Please explain Job 14:21, 22. How could one's soul mourn, and flesh have pain, when in death a man knows not anything?
This is quite easily understood if we will but remember that verses 20 and 21 refer to his death, but verse 22 refers to the time when he lives. "Thou prevailest forever against him, and he passeth: Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away. His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them." That is, he is dead; he knows nothing of these things. But now, while he lives, his flesh upon him has pain, and his soul within him mourns.
We have some very interesting chapters in Ezekiel, predicting the judgments which are to come upon Egypt, one of the greatest of kingdoms. Her rivers are to be dried up, her idols are to be abolished, and she is to become the "basest of kingdoms," every prediction of which has been literally fulfilled. Chapters 33 and 34 are marvelously instructive chapters for God's watchmen at the present time. And with the reproof comes the promise of the one Shepherd that God will set over His flock, and the glorious land in which He will lead them. Chapter 35 is a prophecy against Seir, or Edom; chapter 36, against Israel. Chapters 37, 38, and 39 are predictions which would have been carried out in that day if Israel had complied with the conditions; but not complying with the conditions, God could not fulfil to her what the prophet had foretold. They will be fulfilled in the last days, but under entirely different conditions — much more broadly and strongly and gloriously.
We omit the description of the sanctuary in chapters 40-48 — the sanctuary that never was built, never will be built, but would have been built if the Jews had been "ashamed" and had repented. There are those who tell us that it is yet to be built; but the fact that sacrifices were to be offered in that temple, shows clearly that it is not one that God would again ordain. Our week closes with four chapters from the book of Daniel, — Daniel 1, 2, 6, and 12, — lessons in temperance, in revelation, in God's care for His children in persecution, and in the predictions of that glorious day when all God's prophecies shall be fulfilled, and every man shall stand in his lot.
