Job 14
1 "Man who is born of a woman
is few of days and full of trouble.
2 He comes out like a flower and withers;
he flees like a shadow and continues not.
3 And do you open your eyes on such a one
and bring me into judgment with you?
4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an
unclean?
There is not one.
5 Since his days are determined,
and the number of his months is with
you,
and you have appointed his limits that he
cannot pass,
6 look away from him and leave him alone,
that he may enjoy, like a hired hand, his
day.
7 "For there is hope for a tree,
if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,
and that its shoots will not cease.
8 Though its root grow old in the earth,
and its stump die in the soil,
9 yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put out branches like a young plant.
10 But a man dies and is laid low;
man breathes his last, and where is he?
11 As waters fail from a lake
and a river wastes away and dries up,
12 so a man lies down and rises not again;
till the heavens are no more he will not
awake
or be roused out of his sleep.
13 Oh that you would hide me in Sheol,
that you would conceal me until your
wrath be past,
that you would appoint me a set time, and
remember me!
14 If a man dies, shall he live again?
All the days of my service I would wait,
till my renewal should come.
Job 14:1-14 ESV
2 comments:
12 so a man lies down and rises not again;
till the heavens are no more he will not
awake
or be roused out of his sleep.
This is confusing. Do the deceased automatically go to heaven or hell, where they are conscious, or do they lie in a dormant state until the Last Day.
That is a great question Anonymous. I don't think there's a particularly satisfactory answer based on what little he says here. Perhaps he didn't have as clear a picture of what happens to the soul at death as we now have with the benefit of the New Testament. The souls of Christians are with Christ at their death, though the interim state isn't clearly delineated in Scripture. See verses such as Luke 23:43, Acts 7:59, Rev. 14:13, Phil. 1: 23, 24. What is certain is that Job had a concrete hope in his own bodily resurrection at the last day: "For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!"
Job 19:25-27 ESV
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