Job 14:13

14:7-15 Though a tree is cut down, yet, in a moist situation, shoots come forth, and grow up as a newly planted tree. But when man is cut off by death, he is for ever removed from his place in this world. The life of man may fitly be compared to the waters of a land flood, which spread far, but soon dry up. All Job's expressions here show his belief in the great doctrine of the resurrection. Job's friends proving miserable comforters, he pleases himself with the expectation of a change. If our sins are forgiven, and our hearts renewed to holiness, heaven will be the rest of our souls, while our bodies are hidden in the grave from the malice of our enemies, feeling no more pain from our corruptions, or our corrections.

Job 14:13 . O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave — The grave is not only a resting-place, but a hiding-place to the children of God: Christ has the key of the grave to open and let in now, and to let out at the resurrection. God hides his people in the grave as we hide our treasure in a place of secrecy and safety; and he that hides will find what he has hid, and nothing shall be lost. O that thou wouldst hide me, not only from the storms and troubles of this life, but for the bliss and glory of a better life; let me lie in the grave reserved for immortality, in secret from all the world, but not from thee, not from those eyes which saw my substance when first curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth, Psalm 139:15-16 . Thus, it was not only in a passionate weariness of this life that he wished to die, but in a pious assurance of a better life, to which at length he should arise. Until thy wrath be past — As long as our bodies lie in the grave there are some effects of God’s wrath against sin, but when the body is raised, that wrath is wholly past, and death, the last enemy, is totally destroyed. That thou wouldest appoint me a set time — Not only fix a time when thou wilt end my sufferings and my life, but when thou wilt remember my flesh lodged in the grave, as thou didst remember Noah and every living thing in the ark, Genesis 8:1 .

O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy {e} wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and {f} remember me! (e) By this he declares that the fear of God's judgment was the reason why he desired to die. (f) That is, relieve my pain and take me to mercy.

13–15 . Having pursued the destiny of man through all its steps down to its lowest, its complete extinction in death, Job, with a revulsion created by the instinctive demands of the human spirit, rises to the thought that there might be another life after this one. This thought is expressed in the form of an impassioned desire. To understand these verses the Hebrew conception of death must be remembered. Death was not an end of personal existence: the dead person subsisted, he did not live. He descended into Sheol, the abode of deceased persons. His existence was a dreamy shadow of his past life. He had no communion with the living, whether men or God; comp. Job 3:12-19 ; Job 10:21-22 , Job 14:20-22 . This idea of death is not strictly the teaching of revelation, it is the popular idea from which revelation starts, and revelation on the question rather consists in exhibiting to us how the pious soul struggled with this popular conception and sought to overcome it, and how faith demanded and realized, as faith does, its demand, that the communion with God enjoyed in this life should not be interrupted in death. This was in short a demand and a faith that the state of Sheol should be overleaped, and that the believing soul should be “taken” by God in death to Himself, cf. Psalm 16:10 ; Psalm 49:15 ; Psalm 73:24 . This was the solution that generally presented itself to the mind when death was contemplated. The present passage differs in two particulars.

It does not exhibit such assured faith as these passages in the Psalms. The problem before the Psalmists was a much simpler one than that before Job. They were men who, when they wrote their words of faith, enjoyed God’s fellowship, and their faith protested against this fellowship being interrupted in death. But Job has lost the sense of God’s fellowship through his afflictions, which are to his mind proof of God’s estrangement from him, hence he has so to speak a double obstacle to overcome, where the Psalmists had only one, and this makes him do no more here than utter a prayer, while the Psalmists expressed a firm assurance. In the following chapters, especially ch. 19, Job also rises to assurance. In another particular this passage differs from these Psalms. It contemplates a different and much more complete solution of the problem. In both the hope of immortality has a purely religious foundation. It springs from the irrepressible longing for communion with God. The Psalmists, in the actual enjoyment of this communion, either protest against death absolutely (Psalms 16), and demand a continuance in life that this fellowship may continue—that is, they rise to the idea of true immortality; or, contemplating death as a fact, they protest against the popular conception of it, and demand that the deceased person shall not sink into Sheol, but pass across its gulf to God. Job’s conception is different from either of these, because his circumstances are different.

Verse 13. - Oh that thou wouldest hide me in the grave! literally, in Sheol which here does not so much mean "the grave," as the place of departed spirits, described in Job 10:21, 22 . Job desires to have God's protection in that" land of darkness," and to be "hidden" there by him until his wrath be past. It has been generally supposed that he means after his death; but Schultens thinks his desire was to descend to Sheol alive and there remain, while his punishment continued, hidden from the eyes of men. That thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past. Job assumes that, if he is being punished for his youthful sins ( Job 13:26 ), his punishment will not be for long - at any rate, not for ever; God's anger will at last be satisfied and cease. That thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! How long he may have to suffer be does not greatly care. Only let it be "a set time" - a fixed, definite period - and at the end of it, let God" remember" him. Job 14:13

13. Job wishes to be kept hidden in the grave until God's wrath against him shall have passed away. So while God's wrath is visiting the earth for the abounding apostasy which is to precede the second coming, God's people shall be hidden against the resurrection glory (Isa 26:19-21). set time—a decreed time (Ac 1:7).

In the grave; either, 1. In some dark vault under ground, such as good men hide themselves in times of persecution, Hebrews 11:38 . Lord, hide me in some hiding place from thy wrath, and all the intolerable effects of it, which are upon me; for I cannot be hid from thee, but by thee. Or, 2. In the grave, properly so called. Though I know life once lost is irrecoverable, yet I heartily desire death, rather than to continue in these torments. And if the next words and wish seem to suppose the continuance of his life, that is not strange; for he speaks like one almost distracted with his miseries, sometimes wishing one thing, sometimes another and the quite contrary, as such persons use to do. And these wishes may be understood disjunctively, I wish either that I were dead, or that God would give me life free from these torments. Or the place may be understood thus, I could wish, if it were possible, that I might lie in the grave for a time till these storms be blown over, and then be restored to a comfortable life. That thou wouldest keep me secret; in some secret and safe place, under the shadow of thy wings and favour, that I may have some support and comfort from thee. Until thy wrath be past; whilst I am oppressed with such grievous and various calamities; which he calls God’s wrath, because they were, or seemed to be, the effects of his wrath. A set time, to wit, to my sufferings, as thou hast done to my life, Job 14:5 .