Job 14:1

CHAPTER XIV

The shortness, misery, and sinfulness of man's life, 14.

The unavoidable necessity of death; and the hope of a general

resurrection, 5-15.

Job deplores his own state, and the general wretchedness of

man, 16-22.

NOTES ON CHAP. XIV

Verse Job 14:1. Man-born of a woman] There is a delicacy in the original, not often observed: אדם ילוד אשה Adam yelud ishah, "Adam born of a woman, few of days, and full of tremor." Adam, who did not spring from woman, but was immediately formed by God, had many days, for he lived nine hundred and thirty years; during which time neither sin nor death had multiplied in the earth, as they were found in the days of Job. But the Adam who springs now from woman, in the way of ordinary generation, has very few years. Seventy, on an average, being the highest term, may be well said to be few in days; and all matter of fact shows that they are full of fears and apprehensions, רגז rogez, cares, anxieties, and tremors. He seems born, not indeed to live, but to die; and, by living, he forfeits the title to life.