Untitled Sermon (5)

Job 14:1–12 LEB

“A human being born of a woman is short of days and full of troubles. Like a flower he comes up, and he withers away; and he flees like a shadow, but he does not last. Even on such a one you fix your eyes, and you bring me into judgment with you. “Who can bring a clean thing from an unclean thing? No one! If his days are determined, the number of his months is with you; you have appointed his boundaries, and he cannot cross them. Look away from him, and let him desist until he enjoys his days like a laborer. “Indeed, there is hope for a tree: if it is cut down, then it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not cease; though its root grows old in the earth, and its stump dies in the dust, at the scent of water it will bud, and it will put forth branches like a young plant. “But a man dies, and he dwindles away; thus a human being passes away, and where is he? As water disappears from a lake, and a river withers away and dries up, so a man lies down, and he does not arise. Until the heavens are no more, they will not awaken, and they will not be roused out of their sleep.

Introduction

The book of Job is a fascinating book many have been drawn to it to either find answers or to use it as a source to find comfort when facing difficult challenges in life because they can find someone who they can allign with in suffering in the person of Job. For others is the journey of exploration in seeking to address the big questions in life “why do bad things happen to good people” or the existence of evil and what does God do about it. As we are drawn to Job 14:1-12 we see Job is in a mood lamenting in relation to the general course of life that does not seem to have a long span and is full of suffering according to him when we look at a tree in God’s creation the tree seems to have more hope in living and surviving more than mortals therefore it seems he is concluding it is better to exit this world than to endure multiple trouble of sufferings through ones lifetime because suffering undermines and erodes any possibility of hope in this life.

Job is exhausted he sees no help from his friends neither from God, to him God is viewed as an enemy and has a strong conviction that God is behind all that he is experincing that is not pleasant but has a painful reality. What is significant about the text at hand is that it sit into a larger ongoing dialogue with Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar where Job is responding to the accusations of Zophar but also recognizing when we face trouble it don’t have to be a long season as he echoed these words  few of days and full of trouble,

2 comes up like a flower and withers,

flees like a shadow and does not last. He highlights two things 1. Trouble is like a flower. 2. Trouble is like a shadow. They dont last long they wither and vanishes. The chapter gives a description and analysis of the text which actually follows the issue that arise from the text. So it is my intent to address in these verses “Since suffering is part of the human experience. What is Job view on life and death even as we trust God”

1 The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Job 14:1–2.

Contextual Analysis

The question always arises among scholars, bible students and people seeking faith whether Job is and historical figure or literary figure. According to Longman and Walton “The idea Job lived in the time of the Patriachs is often suggested because of the absence of any reference to covenant or Torah and because of Job as patraich of his clan serves as ppriest for his family with no mention of a temple.” We know that there are legenary figures in the ancient world and there are little reason to believe that the legends are not built around historical persons like Adapa, Etana, and Gilgamesh as a result some hold to the notion Job was a hostorical figure. The opening lines of the book presents us with who he is as a man, one who is upright and blameless who lived in the land of Uz. He had seven sons and daughters and owned an abundance of livestock which was symbol of his power and wealth.

In the ancient near East world, gives us some insight as to how the book is framed, Job has to deal with his view on life and death. Professor Edward L. Greenstein at Bar-IIan University noted that “the author use of foreign and particularly Aramic, linguistic features in the poetic core serves distinct literary functions and that the poet appears to the polymath whose knowledge of language, literture and relia ( animals, plants, law, astronomy and anatomy is of linquistic innovation. Hebrew was learned and not a native language of the poet.” The book uniqueness can be best understood as the intellectual and cultural world of wisdom. No doubt the ancient of the East had their own proverbs, sayings, riddles and stories some people were in constant contact through trade since Israel was a main trade route bewtween Eypt and Mesopatamia there had to be cultural intechange and exchange of wisdom sayings. What we need to remind ourselves that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom that is rooted in a relationship with Yahweh and that the book lends itself in the field of wisdom literture rather than historical literture.

Have you ever thought as to where Job falls in the Canon. Well it is my understanding that the Christian Bible as we know contain thirty-nine books of the Old Testatment. The books were arranged and affirmed at the Council of Hippo in A.D. 393 F. F Bruce hihlighted that when the council made the annocement they did not impose any innovation on churches; they simply endorsed what had become a general consensus. In contrast the Hebrew Bible or the Tanakh contains only twenty-four books. The difference between the bibles is that i Samuel and 2 Samuel are combined into Samuel, 1Kings and 2Kings are combined into kings, iChronicles and 2 Chronicles into Chronicles and Ezra and Nehemiah combined into one book. The Tanakh has three sections The Law, The Prophets and the Writings. Job falls under the writings with the poetic section from my observation on the Hebrew Bible after reading the account of Job I can see Songs of Songs following that takes you into a love relationship I wonder the connection between Job and his wife on the other hand in the Christian Bible Psalms following Job i see the relationship of a man who fears God chooses not to walk in the counsel of the ungodly but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in that law he meditate day and night and he will be like a tree that planted by the rivers of water.

Again Job comes back to man's frail origin. It seems ironic that while Job was longing for death that at the same time he complains about life being so short. "In. sudden shift of mood, Job turned from confidence that he could win his court case against God to. melancholy lament about life's futility and death's certainty" (Bible Knowledge Comm. p. 735).

Verse Job 14:1. Man-born of a woman] There is a delicacy in the original, not often observed: אדם ילוד אשה Adam yelud ishah, "Adam born of a woman, few of days, and full of tremor." Adam, who did not spring from woman, but was immediately formed by God, had many days, for he lived nine hundred and thirty years; during which time neither sin nor death had multiplied in the earth, as they were found in the days of Job. But the Adam who springs now from woman, in the way of ordinary generation, has very few years. Seventy, on an average, being the highest term, may be well said to be few in days; and all matter of fact shows that they are full of fears and apprehensions, רגז rogez, cares, anxieties, and tremors. He seems born, not indeed to live, but to die; and, by living, he forfeits the title to life. (Adam Clarke Bible Commentary)

1) Man that is born of a woman is of few days. — He now takes occasion to dilate on the miserable estate of man generally, rising from the particular instance in himself to the common lot of the race. It is not improbable that these words should be connected with the last of the former chapter. He, as a rotten thing, consumeth — a man born of woman, short of days and full of trouble, who came forth as a flower and was (began to be) cut off (at once); who fled as the shadow that abideth not. After having resolved to come into judgment with God, he pictures to himself the miserable creature with whom God will have to contend if He contends with him. (Ellicotts Commentary On the Whole Bible)

  The phrase born of woman (yĕlûd ’iššâ) appears two other times in Job (15:14; 25:4) and nowhere else in the OT . Some have suggested the phrase implies human weakness or ritual uncleanness at the time of birth. But more likely, in all these passages it is simply a Hebrew idiom for a “human being,” similar to the phrase “son of man” (ben ’ādām) used throughout the book of Ezekiel (e.g. , Ezek 2:1).

In Job 14:2 Job adds two illustrations to support his observation on the shortness of life. First, he compares it to flowers of the field that blossom beautifully during the rainy season but wither away when the rain stops. His second example is fleeting shadows that disappear whenever light is present. 1

OT OT Old Testament

e.g. e.g. exempli gratia, for example

1 A. Wendell Bowes, Job: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition, ed. Alex Varughese and George Lyons, New Beacon Bible Commentary (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press, 2018), 202–203.

In Psalms 90:12 the Psalmist speaks   “So teach us to count our days

that we may gain a wise heart.” While to be human is to expereince trouble God is not in the business of teaching us how oppresive life is but to recognize and accept our allotted time as a gracious gift from him. When we embrace that life then in the midst of trouble we can gain wisdom.

1 The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989),

verse 2 We see Job employs the the wonder of botanical imagery of flowers. The beauty of the spring flowers can be taken for granted while it adds beauty, color, variety, life as the burst of the flowers springs forth for a short while and fades away which is indicative of our lives in which our lives can be brightly colored, full of life, enegetic, healthy, prosperous but can easily be cut down with the harsh brunt of a deteroiting body, affllicted with dieases and sickness. Isiah jolts our memory into reality in Isiah 40:6-7   A voice says, “Cry!”

And I said, “What shall I cry?”

All flesh is grass,

and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.

7 The grass withers, the flower fades,

when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;

surely the people is grass. 1

1 The Revised Standard Version (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1971), Is 40:6–7.