For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Job 14:1-12

1 ‘Mortals, born of woman,
    are of few days and full of trouble.
2 They spring up like flowers and wither away;
    like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.
3 Do you fix your eye on them?
    Will you bring them before you for judgment?
4 Who can bring what is pure from the impure?
    No one!
5 A person’s days are determined;
    you have decreed the number of his months
    and have set limits he cannot exceed.
6 So look away from him and let him alone,
    till he has put in his time like a hired labourer.

7 ‘At least there is hope for a tree:
    if it is cut down, it will sprout again,
    and its new shoots will not fail.
8 Its roots may grow old in the ground
    and its stump die in the soil,
9 yet at the scent of water it will bud
    and put forth shoots like a plant.
10 But a man dies and is laid low;
    he breathes his last and is no more.
11 As the water of a lake dries up
    or a river bed becomes parched and dry,
12 so he lies down and does not rise;
    till the heavens are no more, people will not awake
    or be roused from their sleep.

A. Find Out

1. How does Job describe our life? v.1,2
2. What question does he ask of the Lord? v.3,4
3. So what does he say about life, with what request? v.5,6
4. Why, does he say, a tree is different from us? v.7-9
5. What happens to us? v.10
6. How does he picture that? v.11,12

B. Think:

1. What things about human lives does Job state?
2. What does he say God should do, as a result?

C. Comment:

Job previously described himself as a ‘windblown leaf’ as a means of describing his frailty. Now he pours out his feelings about life generally. Our lives are short and full of trouble (v.1). We are soon gone (v.2).With this in mind Job wonders why God bothers with us (v.3). We know we are not perfect so why bother with us; we can’t be made perfect (v.4). We are limited beings with a limited lifespan (v.5) so why not leave us alone and let us just live out our days? (v.6)

A tree is quite different, for if it is cut down it produces new shoots and starts again (v.7-9) but we just die and that is it (v.10). In the same way that water ebbs with the tide or a riverbed dries out, so our lives ‘empty out’ never to be filled again (implied v.11,12).

Job makes some searching points. We ARE frail and life IS limited and we are NOT perfect, so why DOES God bother with us? The answer, not found in these verses but elsewhere in Scripture, isn’t to do with the nature of mankind but with the nature of God. John tells us that “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8,16) and that God loves us (Jn 3:16). The whole purpose of sending Jesus is so that we can be lifted, transformed if you like, from this state of not knowing and wondering, into a life of love and purpose and destiny where we see ourselves as loved children of God with an eternal destiny.  Part of the problem is that Job doesn’t know that yet. Part of the test is responding well when information is limited!

D. Application:

1. Life as God’s children is full of purpose and meaning.
2. Life without God is meaningless and purposeless.

Passage: Job 14:13-22

13 ‘If only you would hide me in the grave
    and conceal me till your anger has passed!
If only you would set me a time
    and then remember me!
14 If someone dies, will they live again?
    All the days of my hard service
    I will wait for my renewal to come.
15 You will call and I will answer you;
    you will long for the creature your hands have made.
16 Surely then you will count my steps
    but not keep track of my sin.
17 My offences will be sealed up in a bag;
    you will cover over my sin.

18 ‘But as a mountain erodes and crumbles
    and as a rock is moved from its place,
19 as water wears away stones
    and torrents wash away the soil,
    so you destroy a person’s hope.
20 You overpower them once for all, and they are gone;
    you change their countenance and send them away.
21 If their children are honoured, they do not know it;
    if their children are brought low, they do not see it.
22 They feel but the pain of their own bodies
    and mourn only for themselves.’

A. Find Out

1. What does Job wish would happen? v.13-15
2. What does he want God to do with his sin? v.16,17
3. How does he envisage God dealing with us? v.18,19
4. What does he see as the end of God’s activity? v.20
5. What just happens then? v.21,22

B. Think:

1. What is the hope of v.13-17?
2. Yet what does that give way to in v.18-22?

C. Comment:

These are remarkable verses. Verses 13 to 17 are a surge of faith that sees beyond the present. Verses 18 to 22 revert back to a sense of hopelessness. If Job had stayed at verse 17 perhaps the book would have been ended but the remaining verses open up the way for further debate.

Job starts by wondering if God could not lay him aside for a while in the grave until His anger has passed (v.13a,b) so that he could yet have a time with the Lord afterwards (v.13c,d). He wonders whether there will be an afterlife (v.14) where there will be a reinstatement of his relationship with the Lord (v.15a) because surely God desires more of the creatures He has made (v.15b), a time when sin would not count (v.16) and his past failures dealt with (v.17). This is amazing faith!

But then that all seems too good to be true or too far off and he is taken up again with the apparent present. It seems like what is happening erodes his hope (v.18,19) and therefore the outcome must surely just be God taking us off this planet (v.20) so he will no longer see what happens to his family (v.21) but is left focusing on himself (v.22).

We repeat, in these closing words at the end of the first round of speeches, he comes – for a moment – to an amazing climax of faith as he speculates on the possibilities of an eternal future with the Lord where sin is no longer the issue. That is an amazing insight into something that does not become clear until the New Testament era. But then the present seems to come over him again as a black cloud. More discussions will follow.

D. Application:

1. We have a glorious eternal future ensured by Jesus. Hallelujah!
2. Don’t let the difficulties of today smother that hope!