As the cloud fades and vanishes, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up;
Sick, sleepless and worn out, Job reaches for the plainest picture he can find: a cloud that thins out until nothing is left. Is he saying that a man ends altogether, or only that his place in this world ends?
The picture Job draws
Every image in this part of Job's speech shows how fast a life runs out. One commentator lists them in order — the pain, the sores, the weaving loom — and ends with the cloud.
Samuel RidoutJob now returns to dwell on his sufferings in view of the brevity of life. His sleepless nights of "tossings to and fro" run through months of unrelieved pain. They make him long for that "appointed time" for all flesh. He wants it as eagerly as a hired worker waiting for the end of his working day. Already the signs of the grave are on him: the worm and the clod. Any slight healing of his sores only signals a fresh, disgusting outbreak. Like the swift passing of the shuttle in the weaver's loom, so his painful days pass. Soon they will see him no more, and his life will melt away like the cloud in the blue sky.
The end Job asks for
Read on its own, the verse sounds like a man frightened of dying. In fact the one-way road down is what Job asks for.
William Kelly"As the cloud fades and vanishes" — that is what he compared himself to — "so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up" — that is what he wanted, that it should end. "He returns no more to his house, nor does his place know him anymore."
(Kelly is working from an older translation, which reads "the grave" where the ESV has "Sheol".)
The silence about Sheol
Sheol is the Old Testament word for the place of the dead. The verse tells us nothing about what happens there, and that silence runs right through the older Scriptures.
J. N. DarbyAs to Sheol, see how vague it is in Scripture… It meets sight at the grave, and all is dark and silent beyond. In Job 7:9 you see nothing beyond it.
True words and the hope of resurrection
Some have used this verse to argue that death is the end of a person. Job is describing what death takes away for good, not what God may still give afterwards.
Frederick W GrantJob's words are absolutely true here, without bringing in the God-dishonouring thought of annihilation in any way… God's grace may give him another and a better thing, but it does not reverse the first judgment.
Job's misreading of his own future
Job was right about what death takes away. He was wrong about what still lay ahead of him.
Leslie M. GrantTo him his future appeared bleak and hopeless. How wrong he was! God had designed greater blessing for him in the future than he had ever known before. And eternity holds blessing infinitely greater still. But meanwhile Job felt defeated and miserable. He thought of his life as a cloud that appears and vanishes away… He wanted to die. Why then did he think so hopelessly about what death would bring? But our feelings often make us inconsistent.
Behind the misery there was a purpose.
William KellyGod was putting him into the furnace so that he might come out purer than ever.
What we now know that Job did not
Job had to reason his way through death in the dark. Commentators point to the change that came with Christ's resurrection.
F. B. HoleHave we ever given enough weight in our souls to what the Apostle Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:10? He speaks of "our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." … That the soul of man survived death, and that resurrection lay ahead, was believed in Old Testament times, as Job's words here show. What was not made known was that for the believer resurrection will mean entrance on a new and incorruptible order of things. Our Lord showed this when He rose from the dead. So we have no need to discuss the matter and reason it out, as Job does here.
(Hole's translation of 2 Timothy 1:10 reads "incorruptibility" rather than "immortality" — hence his point about a new and incorruptible order.)
Summary
- Cloud. Job's own chosen image for himself: a life thinning out over months of pain until nothing of it is left in the sky.
- Wish. The one-way descent is not what he fears but what he asks for — he wants the whole thing to end.
- Dark. Sight stops at the grave. In the older Scriptures everything beyond Sheol stays dark and silent.
- Limit. What the words rule out is a return to this house and this place. Grace may give something better, but it does not reverse that judgment.
- Light. Job reasoned in the dark and misjudged his own future. Christ's resurrection has since brought life and incorruptibility into the open, so we no longer have to guess.