the waters wear away the stones; the torrents wash away the soil of the earth; so you destroy the hope of man.
Job has been speaking about the tree that sprouts again after it is cut down, and about man who lies down and does not rise. Now he turns to the landscape itself. Mountains crumble, rocks shift, water grinds stone away. In that slow ruin Job sees a picture of what God is doing to him.
The picture in the verse
Job is not describing a sudden disaster. He is describing wear. One writer sees Job moving from the fact of death to the evidence of God's hand at work long before death arrives.
Leslie M. GrantNot only does Job recognise that man dies, but in this life Job saw the evidence that God was 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 with letting man die, rather than to make him suffer before death?
The mood behind the words
Job names the strongest things he knows — mountain, rock, stone — and shows them giving way. Then he puts himself in the same picture.
Samuel RidoutDarkness closes over his soul again. Job describes man as a mountain that was once strong, but now lies fallen, 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's sons come to honour and are brought low, but "the dead know nothing." A man lives, suffers, groans and dies — and that is all!
What Job sees, and what he misses
Job aims the complaint straight at God: You destroy. He has named the right hand. He has misread the motive behind it.
Leslie M. GrantJob sees only power on God's side, God prevailing against man without man having any chance of recovery: man passes on. God changes His expression (from pleasant to depressing) and sends man away, left alone to wander in misery. Yet in reality God was dealing in pure love toward Job, not merely in power.
Which hope God destroys
Much depends on which hope Job means. One writer holds that Job speaks only of this present life, and that within those limits his words are exact.
William KellyLife on earth closes hopelessly for man. A tree that is cut down may sprout again. But man is like water that fails and dries up: he lies down and rises no more while the heavens last. He speaks of "man" as belonging to this world, and nothing could be more exact. This was not the time or place to bring in the special blessing of the first resurrection, though we will find an echo of it elsewhere in this book.
Another writer puts it more bluntly. Job is shut inside what he can see here, with no sense of resurrection — right about the facts, but blind to what lies past them.
J. N. DarbyIn Job 14, he clearly does not go beyond this present world of sight, and in the bitterness of his spirit has no sense of resurrection. The tree sprouts again now, in plain sight in this present world — man does not, and in fact never will, unless by a miracle, as with Lazarus. Death has fully passed on him as an inhabitant of this world — a child of Adam. He never gets that life back. Job was right, only he did not see beyond, nor here know Him who is the resurrection and the life.
A question Job could not yet answer
Earlier in the same chapter Job had asked whether a man who dies will live again. The picture of slow wearing away presses that question, and it stayed open for him.
F. B. HoleHe did not know how a man could be "just," or "right" with God. He knew that no man could produce that which is clean out of that which is unclean. And now comes the question, "If a man dies, shall he live again?" On this point no clear and decisive light was yet shining before him, or in his heart.
Where the book takes him
Job's speech stops at ruin. The book does not.
William KellyBut the Lord does not leave Job until he sees more. He was not just a man looking up to God. He was a man who knew God's love — a love that was taking him up and chastising him, so that he might be blessed more than he had ever been before. That is the great object of the Book of Job.
Summary
- Erosion. Job's image is wear, not a sudden blow — mountain, rock, stone and soil all give way slowly, and he puts himself in that line.
- Power. Job traces the wearing to God's hand, and he is right: man has no power to reverse it.
- Love. What he misses is the motive: he sees only power on God's side, while God was dealing with him in love.
- Limit. The hope God destroys here is hope for this present life. Job's question about living again stayed open in his heart.
- Purpose. The wearing down was not God's last word. The book ends with Job knowing the love behind it, and blessed more than before.