Job’s Reply to Zophar (12:1 – 14:22) — continued

14:1-12
Job lamented the brevity of life and the certainty of death. He described his life as…

• a withering flower (14:2a) that is here today and gone tomorrow.
• a shadow (14:2b) that moves and is gone.
• a hired laborer (14:6) that longs for rest.
• a cut-down tree (14:7) has the hope of sprouting again unlike man who “dies and lies prostrate” (14:10).
• evaporating water (14:11a) which ascends to the heavens.
• a dried-up river (14:11b) which is empty and dry at the end.

Job wondered why God did not look less rigorously on mere men who lives were so quickly moving to an end (14:5-6).

14:13-22
Job said it would be better to rest in Sheol’s embrace than to continue living such a harsh existence (14:13). Job looked forward to the day when death would overtake him and he would go on to live in the life beyond (14:14). Job understood that our physical bodies wear out like eroding mountains and stones (14:18-19). He understood that as a man ages he undergoes a change of appearance (14:20), loses interest in the events in the lives of his children (14:21), and becomes preoccupied with his own aches and pains (14:22).