5 Seeing his days are determined, The number of his months is with thee, And thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;
Jehovah, make me to know mine end, And the measure of my days, what it is; Let me know how frail I am.
For what careth he for his house after him, When the number of his months is cut off?
Seventy weeks are decreed upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy.
And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and none shall shut, and that shutteth and none openeth:
And inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this `cometh' judgment;
But God said unto him, Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee; and the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?
And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods; and he shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished; for that which is determined shall be done.
Is there not a warfare to man upon earth? And are not his days like the days of a hireling?
And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?
Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; Thou takest away their breath, they die, And return to their dust.
But he is in one `mind', and who can turn him? And what his soul desireth, even that he doeth. For he performeth that which is appointed for me: And many such things are with him.
If a man die, shall he live `again'? All the days of my warfare would I wait, Till my release should come.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Job 14
Commentary on Job 14 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 14
Job had turned from speaking to his friends, finding it to no purpose to reason with them, and here he goes on to speak to God and himself. He had reminded his friends of their frailty and mortality (ch. 13:12); here he reminds himself of his own, and pleads it with God for some mitigation of his miseries. We have here an account,
This chapter is proper for funeral solemnities; and serious meditations on it will help us both to get good by the death of others and to get ready for our own.
Job 14:1-6
We are here led to think,
Job 14:7-15
We have seen what Job has to say concerning life; let us now see what he has to say concerning death, which his thoughts were very much conversant with, now that he was sick and sore. It is not unseasonable, when we are in health, to think of dying; but it is an inexcusable incogitancy if, when we are already taken into the custody of death's messengers, we look upon it as a thing at a distance. Job had already shown that death will come, and that its hour is already fixed. Now here he shows,
Job 14:16-22
Job here returns to his complaints; and, though he is not without hope of future bliss, he finds it very hard to get over his present grievances.