Commentary - Job 14:18-22

Bird's-eye view

In this section of Job's lament, we are confronted with the raw despair of a man who sees only the grinding, inexorable processes of decay and death. Job is a master of natural theology, but here he is reading the book of nature with eyes unilluminated by special revelation. He looks at the mountains, the rocks, and the very dust of the earth, and sees a universal principle of erosion and dissolution. He then applies this grim observation to mankind, concluding that God's overwhelming power does the same thing to a man's hope. It is a bleak picture of finality. God overpowers man, alters his face in death, and sends him away into a state of utter disconnection from the world he knew. This is the logical end of all observation apart from the gospel. Without the promise of resurrection, all we are left with is the slow, certain victory of entropy and the grave. Job is articulating the worldview of Ecclesiastes' "under the sun," and it is a true description of reality for all who are outside of Christ.

This passage serves as a dark backdrop against which the later revelation of the book, and indeed of all Scripture, will shine with breathtaking brightness. Job's despair is not the final word. His later confession of a living Redeemer (Job 19:25) is the answer to the black syllogism he constructs here. The God who wears away stones with water is the same God who, through the waters of baptism and the blood of His Son, washes away sin and raises the dead to new life. Job's lament is therefore a crucial part of the argument; it shows us the depth of the pit from which we have been rescued.

Outline

Context In Job

This passage comes at the end of Job's first major speech in his second cycle of debate with his friends. He has just argued that man's life is short and that death is a point of no return, unlike a tree that can sprout again (Job 14:7-12). He expresses a longing to hide in Sheol until God's wrath passes, holding onto a sliver of hope that God might remember him. But that flicker of hope is immediately extinguished by the cold logic of what he sees around him. The verses that follow (18-22) are the conclusion of his argument, a descent into the bleakest assessment of man's final end. He is reasoning from the observable world, and the observable world preaches a sermon of decay. This sets the stage for the friends' subsequent, inadequate replies and, more importantly, for Job's own later breakthrough to a faith that transcends what can be seen.

Key Issues

The Unflinching Gaze

One of the things we must admire about the book of Job, and indeed about all of Scripture, is its unflinching honesty. The Bible does not pretty up the consequences of the fall. It does not offer sentimental platitudes in the face of death. Here, Job is staring into the abyss, and the Holy Spirit has seen fit to record his godless thoughts for our benefit. I say "godless" not because Job has ceased to believe in God's existence, but because he is describing a world where God's actions are indistinguishable from the blind, crushing forces of nature. He sees a sovereign God, but it is a sovereignty of sheer, destructive power, not of redemptive purpose.

This is what happens when we try to understand our suffering and our mortality from the ground up, based only on what we can see. The mountain crumbles, the rock moves, the water wears away. These are undeniable facts. And if that is all you have, then the conclusion that God makes man's hope perish is entirely logical. This is why we are not saved by logic alone, but by a promise. We are saved because God has spoken a word into this decaying world, a word of resurrection, a word that reverses the erosion, a word that makes all things new. Job has not yet heard that word clearly, and so he gives us a perfect articulation of the wisdom of the world, which is foolishness with God.

Verse by Verse Commentary

18 “But the falling mountain crumbles away, And the rock moves from its place;

Job begins with an observation from geology. He looks at the most permanent, most stable things he can imagine, mountains and great rocks, and he notes that even they are not permanent. A landslide brings a mountain down. A rock is dislodged from its ancient place. He is describing the second law of thermodynamics in poetic terms. Everything is tending toward dissolution. The forces of erosion and gravity are relentless. Nothing in the created order, left to itself, lasts forever. This is the foundational premise of his argument. If even the mountains fall, what hope is there for a man, who is but dust?

19 Water wears away stones; Its torrents wash away the dust of the earth; So You make man’s hope perish.

He continues his analogy. The slow, persistent action of water can wear down the hardest stone. A sudden, violent flood can scour the landscape, washing away the topsoil. These are images of both gradual decay and catastrophic destruction. And then he brings it all home with a devastating conclusion: "So You make man’s hope perish." He does not say, "so man's hope perishes" as if it were a passive process. He lays the responsibility squarely at God's feet. "You do this." In Job's current state of mind, God is the ultimate agent of entropy. Just as God has set in motion the physical laws that ensure mountains crumble and stones erode, so He actively, personally, and effectively destroys the hope of man. This is a terrifying view of God, but it is the logical conclusion if one's only data points are the observed decay of the world and the personal experience of suffering.

20 You forever overpower him and he goes away; You alter his appearance and send him away.

The focus now shifts from the general principle to the specific experience of a dying man. The contest between God and man is no contest at all. God's power is absolute and final: "You forever overpower him." This is not a temporary setback; it is an eternal defeat. The result is that "he goes away." Death is a departure. But it is not a gentle one. God "alters his appearance," a reference to the disfigurement of death, the rigor mortis and decay that transforms a living face into an unrecognizable mask. And then God sends him away. It is a divine eviction. Man is banished from the land of the living by an irresistible decree. There is no appeal.

21 His sons achieve honor, but he does not know it; Or they become insignificant, but he does not perceive it.

Job describes the total separation that death brings. The dead man is completely cut off from the ongoing story of his own family. Whether his sons prosper and bring honor to the family name, or whether they fail and become nobodies, it is all the same to him. He is oblivious. This was a particularly painful thought in the ancient world, where a man's legacy and immortality were deeply tied to the fortunes of his descendants. Job is saying that death severs this connection entirely. The curtain falls, and the actor is not permitted to watch the rest of the play, even though it is about his own children. It is a state of profound and permanent ignorance.

22 But his flesh pains him, And he mourns only for himself.”

This is a difficult verse, but it seems to describe the state of the man as he is dying, or perhaps his state in Sheol as Job imagines it. While he is cut off from all external knowledge, he is not without consciousness. But his consciousness is turned completely inward. He is aware of only two things: his own physical pain ("his flesh pains him") and his own sorrow ("he mourns only for himself"). It is a picture of ultimate isolation and self-absorption. He cannot rejoice with his honored sons or grieve for his insignificant ones. All his capacity for emotion is consumed by his own misery. It is a portrait of a kind of living hell, a state of being where nothing exists but one's own pain and grief. This is the final, logical outcome of a world without a Redeemer: a universe of isolated, grieving souls.

Application

The words of Job in this passage are true. Let that sink in. Everything he says about the world, about death, and about the hopelessness of man is an accurate description of life "under the sun." If Jesus Christ has not been raised from the dead, then this is our reality. Our hope is a perishing thing, God is our cosmic opponent who always wins, and our end is an eternity of being locked inside our own decaying minds with nothing but our own pain for company. This passage should drive us to our knees in gratitude for the gospel.

Because the gospel is God's definitive answer to Job's lament. The God who wears away stones with water has, in Christ, become the Living Water. The God who alters man's appearance in death raised Jesus from the grave with a glorious body, the firstfruits of a new creation. The God who sends man away has, in the cross, made a way to bring us home. The God who overpowers man has allowed Himself to be overpowered on the cross, so that in His resurrection He might overpower death itself. Job's despair is the backdrop. It is the black velvet on which the diamond of the resurrection shines. We must feel the weight of Job's words to truly appreciate the weight of Christ's glory. Our hope does not perish, because it is not anchored in this crumbling world, but in the risen and ascended Christ, who is the Rock that can never be moved.