Job 14:16-22 turns to the contrast of Job's present misery and hopeless end. Now God watches Job (Job 14:16). God writes down his sins, and seals up the indictments in a bag (Job 14:17). The mountains perish and the stones are worn away: so God destroys man's hope, and the man himself (Job 14:18-20). He is sunk in Sheol where he neither knows nor cares for the concerns of his family (Job 14:21). Only his flesh upon him hath pain and his soul within him mourneth (Job 14:22). [The flesh suffers pain through the process of decomposition in the grave; but the soul in Sheol also participates in the pain of its body, for though death has rent them apart, they still belong to the same self and sympathetically feel each other's experiences. Cf. Jeremiah 8:2 *. A. S. P.] He is wholly shut up in his own misery.
Related Commentaries of Job 14:16
Job 14:16-22
16 For now thou numberest my steps: dost thou not watch over my sin?
17 My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity.
18 And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place.
19 The waters wear the stones: thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man.
20 Thou prevailest for ever against him, and he passeth: thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away.
21 His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.
22 But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.