Job 14:7-9 | JFB | STEP | 7. Man may the more claim a peaceful life, since, when separated from it by death, he never returns to it. This does not deny a future life, but a return to the present condition of life. Job plainly hopes for a future state ( ; ). Still, it is but vague and trembling hope, not assurance; excepting the one bright glimpse in . The Gospel revelation was needed to change fears, hopes, and glimpses into clear and definite certainties.

‏ Job 14:7-9

7. Man may the more claim a peaceful life, since, when separated from it by death, he never returns to it. This does not deny a future life, but a return to the present condition of life. Job plainly hopes for a future state (Job 14:13; Job 7:2). Still, it is but vague and trembling hope, not assurance; excepting the one bright glimpse in Job 19:25. The Gospel revelation was needed to change fears, hopes, and glimpses into clear and definite certainties.

9. scent--exhalation, which, rather than the humidity of water, causes the tree to germinate. In the antithesis to man the tree is personified, and volition is poetically ascribed to it.

like a plant--"as if newly planted" [Umbreit]; not as if trees and plants were a different species.