Some scholars believe that there is nothing left to chance, as far as the length of a man’s life is concerned, and Job’s words: “Since man’s days are determined, the number of his months is under your control; you have set his limit and he cannot pass it” (Job 14:5) support this assumption. Nevertheless, such an interpretation of Job 14:5 cannot be true. If it were, what could be said of the violent who shed the blood of men, or men who take their own lives or the careless who lose their lives either through ignorance or presumption? If the very day of a man’s death is predetermined, then one could conclude a murderer serves the Lord’s will, as would those who commit suicide, or those who carelessly put their lives in danger, whether ignorantly or presumptuously. What can be said of these things in the context of Job’s mention of what may seem to be a predetermined limit to a man’s life?
Job tells us that the number of a man’s years are, indeed, decided. However, if the number of a man’s months is still in the Lord’s hands, although the length of his life has been decided, then what has been decided must be fluid. The Lord is able to add to those years or take some away, due to prayer, chance, or another modifying factor, such as the will of man to take a life. God may, indeed, overrule man’s will and even his carelessness, but the Lord is not obligated to do so. Nevertheless, he has placed a limit to a man’s life, beyond which no man could live. No medical procedure or dietary or physical discipline would enable a man to live beyond the limit the Lord has set for mankind. That limit has changed, as human history developed. Before the Flood, men lived several hundred years, some even over 900. After the Flood, however, a man’s expected lifespan had decreased considerably and very swiftly (Genesis 25:7; 35:28; 47:28; cp. Psalm 90:10). Nevertheless, Job’s point is that, no matter how one figures out the length of a man’s life, he is not immortal. He is a temporary figure in the scheme of world events. Why, then, wouldn’t the Lord simply leave Job alone? He has already been judged in that the number of his years has already been decided, and, even if that changes somewhat, it wouldn’t be enough to upset the Lord’s overall plan of things. Why, therefore, couldn’t man simply be permitted to live out his sentence in peace, just as a laborer is left alone and permitted to accomplish his day in the field (Job 14:5-6)?
Job argues that even a tree is better off than a man in respect to life and death. If one cuts down a tree, or even if it rots and dies without water, one could expect it to sprout up again from its trunk, or suckers come up from its rotting roots, if sufficient water is given (Job 14:7-9). Thus, even a tree is better off than a man who dies, whether as determined, or is cut off early through happenstance, or if through prayer one even lives beyond what the Lord determined at one’s birth (vv5-6; cp. Psalm 139:16).
When a man dies, he is completely cut off from this world. Where is his life, his consciousness or his ability to experience this world through his five senses etc.? While his body is still here, where did all that go that animated the lifeless body that no longer moves or breathes (Job 14:10)?
Instead of being like a tree, a man is more like the sea (H3220)[1] or the flood/river that dries up. In other words, man is more like those waters that flow down from the mountains, forming pools of water, and once the snow is gone from the mountaintop, both its rivers and its pools of water are no more (Job 14:11). When a man lies down and dies, he remains in his sleep, unconscious and unaware of what occurs in the land of the living, until the heavens are no more (Job 14:12)! But, what does Job mean, when he says: “…till the heavens are no more” (verse-12)?
Job was referring to the then present covenant between God and man. It was a covenant between heaven and earth. Jesus once said that his words would never pass away, but the (then present) heaven and earth would pass away (Matthew 24:35). Many have taken both Job’s words and Jesus’ words literally, thinking the Lord would destroy his creation, vis-à-vis the physical universe. Nevertheless, this isn’t so. That doctrine is absolutely false, and there is no truth in it. Rather, Job said he wanted God to let him die and rest in the grave until his wrath was past (Job 14:12-13). In other words, Job wanted his present suffering to end, and he would be happy to wait, unconscious, in the grave until the Lord’s wrath was past, meaning the arrangement between him and man that had existed since Eden (Genesis 3:22-24), whereby man was driven from the presence of God, until a new arrangement between God and man (cp. Hebrews 4:14-16; 10:19-23) would be established and put into place.
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[1] The Hebrew word yam (H3220) should not be mistaken for a sea like the Mediterranean. While the word can mean the great sea (Numbers 34:6-7), it can also refer to the Sea of Galilee (called Chinnereth in Numbers 34:11) or the Dead Sea (Genesis 14:3; Deuteronomy 4:49). It may even be applied to the brazen sea before the Temple (2Kings 24:13).
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