Job 14:17 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Job 14:17

Comments

Again, this verse could be understood in two ways. Job could mean that his transgression is sealed in a bag in the sense that it is hidden from God so that he will remember it no more and his iniquity is covered so that it will not be counted against him. Those who see it this way translate the Hebrew future tense as a subjunctive – ‘my transgression would be sealed up in a bag’. Starting from verse 13 – ‘Oh that thou would …’ – they render the passage as a series of possibilities, and only go back to the indicative in verse 18, make it to be Job’s wish and hope of what might be. But the KJV renders only verse 13 as a subjunctive, and the rest of the passage as indicative. Verse 14 and 15 are made definite statements about what Job believes will happen in the future, and in verse 16 Job comes back to the present and continues with it here in verse 17. Understood this way he means that his transgression is stored in a bag as a record against him. It is his fear that God is doing just this. His sins have been carefully counted, and will in due time be brought out resulting in his condemnation. The word translated ‘sewest up’ means to smear or plaster over, also to stick or glue, and it refers to an inadequate covering that can later be removed, or that keeps them safe against the day of reckoning (BDB), but does not include the idea of Job’s sins being atoned for.The fact that he returns to these gloomy thoughts about God when he clearly wanted to be filled with hope, shows how powerfully he was being dragged down by his present troubles. He finishes this speech on a dark note that provides little consolation.

Application

‘So long as we do not know whether God dislikes us or not, we are bound to be afraid and to shun his presence as much as we can. We see then what state wretched creatures are in who have no sense of God’s goodness to trust in him in order to comfort themselves. Therefore let us understand that we need to be persuaded of God’s love towards us, in order to exercise sufficient trust that we present ourselves to him, and are convinced that our right response is to answer him, that is to say, not to hide ourselves from his sight, but to be always willing to be guided by his hand, so that we desire nothing other than to be under his hand, and following his direction … If we are agreeable to him and come to him, we are assured that that he is ready to receive us. Why? Because we are his creatures, and he has formed us, and he will not cast away the thing that came from himself. Note however that we must not consider only our first creation: for then the hope that we have will be very slender, because God’s image is, as it were, blotted out in us by Adam’s sin. But since God by his own infinite mercy has renewed us and adopted us to be his children in our Lord Jesus Christ, and imprinted his image again in us: by this we become his workmanship, and we may come with our heads upright to call upon him, and assure ourselves that he will not shake us off, but that we shall be welcome to him … Men are in a such wretched state when they do not know whether God loves them or not. Why? Because they are bound to be afraid, and the same fearfulness causes and engenders a rebelliousness in them, so that they shun God and avoid his hand as much as they can. You see then that men are like wild beasts and cannot submit to God until they know that he loves them’ (Calvin – English updated).

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Job 14:17 Commentary and Bible Study