It is not easy to get a handle on Job’s thoughts when you read his speeches. Like most who are experiencing significant trauma, he is confused and inconsistent. Job is trying to make sense of ‘God, life and the universe and everything’- which is not easy to do when you are in the midst of suffering. He is doing his theology on the run, and so he is not a completely reliable source of clarity and truth. In fact, he often flatly contradicts himself.

There are times, for example, when Job has no hope for the afterlife, where as far as he can believe, everything ends with death. In Job 14:7-9, he contrasts the potential renewal of a tree which has been cut down and may yet bud and grow again, with the finality of death for humanity (Job 14:10-12):

But man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more.
As water disappears from the sea or a river bed becomes parched and dry,
so man lies down and does not rise; till the heavens are no more,
men will not awake or be roused from their sleep.

And yet there is a part of Job which cannot abandon all hope. In the midst of his darkness, he dares to summon a flicker of light. In Job 14:13-17, we read words of courageous possibility. “I know I am heading for Sheol, the place of the dead,” says Job. “And we all know that Sheol is the place of no return (see Job 7:9). But my desire is that you would “hide me” there, “conceal me till your anger has passed!”. Job pictures a day, God’s ‘set time,’ when he might “remember me” and- dare he even think it?- bring Job back to life (Job 14:13).

This would, of course, go against everything Job rationally understands: Job 14:14- “If a man dies, will he live again?” This is a rhetorical question with the answer, “No! Not normally!”. But in Job’s imagination, he offers that he would be willing to “wait for my renewal to come”.

Listen once again to the thoughts of Christopher Ash:

Renewal is a lovely word for resurrection, a word that combines newness (renewal) with continuity (renewal). The most wonderful thing about this “renewal” (Job 14:14) is the personal relationship: “You would call, and I would answer you” (v. 15a). And the one who calls Job back from the dead would be the one who “would long for the work of your hands” (v. 15b). There is an anticipation here of the love of the resurrecting God. Furthermore, this God would now watch over Job for good rather than keeping watch over his sin (v. 16), for his sin would be dealt with once and for all: “my offences will be sealed up in a bag, and you will cover over my sin” (v. 17). These are beautiful and final pictures. All Job’s transgressions are finally tied up in a garbage bag and thrown away, never to be reopened. Job knows that if his sin is dealt with, then—and only then—can he hope to come back from Sheol into relationship with the God he loves. It is a wonderful glimpse of the gospel.