Job 14:15 Ulasan

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.

Thou shall call, and I will answer thee,.... Either at death, when the soul of than is required of him, and he is summoned out of time into eternity, and has sometimes previous notice of it; though not by a prophet, or express messenger from the Lord, as Hezekiah had, yet by some disease and distemper or another, which has a voice, a call in it to expect a remove shortly; and a good man that is prepared for it, he answers to this call readily and cheerfully; death is no king of terrors to him, he is not reluctant to it, yea, desirous of it; entreats his dismission in peace, and even longs for it, and rejoices and triumphs in the views of it: or else at the resurrection, when Christ shall call to the dead, as he did to Lazarus, and say, Come forth; and when they shall hear his voice, even the voice of the archangel, and shall answer to it, and come forth out of their graves, the sea, death, and the grave, being obliged to deliver up the dead that are therein; though some think this refers to God's call unto him in a judicial way, and his answers to it by way of defence, as in Job 13:22; but the other sense seems more agreeable to the context: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands; meaning his body, which is the workmanship of God, and a curious piece of workmanship it is, wonderfully and fearfully made, Psa 139:14, and curiously wrought; and though it may seem to be marred and spoiled by death, yet God will have a desire to the restoration of it at the resurrection to a better condition; even the bodies of his people, and that because they are vessels chosen by him, given to his Son, redeemed by his blood, united to his person, and sanctified by his Spirit, whose temples they are, and in whom he dwells: wherefore upon these considerations it may be reasonably supposed that Father, Son, and Spirit, have a desire to the resurrection of the bodies of the saints, and in which they will have a concern; and from which it may be concluded it will be certainly effected, since God is a rock, and his work is perfect, or will be, both upon the bodies and souls of his people; and the work of sanctification will not be properly completed on them until their vile bodies are changed, and made like to the glorious body of Christ; which must be very desirable to him, who has such a special love for them, and delight in them. Some render the words with an interrogation, "wilt thou desire to destroy the work of thine hands" (e)? surely thou wilt not; or, as Ben Gersom, "is it fit that thou shouldest desire to destroy the work of thine hands?'' surely it is not becoming, it cannot be thought that thou wilt do it; but the former sense is best. (e) "perdere desiderabis?" Pagninus, Vatablus.

Since Job wants to show that not only the body is resurrected but also the soul whose thoughts are fixed on God, he says, “You would call, and I would answer you.” For listening when God calls is a quality of a creature endowed with reason, that is, the soul.

Ver. 15. Thou shalt call me, and I will answer Thee. We are said to answer anyone, when we do works in turn answerable to his deeds. Thus in that change the Lord 'calls,' and man 'answers,' in that, before the brightness of The Incorrupt, man is shewn forth incorrupt after corruption. For now so long as we are subject to corruption, we do not in any wise 'answer' our Creator, seeing that whereas corruption is far from incorruption, there is no similarity suitable to our answering. But of that change it is written, When He shall appear, we shall be like Him: for we shall see Him as He is. Then therefore we shall truly 'answer God,' Who 'calleth,' when at the bidding of the Supreme Incorruption we shall arise incorruptible; and because the creature is not able to earn this by itself, but it is brought to pass by the gift of Almighty God alone, that it should be changed to that exceeding glory of incorruption, it is rightly subjoined; Thou wilt stretch forth Thy right hand to the work of Thine hands. As if he said in plain words; 'For this reason Thy corruptible creature is able to hold fast unto incorruption, because he is lifted up by the hands of Thy power, and is kept by the grace of Thy regard, that he should hold fast.' For the human creature by this alone, that it is a creature, has it inherent in itself to sink down below itself, but man has obtained it from his Creator, that he should both be caught above himself by contemplation, and held fast in himself by incorruption. And so that the creature may not fall away beneath himself, but hold on in incorruption, he is lifted to the stedfastness of immutability by the right hand of His Maker. Moreover it may be that by the title of 'the Right Hand' the Son may be designated; in that, All things were made by Him. Thus Almighty God 'stretched out His Right Hand to the work of His hands,' because, that He might lift on high the human race, become refuse and grovelling in the lowest things, He sent the Only-Begotten One, made Incarnate for this end. By Whose Incarnation it has been vouchsafed to us that we, who fall into incorruption of our own will, should one time be enabled to answer God when He calls us in the glory of incorruption. Wherein who can estimate the bountifulness of Divine Mercy, that He should bring man after sin to such a height of glory? God takes account of the bad things we do, yet by the grace of His lovingkindness He remits them to us in mercy.

He excludes man being transformed in the state of the other life by natural power saying, "You will call me and I will answer you," as if to say: The future transformation will proceed from the power of your voice or your command, as John says, "All those who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear it will live." (5:28) Calling is characteristic of commanding, but answering is the obedience by which the creature obeys the Creator. Since the dead will rise not only according to the command of God to life, but also will be changed to some higher state by divine power, he then says, "You will stretch forth your right hand to the work of your hands," as if to say: The man who rises again will not be the work of nature, but of your power and you stretch forth your helping right hand to this work when he will be elevated to the glory of the new state by the help of your grace. Or his statement, "You will call and I will answer you," can refer to the renewal of the body because he adds, "you will stretch forth your right hand to the work of your hands," to the soul which naturally desires to be united with the body to which God will stretch forth his right hand as a helper when the soul will attain by divine power what it cannot attain by its own power.

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

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.

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.

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" (Gen 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.