Job 14:13

JOB'S HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD

"Oh, that thou wouldest hide me in Sheol.

That thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past.

That thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!

If a man die, shall he live again?

All the days of my warfare WILL I wait,

Till my release should come.

Thou SHALT call, and I WILL answer thee:

Thou wouldest have a desire to the work of thy hands.

But now thou numberest my steps:

Dost thou not watch over my sin?

My transgression is sealed up in a bag,

And thou fastenest up mine iniquity."

Note the capitalized words in Job 14:14,15. These are the marginal alternatives in the ASV, and by all means should be used here. This paragraph is not some kind of a vague hope on Job's part, as if he were trying to lift himself by his own bootstraps; this passage is a prayer to God, in which he asks God to hide him (temporarily) in Sheol until his anger is spent, affirming Job's conviction that at the time indicated, God WILL call (not a vague hope that he might) and that Job WILL hear and respond (Job 14:15). The discerning reader will understand at once that this is a radical departure from a lot that has been written on this chapter.

"If a man die, shall he live again" (Job 14:14)? The answer that the scholars generally give here is a decided NO; but we reject that misunderstanding of the passage.

We are delighted that in Vol. 13 of the Tyndale Commentary, we find a valid scholarly opinion which we can accept: "Job here gives a very clear expression to his belief that, even after he lies down in Sheol, God will call him out to life again (Job 14:15)."[11] There is only one reason for the blindness of many scholars on this point; and, as cited by Andersen, it is solely due to, "Their a priori belief that the idea of a resurrection arose quite late in Israel's thought."[12] That false theory, like many another liberal axiom, is totally false. Abraham offered Isaac, being able to do so only because of his faith in the resurrection (Hebrews 11:19).

The true answer, therefore to the question in Job 14:14, "If a man die, shall he live again"? is Yes, Indeed! Amen.

It is a help in understanding Job to remember that God Himself, when he appeared in the mighty wind to Job and his friends, declared that Job, throughout this book spoke the truth regarding God; and we consider that such a declaration can mean only that Job was an inspired man in his great discourses throughout. He spoke by the Spirit of God. That is the reason we have the Book of Job in the canon.

The ridiculous notion that Job in this passage is "feeling his way" toward some epic truth, but that he has, as yet, no conviction about it should be rejected. Job's firm faith in the resurrection of the dead (Ch. 19), is not something that Job cooked up out of his own subjective feelings. What Job stated in Job 19 is the same thing that he believed when he was speaking in chapter 14. What we have here is not the picture of some mortal man "feeling his way" toward God and finally, after all kinds of errors, at last coming up with a declaration that has inspired all men for ages. The great message of Job 19 is absolutely nothing that Job "worked out," and "finally arrived at." God spoke to all of us through Job.

"My transgression is sealed up in a bag" (Job 14:17). We agree with Andersen that, "These transgressions have been sealed up in order to hide them, and not for keeping them to be used at some time of reckoning."[13] Thus we have the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins making its appearance here in the inspired words of Job.