Job: If a Man Dies, Will He Live Again?
1 “Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble. 2 He grows up like a flower, and is cut down. He also flees like a shadow, and doesn’t continue. 3 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? Not one. 5 Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his bounds that he can’t pass. 6 Look away from him, that he may rest, until he accomplishes, as a hireling, his day. 7 “For there is hope for a tree if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, that the tender branch of it will not cease. 8 Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stock dies in the ground, 9 yet through the scent of water it will bud, and sprout boughs like a plant. 10 But man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he? 11 As the waters fail from the sea, and the river wastes and dries up, 12 so man lies down and doesn’t rise. Until the heavens are no more, they will not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep. 13 “Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would keep me secret until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time and remember me! 14 If a man dies, will he live again? I would wait all the days of my warfare, until my release should come. 15 You would call, and I would answer you. You would have a desire for the work of your hands. 16 But now you count my steps. Don’t you watch over my sin? 17 My disobedience is sealed up in a bag. You fasten up my iniquity. 18 “But the mountain falling comes to nothing. The rock is removed out of its place. 19 The waters wear the stones. The torrents of it wash away the dust of the earth. So you destroy the hope of man. 20 You forever prevail against him, and he departs. You change his face, and send him away. 21 His sons come to honor, and he doesn’t know it. They are brought low, but he doesn’t perceive it of them. 22 But his flesh on him has pain, and his soul within him mourns.”
A tree cut down sprouts again and a man does not, and out of that comparison comes the question the rest of Scripture answers.
The chapter opens with the shortest summary of human life in Scripture: of few days, and full of trouble, growing like a flower and cut down, fleeing like a shadow Job 14:1–2.
The request that follows is strange and worth reading twice. Look away from him, that he may rest Job 14:6. Job is asking God to stop watching. Given how brief and hard the span is, he thinks the decent thing would be to let a man finish his shift unexamined.
Then the comparison that carries the chapter. A tree has hope: cut down, it sprouts; its root may grow old and its stump die, and yet through the scent of water it will bud Job 14:7–9. The image is of something that looks finished and is not.
And then the contrast: but man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he? Job 14:10.
The question is real. Job is not being rhetorical; he does not know. And the answer he gives in the next verse is the clearest statement about the dead in the book: so man lies down and doesn't rise. Until the heavens are no more, they will not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep Job 14:12.
Every word of that repays attention. The state is sleep. The verbs for leaving it are awake and be roused — a waking rather than a continuation. And the denial is not absolute; it is bounded by until. Something is expected at the far end of it.
What Job asks for next follows exactly from that picture, and it is the strongest evidence in the book for how he understood death. Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would keep me secret until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time and remember me! Job 14:13.
He wants the grave as a hiding place, with an appointment attached. A man who believed he would survive his own death consciously would not ask to be hidden, given a date, and remembered — those are things done to someone who is not present.
Then the question, and it is the pivot of the book: if a man dies, will he live again? Job 14:14. He does not answer it. What he says instead is what he would do if the answer were yes: I would wait all the days of my warfare, until my release should come.
And he describes the release. You would call, and I would answer you. You would have a desire for the work of your hands Job 14:15. A voice, and a man waking to it, because the one who made him wants him back.
That is a resurrection and not a survival, and it is what the rest of Scripture teaches — the dead know nothing Ecclesiastes 9:5, the breath departs and the thoughts perish Psalms 146:4, and the hour comes when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice John 5:28–29. Job's longing and the Lord's promise describe the same event.
The hope does not hold to the end of the chapter. He returns to erosion — water wearing stones away, torrents washing off the soil — and says so you destroy the hope of man Job 14:19. The first cycle closes on a man who has just described the thing he most wants and cannot make himself believe it.
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