Job 14:7 - Meaning and Application

We have already seen what Job says about life. Now let us see what he says about death, which was very much on his mind because he was sick and in pain. It is fitting to think about dying when we are healthy, but it is careless to treat death as far away when it is already at the door. Job had already shown that death will come and that its time is fixed.

Here he shows, first, that death removes a person from this world forever. He had said this before (Job 7:9, Job 7:10), and he says it again because a truth like this needs more than one hearing. It is not enough to know it is true, we must keep thinking about it so it changes how we live.

A person cut down by death will not rise again the way a tree cut down may. Job gives a beautiful picture of a tree in Job 14:7-9. If the trunk is cut down and only the stump remains, it may seem dead and dry, yet it can sprout again, as if newly planted. The soil and rain seem to reach it and bring it back to life. But a dead human body does not respond that way.

In Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, his loss of reason was pictured by a tree being cut down, and his return was pictured by leaving the stump in the earth, bound with iron and bronze and wet with heaven’s dew, Dan 4:15. But humans have no such natural hope of returning to life. Plant life is simple and easily revived, and some animal life can also return with heat and sunlight. But the rational soul, the thinking soul, is too great a thing to be called back by nature. It is beyond sun and rain and can only be restored by God’s direct power.

Job says, “A man dies and wastes away; he gives up the ghost, and where is he?” (Job 14:10). Two words for man are used here. One means a strong man, and even the strong man dies. The other means man as made from the earth, and the earthly man gives up his spirit. The point is plain, man is a dying creature.

Job describes this in three stages. Before death, a person wastes away, slowly losing strength, beauty, and vigor. In death, the soul leaves the body and returns to God, the Father of spirits. After death, Job asks, “Where is he?” He is no longer where he was, and his place knows him no more. Yet he is somewhere, and it is a solemn thing to think where the dead are, and where we will be when we die. The soul has gone into the world of spirits, into eternity, and it will not come back to this world.

He also says that a person laid in the grave will not rise up again in this present life (Job 14:11, Job 14:12). Every night we lie down to sleep, and in the morning we wake and rise again. But in death we lie down in the grave, not to wake up again into this same world and this same state. We will not rise again until the heavens are no more, when time itself comes to an end and is swallowed up in eternity.

So human life may be compared to floodwater. It spreads wide and makes a great show, but it is shallow. Once it is cut off from the river or sea that fed it, it soon dries up, and the place where it flowed remembers it no more. The waters of life are quickly gone. The body sinks into the earth, while the soul is drawn upward to the world above.

Sir Richard Blackmore also noticed this difference. Even when rivers dry up in summer, they return in winter, but human life does not return that way. If your life’s streams leave the body, they will never be supplied again by nature. The life tide does not come back.

Second, Job shows that there will still be a return to life in another world, at the end of time, when the heavens are no more. Then the dead will awake and rise from their sleep. The resurrection of the dead was surely part of Job’s faith, as Job 19:26 shows, and he seems to have that hope in view here.

On that hope, he makes a humble request for a hiding-place in the grave (Job 14:13). This was not only the cry of a man tired of suffering. It was also the plea of someone who trusted in a better life and expected to rise at last. “Oh that you would hide me in the grave,” he says. The grave is not only a resting-place, it is a hiding-place for God’s people. God holds the key to the grave. He brings people in, and at the resurrection he brings them out.

God hides his people in the grave as treasure is hidden in a safe place. The One who hides them will also find them, and nothing will be lost. Job asks to be hidden not only from the storms and troubles of this life, but also kept for the joy and glory of the life to come. He is content to lie in the grave, set apart for immortality, hidden from the world but not from God, not from the eyes that saw him when he was first formed in secret (Psalm 139:15, Psalm 139:16).

There he asks to lie until God’s wrath is past. As long as believers’ bodies remain in the grave, some effects of sin still remain, since they still belong to the order of death. But when the body is raised, that wrath is fully over. Death, the last enemy, will then be completely destroyed.

He also asks to remain there until the set time when God remembers him, as God remembered Noah in the ark (Genesis 8:1). God hid Noah from the old world’s destruction and kept him for the beginning of a new world. In the same way, the bodies of the saints will not be forgotten in the grave. There is an appointed time when God will look for them again.

We cannot be sure that we will see better days after our present troubles in this world. But if we can only get safely to the grave, we may look through its darkness by faith, as Job does here, and see better days on the other side in a better world.

Job here speaks of a holy resolve to wait patiently for God’s will, both in death and in resurrection (Job 14:14). He asks, “If a man dies, will he live again?” and then says, “All the days of my appointed time I will wait until my change comes.” Since Job’s friends had turned into poor comforters, he makes himself his own comforter as much as he can. His present condition was very bad, but he holds on to the hope of a change.

This cannot mean, I think, that Job expected to recover his worldly prosperity. His friends encouraged him with that hope, but Job himself had already given up on it. Comforts built on uncertain things are uncertain comforts, so he must be reaching for something firmer. The change he waits for is either the resurrection, when the lowly body will be changed into a glorious one (Phi 3:21), or the change that comes at death itself.

If it is the resurrection, then the question, “If a man dies, will he live again?” is a question of wonder. The meaning would be, “Can these dry bones live?” If so, then during the whole time when soul and body are apart, the soul will wait until that day comes, when it will be joined to the body again, and the flesh will rest in hope (Psa 16:9). If it means the change at death, then the thought is this: “If a man dies, he will not live again in this present life. So I will wait patiently until that change comes that ends my troubles, instead of angrily wishing for it before God’s time.”

We should remember that dying is a serious thing. It is a work by itself, a true change. The body is plainly changed, its look altered and its actions ended, but the soul is changed even more. It leaves the body, moves into the world of spirits, finishes its time of testing, and enters the place where its deeds are answered for. This change will surely come, and it will be final. It is not like the changing of the elements, which return to what they were before. We die only once, and that makes it all the more important to be ready. A mistake here is deadly and cannot be corrected later.

Because this change is coming, it is our duty to wait for it all the days of our appointed time. Life is an appointed time, and those days should be spent in readiness for our change. We should expect it, think often about it, and desire it, like those who long to be with Christ. We should also be willing to wait until God’s time, trusting that his time is best. And we must work diligently to be prepared, so that when the change comes it will be a blessing to us.

Job also looks ahead with joy to the time when he will be fully at peace with God (Job 14:15). “Then you will call, and I will answer you.” Right now he is under such a dark cloud that he cannot, and dares not, answer God (Job 9:15, Job 9:35; Job 13:22). Yet he comforts himself with the thought that a time will come when God will call and he will answer.

This may point to the resurrection, when God will call him out of the grave by the voice of the archangel, and he will answer and come. The body is the work of God’s hands, and God will not forget what he has made, especially since he has prepared glory for it. Or it may point to death, when God calls the body to the grave and the soul to himself. Then Job will answer, “Ready, Lord, ready, coming.” Gracious souls can meet death’s call with peace. Their spirits are not taken from them by force, as in (Luk 12:20), but they give them up willingly. Their earthly tent is not torn down violently, but laid down gladly.

Job rests on this assurance: “You will have a desire to the work of your hands.” God has mercy ready for him, not only because he was made by God’s providence, but because he was remade by God’s grace. If God had not given that new work of grace, he would not save him. Grace in the soul is the work of God’s own hands, and for that reason he will not abandon it in this world (Psa 138:8). He will have a desire to it, perfect it in the world to come, and crown it with endless glory.