Job 14:1-17

‘A mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble, 
   comes up like a flower and withers,
   flees like a shadow and does not last. 
Do you fix your eyes on such a one?
   Do you bring me into judgement with you? 
Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?
   No one can. 
Since their days are determined,
   and the number of their months is known to you,
   and you have appointed the bounds that they cannot pass, 
look away from them, and desist,
   that they may enjoy, like laborers, their days. 

‘For there is hope for a tree,
   if it is cut down, that it will sprout again,
   and that its shoots will not cease. 
Though its root grows old in the earth,
   and its stump dies in the ground, 
yet at the scent of water it will bud
   and put forth branches like a young plant. 
But mortals die, and are laid low;
   humans expire, and where are they? 
As waters fail from a lake,
   and a river wastes away and dries up, 
so mortals lie down and do not rise again;
   until the heavens are no more, they will not awake
   or be roused out of their sleep. 
O that you would hide me in Sheol,
   that you would conceal me until your wrath is past,
   that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me! 
If mortals die, will they live again?
   All the days of my service I would wait
   until my release should come. 
You would call, and I would answer you;
   you would long for the work of your hands. 
For then you would not number my steps,
   you would not keep watch over my sin; 
my transgression would be sealed up in a bag,
   and you would cover over my iniquity. 

Job, a righteous man, loses his wealth, health and children but refuses to turn against God, though he argues with every fiber of his being with God for some answers.

His main complaint in the whole book is the seeming ‘absence’ of God. In the climax of this passage, he longs for a relationship with God in which God would call and Job would answer him. Meanwhile, he has lots of questions and no answers!

Verses 1-2 – Job continues his ongoing protest with God by describing how brief is human existence and full of troubles. His “few of days and full of troubles” reverses the usual Biblical good life as “full of years”.

Verses 3-4 – Job protests in an I-You relationship, about God’s harsh judgment of him, when ‘you’ (God) can bring a clean thing out of an unclean one, which no human can.

Verses 5-6 – Since ‘you’ (God) already know the number of our days, why can’t you leave us in peace and look somewhere else, stop wasting time ‘looking at’ and ‘judging’ someone like me?

Verses 7-9 – When a tree is cut down it can sprout again (verses 10-12) but when humans die that is it!

Verse 13 – Sheol is the place in Hebrew thinking where the dead go to. It is at the center of the earth, though Job 26:5 suggests it as beneath the sea. Job pleas for ‘you’ (God) to hide me safely in Sheol, until your anger has passed. Give me a set time when ‘you’ will remember me.

Verse 14 – Job has an intuitive desire, premonition, maybe borne out of his love of God, that he might live again. He would patiently wait, serving God, until his release from death would come.

Verse 15 – In this amazing moment of resurrection the desire of Job’s heart fulfilled. Not an absent God, but a God who is present. Restored relationship. ‘You’ (God) would call and I would answer. ‘You’ would long for me, the work of your hands.

Verse 16 – ‘You’ would not give me, Job, a small span of time on earth, or track my faults, but would contain and deal with them.

BLessings as we remember that in this time of crisis and darkness that The Lord is Risen and we will be restored again.

 To Ponder:

• If you had been in Job’s place, what would you have said to God, maybe imagining yourself a Job in our present pandemic crisis? What questions would you throw at God?
• Do you, like Job, have an intuitive, in-your-bones hope for resurrection and life not ending but changing after death? How would you describe this? What images do you find helpful? And what might this look like in our present context for our life together?
• The greatest suffering for Job is the sense of God’s absence to him. He talks and God does not seem to answer. Have there been times when God has seemed to be absent to you and how have you got through this?
• Despite everything that happens, Job seems confident that his sins are not a problem for God. How do you cope with a sense of your sins?