Job 14 - Summary

Historical setting

Job is speaking during his time of suffering. According to the narrative frame, he has lost his wealth, children, and health, and sits with three friends who came to console him but have begun to argue that his suffering must result from hidden sin. Job's speeches alternate with theirs throughout the book. At this point in the dialogue, Job is responding to his friends' accusations and wrestling with the justice of his condition. The setting is uncertain in historical period, though the book was composed in ancient Israel or post-biblical Judaism, and the events it describes are presented as occurring in a time before the Torah's giving.

Life and customs

The book of Job deals with questions central to ancient Israelite piety: how a just God can allow the righteous to suffer, and whether human goodness is rewarded and human sin punished in this life. Job's friends operate from a common assumption of their time, that suffering indicates divine punishment for wrongdoing. A hireling (verse 6) was a laborer hired for a fixed term, typically the poorest class of worker. Sheol, mentioned in the site's summary, was the Hebrew underworld where the dead go, understood as a place of darkness and silence rather than as a place of torment or reward; resurrection was not a settled belief in earlier Israelite thought. Job's references to his transgression being "sealed up in a bag" (verse 17) use concrete imagery from everyday life to speak of God's record of human sin.

What the text says

Job opens by stating that humans born of women live "few days, and full of trouble" (verse 1). He compares them to a flower that is cut down and to a shadow that does not remain (verse 2). He then addresses God directly, asking why God opens his eyes upon such a brief and troubled creature and brings him into judgment (verse 3).

In verses 4 and 5, Job asserts that no one can bring cleanliness from uncleanness, and that God has already determined the length of human life, set the number of months, and fixed bounds that cannot be passed. He asks God to turn away and let him rest like a hireling who completes his day's work (verse 6).

Verses 7 through 9 introduce a contrast: a tree, when cut down, still has hope of sprouting again and putting forth new growth even as its root grows old. But man, when he dies and "wasteth away" and "giveth up the ghost," is gone entirely (verses 10). Verse 11 uses a comparison to water failing from the sea, and verses 12 completes the thought: man lies down and does not rise until the heavens are no more.

Job then shifts to direct petition (verse 13), wishing God would hide him in the grave until God's wrath passes, and asking God to appoint a set time and remember him. In verse 14 he asks whether a man who dies will live again, and states that he will wait all his appointed days for his "change" to come. He expresses hope that God will call and he will answer, and that God will desire the work of his hands (verse 15).

Verses 16 through 22 return to accusation: God numbers his steps and watches over his sin (verse 16). His transgression is sealed up and his iniquity sewn up by God (verse 17). All things earthly, even mountains and rocks, are worn away and destroyed by God (verses 18 and 19). God prevails forever against him, changing his appearance and sending him away (verse 20). A man's sons may come to honor or be brought low, but he does not know it (verse 21). Only his own flesh feels pain and his own soul mourns (verse 22).

Takeaways

• Job frames human life as too brief and troubled to deserve God's judgment or to offer the hope of renewal that even a tree has.
• Job holds together a deep wish for God's mercy with an insistence that God is currently his adversary, keeping his sins sealed and unchangeable.
• The passage presents the finality of human death starkly, without the later Judaic or Christian hope of resurrection or continued awareness after death.