If a man die, shall he live again? - This is a sudden transition in the thought. He had unconsciously worked himself up almost to the belief that man might live again even on the earth. He had asked to be hid somewhere - even in the grave - until the wrath of God should be overpast, and then that God would remember him, and bring him forth again to life. Here he checks himself. It cannot be, he says, that man will live again on the earth. The hope is visionary and vain, and I will endure what is appointed for me, until some change shall come. The question here “shall he live again?” is a strong form of expressing negation. He will not live again on the earth. Any hope of that kind is, therefore, vain, and I will wait until the change come - whatever that may be.
All the days of my appointed time - צבאי tsâbâ'ı̂y - my warfare; my enlistment; my hard service. See the notes at Job 7:1.
Will I wait - I will endure with patience my trials. I will not seek to cut short the time of my service.
Till my change come - What this should be, he does not seem to know. It might be relief from sufferings, or it might be happiness in some future state. At all events, this state of things could not last always, and under his heavy pressure of wo, he concluded to sit down and quietly wait for any change. He was certain of one thing - that life was to be passed over but once - that man could not go over the journey again - that he could not return to the earth and go over his youth or his age again. Grotius, and after him Rosenmuller and Noyes, here quotes a sentiment similar to this from Euripides, in “Supplicibus,” verses 1080ff.
Οἴμοί τί δὴ βροτοῖσιν οὐκ ἔστιν τόδε,
Νέους δὶς εἶναι, καὶ γέροντας αὐ πάλιν; κ. τ. λ.
Oimoí ti dē brotoisin ouk estin tode,
Neous dis einai, kai gerontas au palin; etc.
The whole passage is thus elegantly translated by Grotius:
Proh fata! cur non est datum mortalibus
Duplici juventa, duplici senio frui?
Intra penates siquid habet incommode,
Fas seriore corrigi sententia;
Hoc vita non permittit: at qui bis foret
Juvenis senexque, siquid erratum foret
Priore, id emendaret in cursu altero.
The thought here expressed cannot but occur to every reflecting mind. There is no one who has not felt that he could correct the errors and follies of his life, if he were permitted to live it over again. But there is a good reason why it should not be so. What a world would this be if man knew that he might return and repair the evils of his course by living it over again! How securely in sin would he live! How little would he be restrained! How little concerned to be prepared for the life to come! God has, therefore, wisely and kindly put this out of the question; and there is scarcely any safeguard of virtue more firm than this fact. We may also observe that the feelings here expressed by Job are the appropriate expressions of a pious heart. Man should wait patiently in trial until his change comes. To the friend of God those sorrows will be brief. A change will soon come - the last change - and a change for the better. Beyond that, there shall be no change; none will be desirable or desired. For that time we should patiently wait, and all the sorrows which may intervene before that comes, we should patiently bear.