Thomas Aquinas Commentary Job 14:7-13

"For there is hope of a tree, If it be cut down, that it will sprout again, And that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, And the stock thereof die in the ground; Yet through the scent of water it will bud, And put forth boughs like a plant. But man dieth, and is laid low: Yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? [As] the waters fail from the sea, And the river wasteth and drieth up; So man lieth down and riseth not: Till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, Nor be roused out of their sleep. Oh that thou wouldest hide me in Sheol, That thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, That thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!" — Job 14:7-13 (ASV)

After stating his opinion, Job proceeds to clarify it. First, he shows that as things appear in this life, man is in a worse condition than even weak creatures that are renewed after their destruction. This fact is especially clear in the case of trees.

The life of a tree, like the life of a man, can fail in two ways: by violence or by nature. He speaks about the violent destruction of the tree, saying that if a tree is cut down, it has hope—a natural aptitude to renew its existence. This is because, if replanted, it grows green again, and its branches sprout. In this, he demonstrates that it recovers the perfect life it formerly had.

He expresses the tree's natural failure by saying that if its roots age in the earth, it cannot take in food due to a defect in its natural power. Consequently, its trunk has rotted in the dirt, reduced to dust in some places by rot. Yet, it will be rejuvenated by the mere scent of water when the rain comes, because the rotten wood possesses a seminal potency. And it will put forth a shoot—a growth of leaves—as when it was first planted.

This is not the case for man after this present life passes. Therefore, Job asks, Where, I ask you, is man when he has died, been stripped and destroyed? Job suggests that man loses three things by degrees:

1. The soul is separated from the body, which he expresses by saying, when he has died.
2. He loses the coverings and decorations of the body, which remain for some time after death. But afterward, he is stripped of even these, and so Job says, been stripped.
3. The very structure of his body is dissolved, which he expresses by saying, and destroyed.

After these things are completed, no perceptible appearance of the person remains. Therefore, to those who believe only in what is perceptible and corporeal, the person seems entirely reduced to nothing. To express the doubt of such people, Job then asks, Where, I ask you, is man? (Job 14:10).

Note here that what does not perish completely can be renewed, as he has already said about wood that is cut down or old (Job 14:7–9). But the renewal of something from which nothing remains seems impossible—for example, renewing water in a sea or a river that has completely evaporated.

Man, however, as the text has explained, seems to be so consumed by death that nothing remains of him. According to this argument, it seems impossible that he could be restored to life again. He expresses this theme, saying, As the waters recede from the sea and the rivers dry up empty, so when a man sleeps (that is, when he has died), he will not rise again (from the dead).

Just as it seems impossible for incorruptible things to be corrupted, it also seems impossible for what is totally corrupted to be restored again. Heaven is incorruptible, and so he says, until heaven passes away, he will not awaken (that is, come to life again), nor arise from his sleep (to do the works of the living again). He is saying, in effect: Just as it is impossible for heaven to pass away (that is, to be corrupted), so it is impossible for man to rise again from the dead. This is said, as we already established, on the assumption that nothing remains of man after death.

One can also relate this to the opinion of those who proposed that the entire corporeal universe would be corrupted and then renewed. In this restoration, they proposed that the same people would return. So the meaning would be: As long as this world lasts, man will not rise again from the dead.

The Catholic faith, however, does not hold that the substance of the world will perish, but only the state of this world as it now exists. Paul expresses this in 1 Corinthians 7:31: The figure of this world is passing away. Therefore, this change in the figure of the world can be understood here by the wearing away of heaven. For the general resurrection of the dead at the end of the world is expected, as it says in the Gospel of John, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day (John 11:24).