Job 3

II. Job’s Dialogue With His Friends (3:1-27:33)#sn The previous chapters (1-2) were prose narrative, this chapter, however, commences the poetic section of the book (chs. 3-41) containing the cycles of speeches.

Job Regrets His Birth

1After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day he was born.

2Job spoke up and said:

3“Let the day on which I was born perish, and the night that said, ‘A man has been conceived!’

4That day – let it be darkness; let not God on high regard it, nor let light shine on it!

5Let darkness and the deepest shadow claim it; let a cloud settle on it; let whatever blackens the day terrify it!

6That night – let darkness seize it; let it not be included among the days of the year; let it not enter among the number of the months!

7Indeed, let that night be barren; let no shout of joy penetrate it!

8Let those who curse the day curse it – those who are prepared to rouse Leviathan.

9Let its morning stars be darkened; let it wait for daylight but find none, nor let it see the first rays of dawn,

10because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb on me, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes!

Job Wishes He Had Died at Birth#sn Job follows his initial cry with a series of rhetorical questions. His argument runs along these lines: since he was born (v. 10), the next chance he had of escaping this life of misery would have been to be still born (vv. 11-12, 16). In vv. 13-19 Job considers death as falling into a peaceful sleep in a place where there is no trouble. The high frequency of rhetorical questions in series is a characteristic of the Book of Job that sets it off from all other portions of the OT. The effect is primarily dramatic, creating a tension that requires resolution. See W. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, 340-41.

11“Why did I not die at birth, and why did I not expire as I came out of the womb?

12Why did the knees welcome me, and why were there two breasts that I might nurse at them?

13For now I would be lying down and would be quiet, I would be asleep and then at peace

14with kings and counselors of the earth who built for themselves places now desolate,

15or with princes who possessed gold, who filled their palaces with silver.

16Or why was I not buried like a stillborn infant, like infants who have never seen the light?

17There the wicked cease from turmoil, and there the weary are at rest.

18There the prisoners relax together; they do not hear the voice of the oppressor.

19Small and great are there, and the slave is free from his master.

Longing for Death#sn Since he has survived birth, Job wonders why he could not have died a premature death. He wonders why God gives light and life to those who are in misery. His own condition throws gloom over life, and so he poses the question first generally, for many would prefer death to misery (20-22); then he comes to the individual, himself, who would prefer death (23). He closes his initial complaint with some depictions of his suffering that afflicts him and gives him no rest (24-26).

20“Why does God give light to one who is in misery, and life to those whose soul is bitter,

21to those who wait for death that does not come, and search for it more than for hidden treasures,

22who rejoice even to jubilation, and are exultant when they find the grave?

23Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has hedged in?

24For my sighing comes in place of my food, and my groanings flow forth like water.

25For the very thing I dreaded has happened to me, and what I feared has come upon me.

26I have no ease, I have no quietness; I cannot rest; turmoil has come upon me.”