7 passages from writers of 2 traditions, in their own words, each with their dates and tradition. The site doesn’t say who is right: read them beside the verses. About these
Reading as
Questions they answer differently
On verse
Oldest first.
Gregory the Greatc. 540–604Early church, WestMorals on the Book of Job · on Job 14:1–2For what are men, as born in the world, but a kind of flowers in a field? Let us stretch our interior eyes over the breadth of the present world, and, lo, it is filled as it were with as many flowers as there are human beings. So life in this flesh is the flower in grass. … For man cometh forth like a flower from concealment, and of a sudden shews himself in open day, and in a moment is by death withdrawn from open view into concealment again. The greenness of the flesh exhibits us to view, but the dryness of dust withdraws us from men’s eyes. Like a flower we appeared, who were not; like a ‘flower’ we wither, who appeared only in time. … For we cannot have a fixed stay here, whither we are come only to pass on; and this very circumstance of our living is to be daily passing out of life.
For what are men, as born in the world, but a kind of flowers in a field? Let us stretch our interior eyes over the breadth of the present world, and, lo, it is filled as it were with as many flowers as there are human beings. So life in this flesh is the flower in grass. … For man cometh forth like a flower from concealment, and of a sudden shews himself in open day, and in a moment is by death withdrawn from open view into concealment again. The greenness of the flesh exhibits us to view, but the dryness of dust withdraws us from men’s eyes. Like a flower we appeared, who were not; like a ‘flower’ we wither, who appeared only in time. … For we cannot have a fixed stay here, whither we are come only to pass on; and this very circumstance of our living is to be daily passing out of life.
Gregory the Great, Morals on the Book of Job, book 11, on 14:2; translated in the Library of the Fathers (Oxford, 1844–1850); the text of Lectionary Central. The edition
Bishop of Rome from 590, whose Morals on the Book of Job and sermons on the Gospels were read across the medieval church.
Gregory the Greatc. 540–604Early church, WestMorals on the Book of Job · on Job 14:12–14For it is plain that they shall not rise again, that is, till the heavens be no more, in that except the end of the world come, the race of mankind shall not wake to life from the sleep of death. Not, then, that he shall not rise again at all, but that before the crumbling of the heavens the human race shall not rise again, is what he teaches. … when he speaks of the death of the flesh, he preferred to call this not death but sleep, teaching us surely the hope of the Resurrection; in that as a man quickly awakes out of sleep, so shall he rise in a moment at the nod of his Creator from the death of the body. … Thus blessed Job, seeing that he does not doubt of those that are dead in the flesh waking again to life, calls them sleeping rather than dead. … He that waits for his change with such ardent longing, shews how great his certainty was of the Resurrection
For it is plain that they shall not rise again, that is, till the heavens be no more, in that except the end of the world come, the race of mankind shall not wake to life from the sleep of death. Not, then, that he shall not rise again at all, but that before the crumbling of the heavens the human race shall not rise again, is what he teaches. … when he speaks of the death of the flesh, he preferred to call this not death but sleep, teaching us surely the hope of the Resurrection; in that as a man quickly awakes out of sleep, so shall he rise in a moment at the nod of his Creator from the death of the body. … Thus blessed Job, seeing that he does not doubt of those that are dead in the flesh waking again to life, calls them sleeping rather than dead. … He that waits for his change with such ardent longing, shews how great his certainty was of the Resurrection
Gregory the Great, Morals on the Book of Job, book 12, on 14:12–14; translated in the Library of the Fathers (Oxford, 1844–1850); the text of Lectionary Central. The edition
Bishop of Rome from 590, whose Morals on the Book of Job and sermons on the Gospels were read across the medieval church.
Matthew Henry1662–1714English PresbyterianCommentary on the Whole Bible · on Job 14:7–10A man cut down by death will not revive again, as a tree cut down will. What hope there is of a tree he shows very elegantly, Job 14:7-9. If the body of the tree be cut down, and only the stem or stump left in the ground, though it seem dead and dry, yet it will shoot out young boughs again, as if it were but newly planted. The moisture of the earth and the rain of heaven are, as it were, scented and perceived by the stump of a tree, and they have an influence upon it to revive it; but the dead body of a man would not perceive them, nor be in the least affected by them. … But man has no such prospect of a return to life. The vegetable life is a cheap and easy thing: the scent of water will recover it. … But the rational soul, when once retired, is too great, too noble, a thing to be recalled by any of the powers of nature; it is out of the reach of sun or rain, and cannot be restored but by the immediate operations of Omnipotence itself
A man cut down by death will not revive again, as a tree cut down will. What hope there is of a tree he shows very elegantly, Job 14:7-9. If the body of the tree be cut down, and only the stem or stump left in the ground, though it seem dead and dry, yet it will shoot out young boughs again, as if it were but newly planted. The moisture of the earth and the rain of heaven are, as it were, scented and perceived by the stump of a tree, and they have an influence upon it to revive it; but the dead body of a man would not perceive them, nor be in the least affected by them. … But man has no such prospect of a return to life. The vegetable life is a cheap and easy thing: the scent of water will recover it. … But the rational soul, when once retired, is too great, too noble, a thing to be recalled by any of the powers of nature; it is out of the reach of sun or rain, and cannot be restored but by the immediate operations of Omnipotence itself
Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on 14:7–15; 1706–1714; the text of the Free Use Bible API. The edition
An English Presbyterian minister whose commentary on the whole Bible Protestants have read for three centuries.
Matthew Henry1662–1714English PresbyterianCommentary on the Whole Bible · on Job 14:21How little he is concerned in the affairs of his family, which once lay so near his heart. When he is in the hands of the harbingers of death, suppose struck with a palsy or apoplexy, or delirious in a fever, or in conflict with death, tell him then the most agreeable news, or the most painful, concerning his children, it is all alike, he knows it not, he perceives it not, Job 14:21. He is going to that world where he will be a perfect stranger to all those things which here filled and affected him. The consideration of this should moderate our cares concerning our children and families. God will know what comes of them when we are gone. To him therefore let us commit them, with him let us leave them, and not burden ourselves with needless fruitless cares concerning them.
How little he is concerned in the affairs of his family, which once lay so near his heart. When he is in the hands of the harbingers of death, suppose struck with a palsy or apoplexy, or delirious in a fever, or in conflict with death, tell him then the most agreeable news, or the most painful, concerning his children, it is all alike, he knows it not, he perceives it not, Job 14:21. He is going to that world where he will be a perfect stranger to all those things which here filled and affected him. The consideration of this should moderate our cares concerning our children and families. God will know what comes of them when we are gone. To him therefore let us commit them, with him let us leave them, and not burden ourselves with needless fruitless cares concerning them.
Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on 14:16–22; 1706–1714; the text of the Free Use Bible API. The edition
An English Presbyterian minister whose commentary on the whole Bible Protestants have read for three centuries.
Jamieson, Fausset and Brownpublished 1871Presbyterian and AnglicanA Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments · on Job 14:12–14heavens be no more--This only implies that Job had no hope of living again in the present order of the world, not that he had no hope of life again in a new order of things. … shall he live?--The answer implied is, There is a hope that he shall, though not in the present order of life, as is shown by the words following. Job had denied (Job 14:10-12) that man shall live again in this present world. But hoping for a "set time," when God shall remember and raise him out of the hiding-place of the grave (Job 14:13), he declares himself willing to "wait all the days of his appointed time" of continuance in the grave, however long and hard that may be.
heavens be no more--This only implies that Job had no hope of living again in the present order of the world, not that he had no hope of life again in a new order of things. … shall he live?--The answer implied is, There is a hope that he shall, though not in the present order of life, as is shown by the words following. Job had denied (Job 14:10-12) that man shall live again in this present world. But hoping for a "set time," when God shall remember and raise him out of the hiding-place of the grave (Job 14:13), he declares himself willing to "wait all the days of his appointed time" of continuance in the grave, however long and hard that may be.
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments, on 14:12 and 14:14; 1871; the text of the Free Use Bible API. The edition
Three ministers, two Scottish Presbyterians and an Irish Anglican, whose commentary on the whole Bible was written to be short and plain.
Keil and Delitzsch1807–1888 and 1813–1890LutheranBiblical Commentary on the Old Testament · on Job 14:4–6Would that perfect sinlessness were possible to man; but since (to use a New Testament expression) that which is born of the flesh is flesh, there is not a single one pure. … Like the friends, he acknowledges an hereditary proneness to sin; but this proneness to sin affords him no satisfactory explanation of so unmerciful a visitation of punishment as his seems to him to be. It appears to him that man must the rather be an object of divine forbearance and compassion, since absolute purity is impossible to him.
Would that perfect sinlessness were possible to man; but since (to use a New Testament expression) that which is born of the flesh is flesh, there is not a single one pure. … Like the friends, he acknowledges an hereditary proneness to sin; but this proneness to sin affords him no satisfactory explanation of so unmerciful a visitation of punishment as his seems to him to be. It appears to him that man must the rather be an object of divine forbearance and compassion, since absolute purity is impossible to him.
Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, on 14:4–6; translated by James Martin and others (Edinburgh, 1866–1891); the text of the Free Use Bible API. The edition
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, two German Lutheran scholars of Hebrew whose commentary on the Old Testament is still read for its learning.
Keil and Delitzsch1807–1888 and 1813–1890LutheranBiblical Commentary on the Old Testament · on Job 14:13–14So Job wishes that Hades, into which the wrath of God now precipitates him for ever, may only be a temporary place of safety for him, until the wrath of God turn away … The reality is indeed different: "if (ἐὰν) a man dies, will he live again?" The answer which Job's consciousness, ignorant of anything better, alone can give, is: No, there is no life after death. It is, however, none the less a craving of his heart that gives rise to the wish; it is the most favourable thought, - a desirable possibility, - which, if it were but a reality, would comfort him under all present suffering … The hope of eternal life is a flower, says one of the old commentators, which grows on the verge of the abyss. The writer of the book of Job supports this. In the midst of this abyss of the feeling of divine wrath in which Job is sunk, this flower springs up to cheer him. In its growth, however, it is not hope, but only at first a longing.
So Job wishes that Hades, into which the wrath of God now precipitates him for ever, may only be a temporary place of safety for him, until the wrath of God turn away … The reality is indeed different: "if (ἐὰν) a man dies, will he live again?" The answer which Job's consciousness, ignorant of anything better, alone can give, is: No, there is no life after death. It is, however, none the less a craving of his heart that gives rise to the wish; it is the most favourable thought, - a desirable possibility, - which, if it were but a reality, would comfort him under all present suffering … The hope of eternal life is a flower, says one of the old commentators, which grows on the verge of the abyss. The writer of the book of Job supports this. In the midst of this abyss of the feeling of divine wrath in which Job is sunk, this flower springs up to cheer him. In its growth, however, it is not hope, but only at first a longing.
Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, on 14:13–16, and on the speech as a whole, after 14:22; translated by James Martin and others (Edinburgh, 1866–1891); the text of the Free Use Bible API. The edition
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, two German Lutheran scholars of Hebrew whose commentary on the Old Testament is still read for its learning.
Job 14
Job 14:1–21, World English Bible
Job 14 in the Bible · Told in the Story: Chapter 17, Job’s Friends
What others have written
7 passages from writers of 2 traditions, in their own words, each with their dates and tradition. The site doesn’t say who is right: read them beside the verses. About these
Oldest first.
Gregory the Greatc. 540–604Early church, WestMorals on the Book of Job · on Job 14:1–2For what are men, as born in the world, but a kind of flowers in a field? Let us stretch our interior eyes over the breadth of the present world, and, lo, it is filled as it were with as many flowers as there are human beings. So life in this flesh is the flower in grass. … For man cometh forth like a flower from concealment, and of a sudden shews himself in open day, and in a moment is by death withdrawn from open view into concealment again. The greenness of the flesh exhibits us to view, but the dryness of dust withdraws us from men’s eyes. Like a flower we appeared, who were not; like a ‘flower’ we wither, who appeared only in time. … For we cannot have a fixed stay here, whither we are come only to pass on; and this very circumstance of our living is to be daily passing out of life.
Gregory the Great, Morals on the Book of Job, book 11, on 14:2; translated in the Library of the Fathers (Oxford, 1844–1850); the text of Lectionary Central. The edition
Bishop of Rome from 590, whose Morals on the Book of Job and sermons on the Gospels were read across the medieval church.
Gregory the Greatc. 540–604Early church, WestMorals on the Book of Job · on Job 14:12–14For it is plain that they shall not rise again, that is, till the heavens be no more, in that except the end of the world come, the race of mankind shall not wake to life from the sleep of death. Not, then, that he shall not rise again at all, but that before the crumbling of the heavens the human race shall not rise again, is what he teaches. … when he speaks of the death of the flesh, he preferred to call this not death but sleep, teaching us surely the hope of the Resurrection; in that as a man quickly awakes out of sleep, so shall he rise in a moment at the nod of his Creator from the death of the body. … Thus blessed Job, seeing that he does not doubt of those that are dead in the flesh waking again to life, calls them sleeping rather than dead. … He that waits for his change with such ardent longing, shews how great his certainty was of the Resurrection
Gregory the Great, Morals on the Book of Job, book 12, on 14:12–14; translated in the Library of the Fathers (Oxford, 1844–1850); the text of Lectionary Central. The edition
Bishop of Rome from 590, whose Morals on the Book of Job and sermons on the Gospels were read across the medieval church.
Matthew Henry1662–1714English PresbyterianCommentary on the Whole Bible · on Job 14:7–10A man cut down by death will not revive again, as a tree cut down will. What hope there is of a tree he shows very elegantly, Job 14:7-9. If the body of the tree be cut down, and only the stem or stump left in the ground, though it seem dead and dry, yet it will shoot out young boughs again, as if it were but newly planted. The moisture of the earth and the rain of heaven are, as it were, scented and perceived by the stump of a tree, and they have an influence upon it to revive it; but the dead body of a man would not perceive them, nor be in the least affected by them. … But man has no such prospect of a return to life. The vegetable life is a cheap and easy thing: the scent of water will recover it. … But the rational soul, when once retired, is too great, too noble, a thing to be recalled by any of the powers of nature; it is out of the reach of sun or rain, and cannot be restored but by the immediate operations of Omnipotence itself
Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on 14:7–15; 1706–1714; the text of the Free Use Bible API. The edition
An English Presbyterian minister whose commentary on the whole Bible Protestants have read for three centuries.
Matthew Henry1662–1714English PresbyterianCommentary on the Whole Bible · on Job 14:21How little he is concerned in the affairs of his family, which once lay so near his heart. When he is in the hands of the harbingers of death, suppose struck with a palsy or apoplexy, or delirious in a fever, or in conflict with death, tell him then the most agreeable news, or the most painful, concerning his children, it is all alike, he knows it not, he perceives it not, Job 14:21. He is going to that world where he will be a perfect stranger to all those things which here filled and affected him. The consideration of this should moderate our cares concerning our children and families. God will know what comes of them when we are gone. To him therefore let us commit them, with him let us leave them, and not burden ourselves with needless fruitless cares concerning them.
Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on 14:16–22; 1706–1714; the text of the Free Use Bible API. The edition
An English Presbyterian minister whose commentary on the whole Bible Protestants have read for three centuries.
Jamieson, Fausset and Brownpublished 1871Presbyterian and AnglicanA Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments · on Job 14:12–14heavens be no more--This only implies that Job had no hope of living again in the present order of the world, not that he had no hope of life again in a new order of things. … shall he live?--The answer implied is, There is a hope that he shall, though not in the present order of life, as is shown by the words following. Job had denied (Job 14:10-12) that man shall live again in this present world. But hoping for a "set time," when God shall remember and raise him out of the hiding-place of the grave (Job 14:13), he declares himself willing to "wait all the days of his appointed time" of continuance in the grave, however long and hard that may be.
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments, on 14:12 and 14:14; 1871; the text of the Free Use Bible API. The edition
Three ministers, two Scottish Presbyterians and an Irish Anglican, whose commentary on the whole Bible was written to be short and plain.
Keil and Delitzsch1807–1888 and 1813–1890LutheranBiblical Commentary on the Old Testament · on Job 14:4–6Would that perfect sinlessness were possible to man; but since (to use a New Testament expression) that which is born of the flesh is flesh, there is not a single one pure. … Like the friends, he acknowledges an hereditary proneness to sin; but this proneness to sin affords him no satisfactory explanation of so unmerciful a visitation of punishment as his seems to him to be. It appears to him that man must the rather be an object of divine forbearance and compassion, since absolute purity is impossible to him.
Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, on 14:4–6; translated by James Martin and others (Edinburgh, 1866–1891); the text of the Free Use Bible API. The edition
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, two German Lutheran scholars of Hebrew whose commentary on the Old Testament is still read for its learning.
Keil and Delitzsch1807–1888 and 1813–1890LutheranBiblical Commentary on the Old Testament · on Job 14:13–14So Job wishes that Hades, into which the wrath of God now precipitates him for ever, may only be a temporary place of safety for him, until the wrath of God turn away … The reality is indeed different: "if (ἐὰν) a man dies, will he live again?" The answer which Job's consciousness, ignorant of anything better, alone can give, is: No, there is no life after death. It is, however, none the less a craving of his heart that gives rise to the wish; it is the most favourable thought, - a desirable possibility, - which, if it were but a reality, would comfort him under all present suffering … The hope of eternal life is a flower, says one of the old commentators, which grows on the verge of the abyss. The writer of the book of Job supports this. In the midst of this abyss of the feeling of divine wrath in which Job is sunk, this flower springs up to cheer him. In its growth, however, it is not hope, but only at first a longing.
Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, on 14:13–16, and on the speech as a whole, after 14:22; translated by James Martin and others (Edinburgh, 1866–1891); the text of the Free Use Bible API. The edition
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, two German Lutheran scholars of Hebrew whose commentary on the Old Testament is still read for its learning.