Job 14:14

14. Shall he live? That which follows is equivalent to an affirmative answer to this momentous question, since Job is emboldened, to wait or hope ( yahhal) till his change or reviviscence shall come. “Upon closer reflection it is clear to him that the wish of the preceding verse comprehends within itself a renewal of life from the dead. Also he asks himself, ‘If man dies, lives he again?’ and without giving himself an answer, he proceeds to take pleasure in the thought, and, full of ecstasy, to set before himself the consequences that follow ‘all the days,’” etc. (Dillmann.) Even Renan makes here an important admission; “Job floats,” he says, “between despair and confidence. Sometimes he is struck with the fact that man is never restored to life, ( ressuscite;) sometimes he thinks that God could well recall him to life, and compares himself in sheol ( l’enfer) to a soldier on duty who waits till he may be relieved.” If a man die the strong man, the being of might, (geber,) shall he live? If such a being as man die! (A proper emphasis of the question gives the aroma of hope.) The Chinese philosopher Confucius evaded a similar question. “I venture to ask about death,” said Ke Loo. He was answered, “While you do not know life, how can you know about death?” ( Analects, xi, sec. 11.)

Appointed time צבא , warfare. Compare Job 7:1. “The miserable state of the shades in sheol is compared to the hard service of soldiers on guard.” Gesenius.

My change חליפתי . This wondrous word hhalipha is sometimes used for the relief of a guard or the release of a sentinel from his post. Some change from, or in, the estate of death is plainly indicated by the use of this word. In the seventh verse it designated the reviviscence of a tree, and it is strongly presumable that it is used here for renewal of life, whether in the military sense of relief from a darksome post, or in the sense of reanimation. With consummate skill Job may have blended the two in a mixed metaphor, a rhetorical form common with the Apostle Paul. The Septuagint reads it, “I will wait till I am made again.” Though mingled with gloom, the thought is a sublime one: The dead, the righteous dead, in their dismal abode, await a coming One who shall bring deliverance. Job’s spirit already pierces through the darkness of sheol, and descries the day-spring of hope. The lineaments may not be distinct, yet even here he catches a glimpse of “THE LAST” of Him who shall stand upon the dust. Job 19:25.