Job 14:21 Commentaar

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.

His sons come to honour,.... Or "are multiplied" (s), see Nah 3:15; their families increase like a flock, become very numerous, which was reckoned a great blessing; or "become heavy" (t); being loaded with gold and silver, with riches and honour, raised to great grandeur and dignity, and possessed of much wealth and large estates: and he knoweth it not; the man whose countenance is changed and sent away into another world; for the dead know nothing of the affairs of this life; a good man indeed after death knows more of God and Christ, of the doctrines of grace, and mysteries of Providence; but he knows nothing of the affairs of his family he has left behind: some understand this of a man on his death bed while alive, who, when he is told of the promotion of his sons to honour, or of the increase of their worldly substance, takes no notice of it; either being deprived of his senses by the disease upon him; or through the greatness of his pains and agonies, or the intenseness of his thoughts about a future state, does not notice what is told him, nor rejoice at it; which in the time of health would have been pleasing to him: but the first sense seems best: and they are brought low, that is, his sons; or "are diminished" (u); lessened in their numbers, one taken off after another, and so his family decreases; or they come into low circumstances of life, are reduced in the world, and brought to straits and difficulties, to want and poverty: but he perceiveth it not of them; he is not sensible of their troubles, and so not grieved at them; see Isa 63:16; or when he is told of them on his death bed, he does not take notice of them, or regard them, having enough to grapple with himself, and his mind intent on his everlasting state, or carried above them in the views of the love, grace, and covenant of God; see Sa2 23:5. (s) , Sept. "multiplicabuntur", Vatablus, Bolducius. (t) "Multi vel graves sunt", Drusius; "graves erunt et onusti", Mercerus. (u) , Sept. "minuuntur, numero pauci sunt", Drusius.

“A person is punished,” Job says, “and, even if he has many descendents, he does not know them. In fact, after his death, he is often deprived of the pleasures that he was accustomed to enjoy while alive. What is the pleasure of leaving children after one who has departed?” You see, everywhere Job emphasizes the ephemeral character of life. It is impossible to come back and to return down here. Even if he leaves children after him, he does not know how they will prosper. He does not know at all whether his descendants will be numerous or scarce. What is more painful than to ignore one’s successes and to go away alone by only knowing one’s afflictions? Even if something good happens to him after his death, he does not know, nor will he ever know it [in this life]; but what he surely knows now is that “his flesh is in pain and his soul mourns.”

Ver. 21. Whether his sons be in honour or dishonour, he perceiveth not. For as they, who are still living, know nothing of the souls of the dead, in what place they are held; so the dead, concerning the life of those living after them in the flesh, know not at all how it is ordered; in that both the life of the spirit is far from the life of the flesh, and as the corporeal and incorporeal are things different in kind, so are they parted in knowledge. Which however is not to be imagined concerning holy souls, in that they which behold the brightness of Almighty God within, we cannot for a moment suppose that there is any thing without that they know not. But because carnal persons bestow their chief affection on their children, blessed Job declares that they are hereafter ignorant of that, which they loved here with all their heart, so that 'whether their sons be in honour or dishonour they know not,' whereas their care for these was always preying upon their minds. MORAL INTERPRETATION Which however if it is to be understood in a spiritual sense, with no unfitness by the title of sons we have works denoted, as Paul saith of woman, Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing. Not that a woman, who being devoted to continency never bears children, shall not be saved, but she is said to be 'saved by childbearing,' because by the operation of good works she is united to everlasting salvation. Thus the children in honour are good deeds, and the children in dishonour are bad deeds. And often man strives to do things with a good intention, yet by reason of the many occasions that creep upon him, how his actions are accounted of in the sight of Almighty God is a thing uncertain. And so 'whether his sons be in honour or dishonour he perceiveth not,' in that his works being sifted with a searching scrutiny, whether they be approved or condemned he cannot tell. Thus here man is placed in the painfulness of labour, and thither he is brought in the fearfulness of misgiving.

But someone could object that, although man does not return after death to life, he does not still pass away perpetually because he still lives on in a sense in his sons. The words of Baldath seem to have spoken to this theme when he said, "This is the joy of its life, that others may be brought forth from the earth again." (8:19) But Job excludes this saying, "Whether his sons are noble or base, he will not understand." He means here: Man seizes eternal good by the intellect and so he also naturally desires it. The good however which is in the succession of sons cannot satisfy the intellectual appetite if man is totally consumed by death so that he does not exist perpetually. A man does not comprehend the good in the succession of his sons either while he lives or after he dies if he completely ceases to exist through death. The intellectual appetite of man does not tend to the eternity of this good then, but to the good or evil which he has in himself and so he adds, "yet his flesh will suffer pain while he lives, his soul will grieve over him." Here he distinguishes two pains. One is of the flesh in the apprehension of sense. The other is of the soul from the apprehension of the intellect or imagination which is properly called sorrow and here is termed grief.

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

His sons come to honor - When dead, he is equally indifferent and unconscious whether his children have met with a splendid or oppressive lot in life; for as to this world, when man dies, in that day all his thoughts perish.

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.

One striking trait is selected from the sad picture of the severance of the dead from all that passes in the world (Ecc 9:5), namely, the utter separation of parents and children.