Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 14:2
He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
2. and is cut down ] Rather, and withereth, cf. similar figures Isa 40:6 seq.; Psa 37:2; Psa 90:6; Psa 103:15 seq.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down – Nothing can be more obvious and more beautiful than this, and the image has been employed by writers in all ages, but nowhere with more beauty, or with more frequency than in the Bible; see Isa 40:6; Psa 37:2; Psa 90:6; Psa 103:15. Next to the Bible, it is probable that Shakespeare has employed the image with the most exquisite beauty of any poet:
This is the state of man; today he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope, tomorrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost a killing frost,
And – when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a ripening – nips his root,
And then he falls.
Henry viii. Act iii. Sc. 2.
He fleeth also as a shadow – Another exquisite figure, and as true as it is beautiful. So the Psalmist:
My days are like a shadow that declineth.
Psa 102:11.
Man is like to vanity;
His days are as a shadowy that passeth away.
Psa 144:4.
The idea of Job is, that there is no substance, nothing that is permanent. A shadow moves on gently and silently, and is soon gone. It leaves no trace of its being, and returns no more. They who have watched the beautiful shadow of a cloud on a landscape, and have seen how rapidly it passes ever meadows and fields of grain, and rolls up the mountain side and disappears, will have a vivid conception of this figure. How gently yet how rapidly it moves. How soon it is gone. How void of impression is its course. Who can track its way; who can reach it? So man moves on. Soon he is gone; he leaves no trace of his being, and returns no more.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 2. He cometh forth like a flower] This is a frequent image both in the Old and New Testament writers; I need not quote the places here, as the readers will find them all in the margin.
He fleeth also as a shadow] Himself, as he appears among men, is only the shadow of his real, substantial, and eternal being. He is here compared to a vegetable; he springs up, bears his flower is often nipped by disease, blasted by afflictions and at last cut down by death. The bloom of youth, even in the most prosperous state, is only the forerunner of hoary hairs, enfeebled muscles, impaired senses, general debility, anility, and dissolution. All these images are finely embodied, and happily expressed, in the beautiful lines of a very nervous and correct poet, too little known, but whose compositions deserve the first place among what may be called the minor poets of Britain. See at the end of the chapter. See Clarke on Job 14:22.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He cometh forth out of his mothers womb, Job 1:21.
Like a flower; which quickly groweth up and maketh a fair show, but soon withereth, or is cut down.
As a shadow; which being made by the sun, follows its motions, and is in perpetual variation, until at last it quite vanish and disappear.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
2. (Ps90:6; see on Job 8:9).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down,…. As the flower comes from the earth, so does man; as it comes out of the stalk, so man out of his mother’s womb; as the flower flourishes for a while, and looks gay and beautiful, so man while in youth, in health and prosperity. Job, doubtless, has respect to his own case before his troubles came upon him, when he was possessed of all that substance, which made him the greatest man of the east; when his children were like olive plants around his table, and his servants at his command, and he in perfect health of body: and as a flower flourishes for a little while, and then withers; no sooner is it come to its full blow, but presently decays; such is the goodliness of man, it fades away whenever God blows a blast upon it; yea, he is easily and quickly cut down by death, like a beautiful flower cut with the knife, or cropped by the hand, or trampled upon by the foot, see Ps 103:15;
he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not; either as the shadow of the evening, which is lost when night comes on; or the shadow on a dial plate, which is continually moving on; or, as the Jewish Rabbins say, as the shadow of a bird flying, which stays not, whereas the shadow of a wall, or of a tree, continues: a shadow is an empty thing, without substance, dark and obscure, variable and uncertain, declining, fleeting, and passing away; and so fitly resembles the life of a man, which is but a vapour, a bubble, yea, as nothing with God; is full of darkness, of ignorance, and of adversity, very fickle, changeable, and inconstant, and at most but of a short continuance.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
2. Like a flower But as for the flowers and their perfumes, nature has given them birth but for a day a mighty lesson to man. (PLINY, Hist., xxi, chap. 1.) The flower rises from the dark recesses of its mother earth; so man cometh forth from eternity, which in like manner is , hidden and dark. Ever frail and perishable, they both abide, for a little while, the sport of change and storm, and at last sink into the unknown whence they came. (Compare Ecc 6:4.)
Is cut down Withereth. Aristotle defined man to be “the spoil of time,” and St. Augustine compares his frailty to the fragility of glass.
A shadow “What shadows we are, what shadows we pursue.” Edmund Burke. (See note Job 4:19.)
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 14:2 “He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down” Scripture Reference – Note:
Jas 1:10-11, “But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.”
Job 14:11 As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up:
Job 14:11
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Job 14:2 He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
Ver. 2. He cometh forth like a flower ] What he had asserted concerning the shortness of man’s life is here illustrated by two elegant similitudes, frequently used, not in Scripture only, but in heathen authors, as were easy to instance, Isa 28:1 ; Isa 40:6 Jas 1:10-11 1Pe 1:24 . A flower hath a spring and a fall; so have men their times and their turns; their rise and their ruin. Why and how man in his flourish is like to a flower; see Psa 103:15-16 , where he is compared to a flower of the field (which lies open to all inconvenience), not of the garden, which is much sheltered from sharp winds, fenced from the teeth and feet of beasts, from the hands of children, strangers, &c.
And is cut down
He fleeth also
As a shadow
And continueth not
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
like: Psa 90:5-9, Psa 92:7, Psa 92:12, Psa 103:15, Psa 103:16, Isa 40:6-8, Jam 1:10, Jam 1:11, Jam 4:14, 1Pe 1:24
fleeth: Job 8:9, Job 9:25, Job 9:26, 1Ch 29:15, Psa 102:11, Psa 144:4, Ecc 8:13
Reciprocal: 2Ki 4:19 – My head Job 4:19 – crushed Psa 39:5 – Behold Psa 90:6 – General Psa 109:23 – gone Ecc 6:12 – the days of his vain life Isa 38:12 – have cut 1Co 7:29 – the time
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 14:2. He cometh forth like a flower Tender and delicate, fair and beautiful, his faculties and members opening and expanding themselves by degrees; and is cut down By the scythe of some spreading malady; or cropped by the rude hand of some ruthless distemper; or nipped and withered by the frost of some wasting weakness and decay. He fleeth also as a shadow Which, being caused by the sun, follows its motions, and is in perpetual variation, until, at last, it quite vanishes and disappears. The flower, says Henry, is fading, and all its beauty soon withers and is gone. The shadow is fleeting, and its very being will soon be lost in the shadows of night. Of neither do we make any account, in neither do we put any confidence.