Job 14 Devotional

Hope for a Felled Tree

“When a man dies, will he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, until my renewal comes.”Job 14:14 (BSB)

Job turns to the shortness of human life. Every life, he says, is brief and full of trouble, blooming like a flower and passing like a shadow (14:1-2). A felled tree can sprout again (14:7-9). But a man dies and does not rise (14:10-12).

For a moment, Job reaches past what he can see. If only God would hide him in the grave until his anger passed, and then remember him (14:13). Can the dead live again (14:14)? He imagines God calling and Job answering, Job's sins sealed up and covered over (14:15-17). It is a hope Job cannot hold for long. The chapter ends with God wearing away human hope the way water wears away stone (14:18-19). We should not rush past that ending. But we know something Job could only reach for. Christ has been raised from the dead, the first of a harvest still to come (1 Corinthians 15:20). The felled tree is not the last word for those who belong to him.

To think about: What loss in your life most needs to be seen in the light of Christ's resurrection?