translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: JOB

label: NET study note

text: The point being made is that the entire human race is contaminated by sin, and therefore cannot produce something pure. In this context, since man is born of woman, it is saying that the woman and the man who is brought forth from her are impure. See Ps 51:5 ; Isa 6:5 ; and Gen 6:5 .


text: The figure now changes to a tree for the discussion of the finality of death. At least the tree will sprout again when it is cut down. Why, Job wonders, should what has been granted to the tree not also be granted to humans?


text: Sheol in the Bible refers to the place where the dead go. But it can have different categories of meaning: death in general, the grave, or the realm of the departed spirits [hell]. A. Heidel shows that in the Bible when hell is in view the righteous are not there – it is the realm of the departed spirits of the wicked. When the righteous go to Sheol, the meaning is usually the grave or death. See chapter in A. Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and the Old Testament Parallels .


text: The idea would be that God would sometime in the future call Job into his fellowship again when he longed for the work of his hands (cf. Job 10:3 ).


text: The hope for life after death is supported now by a description of the severity with which God deals with people in this life.


text: Compare Ps 130:3-4 , which says, “If you should mark iniquity O Lord , Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, in order that you might be feared.”


text: The meaning for Job is that death shatters all of man’s hopes for the continuation of life.


text: Death is separation from the living, from the land of the living. And ignorance of what goes on in this life, good or bad, is part of death. See also Eccl 9:5-6 , which makes a similar point.


text: In this verse Job is expressing the common view of life beyond death, namely, that in Sheol there is no contact with the living, only separation, but in Sheol there is a conscious awareness of the dreary existence.