Job 14:5

Seeing his days [are] determined,.... Or "cut out" i, exactly and precisely, how many he shall live, and what shall befall him every day of his life; whose life, because of the shortness of it, is rather measured by days than vents:

the number of his months [are] with thee; before him, in his sight, in his account, and fixed and settled by him:

thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass; the boundaries of his life the period of his days, beyond which he cannot go; the term of man's life is so peremptorily fixed by God, that he cannot die sooner, nor live longer, than he has determined he should; as the time of a man's birth, so the time of his death is according to the purpose of God; and all intervening moments and articles of time, and all things that befall a man throughout the whole course of his life, all fall under the appointment of God, and are according to his determinate will; and when God requires of man his soul, no one has power over his spirit to retain it one moment; yet this hinders not the use of means for the preservation and comfort of life, since these are settled as well as the end, and are under the divine direction: the word for bounds signifies sometimes "statutes" k: though not to be understood of laws appointed by God, either of a moral or ceremonial nature; but here it signifies set, stated, appointed times l Seneca m says the same thing;

"there is a boundary fixed for every man, which always remains where it is set, nor can any move it forward by any means whatsoever.''

i חרוצים "exacte praefiniti sunt", Tigurine version. k חקו "statuta ejus", V. L. Mercerus, Schmidt. l "Stata tempora", Beza. m Consolat. ad Marciam, c. 20.