Commentary on
The Book of Job

Chapter Fourteen: You Destroy the Hope

A Clean Thing Out of Unclean?

A Clean Thing Out of Unclean?

Job: verses 13:28 through 14:22
²⁸ And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth eaten.
¹ Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble.
² He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
³ And doth thou open thine eyes upon such an one, and bringest me into judgment with thee?
⁴ Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.
⁵ Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;
⁶ Turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as an hireling, his day.
⁷ For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.
⁸ Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground;
⁹ Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.
¹⁰ But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?
¹¹ As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up:
¹² So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.

¹³ O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!
¹⁴ If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.
¹⁵ Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands.
¹⁶ For now thou numberest my steps: dost thou not watch over my sin?
¹⁷ My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity.

¹⁸ And surely the mountains falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place.
¹⁹ The waters wear the stones: thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man.
²⁰ Thou prevailest for ever against him, and he passeth: thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away.
²¹ His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.
²² But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.

Chapter fourteen has less the character of a lament than melancholy observations on the lot of humankind. The chapter is summed up in verse one: “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble” (14:1). The Hebrew word for ‘man is ‘âdâm’ (Strong, H120). Born of woman, this is not the first Adam but the universal progeny. Like a passing shadow or a flower that is cut down, we are here and gone (14:2). We rot as a moth-eaten garment (13:28).

“Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one” (14:4). Job is observing that the very nature of man is corrupt. Whether or not he understands Adam's fall and its consequences is not clear. “The Septuagint, in the Codex Alexandrinus, reads the verse thus: ‘Who is pure from corruption? Not one, although he had lived but one day upon the earth’” (Clarke, note to verse 14:4). Like many of the pearls in this book, this one is dropped but never examined as if the corrupt nature of humankind where obvious to all.

When God turns His back to a man, that man is without hope. As long as Job maintains faith (or hope) in God, Satan cannot crush his resolve. If hope is gone, Satan will have easy access to destroy Job and thus win the contest.

Until My Change Comes

Job contrasts the finality of a man's death to that of a tree, which might shoot up again (14:7-12). He closes the thought: “till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake” (14:12).

Then Job continues the thought begun in chapter 13 (13:15-16): God is just and I will be vindicated. “Thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man die, shall he live again?” (14:13-14). Revisiting the thought, Job hesitates. Vindication and the finality of death appear to be unreconcilable, unless death is not final.

An unthinkable hope appears. “All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come” (14:14). The Hebrew word for ‘change’ here is ‘chalîyphâh’, which derives from the word ‘châlaph’ meaning ‘to slide by’ (Strong, H2498). ‘Sprout’ in verse seven above is this same Hebrew word ‘châlaph’. Is death final? A new revelation is dawning on Job, a possibility of redemption beyond the grave. ‘When I have died, and your anger is gone’, Job begins, ‘then you will remember me.’ “Thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands” (14:15). The Hebrew word for ‘desire’ here is ‘kâsaph’ meaning pale (Strong, H3700; also: Barnes, note to 14:15). God will be pale longing for and fearing for my soul, declares Job. Job is battered by his theology, but his heart understands: God's heart is love for me. Job's eyes are opening. Job's life is in the midst of an enormous change, but it will change again!

This change is transformation. “He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me: for there were many with me. God shall hear, and afflict them, even he that abideth of old. Selah. Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God” (Ps. 55:18-19). The ‘changes’ here in Psalm 55, is the same Hebrew word ‘chalîyphâh’ found in Job 14:14. Those who are never ruffled by God stay unaware of God's power and concern. But Job is ready for transformation, he is expecting change.

Sew Up My Iniquity

“For now thou numberest my steps: dost thou not watch over my sin? My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity” (14:16-17). The second part of verse 16 seems to be confusing. The NET Bible suggests, “The second colon of the verse can be contrasted with the first, the first being the present reality and the second the hope looked for in the future. This seems to fit the context well without making any changes at all.” Hence, “then You would not mark my sin” (14:16, NET).

The evidence of the death of an enemy is the head, which I assume would be sealed in a bag to be brought to the king (1 Sam. 17:57; 2 Sam. 4:8). This suggestion of a gruesome practice conveys the idea of irrefutable evidence of sin brought before the throne of heaven. In 1st Samuel 31, the Philistines take the body of Saul slain in combat and fastened it to the wall of their temple. The men of Jabeshgilead stole the body by night so that it would be buried properly in Jabesh (1 Sam. 31:12-13). Similarly, David punishes the men who beheaded Saul's son Ishbosheth. He then gives the head an honored burial (2 Sam. 4:12). God not only repairs the breach left by sin; He will remove the dishonor (14:17).

So there are two very powerful thoughts glimpsed here. One is that all our sins will be exposed before God. This is not just hearsay or the prosecutor's indictment, this is the raw unvarnished stink of it. Our sins are being placed in a bag and carried to God. The second thought is that God will bind up the wound, heal the breach and make you whole. This is clearly the Holy Spirit speaking to Job as there is no way for him to know or understand the coming covenant of the body and blood of Christ Jesus. Those of us covered by the blood of Jesus can deal with our sin now. “These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:14). When our bag is opened in heaven it can be found empty and our wedding garment can be spotless. I believe that Job has been received in heaven and made whole.

Although this gift of insight has entered Job's brain he has little faith in it. Job blocks this lofty sentiment in gloom and sarcasm on both sides. Job is struggling with his thoughts. He will continue to struggle. In an eloquent passage to come he will question his hope: “even the thoughts of my heart. They change the night into day: the light is short because of darkness. If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness. I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister. And where is now my hope?” (17:11-15). In fact, although he questions its validity, the hope is there. The remarkable gifts of insight will continue and become more clear until God finally breaks his bondage to self concern in chapters forty and forty-one.

You Destroy the Hope of Man

Once again Job's heaviness returns. Job moves from the sublime to the slime. “For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaveth unto the earth” (Ps. 44:25). Who whispers in Job's ear? The vision is abruptly forced out. The things which grow out of the dust of the earth, “thou washest away” (14:19). The sense is that of some flower reaching up to the sunlight, only to be torn away and destroyed in a sudden flash flood. Job accuses God, “thou destroyest the hope of man” (14:19). The picture is of Job, reaching to God in spirit, only to be crushed. Yet, who but God's Holy Spirit would be giving him a prophetic vision of hope, of redemption? Once again Job is convinced that God means him evil. He finishes by observing that nothing can withstand the power of God, not the rocks, or mountains, nor the health and wisdom of man (14:19-22). Once again, death appears to be final for Job: “His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not” (14:21).

The last verse is difficult for the modern reader: “He feels but the pain of his own body and mourns only for himself” (14:22, NIV). The footnote to this verse in the NET Bible sheds some light on it: “In this verse Job is expressing the common view of life beyond death, namely, that in Sheol there is no contact with the living, only separation, but in Sheol there is a conscious awareness of the dreary existence” (NET Bible, footnote to verse 14:22). Job's thoughts have turned against him. He now sees an endless existence in the land of the dead filled with the pain he now suffers. Job is speaking in universal terms. He no longer has sons, so when he speaks of the legacy of sons he is speaking in generic terms. None of us, so it appears to Job, can look forward to anything beyond this lifetime. At the heart of it this is the growing absurd philosophy, popular in the sixties and seventies and a direct expression of existentialism. The devil would be delighted to have us believe that life is meaningless.

Job's friends are not listening. While Job is convinced that God intends him evil, they are convinced that Job is hiding sin both from them and from God, and that Job is compounding the iniquity by challenging God. Although Job is wandering in the dark, he is attempting to confront his current reality and reconcile it to a just and merciful God. Oswald chambers defends Job's response to the three friends: “‘Your statement of God is not only untrue to man, but blasphemously untrue to God.’ Job states the facts of human experience, and that there seems to be an unsatisfactory end to life–‘Just when I was going to grasp the thing and find the fulfillment of all my desires, I am cut off.’ There are countless people like that today; just when life was at its best and highest, suddenly they are swept clean off.” (Chambers, page 70). But Job leaves off dangling in never-ending misery. By projecting his current situation into the future Job is chewing on a damnable lie.

I grew up in a time of “counter-culture”. The particular damnable lie of ‘growing up absurd’ made way for a destructive hedonism (a.k.a. ‘sex, drugs and rock & roll’ or now simply ‘Party!’). Many who followed this path have achieved a self-fulfilled misery for eternity. The corrosiveness of this philosophy has continued if not strengthened in generation-x and the generation of my own children. If Job swallows this line, then in fact it will become his future, which is what Satan is betting on.

Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar begin the second of three rounds of indictment.

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*All Bible quotes are from the King James Version unless otherwise indicated.

Commentary onThe Book of Job