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Selected Verse: Job 14:2 - King James
Verse |
Translation |
Text |
Job 14:2 |
King James |
He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
(Psa 90:6; see on Job 8:9). |
Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down - Nothing can be more obvious and more beautiful than this, and the image has been employed by writers in all ages, but nowhere with more beauty, or with more frequency than in the Bible; see Isa 40:6; Psa 37:2; Psa 90:6; Psa 103:15. Next to the Bible, it is probable that Shakespeare has employed the image with the most exquisite beauty of any poet:
This is the state of man; today he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope, tomorrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost a killing frost,
And - when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a ripening - nips his root,
And then he falls.
Henry viii. Act iii. Sc. 2.
He fleeth also as a shadow - Another exquisite figure, and as true as it is beautiful. So the Psalmist:
My days are like a shadow that declineth.
Psa 102:11.
Man is like to vanity;
His days are as a shadowy that passeth away.
Psa 144:4.
The idea of Job is, that there is no substance, nothing that is permanent. A shadow moves on gently and silently, and is soon gone. It leaves no trace of its being, and returns no more. They who have watched the beautiful shadow of a cloud on a landscape, and have seen how rapidly it passes ever meadows and fields of grain, and rolls up the mountain side and disappears, will have a vivid conception of this figure. How gently yet how rapidly it moves. How soon it is gone. How void of impression is its course. Who can track its way; who can reach it? So man moves on. Soon he is gone; he leaves no trace of his being, and returns no more. |
Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
Flower - The flower is fading, and all its beauty soon withers and is gone. The shadow is fleeting, and its very being will soon be lost in the shadows of night. Of neither do we make any account, in neither do we put any confidence. |
Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
He cometh forth like a flower - This is a frequent image both in the Old and New Testament writers; I need not quote the places here, as the readers will find them all in the margin.
He fleeth also as a shadow - Himself, as he appears among men, is only the shadow of his real, substantial, and eternal being. He is here compared to a vegetable; he springs up, bears his flower is often nipped by disease, blasted by afflictions and at last cut down by death. The bloom of youth, even in the most prosperous state, is only the forerunner of hoary hairs, enfeebled muscles, impaired senses, general debility, anility, and dissolution. All these images are finely embodied, and happily expressed, in the beautiful lines of a very nervous and correct poet, too little known, but whose compositions deserve the first place among what may be called the minor poets of Britain. See at the end of the chapter, Job 14:22 (note). |
9 (For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow:)
6 In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.
4 Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away.
11 My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass.
15 As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.
6 In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.
2 For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.
6 The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:
22 But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.