Job 14:1

The Brevity of Life

14:1 “Man, born of woman, ¹ 

lives but a few days, ²  and they are full of trouble. ³ 

Genesis 3:17-19

3:17 But to Adam ⁴  he said,

“Because you obeyed ⁵  your wife

and ate from the tree about which I commanded you,

‘You must not eat from it,’

cursed is the ground ⁶  thanks to you; ⁷ 

in painful toil you will eat ⁸  of it all the days of your life.

3:18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

but you will eat the grain ⁹  of the field.

3:19 By the sweat of your brow ¹⁰  you will eat food

until you return to the ground, ¹¹ 

for out of it you were taken;

for you are dust, and to dust you will return.” ¹² 

Psalms 90:8-9

90:8 You are aware of our sins; ¹³ 

you even know about our hidden sins. ¹⁴ 

90:9 Yes, ¹⁵  throughout all our days we experience your raging fury; ¹⁶ 

the years of our lives pass quickly, like a sigh. ¹⁷ 

Psalms 90:1

Book 4
(Psalms 90-106)

Psalm 90 ¹⁸ 

A prayer of Moses, the man of God.

90:1 O Lord, you have been our protector ¹⁹  through all generations!

Colossians 1:13

1:13 He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son he loves, ²⁰ 

[14:1]  ¹ tn The first of the threefold apposition for אָדָם (’adam, “man”) is “born of a woman.” The genitive (“woman”) after a passive participle denotes the agent of the action (see GKC 359 §116.l).

[14:1]  ² tn The second description is simply “[is] short of days.” The meaning here is that his life is short (“days” being put as the understatement for “years”).

[14:1]  ³ tn The third expression is “consumed/full/sated – with/of – trouble/restlessness.” The latter word, רֹגֶז (rogez), occurred in Job 3:17; see also the idea in 10:15.

[3:17]  ⁴ tn Since there is no article on the word, the personal name is used, rather than the generic “the man” (cf. NRSV).

[3:17]  ⁵ tn The idiom “listen to the voice of” often means “obey.” The man “obeyed” his wife and in the process disobeyed God.

[3:17]  ⁶ sn For the ground to be cursed means that it will no longer yield its bounty as the blessing from God had promised. The whole creation, Paul writes in Rom 8:22, is still groaning under this curse, waiting for the day of redemption.

[3:17]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew phrase בַּעֲבוּרֶךָ (ba’avurekha) is more literally translated “on your account” or “because of you.” The idiomatic “thanks to you” in the translation tries to capture the point of this expression.

[3:17]  ⁸ sn In painful toil you will eat. The theme of eating is prominent throughout Gen 3. The prohibition was against eating from the tree of knowledge. The sin was in eating. The interrogation concerned the eating from the tree of knowledge. The serpent is condemned to eat the dust of the ground. The curse focuses on eating in a “measure for measure” justice. Because the man and the woman sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, God will forbid the ground to cooperate, and so it will be through painful toil that they will eat.

[3:18]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew term עֵשֶׂב (’esev), when referring to human food, excludes grass (eaten by cattle) and woody plants like vines.

[3:19]  ¹⁰ tn The expression “the sweat of your brow” is a metonymy, the sweat being the result of painful toil in the fields.

[3:19]  ¹¹ sn Until you return to the ground. The theme of humankind’s mortality is critical here in view of the temptation to be like God. Man will labor painfully to provide food, obviously not enjoying the bounty that creation promised. In place of the abundance of the orchard’s fruit trees, thorns and thistles will grow. Man will have to work the soil so that it will produce the grain to make bread. This will continue until he returns to the soil from which he was taken (recalling the creation in 2:7 with the wordplay on Adam and ground). In spite of the dreams of immortality and divinity, man is but dust (2:7), and will return to dust. So much for his pride.

[3:19]  ¹² sn In general, the themes of the curse oracles are important in the NT teaching that Jesus became the cursed one hanging on the tree. In his suffering and death, all the motifs are drawn together: the tree, the sweat, the thorns, and the dust of death (see Ps 22:15). Jesus experienced it all, to have victory over it through the resurrection.

[90:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “you set our sins in front of you.”

[90:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “what we have hidden to the light of your face.” God’s face is compared to a light or lamp that exposes the darkness around it.

[90:9]  ¹⁵ tn Or “for.”

[90:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “all our days pass by in your anger.”

[90:9]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “we finish our years like a sigh.” In Ezek 2:10 the word הֶגֶה (hegeh) elsewhere refers to a grumbling or moaning sound. Here a brief sigh or moan is probably in view. If so, the simile pictures one’s lifetime as transient. Another option is that the simile alludes to the weakness that characteristically overtakes a person at the end of one’s lifetime. In this case the phrase could be translated, “we end our lives with a painful moan.”

[90:1]  ¹⁸ sn Psalm 90. In this communal lament the worship leader affirms that the eternal God and creator of the world has always been Israel’s protector. But God also causes men, who are as transient as grass, to die, and in his fierce anger he decimates his covenant community, whose brief lives are filled with suffering and end in weakness. The community asks for wisdom, the restoration of God’s favor, a fresh revelation of his power, and his blessing upon their labors.

[90:1]  ¹⁹ tn Or “place of safety.” See Ps 71:3.

[1:13]  ²⁰ tn Here αὐτοῦ (autou) has been translated as a subjective genitive (“he loves”).