Job 14:2
Like a flower, he comes forth, then withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.
BSB
ASV
He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: He fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
KJV
He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
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.
Yet, since man's days are so full of trouble, it is well that they are few, that the soul's imprisonment in the body, and banishment from the Lord, are not perpetual, are not long. When we come to heaven our days will be many, and perfectly free from trouble, and in the mean time faith, hope, and love, balance the present grievances.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
1 Peter 1:24For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall,
leads to
A voice says, “Cry out!” And I asked, “What should I cry out?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field.
You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
As for man, his days are like grass— he blooms like a flower of the field;
But the one who is rich should exult in his low position, because he will pass away like a flower of the field.
For they wither quickly like grass and wilt like tender plants.
Through
Job 8:9For we were born yesterday and know nothing; our days on earth are but a shadow.
leads to
Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
For we are foreigners and strangers in Your presence, as were all our forefathers. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope.
Through
1 Chronicles 29:15For we are foreigners and strangers in Your presence, as were all our forefathers. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope.
leads to
My days are like lengthening shadows, and I wither away like grass.
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.