Job 14:21

He closes his answer (Job 14) with wider reflections on man's miserable lot in this world. Man is frail and faulty by nature, with no hope of reviving in this life, unlike a tree, which may sprout again however low it is cut down... Meanwhile he sees no ground of hope. Even the strongest things fall to ruin, and man passes away so completely that he knows nothing of it, whether his sons come to honour or are brought low.

Job sees only power on God's side, God prevailing against man without man having any chance of recovery: man passes on. Yet in reality God was dealing in pure love toward Job, not merely in power. Whether man's sons come to honour or whether they are brought low, the father is so reduced that he does not perceive it (v.21). Of course, Job's sons had all been killed before this. But he thinks of this situation as a general truth: man can find no pleasure in his family, any more than in himself.

This is not exactly the language of unbelief, nor of faith either. It is a man speaking as a man, about things on earth. It is much like the thought in Ecclesiastes: "in the days to come all will have been long forgotten" (Ecclesiastes 2:16). Thank God, even in the Old Testament there was more light.

Someone may object that the Bible says, "the dead know nothing" (Ecclesiastes 9:5). True, but where do we find this passage? Take texts away from their context and you can prove any heresy you please. The writer in Ecclesiastes deals with things "under the sun." It is of these things he speaks when he says, "the dead know nothing." A man may have been the alert head of a large business on earth. Once he leaves this world behind, he knows nothing more of it, and nothing of whether it prospers. And so with all departed ones as far as human affairs are concerned.

In Job 14, he does not go beyond this present world of sight. In the bitterness of his spirit he has no sense of resurrection... death has come fully upon him as a man belonging to this world — a child of Adam. He never recovers that life. Job was right, only he did not see beyond it, and here he did not know Him who is the resurrection and the life.

Job was the very reverse of a sceptic. He looks for his time of renewal or change, and deep down he does not doubt God's yearning for the work of His hands. Man is certainly to live again; spirit, soul, and body, he will be made new. But this contrast that he believes in throws him back on the trials he was going through, which he could not explain.

All of them, together, were swept out of life in a moment. This striking event hinted that another world does exist, into which their spirits had entered. It hinted that the resurrection, which Job had reasoned and debated about in Job 14, would come in due season, and that Job would meet them again.