What is the context?
A cut tree may sprout again when water reaches it. Job contrasts that visible renewal with a person who dies and does not return to ordinary life.
Drying waters and sleep until the heavens are no more make the loss seem lasting. He cannot point to the same natural cycle of return that he sees in the tree.
The comparison prepares for a wish that God might remember him beyond death. It should be heard within the movement from what he observes to what he longs might be possible.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Wesley reads the sleep until the heavens pass away in light of the general resurrection. The USCCB note emphasizes death’s finality within Job’s lament and treats the following hope as an imaginative wish. They differ over how much settled resurrection hope is voiced at this point; both must be distinguished from simply quoting the tree as an explicit gospel prediction.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.
Where can I study this further?
No deeper study linked yet.