Does Job 14:12 and Isaiah 26:19 Contradict?

Does Job 14:12 & Isaiah 26:19 Contradict?

In the book of Job, it is written: "So man lies down and does not rise. Until the heavens are no longer, He will not awake nor be aroused out of his sleep," (Job 14:12 NASB1995). Job here seems to tell us that mankind does not resurrect and until "the Heavens are no longer" they will not awake. This passage seems to contradict other verses such as Isaiah 26: "Your dead will live; Their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, For your dew is as the dew of the dawn, And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits," (Isaiah 26:19 NASB1995). 

This confusion, however, comes from a misunderstanding of what Job means. Job in this passage is speaking rather generally, saying that when a man dies now, they do not rise. He makes a very interesting statement, "until the Heavens are no longer", this is something that does align with what we know of eschatologies. There will be a new Heaven and Earth where we will have new bodies. "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind," (Isaiah 65:17 NASB). So literally, when the heavens are no longer, one will wake or have a new body: "For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies," (2 Corinthians 5:1-3 NLT).

As one father wrote: "By calling death "sleep," Job has clearly us the how for the resurrection. However, he says we will not awake "until the heavens are no more." That is obvious, because, as Isaiah said, it is necessary that "they shall be rolled together like a scroll." ... Then, at the sound of the trumpet, the angels will raise us from the death," (Homilies on Job 17.14.12). 

Thus, Job by no means is saying that we will not resurrect; rather, he makes the general point that at the present day, this is how life is. 

"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," (Jones).

"This only implies that Job had no hope of living again in the present order of the world, not that he had no hope of life again in a new order of things," (Jamieson).

References:

Holy Bible: New Living Translation. United States, Tyndale House Publishers, 2013.

Image by Frank Mckenna on Unsplash

Jamieson, Robert, et al. Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary. United States, Hendrickson Publishers, 1996.

Job. United States, InterVarsity Press, 2014.

The New American Bible: Translated from the Original Languages with Critical Use of All the Ancient Sources and the Revised New Testament. United States, Catholic Bible Publishers, 1995.

The Pulpit Commentary, Volume 6. United States, Delmarva Publications, Inc., 2015.