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Job 14:10
Verse
Summary
Commentary
- Adam Clarke
- Keil-Delitzsch
- Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
- John Gill
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
But man dieth - No human being ever can spring from the dead body of man; that wasteth away, corrupts, and is dissolved; for the man dies; and when he breathes out his last breath, and his body is reduced to dust, then, where is he? There is a beautiful verse in the Persian poet Khosroo, that is not unlike this saying of Job: - "I went towards the burying ground, and wept To think of the departure of friends which were captives to death; I said, Where are they! and Fate Gave back this answer by Echo, Where are they? Thus paraphrased by a learned friend: - Beneath the cypress' solemn shade, As on surrounding tombs I gazed, I wept, and thought of friends there laid, Whose hearts with warmest love had blazed. Where are those friends my heart doth lack, Whose words, in grief, gave peace? Ah, where? And Fate, by Echo, gave me back This short but just reply, Ah, where?
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
10 But man dieth, he lieth there stretched out, Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? 11 The waters flow away from the sea, And a stream decayeth and dryeth up: 12 So man lieth down and riseth not again; Till the heavens pass away they wake not, And are not aroused from their sleep. How much less favoured is the final lot of man! He dies, and then lies there completely broken down and melted away (חלשׁ( yaw, in the neuter signification, confectum esse, rendered in the Targum by אתּבר and אתמקמק). The fut. consec. continues the description of the cheerless results of death: He who has thus once fallen together is gone without leaving a trace of life. In Job 14:11. this vanishing away without hope and beyond recovery is contemplated under the figure of running water, or of water that is dried up and never returns again to its channel. Instead of אזלוּ Isaiah uses נשּׁתוּ (Job 19:5) in the oracle on Egypt, a prophecy in which many passages borrowed from the book of Job are interwoven. The former means to flow away (related radically with נזל), the latter to dry up (transposed נתּשׁ, Jer 18:14). But he also uses יחרב, which signifies the drying in, and then ויבשׁ, which is the complete drying up which follows upon the drying in (vid., Genesis, S. 264). What is thus figuratively expressed is introduced by waw (Job 14:12), similar to the waw adaequationis of the emblematic proverbs mentioned at Job 5:7; Job 11:12 : so there is for man no rising (קוּם), no waking up (הקיץ), no ἐγείρεσθαι (נעור), and indeed not for ever; for what does not happen until the heavens are no more (comp. Psa 72:7, till the moon is no more), never happens; because God has called the heavens and the stars with their laws into existence, לעד לעולם (Psa 148:6), they never cease (Jer 31:35.), the days of heaven are eternal (Psa 89:30). This is not opposed to declarations like Psa 102:27, for the world's history, according to the teaching of Scripture, closes with a change in all these, but not their annihilation. What is affirmed in Job 14:10-12 of mankind in general, is, by the change to the plural in Job 14:12, affirmed of each individual of the race. Their sleep of death is עזלם שׁנת (Jer 51:39, Jer 51:57). What Sheôl summons away from the world, the world never sees again. Oh that it were otherwise! How would the brighter future have comforted him with respect to the sorrowful present and the dark night of the grave!
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
man . . . man--Two distinct Hebrew words are here used; Geber, a mighty man: though mighty, he dies. Adam, a man of earth: because earthly, he gives up the ghost. wasteth--is reduced to nothing: he cannot revive in the present state, as the tree does. The cypress and pine, which when cut down do not revive, were the symbols of death among the Romans.
John Gill Bible Commentary
But man dieth, and wasteth away,.... All men, every man, "Geber", the mighty man, the strong man; some die in their full strength; the wise man, notwithstanding all his wisdom and knowledge, and even skill in the art of medicine; the rich man, with all his riches, with which he cannot bribe death, nor keep it off; the great and the honourable, emperors, kings, princes, nobles, all die, and their honour is laid in the dust; yea, good men die, though Christ has died for them; even those that are the most useful and beneficial to men, the prophets of the Lord, and the ministers of his word; and it is no wonder that wicked men should die, though they put the evil day far from them, make an agreement with death, or bid it defiance, their wickedness shall not deliver from it; all men have sinned, and death passes on them, it is appointed for them to die; not their souls, which are immortal, but their bodies, which return to dust, and are only the mortal part; death is a disunion or separation of soul and body: and now when this is made, the body "wasteth away" in the grave, and becomes rottenness, dust, and worms, and does not by the strength of nature spring up again, as a tree does; though some understand, by an inversion of the phrases, a wasting before death through diseases, as if the words were to be read, "but man wasteth away and dieth" (z); he is enervated by sickness, his strength is weakened in the way, and when he dies there is none left in him; he is cut off (a), as some choose to render it, or cut down as a tree is; but then there is no force or natural strength in him to rise again, as in a tree: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? not in the same place he was; not in his house and habitation where he lived; nor in his family, and among his friends, with whom he conversed, nor in the world, and on the earth where he did business; he is indeed somewhere, but where is he? his body is in the grave; his soul, where is that? if a good man, it is in the presence of God, where is fulness of joy; it is with Christ, which is far better than to be here; it is with the spirits of just men made perfect; it is in Abraham's bosom, feasting with him and other saints; it is in heaven, in paradise, in a state of endless joy and happiness: if a wicked man, his soul is in hell, in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, with the devil and his angels, and other damned spirits; in a prison, from whence there is no release, and in the uttermost misery and distress, banished from the divine Presence, and under a continual sense of the wrath of God. (z) So the Tigurine version, Vatablus, and some in Drusius; and some Hebrews in Ramban and Bar Tzemach. (a) "exciditur", Beza, Piscator, Mercerus; so Kimchi & Ben Gersom.
Job 14:10
Job Laments the Finality of Death
9at the scent of water it will bud and put forth twigs like a sapling. 10But a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last, and where is he? 11As water disappears from the sea and a river becomes parched and dry,
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- Adam Clarke
- Keil-Delitzsch
- Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
- John Gill
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
But man dieth - No human being ever can spring from the dead body of man; that wasteth away, corrupts, and is dissolved; for the man dies; and when he breathes out his last breath, and his body is reduced to dust, then, where is he? There is a beautiful verse in the Persian poet Khosroo, that is not unlike this saying of Job: - "I went towards the burying ground, and wept To think of the departure of friends which were captives to death; I said, Where are they! and Fate Gave back this answer by Echo, Where are they? Thus paraphrased by a learned friend: - Beneath the cypress' solemn shade, As on surrounding tombs I gazed, I wept, and thought of friends there laid, Whose hearts with warmest love had blazed. Where are those friends my heart doth lack, Whose words, in grief, gave peace? Ah, where? And Fate, by Echo, gave me back This short but just reply, Ah, where?
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
10 But man dieth, he lieth there stretched out, Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? 11 The waters flow away from the sea, And a stream decayeth and dryeth up: 12 So man lieth down and riseth not again; Till the heavens pass away they wake not, And are not aroused from their sleep. How much less favoured is the final lot of man! He dies, and then lies there completely broken down and melted away (חלשׁ( yaw, in the neuter signification, confectum esse, rendered in the Targum by אתּבר and אתמקמק). The fut. consec. continues the description of the cheerless results of death: He who has thus once fallen together is gone without leaving a trace of life. In Job 14:11. this vanishing away without hope and beyond recovery is contemplated under the figure of running water, or of water that is dried up and never returns again to its channel. Instead of אזלוּ Isaiah uses נשּׁתוּ (Job 19:5) in the oracle on Egypt, a prophecy in which many passages borrowed from the book of Job are interwoven. The former means to flow away (related radically with נזל), the latter to dry up (transposed נתּשׁ, Jer 18:14). But he also uses יחרב, which signifies the drying in, and then ויבשׁ, which is the complete drying up which follows upon the drying in (vid., Genesis, S. 264). What is thus figuratively expressed is introduced by waw (Job 14:12), similar to the waw adaequationis of the emblematic proverbs mentioned at Job 5:7; Job 11:12 : so there is for man no rising (קוּם), no waking up (הקיץ), no ἐγείρεσθαι (נעור), and indeed not for ever; for what does not happen until the heavens are no more (comp. Psa 72:7, till the moon is no more), never happens; because God has called the heavens and the stars with their laws into existence, לעד לעולם (Psa 148:6), they never cease (Jer 31:35.), the days of heaven are eternal (Psa 89:30). This is not opposed to declarations like Psa 102:27, for the world's history, according to the teaching of Scripture, closes with a change in all these, but not their annihilation. What is affirmed in Job 14:10-12 of mankind in general, is, by the change to the plural in Job 14:12, affirmed of each individual of the race. Their sleep of death is עזלם שׁנת (Jer 51:39, Jer 51:57). What Sheôl summons away from the world, the world never sees again. Oh that it were otherwise! How would the brighter future have comforted him with respect to the sorrowful present and the dark night of the grave!
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
man . . . man--Two distinct Hebrew words are here used; Geber, a mighty man: though mighty, he dies. Adam, a man of earth: because earthly, he gives up the ghost. wasteth--is reduced to nothing: he cannot revive in the present state, as the tree does. The cypress and pine, which when cut down do not revive, were the symbols of death among the Romans.
John Gill Bible Commentary
But man dieth, and wasteth away,.... All men, every man, "Geber", the mighty man, the strong man; some die in their full strength; the wise man, notwithstanding all his wisdom and knowledge, and even skill in the art of medicine; the rich man, with all his riches, with which he cannot bribe death, nor keep it off; the great and the honourable, emperors, kings, princes, nobles, all die, and their honour is laid in the dust; yea, good men die, though Christ has died for them; even those that are the most useful and beneficial to men, the prophets of the Lord, and the ministers of his word; and it is no wonder that wicked men should die, though they put the evil day far from them, make an agreement with death, or bid it defiance, their wickedness shall not deliver from it; all men have sinned, and death passes on them, it is appointed for them to die; not their souls, which are immortal, but their bodies, which return to dust, and are only the mortal part; death is a disunion or separation of soul and body: and now when this is made, the body "wasteth away" in the grave, and becomes rottenness, dust, and worms, and does not by the strength of nature spring up again, as a tree does; though some understand, by an inversion of the phrases, a wasting before death through diseases, as if the words were to be read, "but man wasteth away and dieth" (z); he is enervated by sickness, his strength is weakened in the way, and when he dies there is none left in him; he is cut off (a), as some choose to render it, or cut down as a tree is; but then there is no force or natural strength in him to rise again, as in a tree: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? not in the same place he was; not in his house and habitation where he lived; nor in his family, and among his friends, with whom he conversed, nor in the world, and on the earth where he did business; he is indeed somewhere, but where is he? his body is in the grave; his soul, where is that? if a good man, it is in the presence of God, where is fulness of joy; it is with Christ, which is far better than to be here; it is with the spirits of just men made perfect; it is in Abraham's bosom, feasting with him and other saints; it is in heaven, in paradise, in a state of endless joy and happiness: if a wicked man, his soul is in hell, in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, with the devil and his angels, and other damned spirits; in a prison, from whence there is no release, and in the uttermost misery and distress, banished from the divine Presence, and under a continual sense of the wrath of God. (z) So the Tigurine version, Vatablus, and some in Drusius; and some Hebrews in Ramban and Bar Tzemach. (a) "exciditur", Beza, Piscator, Mercerus; so Kimchi & Ben Gersom.