down, and riseth not” (Job 14:10–12).

Verse 3 turns from description to protest, spoken straight to God. “Open” is pâqach, a verb used for opening the senses, above all the eyes. When God opens his eyes on someone, he gives that person his full attention. “Such an one” is zeh, “this one”, pointing back to the frail man of verses 1 and 2. Job is astonished that the eternal God should look so closely at a creature so short-lived, and in his pain he feels that look as a search for fault. He had asked the same thing before: “What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him? And that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment?” (Job 7:17–18).

The psalms ask the question too, with wonder at God’s kindness: “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Psalm 8:4). Another psalm rejoices, “O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me” (Psalm 139:1–6), the very knowledge that Job finds overwhelming.

“And bringest me into judgment with thee” uses mishpâṭ, a verdict pronounced in court, a sentence. Job pictures himself in a courtroom where God is both accuser and judge, and where a mortal man is defenceless. He had already said, “For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment. Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both” (Job 9:32–33). His friends held that suffering is the punishment of sin. Job knew himself innocent of any great sin that could deserve what had come on him, so the trial felt unjust.

Job was right that his suffering was undeserved, and the rest of Scripture adds that every one of us needs mercy before a holy God, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). God’s searching gaze joins perfect justice with close and loving care, though Job in his suffering could see only the first.

Verse 4 is a question with its answer attached. The verb “bring” is nâthan, to give, used very widely for putting, setting and making, and even for yielding or bearing. “Clean” is ṭâhôwr, free from defilement, used of ceremonial, physical and moral purity. “Unclean” is ṭâmêʼ, defiled, a state that made a person or thing unfit for holy use and could come from disease, death or certain discharges of the body. The answer is built on ʼechâd, “one”, and with the negative before it, “not one”, it closes the question for every human being.

The law of Moses in Leviticus and Numbers spells out these kinds of uncleanness and the ways of being cleansed, and Leviticus 11 sets out the clean and unclean animals. That uncleanness was often temporary, and the rites God gave could remove it. Job’s story is set before the law was given in full, and the idea of purity and defilement was already old. Job is speaking of a defilement in human nature itself, present from our origin, which God alone can take away. Jeremiah asks the same kind of question: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil” (Jeremiah 13:23).

“Seeing” ties verse 5 to verse 6: because God has fixed the length of a life, Job asks him to let that life rest. “Determined” is chârats, a verb that means to cut or sharpen and also to decide or decree, so a man’s days are decided. “The number of his months” uses miçpâr, a number or count, and “are with thee” says that God holds that count. “Thou hast appointed his bounds” uses ‘âsâh, the broad verb to do or make, so God has made his bounds. “Bounds” is chôq, something prescribed, such as a law, a decree, a custom, a task, an allotted portion or a set limit. Here it is the limit of a life, and the verse says plainly that he “cannot pass” it.

Job gives this power to God alone. The length of a life is a matter of God’s decree, and it lies outside human control. A psalm says the same thing with comfort: “in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them” (Psalm 139:16).

Job says it with sorrow, as a man resigned. His point is that a life so short and so firmly bounded ought at least to be left in peace for the time it has, and that leads straight into verse 6.

“Turn” is shâʻâh, a verb whose first sense is to gaze about for help, and which also covers regarding, sparing and looking away. Here Job asks God to look away from him. “That he may rest” is châdal, to leave off, cease or be let alone. Job asks God to stop pressing on him so that he can have some quiet.

The “hireling” is the sâkîyr, a man hired for wages by the day or by the year. He works a fixed term, often a hard one, and looks forward to its end and his pay. Job has used this picture before: “Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of an hireling? As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work” (Job 7:1–3). He also said, “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope” (Job 7:6). Life, as Job feels it, is a set term of labour.

“Till he shall accomplish … his day” uses râtsâh, a verb that can mean to be pleased with, and that is used for the land paying off its sabbaths. Job pictures a hired man working out his term until it is complete. He asks for rest until his day is done, and his day will end at death. Earlier he had spoken of the grave as the place where “the weary be at rest” (Job 3:17), and in the verses that follow he wishes God would hide him in the grave until his wrath is past (Job 14:13–22). Ecclesiastes says there is “a time to be born, and a time to die” (Ecclesiastes 3:1–8).

The Son of God shared the life Job describes. “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman” (Galatians 4:4), in the fulness of the time. We have a high priest who is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities”, who “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15–16). His life on earth was short and full of trouble, for he was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3), and it ended in death on the cross. By his death and resurrection he overcame sin and death, the powers behind our few and troubled days. He gives eternal life to all who believe in him (John 3:16), and he promises a world where “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain” (Revelation 21:4).

These verses give us words for the hardest days. Job speaks to God about the shortness of life, the weight of trouble and the fear of judgment, and Scripture keeps his words for us, so honest sorrow has its place in prayer. They also show who God is. He knows the number of our months, he sets the bounds of every life, and every one of our days lies open before him.

Job wished that God would look away. In Christ we learn that the God whose eyes are on us looks at us with mercy, and that the cleansing “not one” of us can bring comes from him. A short life held in God’s hand is a life he has measured with care, and Paul’s word about “redeeming the time” (Ephesians 5:16) rests on that. The one who was born of a woman, lived a few troubled days and rose again gives rest to the weary, at the end of their day and beyond it.