Job 14:1 Commentary and Bible Study

Job now describes the condition of mortal man, his tenuous hold on life, his weakness, and the hopeless situation in which he finds himself fallen state. There is an element of complaint in what he says. If man’s state is already so bad, he asks, why doesn’t God leave him to enjoy the brief time that he has on earth undisturbed? The great joy of the believer is that faith gives him the victory over all this. In spite of these gloomy prospects, the Christian has hope because of the power of God over even this most terrible of enemies. Christ in his own body triumphed over the grave and we may gladly rejoice even while we live under the shadow of death, but due to his great suffering Job has for the moment lost sight of this.What is man? He is a fragile creature who comes into the world full of hopes and accompanied by the celebration of parents and friends, but who is unable to avoid troubles throughout life. By God’s design we come into the world by birth; this is the universal condition and it is attended with great risk from the start. Countless numbers have not survived the birth process, and many more have not reached adult life. The new born babe is helpless and dependent on instincts that may or may not live in the mother’s heart. Would the parent still rejoice if they could see everything that lies ahead? Would the child turn back if it could see its future clearly, and prefer that life had never begun? Very few can say that they have escaped major troubles at some point, and a continuous stream of lesser problems comes through the course of life. Yes, so strong is the desire for life that most would continue even though hardship awaits them, but often that is because there is unfounded optimism about the future. Barnes quotes Goethe – a man who drank deeply of sinful pleasures – as saying that in his seventy-five years he had scarcely known four weeks of true comfort.