Job 14:20 Commentary and Bible Study

Job’s faith is near to collapse and he seems unable to resist the gloomy conclusions that bear down on him. Life for him is a contest between God’s invincible power focused on wearing away man’s life, and man’s hopeless struggle to endure. It is not hard to predict who will win. God triumphs every time and prevails forever over his feeble creature. Each generation passes from the scene and God is left as the victor to do battle with the next. It is as if man has been dismissed from the earth, sent away and left wondering why he was ever given life in the first place. How can he overcome against such terrible odds? Job mourns his own state but also the state of every person born into this world. All this assessment is made as if he had no gospel light. The gospel alone makes sense of life and gives hope where there was none before. Job’s faith was currently so severely weakened that he could remember little of what God had promised him. Like Peter sinking into the water, his present surroundings blot out all else and he is overcome with fear.The result of God’s victory is that man passes on from the earth and goes to who knows where. God changes man’s countenance so that he becomes unrecognisable. Youth is deceptive. Early in life man is capable to convincing himself that he has hope for the future. Youth’s vitality, its quickness and energy are convincing if one forgets about the steady decline that will follow. The young think they can afford to forget about the aging process, and that they can cheat death itself. But God sends man away from the earth and teaches him that he was impermanent after all. The end of life should help us how to view the whole. Life is a gift to be received with thanks but not something which we have the power to maintain.What takes place after he is gone is unknown to man. Though it may be of the utmost importance to him and, if it had taken place during his lifetime, would have greatly pleased or greatly concerned him; once he is departed, it is out of his reach. He has no knowledge of it and it is as if it has become a matter of indifference to him, so thoroughly is he removed from the scene of human activity. If he had been with them he would surely have rejoiced with his sons at their successes and he would have consoled them and been a strength to them at their sorrows and falls. He would have lifted them up again and give them the encouragement that a loving father ought to give. But death has removed him from them and they are alone. It is a powerful depiction of the devastating effect of death.