Job 14

A person born from a woman lives only a few days, and those days are full of trouble.

1Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.

Note"Born of a woman" is a set Hebrew phrase meaning simply "a human being," used when the speaker wants to stress how frail and short-lived people are. It is not a comment on women or on birth itself.

2He comes up like a flower and then is cut down. He runs off like a shadow and does not stay.

2He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.

3Do you really fix your eyes on someone like that? Do you drag me into court to be judged by you?

3And dost thou open thine eyes upon such an one, and bringest me into judgment with thee?

Note"Open thine eyes upon" does not mean to look kindly; in Hebrew it means to fix a close, unblinking watch on someone, the way an inspector or a prosecutor watches. The second half is courtroom language: Job repeatedly imagines his situation as a lawsuit in which God is both the one bringing the charge and the judge who hears it.

4Who can bring something clean out of something unclean? No one can.

4Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.

NoteClean and unclean are ritual categories rather than descriptions of dirt: "clean" means fit to be brought into God's presence, "unclean" means temporarily unfit. The line has the shape of a proverb, like produces like, and Job applies it to human beings generally.

5A person's days are already decided. The number of his months is in your hands. You have set limits he cannot go past.

5Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;

6So look away from him and let him rest, until he has put in his day like a hired worker.

6Turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as an hireling, his day.

NoteA hired worker was a day-laborer taken on for a single day and paid at sunset. He had no stake in the work and watched for the end of the day; Job uses the same picture in chapter 7. "Accomplish his day" means to put in his shift and be done with it.

7There is hope for a tree. If it is chopped down, it can grow again, and its new shoots will keep coming.

7For 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.

8Its roots may grow old down in the soil, and its stump may die in the ground.

8Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground;

Note"Stock" is old English for the stump left after a tree is felled, and "wax old" means grow old. Many Mediterranean trees, olives especially, resprout from a stump long after they look dead.

9But at the mere smell of water it will bud and put out branches like a young plant.

9Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.

10But a man dies and is laid low. He breathes his last breath, and then where is he?

10But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?

Note"Give up the ghost" was ordinary English in 1611 for dying: "ghost" then meant breath or life-spirit, not an apparition. The whole phrase simply means he breathes his last.

11Water drains away from the sea, and a river runs low and dries up.

11As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up:

Note"Flood" here means a river, not a deluge, and "decayeth" means dwindles or drains away. Many rivers in this part of the world run only seasonally and leave a dry bed in summer.

12In the same way a man lies down and does not get up. Until the heavens are no more, people will not wake up or be roused from their sleep.

12So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.

NoteThe sky was spoken of as the most permanent thing in existence, so "till the heavens be no more" functioned as a way of saying "never", the same force as "not while the world lasts."

13How I wish you would hide me in the grave and keep me out of sight until your anger has passed. I wish you would set a time for me and then remember me.

13O 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!

Note"The grave" translates Sheol, the shadowy place beneath the earth where the dead were pictured as gathered, everyone alike, not a place of reward or punishment. Job is asking to be filed away there temporarily, out of reach, and then recalled.

14If a man dies, will he live again? All through my hard service I would wait, until my release came.

14If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.

Note"My appointed time" translates a word used for a soldier's tour of duty or a term of forced labor: a fixed stretch that must be served out. "My change" is the matching word for the relief that arrives when the shift ends and someone takes your place.

15You would call, and I would answer you. You would long for the creature your own hands had made.

15Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands.

16But as it is, you count every step I take. Do you not keep watch over my sin?

16For now thou numberest my steps: dost thou not watch over my sin?

NoteThe Hebrew can be taken two ways, and translators split over it. Read one way it continues the hope of the previous verse (then you would count my steps, but would not keep track of my sin); read the other it snaps back to complaint (as things stand, you count my steps and watch my sin). The plain rendering takes the second; both are defensible.

17My wrongdoing is sealed up in a bag, and you stitch my sin shut inside it.

17My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity.

NoteValuables, tallies and legal documents were tied in a pouch and closed with a stamped clay seal so that nothing could be removed or altered. The image is of Job's offenses filed away intact and kept, nothing lost, nothing forgotten.

18But a mountain crumbles and comes to nothing, and a rock gets shifted out of its place.

18And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place.

19Water wears the stones away, and floods wash off the soil that things grow in. In the same way you destroy a person's hope.

19The 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.

20You overpower him once and for all, and he is gone. You change the look on his face and send him away.

20Thou prevailest for ever against him, and he passeth: thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away.

Note"Changest his countenance" refers to the face altering in death. "Sendest him away" uses the ordinary word for dismissing someone from your presence, as a master dismisses a servant.

21If his sons are given honor, he never knows it. If they are brought down low, he does not see it happen.

21His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.

NoteA man's name and standing carried on through his sons, so whether they rose in the community's esteem or lost everything was the thing he would most want to know. "Brought low" means dropping in status and wealth, not being humbled in character.

22He feels only the pain in his own body, and he mourns only for himself.

22But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.

Note"Soul" translates nephesh, which in Hebrew means the whole living self (the person, their life and appetite), not a separate part that survives the body. What exactly the verse pictures is disputed: either the body in the grave still somehow feeling its own decay, or a dying man narrowed down to nothing but his own pain.