Job 14:18

14:16-22 Job's faith and hope spake, and grace appeared to revive; but depravity again prevailed. He represents God as carrying matters to extremity against him. The Lord must prevail against all who contend with him. God may send disease and pain, we may lose all comfort in those near and dear to us, every hope of earthly happiness may be destroyed, but God will receive the believer into realms of eternal happiness. But what a change awaits the prosperous unbeliever! How will he answer when God shall call him to his tribunal? The Lord is yet upon a mercy-seat, ready to be gracious. Oh that sinners would be wise, that they would consider their latter end! While man's flesh is upon him, that is, the body he is so loth to lay down, it shall have pain; and while his soul is within him, that is, the spirit he is so loth to resign, it shall mourn. Dying work is hard work; dying pangs often are sore pangs. It is folly for men to defer repentance to a death-bed, and to have that to do which is the one thing needful, when unfit to do anything.

Job here returns to his former subject of the irreparable state of man at death, which he illustrates by various other similes, as before; and first by a "mountain falling", which may be supposed, and has been fact, and when it does, it "comes to nought"; it crumbles into dust, and where it falls there it lies, and never rises up to a mountain, or to the height it had, any more; or it "withers" (n), as some render it, the plants, herbs, and trees that grow upon it, wither away, see Nahum 1:4 ; or "it is dissolved", or "flows" (o), and spreads itself over the face of the green earth it covers, and destroys with its dust and sand, which is never more gathered up to form a mountain again; so man, like unto a mountain, as kingdoms and states, and kings and princes, and great men are; the Targum instances in Lot; as a man may be said to be, that is in good health of body, and in prosperous circumstances in his family; when he falls, as he does by death, which is expressed by falling, 2 Samuel 3:38 ; he comes to nought, he is not any more in the land of the living, nor in the place and circumstances in which he was before: and the rock is removed out of his place; from the mountain, of which it was a part; or elsewhere, by earthquakes, by force of winds, or strength of waters; and which, when once removed, is never returned to its place any more; so man, who in his full strength seems like a rock immovable, when death comes, it shakes and moves him out of his place, and that never

Job 14:18-19 . As the mountain falling cometh to naught, &c. — As when a great mountain falls, by an earthquake or inundation, it moulders away like a fading leaf, (as the Hebrew ward signifies,) and as the rock, when, by the violence of winds or earthquakes, it is removed out of its place, and thrown down, is never re-advanced; and as the waters, by continual droppings, wear away the stones, so that they can never be made whole again; and as thou wastest away, by a great and violent inundation, the things which grow out of the dust of the earth, herbs, and fruits, and plants, which once washed away are irrecoverably lost; in like manner thou destroyest the hope of man: when man dies, all hope of his living again in this world is lost. Thus, as before he declared the hopelessness of man’s restoration from death to this animal life, by way of opposition to such things as did, in a manner, rise from death to life, Job 14:7-10 ; so now he declares the same thing, by way of similitude to such things as, being once lost and gone, are past all hopes of recovery.

And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the {k} rock is removed out of his place. (k) He murmurs through the impatiency of the flesh against God, as though he used great severity against him as against the hard rocks, or waters that overflow, so that by this the opportunity of his hope is taken away.

18 . And surely ] Rather, but ; cf. ch. Job 13:3-4 . The “mountain falling” is the mountain from which great forces detach pieces—as man is subjected to the shattering strokes of God. The second clause shews this to be the meaning. 18–22 . Under this severe treatment man must perish. For even the greatest and the firmest things in nature, and those most capable of resistance, are worn down by the influence of constant forces, and how much more man’s life under God’s continued severity.

Verse 18. - And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought . Job here resumes the lament 'over human infirmity, with which the chapter opens (vers. 1-12); but he has, perhaps, in this passage, his own case mote distinctly presented to his consciousness. With the wealth of metaphor which characterizes his utterances, he compares the ruin of a prosperous man (1) to the sudden collapse of a mountain; (2) to the removal of a rock out of its place; (3) to the wearing away of stones by the constant flow of streams; and (4) to the destruction of alluvial tracts by floods. Mountains collapse, either by volcanic agency, which is quite as much shown in the subsidence as in the elevation of the soil, or by landslips, which are most usually the results of heavy rains. And the rock is removed out of his place . Rocks are sometimes split by frost, and topple over when a thaw comes; at other times, heavy floods remove them from their accustomed place; occasionally earthquakes overturn them, and cause them to fall with a crash. There is also a removal of rocks to much greeter distances, by means of glaciers and icebergs; but of these Job is not likely to have known. Job 14:18

18. cometh to naught—literally, "fadeth"; a poetical image from a leaf (Isa 34:4). Here Job falls back into his gloomy bodings as to the grave. Instead of "and surely," translate "yet"; marking the transition from his brighter hopes. Even the solid mountain falls and crumbles away; man therefore cannot "hope" to escape decay or to live again in the present world (Job 14:19). out of his place—so man (Ps 103:16).

As when a great mountain falls , either by an earthquake or inundation of waters, or from any other cause, it moulders away like a fading leaf , (as the Hebrew word signifies,) and never recovers its former height and stability; and as the rock, when by the violence of winds or earthquake, &c. it is removed out of its place, and thrown down, is never readvanced; and as the waters by continual droppings, or violent and frequent assaults, wear away , or break the stones to pieces , so as they can never be made whole again; and as thou washest away , to wit, by a great and violent inundation which thou sendest, the things which grow out of the dust of the earth , to wit, herbs, and fruits, and plants, which once washed away are irrecoverably lost, and , or so , (as this particle is oft used, i.e. in like manner, to wit, irrecoverably,) thou destroyest the hope of man ; i.e. so when man dies, all hope of living again in this world is utterly lost: and this seems to be the plain meaning of these two verses. And as before he declared the hopelessness of man’s restoration from death to this animal life, by way of opposition to such things as did rise in a manner from death to life, Job 14:7 , &c.; so now he declares it by way of similitude or resemblance to such things, as being once lost and gone are past all hopes of recovery.

And surely the mountain falling - Margin, "Fadeth." The sense of this is, that the hope of man in regard to living again, must certainly fail - as a mountain falls and does not rise again; as the rock is removed, and is not replaced; or as the waters wear away the stones, and they disappear. The hope of dying man was not like the tree that would spring up again Job 14:7-9 ; it was like the falling mountain, the wasting waters Job 14:11 , the rock that was removed. The reference in the phrase before us is, probably, to a mountain that settles down and disappears - as is sometimes the case in violent convulsions of nature. It does not rise again, but is gone to reappear no more. So Job says it was of man. And the rock is removed - An earthquake shakes it, and removes it from its foundation, and it is not replaced.

17 My transgression is sealed up in a bag, And Thou hast devised additions to my iniquity. 18 But a falling mountain moveth indeed, And a rock falleth from its place. 19 Water holloweth out stone, Its overflowings carry away the dust of the earth, And the hope of man - Thou destroyest. The meaning of Job 14:17 is, not that the judgment which pronounces him guilty lies in the sealed-up bag of the judge, so that it requires only to be handed over for execution (Hirz., Ew., Renan), for although פּשׁע (though not exactly the punishment of sin, which it does not signify even in Daniel 9:24) can denote wickedness, as proved and recorded, and therefore metonomically the penal sentence, the figure is, however, taken not from the mode of preserving important documents, but from the mode of preserving collected articles of value in a sealed bag. The passage must be explained according to Hosea 13:12; Deuteronomy 32:34; Romans 2:5, comp. Jeremiah 17:1. The evil Job had formerly (Job 13:26) committed according to the sentence of God, God has gathered together as in a money bag, and carefully preserved, in order now to bring them home to him. And not this alone, however; He has devised still more against him than his actual misdeeds.