It is sad to watch a tree being cut down. And yet, sometimes, the tree will sprout again from the stump and there is new life. How much sadder to watch a human being die and be buried. For you know there is no equivalent to ″sprouting again″ with new life. When they are dead, they are dead. We even use the expression ″dead and buried″ to speak of a final end. It is this that Job dreads.

After speaking to his friends (Job 12:1-13:19), Job now takes his life in his hands and speaks with great faith-filled perceptiveness to God himself. He has said, ″I desire to speak to the Almighty and to argue my case with God″ (13:3), and now he does. He begins by asking God to give him an intermission in his sufferings, possibly so that he can concentrate (v. 21); he also asks God to summon him to speak (v. 22). Job knows that he cannot just walk into the presence of God, but needs to be given permission.

Job proceeds to describe what he wants to say to God. There is an insightful sequence here. Job begins by lamenting the problem of sin (vv. 23-27). He is deeply aware of his sins. He knows that when God hides His face, when God blows him around like a dry leaf or harvest chaff, when God punishes him–all this is to do with sin. Job repents habitually, but he knows the burden of sin. His sufferings foreshadow the Lord Jesus who will also bear the burden of sins, the sins of many for whom He will die.

It is natural that Job should move from sin to mortality (13:28-14:6). He feels deeply that his life, indeed human life in general, is like fruit that goes rotten or a piece of clothing eaten by moths (13:28); that life is short and troubled (14:1); and that human beings are like short-lived flowers or fading shadows (v. 2). All this is because we are sinners in a world under sin. (Even for the Christian, ″your body is subject to death because of sin″–Romans 8:10.)

Then, Job moves from mortality to the finality of death itself (Job 14:7-12). He brings home this terrible finality by comparing life with a cut-down tree. It is this final end that Job dreads. But, most wonderfully, he then yearns for bodily resurrection (vv. 13-22), without which there can be no hope. In a deeply personal passage, he expresses hope for that day when God will call to Job in his grave and Job will answer. And Job will be ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven!