In Job, chapter fourteen, verse fourteen, the servant of God believed that after he died, as in verse thirteen, God would call him out again, as in verse fifteen, First Corinthians fifteen, verse twenty, and First Thessalonians four, verses sixteen through seventeen. In other words, Job expressed hope in a personal resurrection. The basis for this hope-filled expectation was God’s love for His people.
The following verse connects to the theme under Job’s reply that began in chapters twelve through fourteen, “Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands.” For a brief moment, Job reached out to God with a towering expression of faith.
If a man dies, shall he live again? – This is a sudden transition in the thought. He had unconsciously worked himself up almost to the belief that man might live again on the earth. He had asked to be hiding somewhere – even in the grave – until the wrath of God passes, and then that God would remember him and bring him forth again to life. Here, he checks himself. It cannot be, he says, that man will live again on the earth. The hope is visionary and vain, and I will endure what is appointed for me until some change shall come. The question “shall he live again?” He will not live on earth again. Therefore, any hope of that kind is vain, and I will wait until the change comes – whatever that may be.
Will wait, Job will endure with patience my trials. I will not seek to cut short the time of my service. Till my change comes: What this should be, he does not know. It might be relief from suffering, or it might be happiness in some future state. At all events, this state of things could not last under his heavy pressure. He was sure of one thing that life passes over, but once, that man could not go over the journey again, that he could not return to the earth and go over his youth or age again.