
Text -- Job 14:5 (NET)




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collapse allCommentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)
Limited to a certain period.

Wesley: Job 14:5 - -- In thy power and disposal. Thou hast appointed a certain end of his days, beyond which he cannot prolong his life.
In thy power and disposal. Thou hast appointed a certain end of his days, beyond which he cannot prolong his life.
JFB -> Job 14:5
Clarke -> Job 14:5
Clarke: Job 14:5 - -- Seeing his days are determined - The general term of human life is fixed by God himself; in vain are all attempts to prolong it beyond this term. Se...
Seeing his days are determined - The general term of human life is fixed by God himself; in vain are all attempts to prolong it beyond this term. Several attempts have been made in all nations to find an elixir that would expel all the seeds of disease, and keep men in continual health; but all these attempts have failed. Basil, Valentine, Norton, Dastin, Ripley, Sandivogius, Artephius, Geber, Van Helmont, Paracelsus, Philalethes, and several others, both in Europe and Asia, have written copiously on the subject, and have endeavored to prove that a tincture might be produced, by which all imperfect metals may be transmuted into perfect; and an elixir by which the human body may be kept in a state of endless repair and health. And these profess to teach the method by which this tincture and this elixir may be made! Yet all these are dead; and dead, for aught we know, comparatively young! Artephius is, indeed, said to have lived ninety years, which is probable; but some of his foolish disciples, to give credit to their thriftless craft, added another cipher, and made his age nine hundred! Man may endeavor to pass the bound; and God may, here and there, produce a Thomas Parr, who died in 1635, aged one hundred and fifty-two; and a Henry Jenkins, who died in 1670, aged one hundred and sixty-nine; but these are rare instances, and do not affect the general term. Nor can death be avoided. Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return, is the law, and that will ever render nugatory all such pretended tinctures and elixirs. But, although man cannot pass his appointed bounds, yet he may so live as never to reach them; for folly and wickedness abridge the term of human life; and therefore the psalmist says, Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out Half their days, Psa 55:23, for by indolence, intemperance, and disorderly passions, the life of man is shortened in cases innumerable. We are not to understand the bounds as applying to individuals, but to the race in general. Perhaps there is no case in which God has determined absolutely that man’ s age shall be so long, and shall neither be more nor less. The contrary supposition involves innumerable absurdities.
TSK -> Job 14:5
TSK: Job 14:5 - -- his days : Job 14:14, Job 7:1, Job 12:10; Psa 39:4; Dan 5:26, Dan 5:30, Dan 9:24, Dan 11:36; Luk 12:20; Act 17:26; Heb 9:27
the number : Job 21:21
tho...

collapse allCommentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)
Barnes -> Job 14:5
Barnes: Job 14:5 - -- Seeing his days - are "determined"Since man is so frail, and so short-lived, let him alone, that he may pass his little time with some degree o...
Seeing his days - are "determined"Since man is so frail, and so short-lived, let him alone, that he may pass his little time with some degree of comfort and then die; see the notes at Job 7:19-21. The word "determined"here means "fixed, settled."God has fixed the number of his days, so that they cannot be exceeded; compare the notes at Isa 10:23, and notes at Psa 90:10.
The number of his months are with thee - Thou hast the ordering of them, or they are determined by thee.
Thou hast appointed his bounds - Thou hast fixed a limit, or hast determined the time which he is to live, and he cannot go beyond it. There is no elixir of life that can prolong our days beyond that period. Soon we shall come to that outer limit of life, and then we must die. When that is we know not, and it is not desirable to know. It is better that it should be concealed. If we knew that it was near, it would fill us with gloom, and deter us from the efforts and the plans of life altogether. If it were remote, we should be careless and secure, and should think there was time enough yet to prepare to die. As it is, we know that the period is not very far distant; we know not but that it may be very near at hand, and we would be always ready.
Poole -> Job 14:5
Poole: Job 14:5 - -- His days; the days or (as it follows) months of his life. Are determined ; are by thy sentence and decree limited to a certain period.
With thee i...
His days; the days or (as it follows) months of his life. Are determined ; are by thy sentence and decree limited to a certain period.
With thee i.e. exactly known to thee, or in thy power and disposal. Thou hast appointed a certain end of his days, beyond which he cannot prolong his life; and therefore let this short life and unavoidable death suffice for man’ s punishment, and do not add further and sorer calamities.
Gill -> Job 14:5
Gill: Job 14:5 - -- Seeing his days are determined,.... Or "cut out" i, exactly and precisely, how many he shall live, and what shall befall him every day of his life; w...
Seeing his days are determined,.... Or "cut out" i, exactly and precisely, how many he shall live, and what shall befall him every day of his life; whose life, because of the shortness of it, is rather measured by days than vents:
the number of his months are with thee; before him, in his sight, in his account, and fixed and settled by him:
thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass; the boundaries of his life the period of his days, beyond which he cannot go; the term of man's life is so peremptorily fixed by God, that he cannot die sooner, nor live longer, than he has determined he should; as the time of a man's birth, so the time of his death is according to the purpose of God; and all intervening moments and articles of time, and all things that befall a man throughout the whole course of his life, all fall under the appointment of God, and are according to his determinate will; and when God requires of man his soul, no one has power over his spirit to retain it one moment; yet this hinders not the use of means for the preservation and comfort of life, since these are settled as well as the end, and are under the divine direction: the word for bounds signifies sometimes "statutes" k: though not to be understood of laws appointed by God, either of a moral or ceremonial nature; but here it signifies set, stated, appointed times l Seneca m says the same thing;
"there is a boundary fixed for every man, which always remains where it is set, nor can any move it forward by any means whatsoever.''

expand allCommentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

expand allCommentary -- Verse Range Notes
TSK Synopsis -> Job 14:1-22
TSK Synopsis: Job 14:1-22 - --1 Job entreats God for favour, by the shortness of life, and certainty of death.7 He waits for his change.16 By sin the creature is subject to corrupt...
MHCC -> Job 14:1-6
MHCC: Job 14:1-6 - --Job enlarges upon the condition of man, addressing himself also to God. Every man of Adam's fallen race is short-lived. All his show of beauty, happin...
Matthew Henry -> Job 14:1-6
Matthew Henry: Job 14:1-6 - -- We are here led to think, I. Of the original of human life. God is indeed its great original, for he breathed into man the breath of life and in h...
Keil-Delitzsch -> Job 14:4-6
Keil-Delitzsch: Job 14:4-6 - --
4 Would that a pure one could come from an impure!
Not a single one - -
5 His days then are determined,
The number of his months is known to The...
Constable: Job 4:1--14:22 - --B. The First Cycle of Speeches between Job and His Three Friends chs. 4-14
The two soliloquies of Job (c...

Constable: Job 12:1--14:22 - --6. Job's first reply to Zophar chs. 12-14
In these chapters Job again rebutted his friends and t...
