Job 14:18 Commentary and Bible Study

Thinking of the most enduring elements of this world, and including even those things which do not have life but which have a certain form or shape by which they are recognised; Job describes how they are eroded away by the irresistible destructive forces of time. The mountains rear themselves up and are recognized by grandfather, father, and son, and generations beyond; they seem to be part of the eternal landscape, and yet time can wear them away. The rock, which no one could think of shifting manually, is violently moved out of its place by stupendous forces exerted perhaps through an earthquake or eruption. Some of the most apparently harmless substances become agents of change and erosion. Water washing over a stone in the bottom of a stream seems gentle enough, but when it goes on washing over the same stone hour after hour, day after day, year after year, then paradoxically the hard is worn away by the soft; its ceaseless attrition wins out. Heavy rains come down in torrents and cause flood waters to surge down a slope washing away sometimes homes and lands and the familiar places which men knew. The word ‘torrents’ is translated by the KJV as ‘things which grow out of the dust of the earth’, but most other versions understand this to refer to outpourings of water and not outpourings of vegetable life.All of this is made to be a figure of how man is defeated by the relentless forces of life. He is far from being as durable as these inanimate objects. If even they suffer the relentless pressure of time, then what hope does man have? He too must suffer the erosion of his being by trials and tragedies, and he will surely not succeed where they fail. Man’s earthly hope is tied to his physical welfare, his fitness, strength, health. This is the way that man’s life is seen by those who only look on outward appearances. But Job has the word of God; he should be able to see beyond appearances.