Job 14 — At the Scent of Water
Few days, full of tremors “Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble” (Job 14:1, New International Version). The Hebrew rogez suggests quake, trembling—life as aftershock. Job’s realism is not cynical; it is sober. In an ancient world where graves bordered every field, no one mistook life for permanence. The poem moves with desert imagery: flower, shadow, stump. It is wisdom sung at the edge of a cemetery.
The tree’s parable and the daring “until” “Even a tree has hope… at the scent of water it will bud” (14:7–9). The phrase “scent of water” (ra‘ach mayim) is as tender as poetry gets. In the Near East, seeds can sleep for years; water wakes them. (Modern note: date seeds from Masada sprouted after two millennia when watered.) Job watches creation preach: renewal is real in God’s world.
Then the jolt: “But a man dies and lies prostrate” (14:10). Job does not deny resurrection; he draws the tension to its tightest string: “they will not awake… till the heavens are no more” (14:12). The little word “till” is everything. He prays, “Oh, that you would hide me in the grave… set a time for me and remember me!” (14:13). “Remember” (zākar) in Scripture is covenant action, not mere recall; “set a time” likely echoes choq, a fixed decree. Job asks for a statute of mercy beyond his conscripted tour (“hard service,” tsābā’, cf. Job 7) until his “change” (chalīfāh) comes (14:14).
Then the most unthinkable line: “You would call and I would answer you; you would long for the work of your hands” (14:15). Job imagines God’s homesickness for his creatures. Resurrection, in seed form, appears not as human indestructibility but as divine desire. Gregory the Great heard here the promise of bodily renewal; Calvin noted a glimmer awaiting the full daylight of Christ. The New Testament completes the sentence: “All who are in their graves will hear his voice” (John 5:28–29), and the Caller we meet is the Bridegroom who rejoices over us (Zephaniah 3:17; Psalm 138:8).
The sealed bag and the canceled record “You fasten up my iniquity” (14:17). Job pictures an archive of guilt: in the ancient world debts were sealed in bags or clay jars (cf. Jeremiah 32:14). He fears a cosmic ledger stitched shut against mercy. Yet already another script is being written: “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle” (Psalm 56:8). In Christ, the ledger is taken from the shelf and nailed to a cross (Colossians 2:14). The God who “counts my steps” (14:16) does not stalk but shepherds; the archive keeps tears, not accusations.
Practice: waiting at the edge of dawn
Suggested cross-references - Psalms 56:8; 103:14; 138:8 - Isaiah 26:19; 44:3–4 - John 5:28–29; 11:43–44 - Colossians 2:14 - Revelation 21:1–5
Prayer Longing God, who remembers dust and bottles tears, hide us in your mercy until your wrath is past. Appoint us a time and call our names. Let the scent of your living water reach our buried places, and make us answer you with joy. Count not our sins, but our steps toward home, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.