“But the mountain falls and crumbles away, and the rock is removed from its place;
Job is closing a long answer, turning from his own case to the state of every man on earth. He pictures erosion — a hillside slipping, a rock shifted from its place — and asks whether God wears man down until his hope runs out.
Where the Verse Falls
The subject here is not Job alone but every person born.
William KellyHe closes his answer (Job 14) with more general thoughts on man's miserable state in this world. Man is frail and faulty by nature, with no hope of reviving in this life. He is unlike a tree, which may sprout again no matter how low it is cut... Meanwhile Job sees no ground of hope. Even the strongest things fall to ruin, and man passes away so fully that he knows nothing of his sons, whether they rise to honour or are brought low.
The Images Themselves
The wording is a chain of slow losses, each one certain. One writer's rendering carries the chain past our verse to its end point:
William KellyAnd yet a falling mountain decays, And a rock is removed from its place, Waters wear away stones, Its floods sweep away the soil of the earth, And You destroy the hope of man, To the last You overpower him, and he goes; You change his face, and send him away.
The Complaint Underneath
Job is not writing nature poetry. He is building a case, and the case is aimed at God.
Leslie M. GrantJob sees more than the fact that man dies. In this life he saw the evidence of God using His power to break man down to the dust. Is this what God thinks of His creation? Does He take pleasure in demolishing the work of His hands?... Why is God not content to let man die? Why must He make him suffer before death?
Man as the Worn-Down Mountain
The mountain in the verse is a portrait of the man speaking. Job had been strong. Now he is the thing on the ground, carried off piece by piece.
Samuel RidoutAgain the darkness shuts down on his soul. Job describes man as a mountain once strong, now flattened and worn away by the rushing waters. Death's shadow falls upon the face once bright and smiling, and we bury our dead out of our sight... A man lives, suffers, groans and dies — and that is all!
The Limit of Job's Sight
Everything Job says about man in this world is true. The problem is that his eye stops at the edge of this world.
J. N. DarbyIn Job 14, he does not look beyond this present world that he can see. In the bitterness of his spirit he has no sense of resurrection. The tree sprouts now and visibly in this present world — man does not... Job was right, only he did not see beyond it, and he did not yet know Him who is the resurrection and the life.
Commentators differ over how much light Job had. Some read his other words as real faith in a resurrection, while agreeing that the full answer had not yet been given. What settled the question was an event, not an argument:
F. B. HoleWe pause to ask a question. Have we ever thanked God enough that we walk in the light of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead?... What God had not yet made known was this: for the believer, resurrection will mean entering a new and incorruptible order of things. Our Lord showed it when He rose from the dead. So we have no need to discuss the matter and reason it out, as Job does here.
Love Behind the Wearing Down
Job reads the erosion as God working against him. The book itself reads it the other way, and that is why the story does not stop here.
William KellyBut the Lord does not leave Job until he sees the truth. He was not simply a man looking up to God. He was a man who knew God's love — a love that was taking him up and chastening him so that he might be blessed more than ever before. That is the great purpose of the Book of Job.
Summary
- Erosion. The verse gathers the slowest, surest losses in nature: a mountain slipping, a rock shifted, stone worn by water. They measure out a human life.
- Accusation. Job turns the picture into a question about God. Does He enjoy demolishing the work of His hands? And why must man suffer before he dies?
- Portrait. The worn-down mountain is Job himself: once strong, now flat on the ground. His conclusion is that a man lives, groans, dies, and that is all.
- Limit. What he says of man in this world is true. His mistake is that he stops there. He has no sense of resurrection, and he does not yet know the One who is the resurrection and the life.
- Purpose. God was not wearing Job away to destroy him. He was bringing him to know a love that chastens him, so that He can bless him more than before. That is the whole point of the book.