Albert Barnes Commentary Job 14:10

"But man dieth, and is laid low: Yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?" — Job 14:10 (ASV)

But man dies and wastes away - The margin reads, “Is weakened, or cut off.” The Hebrew word (חלשׁ châlash) means to overthrow, prostrate, discomfit; and hence, to be weak, frail, or waste away. The Septuagint renders it Ἀνὴρ δὲ τελευτήσας ᾤχετο Anēr de teleutēsas ōcheto - “Man dying goes away.” Herder renders it, “His power is gone.”

The idea is, he entirely vanishes. He leaves nothing to sprout up again. There is no germ, no shoot, no living root, no seminal principle.

Of course, this refers wholly to his living again on the earth and not to the question about his future existence. That is a different inquiry. The main idea with Job here is that when man dies, there is no germinating principle, as there is in a tree that is cut down.

Of the truth of this there can be no doubt; this comparison of man with the vegetable world must have occurred early to mankind and, hence, led to the inquiry whether he would not live in a future state. Other things that are cut down spring up again and live. But man is cut down and does not spring up again. Will he not be likely, therefore, to have an existence in some future state, and to spring up and flourish there?

“The Romans,” says Rosenmuller, “made those trees to be the symbol of death which, being cut down, do not live again, or from whose roots no germs arise, as the pine and cypress, which were planted in burial places or were accustomed to be placed at the doors of the houses of the dead.”

Man gives up the ghost - that is, he expires or dies. This is all that the word (גוע gâva‛) means. The notion of giving up the spirit or the ghost—an idea not improper in itself—is not found in the Hebrew word, nor is it in the corresponding Greek word in the New Testament .