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from God, this book abounds with references to the phenomena of nature, sun, moon,
stars, animal and vegetable life, storm, snow, wind, rain, are all explored and employed.
So we find Job in chapter 14: turning to his "Bible". "There is hope of a tree" (14: 7).
Job uses the word "hope" of a tree once again in Job 19: 10 "Mine hope hath he
removed like a tree", but, as in Job 14:, so here Job moves on to the great confession of
verses 25, 26 where personal, literal resurrection is again acknowledged and believed:
"There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again" (Job 14: 7).
This figure "to be cut down" is used of a flower also:
"He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and
continueth not" (Job 14: 2).
The two words are not the same in the original. Moffatt preserves the distinction,
saying of the flower "it fades", and of the tree "it is felled", but the end is the same. Job
apparently pondered the fact that a tree though thus cut down and its root should wax old,
and the stock thereof die in the ground, will live again, but from the story of the tree, he
turns to the tragedy of man and asks:
"But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?"
(Job 14: 10).
The complete process of thought that passed through the mind of Job is not recorded,
but he seems to have suddenly changed his attitude, as though he said "If there is hope for
a tree, will not God also think of His greater creature, man?"
"So man lieth down, and riseth not." That at first seems final. But Job continues:
"Till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep"
(Job 14: 12).
Here, however, we pause. "Awake", "sleep" are words to call a halt.
Let us go back to chapter 3:, where Job cursed the day in which he had been born.
Had he but died at birth, Job says:
"I should have slept" (Job 3: 13).
Later, when thinking of his terrible sufferings, and imagining that he was being
punished for his sins, he said:
"I have sinned . . . . . Why dost Thou not pardon my transgression, and take away
mine iniquity? for now shall I sleep in the dust: and Thou shalt seek me in the morning,
but I shall not be" (Job 7: 20, 21).
This is as far as Job got in the extremity of his misery. He would "sleep in the dust"
and even God, though he sought him in the morning, would not find him, for said Job, "I
shall not be". Annihilation however is the philosophy of despair. The same man, Job is
now moving on, his own words have struck a spark: