Job 14:7

MAN GIVETH UP THE GHOST; AND WHERE IS HE?

"For there is hope of a tree,

If it be cut down, that it will sprout again,

And that the tender branch thereof will not cease.

Though the root thereof wax old in the earth,

And the stock thereof die in the ground.

Yet through the scent of water it will bud,

And put forth boughs like a plant.

But man dieth, and is laid low:

Yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?

As the waters fail from the sea,

And the river wasteth and drieth up;

So man lieth down, and riseth not:

Till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake,

Nor be raised out of their sleep."

It is a sinful perversion of the Word of God to interpret this paragraph as a denial of the resurrection of the dead, a resurrection that Job certainly believed in, as did Abraham, the Psalmist, the prophets and many others, even in the Old Testament. What Job was saying here pertains exclusively to, "The return of men to this present life in its present form. Job was not ignorant of the resurrection hope, but a firm believer in it."[5] A failure to understand this results in such a comment as this, "There is hope of a tree ... but for man there is none till the heavens pass away (Job 14:12), which is never, as far as Job knows."[6] Kelly put it this way: "Job insists, against all suppositions to the contrary, that death is the end, that Sheol, rather than life, is man's final destiny."[7]

We believe that such comments do an injustice to Job. The expression, till the heavens pass away, emphasizes that man's resurrection shall not occur until indeed the heavens do pass away. This is made clear in 2 Peter 3:10.

In his summary of what this paragraph teaches, Matthew Henry wrote that, "This indicates that there will be a return of man to life again in another world, at the end of the time when the heavens shall be no more."[8] Keil also stated that Job's words in this paragraph. "Cannot be otherwise understood than that Sheol would be Job's temporary hiding place from the divine wrath, instead of being his eternal abode."[9] To construe this passage otherwise it is necessary to ignore, or delete altogether Job 14:15, below.

"As the waters fail from the sea, and the river ... drieth up" (Job 14:11). "Job had evidently seen both of these things happen. The formation of new land in the place of the sea is continually going on at the head of the Persian Gulf, through the deposits of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers; and this formation was extremely rapid in ancient times, when the head of the gulf was narrower; and the drying up of river-courses is common in Mesopotamia, where arms thrown out by the rivers get blocked and become silted up."[10]