Job 14:2
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
He comes forth like a flower, and is cut down: he flees also as a shadow, and continues not.
American King James Version (AKJV)
He comes forth like a flower, and is cut down: he flees also as a shadow, and continues not.
American Standard Version (ASV)
He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: He fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
He comes out like a flower, and is cut down: he goes in flight like a shade, and is never seen again.
Webster's Revision
He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
World English Bible
He comes forth like a flower, and is cut down. He also flees like a shadow, and doesn't continue.
English Revised Version (ERV)
He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
Clarke's Job 14:2 Bible Commentary
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, Job 14:22 (note).
Barnes's Job 14:2 Bible Commentary
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 Isaiah 40:6; Psalm 37:2; Psalm 90:6; Psalm 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.
Wesley's Job 14:2 Bible Commentary
14:2 Flower - The flower 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.
