Job 14

“If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come” (14:14).  Job isn’t sure if there is a point to his years on earth, which are short and full of suffering (v1).  Job sees that trees can “sprout again” (v7), but what about humans?  He wishes God would hide him for a time in Sheol (the place of the dead), and then at a “set time, remember me!” (v13).  In the face of the death, Job longs for “renewal.”

Jesus is alive, and therefore Job’s hope is a reality.  Our short lives are not in vain; death has been “swallowed up in victory” (I Corinthians 54-58).