Job 14:3 Kommentar

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.

And dost thou open thine eyes on such an one,.... So frail and feeble, so short lived and sorrowful, so soon and easily cut down and destroyed: and by opening of his eyes is not meant his providential care of men; whose eyes indeed are everywhere, run to and fro throughout the earth, and are careful of and provident for all sorts of men, which is very wonderful, Psa 8:4; nor the displays of his special grace and favour towards his own peculiar people, on whom his eyes of love, grace, and mercy, are opened, and are never withdrawn from them, which is marvellous lovingkindness; but the exercise of rigorous justice in punishing, afflicting, and chastising with so much severity, as Job thought to be his own case; the eyes of God, as he thought, were set on him for evil, and not for good; he looked wistly on him, and in a very frowning manner; he sharpened his eye upon him, as the phrase is, Job 16:9; and as some render the word (f) here, looked narrowly into all his ways, and watched every motion and every step he took, and pursued him with great eagerness, and used him with great strictness in a way of justice, which he, a poor, weak creature, was not able to bear; which sense is confirmed by what follows: and bringeth me into judgment with thee? by this it appears Job has a view to himself all along, and to the procedure of God against him, which he took to be in strict justice, and that was what he was not able to bear; he was not a match for God, being such a frail, weak, sinful, mortal creature; nor was God a man as he was, that they should come together in judgment, or be fit persons to contend together upon the foot of strict justice; sinful man can never be just with God upon this bottom, or be able to answer to one objection or charge of a thousand brought against him; and therefore, as every sensible man will deprecate God's entering into judgment with him, so Job here expostulates with God why he should bring him into judgment with him; when, as he fled to his grace and mercy, he should rather show that to him than in a rigorous manner deal with him. (f) "super illo acuis oculos tuos", Cocceius; "super hune apertos vibras oculos", Schultens.

And dost Thou deign to open Thine eyes upon such an one, and to bring him into judgment with Thee? For he surveyed above both the power of Almighty God and his own frailty; he brought before his view himself and God, he considered Who would come into judgment, and with whom. He saw on the one side man, on the other side his Creator, i.e. dust and God; and he lightly exclaims, Dost Thou deign to open Thine eyes upon such an one? With Almighty God, to open the eyes is to execute His judgments, to look whom to smite. For as it were with eyes closed He does not wish to look at him, whom He does not wish to smite. Hence it is immediately added also about the judgment itself, To bring him into judgment with Thee? But whereas he had viewed God coming to judgment, he again takes a view of his own frailty. He sees that he cannot be clean of himself, who, that he might be able to be, came forth out of uncleanness.

Third, he wonders about the attentiveness of divine providence for man. For it seems marvelous that God should have such great care about a thing so fragile and despicable. Although everything is submitted to divine providence, still God's care for man appears especially in three things. First, he has given him laws and precepts for living. He touches this when he says, "and you consider it worthy open your eyes on someone like this," for someone is said to open his eyes on someone when he directs him and considers his ways. Second, God rewards man for good deeds and punishes him for evil deeds, and he touches this when he says, "and bring him with yourself in judgment." Third, God adorns him with the virtues by which he preserves himself pure against the deformity of sin. He touches this when he says, "Who can make clean one conceived of unclean seed?" The seed of man is certainly unclean, not according to nature, but according to the infection of concupiscence. Yet a man conceived from this unclean seed is sometimes proven pure by virtue. As the power to make hot what is cold belongs to what is hot in itself, so the power to make pure what is impure belongs to what is pure in itself, and so he says then, "If not you alone," who are really pure in yourself? For purity and cleanliness are found perfectly only in God, in whom there can be no potentiality or defect. So whatever is clean and pure in any way takes this purity and cleanness from God.

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

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.

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.

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? (Zac 12:4). me--so frail. thee--so almighty.