Job 14 is a discourse, a lament about the finality of death.
- V2 - Like a flower, he comes forth, then withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.
- V21 - If his sons receive honor, he does not know it; if they are brought low, he is unaware.
V12 is another statement about the unconsciousness of death:
- so a man lies down [in death] and does not rise. Until the heavens are no more,
he will not be awakened or roused from sleep [remains unconscious in death].
Thus, Job 14 is simply about death and says nothing about the resurrection. What happens at that time is another matter. However, we do find a direct reference to the great eschatological resurrection in Job 19:23-27 -
Oh, that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll,
that they were inscribed with an iron tool on lead, or engraved in
rock forever!
I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on
the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I
will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not
another. How my heart yearns within me!
Note the Pulpit commentary in Job 14:12 -
Verse 12. - So man lieth down, and riseth not. This is not an absolute
denial of a final resurrection, since Job is speaking of the world as
it lies before him, not of eventualities. Just as he sees the land
encroach upon the sea, and remain land, and the river-courses, once
dried up, remain dry, so he sees men descend into the grave and remain
there, without rising up again. This is the established order of
nature as it exists before his eyes. Till the heavens be no more, they
shall not awake. This order of things, Job believes, rightly enough,
will continue as long as the heavens and the earth endure. What will
happen afterwards he does not so much as inquire. It is remarked,
ingeniously, that Job's words, though not intended in this sense,
exactly "coincide with the declarations of the New Testament, which
make the resurrection simultaneous with the breaking up of the visible
universe" (Canon Cook). Nor be raised out of their sleep. If "the
glimmer of a hope" of the resurrection appears anywhere in verse.
10-12, it is in the comparison of death to a sleep, which is
inseparably connected in our minds with an awakening. Job 14:12
