Commentaries:
Job begins his discussion of humanity's potential after death with marked negativity. Clearly, he woke up on the wrong side of the ash heap that morning!
Like Solomon, Job is probably referring to man without God; he sounds doubtful that anyone cut off from Him will live again. Due to the severe trial he is enduring, he views life with a terribly jaundiced eye. Why would a man want to live again after a life like this one? This life is so brief and full of turmoil that a tree seems to have better prospects of living again than a man does! Unlike a tree, a person who has died does not shoot out new and green to live again; if a man is planted in the ground, he does not pop out of the soil after gentle rain and sunshine! No, without God, a dead person just lies in his grave.
Notice, however, what he believes are his own chances for an afterlife:
Oh, that You would hide me in the grave, that You would conceal me until Your wrath is past, that You would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, till my change comes. You shall call, and I will answer You; You shall desire the work of Your hands. (Job 14:13-15)
He desires to die and rest in his grave until God recalls him to life! If nothing else, Job understands that with God is the power to give life even after death. Many commentators see this as Job's wish that there were an afterlife, but it is his hope. At the time, it was his only and most fervent expectation. He hoped that God would judge him as a righteous man and call him from his grave to live again, changed from dust to something far better, because God would desire to see him and engage in a close relationship with him again.
Despite his cynicism regarding mankind in general, Job concludes that death is not the end of the line for those who fear God and have a relationship with Him.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Death Is Not the End (Part Four)