Job 14

14:1-2 The flower is an image of life’s brevity (Pss 90:5-6; 103:15-16; Isa 40:6-7). • A shadow passes swiftly (1 Chr 29:15; Ps 102:11).

14:3 keep an eye on: Job lamented God’s relentless surveillance (7:8, 17-20; 10:6, 14; 13:27).

14:12 do not rise again: Job himself did not have even the minimal evidence of resurrection found in the Old Testament (2 Kgs 13:21; Isa 26:19; Dan 12:2; cp. Job 19:25). • Job was not focusing on the end of the universe when the heavens will be no more (Ps 102:25-26; Isa 34:4; 51:6; Heb 1:10-12) but on the eternity of the heavens (Ps 148:6; cp. Pss 72:5, 7, 17; 89:29, 37). His phrase refers to the permanency of death.

14:13 Since the grave is a permanent abode (14:10-12, see 3:13-19; 7:6-10; 10:20-22), Job could not even fulfill his request from 13:20-21 by hiding temporarily in the grave.

14:16 guard my steps: Here, Job refers to God’s providential care (10:12) rather than to his surveillance (13:27; 14:3).

14:17 If sins are sealed in a pouch they do not await a time of reckoning (Deut 32:34-35; Hos 13:12)—they are hidden forever. Job was requesting acquittal.

14:22 Job no longer saw Sheol as a haven (3:17-19; 14:13-17). The Old Testament usually depicts the dead as being without feeling (Ps 88:12; Eccl 9:5; cp. Isa 50:11; 66:24); the doctrine that the dead suffer painfully is clearer in the New Testament (Luke 16:23, 28; Rev 14:11).