*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
But his flesh upon him shall have pain - Dr. Good renders this, "his flesh shall drop away from him." This is evidently a representation of the state of the man after he was dead. He would be taken away from hope and from his friends. His body would be committed to the grave, and his spirit would go to the world of shades. The image in the mind seems to have been, that his flesh would suffer. It would be cold and chill, and would be devoured by worms. There seems to have been an impression that the soul would be conscious of this in its distant and silent abode, and the description is given of the grave as if the body were conscious there, and the turning back to dust were attended with pain. This thought is that which makes the grave so gloomy now. We think of ourselves in its darkness and chilliness. We insensibly suppose that we shall be conscious there. And hence, we dread so much the lonely, sad, and gloomy residence in the tomb. The meaning of the word rendered "shall have pain" - כאב kâ'ab - is "to be sore, to be grieved, afflicted, sad." It is by the imagination, that pain is here attributed to the dead body. But Job was not alone in this. We all feel the same thing when we think of death.
And his soul within him shall mourn - The soul that is within him shall be sad; that is, in the land of shades. So Virgil, speaking of the death of Lausus, says,
Tum vita per auras
Concessit moesta ad manes, corpusque reliquit.
Aeneid x. 819.
The idea of Job is, that it would leave all the comforts of this life; it would be separate from family and friends; it would go lonely and sad to the land of shades and of night. Job dreaded it. He loved life; and in the future world, as it was presented to his view, there was nothing to charm and attract. There he expected to wander in darkness and sadness; and from that gloomy world he expected to return no more forever. Eichhorn, however, has rendered this verse so as to give a different signification, which may perhaps be the true one.
Nur uber sich ist er betrubt;
Nur sich betrauert er.
"His troubles pertain only to himself; his grief relates to himself alone." According to this, the idea is that he must bear all his sorrows alone, and for himself. He is cut off from the living, and is not permitted to share in the joys and sorrows of his posterity, nor they in his. He has no knowledge of anything that pertains to them, nor do they participate in his griefs. What a flood of light and joy would have been poured on his soul by the Christian hope, and by the revelation of the truth that there is a world of perfect light and joy for the righteous - in heaven! And what thanks do we owe to the Great Author of our religion - to him who is "the Resurrection and the Life " - that we are permitted to look upon the grave with hearts full of peace and joy!
But his flesh upon him shall have pain - The sum of the life of man is this, pain of body and distress of soul; and he is seldom without the one or the other, and often oppressed by both. Thus ends Job's discourse on the miserable state and condition of man. The last verse of the preceding chapter has been differently translated and explained. Mr.
Good's version is the following, which he vindicates in a learned note: -
For his flesh shall drop away from him;
And his soul shall become a waste from him.
The Chaldee thus: "Nevertheless his flesh, on account of the worms, shall grieve over him; and his soul, in the house of judgment, shall wail over him." In another copy of this version it is thus: "Nevertheless his flesh, before the window is closed over him, shall grieve; and his soul, for seven days of mourning, shall bewail him in the house of his burial." I shall give the Hebrew: -
אך בשרו עליו יכאב
Ach besaro alaiv yichab,
ונפשו עליו תאבל
Venaphsho alaiv teebal.
Which Mr. Stock translates thus, both to the spirit and letter: -
But over him his flesh shall grieve;
And over him his breath shall mourn.
"In the daring spirit of oriental poetry," says he, "the flesh, or body, and the breath, are made conscious beings; the former lamenting its putrefaction in the grave, the latter mourning over the mouldering clay which it once enlivened."
This version is, in my opinion, the most natural yet offered. The Syriac and Arabic present nearly the same sense: "But his body shall grieve over him; and his soul be astonished over him."
Coverdale follows the Vulgate: Whyle he lyveth his flesh must have travayle; and whyle the soul is in him, he must be in sorowe.
On Job 14:2. I have referred to the following beautiful lines, which illustrate these finely figurative texts: -
He cometh forth as a Flower, and is Cut Down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
All flesh is Grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the Flower of the field.
The Grass withereth, the Flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand for ever.
The morning flowers display their sweets,And gay their silken leaves unfold;
As careless of the noonday heats,As fearless of the evening cold.
Nipp'd by the wind's untimely blast,Parch'd by the sun's directer ray,
The momentary glories waste,The short-lived beauties die away.
So blooms the human face divine,When youth its pride of beauty shows;
Fairer than spring the colors shine,And sweeter than the virgin rose.
Or worn by slowly-rolling years,Or broke by sickness in a day,
The fading glory disappears,The short-lived beauties die away.
Yet these, new rising from the tomb,With lustre brighter far shall shine;
Revive with ever-during bloom,Safe from diseases and decline.
Let sickness blast, let death devour,If heaven must recompense our pains:
Perish the grass and fade the flower,If firm the word of God remains.
See a Collection of Poems on Sundry Occasions, by the Revelation. Samuel Wesley, Master of Blundell's School, Tiverton.
But his (l) flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.
(l) Yet while he is in pain and misery.
But his flesh upon him shall have pain,.... Either he shall be chastened with strong pains on his sick and dying bed; which is the reason why he neither rejoices at the happiness of his family, nor is distressed at their misfortunes; having so much pain in his flesh and bones to endure himself; or, as Gussetius (x) renders it, "for this" his flesh and soul shall have pain and grief while he lives, because he cannot know how it will be with his family when he is dead; but rather this is to be understood of a man when dead; and so it is a continuation of the description of death, or of the state of the dead; thus Aben Ezra interprets it of his flesh upon him, that is, his body shall melt away, rot and corrupt, meaning in the grave; so the word is used of marring and destroying, in 2-Kings 3:19, to which the Targum inclines,
"but his flesh, because of worms upon him, shall grieve;''
and so Jarchi, troublesome is the worm to a dead man as a needle in quick flesh; pain and grief are by a prosopopoeia or personification attributed to a dead body; signifying, that could it be sensible of its case, it would be painful and grievous to it:
and his soul within him shall mourn; either while he lives, because of his afflictions and terrors, the days being come in which he has no pleasure, and the time of death drawing nigh; or his dead body, as the word is used in Psalm 16:10; said to mourn by the same figure; or his soul, because of his body being dead; or rather his breath, which at death fails and pines away (y).
(x) Ebr. Comment. p. 605. (y) "emarcida luget", Schultens.
"Flesh" and "soul" describe the whole man. Scripture rests the hope of a future life, not on the inherent immortality of the soul, but on the restoration of the body with the soul. In the unseen world, Job in a gloomy frame anticipates, man shall be limited to the thought of his own misery. "Pain is by personification, from our feelings while alive, attributed to the flesh and soul, as if the man could feel in his body when dead. It is the dead in general, not the wicked, who are meant here."
*More commentary available at chapter level.