The Book of Job

Word Study

"man," Hebrew adam (אָדָם), mankind, humanity. Job voices one of Scripture's most memorable descriptions of the human condition: "Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble." He does not say "I" but adam, mankind as such. This is not a complaint about Job's unusual lot; it is a description of the race, and every reader is included in it. Job is not being morbid; he is being truthful, and such truth is meant to humble us and turn us to God. "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom" (Psalm 90:12).

"of few days," qetzar yamim (קְצַר יָמִים), short of days. The first mark of our life on earth is that it is short. Job develops the image, "he cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not" (v2), a flower blooming briefly then withered, a shadow that passes and is gone. This is the honest realism of Scripture about our mortality. "For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away" (1 Peter 1:24). "What is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away" (James 4:14).

"full of trouble," seva-rogez (שְׂבַע־רֹגֶז), sated with turmoil, filled with unrest. The second mark is that our life is troubled. The Hebrew says a man is sated with turmoil, as one is filled full at a table: however few his days, they are packed to the brim with unrest. To feel the shortness and trouble of life is not despair; it is the beginning of wisdom, for it drives us to seek what lasts beyond the flower and the shadow, and that is found only in God.

Explanation

Job gives one of Scripture's great pictures of human frailty: "Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble." Our life is short and troubled, a flower cut down, a shadow that passes. This is the honest realism of the Bible about mortality (1 Peter 1:24; James 4:14). Job is not being morbid but truthful, and such truth is meant to humble us and turn us to God. To feel the brevity and trouble of life is not despair but the beginning of wisdom, driving us to seek what lasts beyond the flower and the shadow.

Gospel Focus

"Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble", and the wonder of the Gospel is that God's own Son was "made of a woman" (Galatians 4:4) and entered our few days and full trouble to redeem us. Jesus was truly born of a woman, truly took our frail humanity, was "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3), and knew our troubles from the inside. He lived a short life by our measure, some thirty-three years, and it was full of trouble to the point of the cross. Yet He entered our mortality precisely to conquer it. Because "the Word was made flesh" (John 1:14) and shared our few and troubled days, He could taste death for us and rise again, opening a life that is neither few in days nor full of trouble, but eternal and full of joy. "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). Our days here are indeed few and troubled, but in Christ they are not the whole story. He who was born of a woman has borne our sorrows and gone before us into an unending life, so that the flower that fades and the shadow that passes give way, for the believer, to "an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away" (1 Peter 1:4).

Word Study

"clean," Hebrew tahor (טָהוֹר), pure, ceremonially and morally clean. In the midst of speaking about man's frailty, Job drops a profound confession about man's sinfulness: "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" The word covers both ceremonial and moral purity, what is fit to come near to God. Job is asking who can produce such a thing, and the question already implies that no man can.

"unclean," tame (טָמֵא), defiled, impure. This is the stock from which every man comes. Job recognizes that fallen humanity produces only fallen humanity; from unclean parents come unclean children; the corruption runs through the whole race. This is an early witness to the truth later called original sin: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Psalm 51:5); "that which is born of the flesh is flesh" (John 3:6). Job understands that his problem, and every man's, is not merely outward acts but an inward uncleanness we are born with and cannot cleanse ourselves.

"not one," lo echad (לֹא אֶחָד), not a single one. Job answers his own question flatly: "not one." No human being can produce a clean thing out of the unclean stock of fallen Adam, and the exception is not made for anyone. This deepens the whole question of the book, for if no man is clean by nature, then the deepest need is not an explanation of suffering but cleansing from sin. And that answer, "not one" among mere men, points beyond man altogether. If a clean thing is ever to come, it must come from God, and it did: the one truly clean One, born not of the will of the flesh but of the Spirit, who alone can make the unclean clean.

Explanation

Job confesses the deep truth of human sinfulness: "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one." Fallen humanity produces only fallen humanity; the corruption runs through the whole race (Psalm 51:5; John 3:6). Our problem is not merely bad acts but an inward uncleanness we are born with and cannot cleanse. No mere man can produce a clean thing from unclean stock. This deepens the book's question, for the deepest need is not an explanation of suffering but cleansing from sin, and if a clean thing is ever to come, it must come from God.

Gospel Focus

"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one", among men, no one; but what is impossible with men is possible with God. God brought forth one truly clean One into our unclean race: "that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35), conceived not by the will of flesh but by the Holy Ghost, "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners" (Hebrews 7:26). Jesus is the clean thing that no unclean humanity could produce, God Himself come in sinless flesh. And He came not only to be clean, but to make the unclean clean. He touched lepers and they were cleansed; He shed His blood, and "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). What Job knew no man could do, produce cleanness out of uncleanness, God does in the new birth: "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean... A new heart also will I give you" (Ezekiel 36:25-26). "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John 3:5). We cannot cleanse ourselves; but the clean One has come to wash us. Job's despairing "not one" becomes, in Christ, the door of hope: the cleansing we could never produce, God freely gives through the blood and Spirit of Jesus.

Word Study

"live again," Hebrew yichyeh (יִחְיֶה) from chayah, to live, revive. Here Job asks the question that has echoed in every human heart standing at a graveside: "If a man die, shall he live again?" The verb is the plain word for living, and for reviving; Job is asking whether a man once dead can be brought back to life at all. In the darkness of his suffering, and having just said that man "lieth down, and riseth not" (v12), Job nevertheless reaches, almost against his own despair, toward a hope of life beyond death.

"appointed time," tzeva'i (צְבָאִי), my warfare, my hard service, my appointed term. He speaks of waiting through all his "appointed time." The word is a soldier's word, a term of hard service laid on a man that must be served out to its end. Job does not ask to be released early; he sets himself to wait through the whole of it.

"change," chalifah (חֲלִיפָה) from chalaf, a change, renewal, relief, exchange. What he waits for is this: "till my change come." The word carries the sense of a renewal, a transformation, a passing from this state to another, and with it the relief Job longs for at the end of his hard service. And in the next verse the hope glows brighter: "Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands" (v15), Job imagines a day when God will call him out of death and he will answer, when God will long for the creature His hands have made. This is one of the mountain-glimpses of resurrection faith in the Old Testament, a hope Job cannot yet see clearly but cannot help reaching for. The question "shall he live again?" hangs in the air of the ancient world unanswered, until One came who could answer it not with a theory but with a fact: His own resurrection from the dead.

Explanation

Job asks the question every human heart asks at the grave: "If a man die, shall he live again?" Even in despair, having just said man lies down and rises not, Job reaches toward a hope beyond death. He will wait through all his "appointed time" of hard service "till my change come", a renewal, a transformation. The next verse glows brighter: God will call and Job will answer, God will long for the work of His hands. It is a mountain-glimpse of resurrection hope, dim in Job's day, which Job cannot help reaching for, and which One would finally answer by rising from the dead.

Gospel Focus

"If a man die, shall he live again?", Job's aching question is answered, gloriously and finally, in Jesus Christ. Jesus stood at a tomb and said, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live" (John 11:25). And He proved it, first by raising Lazarus, and then by rising Himself, "the firstfruits of them that slept" (1 Corinthians 15:20). The question that hung unanswered over Job's grave is answered by an empty tomb: yes, if a man die, he shall live again, for Christ is risen, and "because I live, ye shall live also" (John 14:19). The very "change" Job waited for, chalifah, has a New Testament name: "we shall all be changed... for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality" (1 Corinthians 15:51-53). And Job's picture of God calling and the dead answering is exactly the resurrection Jesus promised: "the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth" (John 5:28-29). God does "have a desire to the work of his hands"; He will call His people from the dust, and they will answer. What Job could only hope for in the dark, we hold as certain in the risen Christ: death is not the end, but the door to life, and our "change" is coming, when we shall be raised incorruptible and see His face.