Read & explore together
Job Laments the Finality of Death
Job 14 is a sorrowful speech about human life, suffering and death. Job speaks directly to God, using strong pictures to describe how brief people are and how uncertain hope can feel in the face of death.
Understanding the passage
Listening in context
In this passage from Job’s wisdom dialogue, Job reflects on human frailty and addresses God with lament and questions. He moves from the shortness of life, to the image of a tree that may sprout again, to his own troubled wondering about Sheol, sin, fading hope and mourning.
Job 14:1–22Main takeaway
This passage gives honest words for human weakness and grief, while showing Job reaching toward the possibility that God might yet remember him.
Look closely at the words
Open a card to explore the full explanation and its Bible references.
01Few days and full of troubleJob opens by saying that a person born of a woman has only a few days and is full of trouble.
Explanation
Job opens by saying that a person born of a woman has only a few days and is full of trouble. He compares human life to a flower cut down and a shadow that does not last. Then he asks why God would bring such a frail person into judgment, adding that no one can bring a clean thing from an unclean one.
02Life has limits, so Job asks for restJob says that a person’s days, months and boundaries are known to God and cannot be passed.
Explanation
Job says that a person’s days, months and boundaries are known to God and cannot be passed. Because life is so fixed and difficult, he asks God to look away so that the person may rest. He uses the picture of a hireling finishing the day, which highlights weariness and the longing simply to complete one’s allotted work.
03A tree shows more visible hope than a personJob observes that a cut tree may still have hope. Even if its root grows old and its stock dies in the ground, the scent of water can make it bud and grow boughs again.
Explanation
Job observes that a cut tree may still have hope. Even if its root grows old and its stock dies in the ground, the scent of water can make it bud and grow boughs again. By contrast, when a man dies and gives up the spirit, Job asks where he is, stressing the finality he feels.
04Death seems like sleep that does not endJob compares human death to waters that fail and a river that dries up. In the same way, he says a person lies down and does not rise, not waking or being roused from sleep until the heavens are no more.
Explanation
Job compares human death to waters that fail and a river that dries up. In the same way, he says a person lies down and does not rise, not waking or being roused from sleep until the heavens are no more. Then he wishes God would hide him in Sheol, appoint a set time, and remember him.
05A brief reaching for hope gives way to mourningJob asks whether a man who dies will live again, and imagines waiting for release, with God calling and desiring the work of his hands.
Explanation
Job asks whether a man who dies will live again, and imagines waiting for release, with God calling and desiring the work of his hands. Yet he returns to sorrow, speaking of watched sin, sealed disobedience, worn stones, destroyed hope, separation from sons, pain and mourning within.
Questions to explore
Pause, look back at the verses and talk together.
01What do Job’s pictures of the flower and the shadow add to his statement about human life?
02Why does Job compare a person with a tree?
Read the Bible passage
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
Job 14:1–22
1“Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.
2He grows up like a flower, and is cut down. He also flees like a shadow, and doesn’t continue.
3Do you open your eyes on such a one, and bring me into judgment with you?
4Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.
5Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his bounds that he can’t pass.
6Look away from him, that he may rest, until he accomplishes, as a hireling, his day.
7“For there is hope for a tree if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, that the tender branch of it will not cease.
8Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stock dies in the ground,
9yet through the scent of water it will bud, and sprout boughs like a plant.
10But man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he?
11As the waters fail from the sea, and the river wastes and dries up,
12so man lies down and doesn’t rise. Until the heavens are no more, they will not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep.
13“Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would keep me secret until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time and remember me!
14If a man dies, will he live again? I would wait all the days of my warfare, until my release should come.
15You would call, and I would answer you. You would have a desire for the work of your hands.
16But now you count my steps. Don’t you watch over my sin?
17My disobedience is sealed up in a bag. You fasten up my iniquity.
18“But the mountain falling comes to nothing. The rock is removed out of its place.
19The waters wear the stones. The torrents of it wash away the dust of the earth. So you destroy the hope of man.
20You forever prevail against him, and he departs. You change his face, and send him away.
21His sons come to honor, and he doesn’t know it. They are brought low, but he doesn’t perceive it of them.
22But his flesh on him has pain, and his soul within him mourns.”