Job 14 and Book of Job

The end of Job 13 has left Job psychologically in a similar place to where he was after his speeches of 3, 6-7 and 9-10. At 3:26, after his first burst of emotion, Job knew he was in for a long and wearying period of trouble ("but trouble comes"--Job 3:26). Then, at 7:21 and 10:22 Job was overwhelmed by the disproportion in strength between God and him, and he simply wanted God to leave him alone to enjoy a few fleeting minutes before he died. Finally, at the end of Job 13 he likewise feels that he has few options: God has, figuratively speaking, put his feet in the stocks and set a bound to the soles of his feet (13:27).

In each of Job's previous psychological nadirs, a friend then began to speak. We are thus prepared for another speech by one of Job's friends at the end of Job 13. But this is not to be. Job continues speaking in his enervated condition. He keeps bumping psychically along the bottom of the sea, so to speak. Job 14, a poem of immense beauty, sadness and longing, is the result. I will only indicate some leading features of Job 14 here, leaving to advanced essays a more full probing of the language.

14:1-6. Sorrowful Days. We live only a few days and those days are full of trouble (Job 14:1, cf. Ps. 90:10). We come up like a flower and wither. The poem does not even use the normal biblical triad describing the life of a flower: come up, flourish, and wither; indeed, so evanescent are our days and so taken up with troubles that Job "forgets" the flourishing. We come and we go. How unfair it then seems for God to fix an eye in judgment on such a pitiable creature (14:3). The best thing for God to do is to "look away from them, and desist, that they may enjoy, like laborers, their days (14:6)." [Do laborers really enjoy their days?]

14:7-12. Hope for a Tree. The basic unfairness of our brief and troubled life comes to the fore as Job reflects on the world of nature. Don't trees have a chance at a second life? Their branches are cut back but, at the merest scent of water, they "put forth branches like a young plant (14:9)." And then the sad verse, "But mortals die, and are laid low; humans expire, and where are they (14:10)?" It seems so patently unfair; nature, of less value than humans, revives when water is near, but humans do not. We don't even flourish. We live briefly and die in sadness.

14:13-17 Longing for Life; Longing for God. Job is not content to live with the inconsistency or unfairness just described. He must have more. So his mind takes wing to imagine a situation where God would temporarily hide him in Sheol, setting him there "until your wrath is past" [recall Job's characterization of God as angry in (9:5,13)]. Then, God can pluck him from the protected environment of Sheol and enjoy his creature. "You [God] would long for the work of your hand (v. 15)." In language of poignant intimacy Job talks about 'calling and answering,' this time not in in a legal context, but in a conversational or covenantal one (v. 15). Job is experimenting with ideas not previously articulated in Israel: protection in Sheol, waiting for God's wrath to pass, a new intimacy in a restored (eternal?) life. Job's pain drives him to insight.

14:28-22. Destroying Hope. But it simply will not happen. Notice how the imagery changes. Job still talks about nature, but now nature teaches another lesson: hopelessness. At a whiff of water, trees come back (v. 9), but at a torrent of water even mountains crumble (vv. 18-19). Erosion is the lasting image in Job's mind. As waters wear away the rocks, "so you destroy the hope of mortals (v. 19)." Mortals only feel the pain of their own bodies and mourn only for themselves (v. 22). Oh nature, what a teacher--of hope and hopelessness!

Where possibly can one go from here? Undaunted, Eliphaz will continue speaking.

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