Job 14:12 Komentář

Job had turned from speaking to his friends, finding it to no purpose to reason with them, and here he goes on to speak to God and himself. He had reminded his friends of their frailty and mortality (Job 13:12); here he reminds himself of his own, and pleads it with God for some mitigation of his miseries. We have here an account, I. Of man's life, that it is, 1. Short (Job 14:1). 2. Sorrowful (Job 14:1). 3. Sinful (Job 14:4). 4. Stinted (Job 14:5, Job 14:14). II. Of man's death, that it puts a final period to our present life, to which we shall not again return (Job 14:7-12), that it hides us from the calamities of life (Job 14:13), destroys the hopes of life (Job 14:18, Job 14:19), sends us away from the business of life (Job 14:20), and keeps us in the dark concerning our relations in this life, how much soever we have formerly been in care about them (Job 14:21, Job 14:22), III. The use Job makes of all this. 1. He pleads it with God, who, he thought, was too strict and severe with him (Job 14:16, Job 14:17), begging that, in consideration of his frailty, he would not contend with him (Job 14:3), but grant him some respite (Job 14:6). 2. He engages himself to prepare for death (Job 14:14), and encourages himself to hope that it would be comfortable to him (Job 14:15). This chapter is proper for funeral solemnities; and serious meditations on it will help us both to get good by the death of others and to get ready for our own.

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 14 Job, having turned himself from his friends to God, continues his address to him in this chapter; wherein he discourses of the frailty of man, the shortness of his life, the troubles that are in it, the sinfulness of it, and its limited duration, beyond which it cannot continue; all which he makes use of with God, that he would not therefore deal rigorously with him, but have pity on him, and cease from severely afflicting him, till he came to the end of his days, which could not be long, Job 14:1; he observes of a tree, when it is cut down to the root, yea, when the root is become old, and the stock dies, it will, by means of being watered, bud and sprout again, and produce boughs and branches; but man, like the failing waters of the sea, and the decayed and dried up flood, when he dies, rises not, till the heavens be no more, Job 14:7; and then he wishes to be hid in the grave till that time, and expresses hope and belief of the resurrection of the dead, Job 14:13; and goes on to complain of the strict notice God took of his sins, of his severe dealings with men, destroying their hope in life, and removing them by death; so that they see and know not the case and circumstances of their children they leave behind, and while they live have continual pain and sorrow, Job 14:16.

So man lieth down,.... Or "and", or "but man lieth down" (b); in the grave when he dies, as on a bed, and takes his rest from all his labours, toil and troubles, and lies asleep, and continues so till the resurrection morn: and riseth not; from off his bed, or comes not out of his grave into this world, to the place where he was, and to be engaged in the affairs of life he was before, and never by his own power; and whenever he will rise, it will be by the power of God, and this not till the last day, when Christ shall appear in person to judge the world; and then the dead in Christ will rise first, at the beginning of the thousand years, and the wicked at the end of them: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep; for so the words are to be read, not in connection with those that go before, but with the last clauses; though the sense is much the same either way, which is, that those who are fallen asleep by death, and lie sleeping in their graves, and on their beds, these shall neither awake of themselves, nor be awaked by others, "till the heavens be no more"; that is, never, so as to awake and arise of themselves, and to this natural life, and to be concerned in the business of it; which sometimes seems to be the sense of this phrase, see Psa 89:29, Mat 5:18; or, as some render it, "till the heavens are wore out", or "waxen old" (c); as they will like a garment, and be folded up, and laid aside, as to their present use, Psa 102:26; or till they shall vanish away, and be no more, as to their present form, quality, and use, though they may exist as to substance; and when this will be the case, as it will be when the Judge shall appear, when Christ shall come a second time to judge the world; then the earth and heaven will flee away from his face, the earth and its works shall be burnt up, and the heavens shall pass away with great noise; and then, and not till then, will the dead, or those that are asleep in their graves, be awaked by the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God, and they shall be raised from their sleepy beds, awake and arise, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. (b) "et vir", Pagninus, Montanus, Beza, Schmidt; "at vir", Cocceius. (c) "donec atteratur eoelum", V. L. so some in Bar Tzemach, though disapproved of by him as ungrammatical.

By calling death “sleep,” Job has clearly given us the hope for resurrection. However, he says, we will not awake “until heavens are no more.” That is obvious, because, as Isaiah said, it is necessary that “they shall be rolled together like a scroll.” It is necessary that all their powers are shaken, that the sun and the moon are obscured and that the stars, after being unsettled, fall like leaves. Then, at the sound of the trumpet, the angels will raise us from the dead, as from “sleep,” obviously under the order and the sign of God.

Ver. 11, 12. As if the waters fail from the sea, and the river being emptied drieth up: so man lieth down, and riseth not. The mind of man is the sea, and the thoughts of his mind, as it were, a wave of the sea; which sometimes swell in anger, are made calm by grace, and from hatred run out in bitterness; but when man dieth, 'the waters of the sea fail,' in that according to the words of the Psalmist, In that very day his thoughts perish. And again it is written concerning the dying soul, Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy shall perish together. Thus 'the river being emptied drieth up,' in that, when the soul is withdrawn, the body remains empty. For the lifeless body is as it were the empty channel of a river, wherein it is to be marked with an attentive eye that the present life, i.e. the time while the soul stays in the body, is likened to the sea and to a river, for the water of the sea is bitter, of a river sweet. And because we that are living here are at one time under the influence of certain bitternesses, and at another time are seen to be serene and gentle with sweetness, the course of the present life is set forth by the similitude of the sea and a river. But herein that seems to be exceedingly hard which is added, So man lieth down, and riseth not. Wherefore do we so toil and labour, if we are not straining after the recompense of the Resurrection? And how is it said, and riseth not, when it is written: We shall all rise again, but we shall not all be changed? And again, If in this life only we have hope of life in Christ, we are of all men most miserable: and when 'Truth' says by Itself, All that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation. But the sentence subjoined points out what distinction there is concealed in the sentence preceding. For it is added; Till the heavens be no more they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. For it is plain that they shall not rise again, that is, till the heavens be no more, in that except the end of the world come, the race of mankind shall not wake to life from the sleep of death. Not, then, that he shall not rise again at all, but that before the crumbling of the heavens the human race shall not rise again, is what he teaches. Moreover it is a thing to be marked, why after he had called man dead above, below he designates him not dead, but sleeping, and tells that he shall never rise again from his sleep until the heaven be crumbled in pieces, which is no otherwise than that it is plainly given us to understand, that by the likeness of the tree quickened afresh to life, he designates man a dead sinner, i.e. extinct from the life of righteousness; but when he speaks of the death of the flesh, he preferred to call this not death but sleep, teaching us surely the hope of the Resurrection; in that as a man quickly awakes out of sleep, so shall he rise in a moment at the nod of his Creator from the death of the body. For the name of death is horribly feared by weak minds, but the title of sleep is not feared. Hence Paul in charging his disciples saith, But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not as men without hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring again with Him. How is it that the great Preacher calls the death of the Lord death, but the death of the servants of the Lord he names not death, but sleep; but that, having regard to the weak hearts of his hearers, he mixes the medicine of his preaching with wonderful art, and Him, Whom they knew to have risen already, he does not doubt to teach them was dead, while those, who had not as yet risen again, that he might teach the hope of the Resurrection, he calls not dead, but sleeping? For he did not fear to call Him dead Whom his hearers knew to have already risen, and He was afraid to call those dead, whose rising again they scarcely believed. Thus blessed Job, seeing that he does not doubt of those that are dead in the flesh waking again to life, calls them sleeping rather than dead.

Note here that what does not perish totally can be renewed, as he has already said about wood which is cut down or is old. (vv. 7-9) But the renewal of something again when nothing remains seems impossible, for example, to renew water in the sea or a river which has completely evaporated. Man, however, as the text has already explained, seems to be so consumed by death that nothing remains of him, and so according to this argument it seems impossible that he is restored to life again. He expresses this theme saying, "As the waters recede from the sea and the rivers dry up empty, so when a man sleeps (when he has died), he will not rise again (from the dead)." Just as it seems impossible for incorruptible things to be corrupted, so it seems impossible for what is totally corrupted to be restored again. Heaven is incorruptible, and so he says, "until heaven passes away, he will not awaken," i.e. come to life again, "nor arise from his sleep," to do the works of the living again. He is saying in effect: As it is impossible for heaven to pass away, i.e. to be corrupted, so it is impossible for man to rise again from the dead. This is said, as we already established, in the supposition that nothing remains of man after death, according to his question, "Where, I ask you, is man." (v.10) One can also refer this to the opinion of those who posited that the whole corporeal universe should be corrupted and renewed again. In this reparation, they posited that the same men would return. So the sense would be: While this world lasts, man will not rise again from the dead. The Catholic faith, however, does not submit that the substance of the world will perish, but only the state of this world as it now exists. Paul expresses this in 1 Corinthians, "The figure of this world is passing away." (7:31) Therefore this change in the figure of the world can be understood here by the wearing away of heaven. For the common resurrection of the dead at the end of the world is expected, as John says, "I know that I will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." (11:24)

Various moral sentiments. The antithesis between wisdom and folly, and the different effects of each.

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.

JOB PASSES FROM HIS OWN TO THE COMMON MISERY OF MANKIND. (Job 14:1-22) woman--feeble, and in the East looked down upon (Gen 2:21). Man being born of one so frail must be frail himself (Mat 11:11). few days-- (Gen 47:9; Psa 90:10). Literally, "short of days." Man is the reverse of full of days and short of trouble.

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 Gen 8:22). Enoch before Job had implied that the "saints shall live again" (Jde 1:14; Heb 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 (Pe1 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.