Job 3:1 - Meaning and Application

Long did Job’s heart burn within him, and while he thought things over, the fire grew hotter because he held it in. At last he spoke, but not with the wise words David later spoke after a long pause, “Lord, make me know my end” (Psalm 39:3-4). Ezekiel, the prophet, sat stunned among the exiles for seven days, and then the word of the Lord came to him, probably on the Sabbath day (Ezekiel 3:15-16). Job and his friends sat in silence for a long time, but they did not speak honestly. They were afraid to say what they really thought, lest they hurt him, and he was afraid to speak, lest he offend them.

They had come to comfort him, but his troubles were so severe that they began to think comfort did not fit his case. They suspected that Job was a hypocrite, so they kept quiet. Yet people who have lost much often feel free to speak first, and so Job gave vent to his thoughts. Even so, it would have been better if he had kept them to himself, unless they could have been better thoughts. In short, he cursed the day he was born. He wished he had never come into the world and could not think or speak of his birth without grief and anger.

People usually mark their birthday with joy, but Job saw it as the saddest day of the year. For him, it was the day that opened the door to all his suffering. This was bad enough. His pain and distress may explain it in part, but they do not make it right. He had forgotten the good for which he was born, and his mind was filled only with evil. He wished he had never been born. The prophet Jeremiah spoke in a similar way when he felt the weight of his suffering: “Woe is me, my mother, that you bore me” (Jeremiah 15:10), and “Cursed be the day in which I was born” (Jeremiah 20:14).

We may suppose that Job, in his prosperous days, often blessed God for the day of his birth and counted it a happy day. But now he marked it with shame. When we think about the sin in which we were conceived and born, we do have reason to grieve and feel shame over our birth, and to say that the day of death is better, because death frees us from sin (Romans 6:7; Ecclesiastes 7:1). But to curse the day of our birth simply because life has brought sorrow is to quarrel with the God who made us. It is to despise the worth of our existence and follow a passion that calmer thinking would make us ashamed of.

There is no condition in this world in which a person cannot honor God and work out salvation, so that he has no reason to wish he had never been born. He can still have good reason to say that his life was worthwhile. Yet it must be admitted that if there were no life after this, and no divine comfort to sustain us while we look toward it, the sorrows of this life might sometimes tempt us to say we were made in vain (Psalm 89:47), and to wish we had never been born. Those in hell have every reason to wish that, as Judas did (Matthew 26:24). But this side of hell, there is no good reason for such an ungrateful wish.

Job was weak and wrong to curse his day. We should call this his failing. Even so, godly people sometimes stumble in the very graces in which they are strongest. That helps us understand that when they are called perfect, the meaning is not that they are sinless, but that they are upright. Let us also honor spiritual life above natural life, because many have cursed the day of their first birth, but no one has ever cursed the day of his new birth. No one has wished he had never received grace and the Spirit of grace. These gifts are greater than life itself, and they are never a burden.

Yet Job was not as bad as Satan hoped he would be. He cursed his day, but he did not curse God. He was weary of life and would gladly have given it up, but he was not weary of religion. He held fast to that and would not let it go. The dispute between God and Satan about Job was not over whether Job had weakness or human passions, for that was already admitted. The real question was whether Job was a hypocrite who secretly hated God and would show that hatred if pressed. The trial proved that he was not such a man.

Even all this can fit with Job’s being a pattern of patience. He did speak unadvisedly with his lips, but before and after this he showed great submission to God’s holy will, and he repented of his impatience. He judged himself for it, and therefore God did not condemn him, nor should we. Instead, we should watch ourselves carefully, lest we sin in the same way.

Job’s words in cursing his day are full of poetic force and passion, and they create as much difficulty for interpreters as the event itself does for Bible teachers. We do not need to examine every phrase in detail. When Job wanted to say he wished he had never been, he turned against the day of his birth and wished, first, that the earth would forget it. “Let it perish,” he says, “let it not be counted among the days of the year” (Job 3:3, 6).

In other words, let it not even be put in the calendar, not even honored like a king’s birthday. Job had been like a king in his former days (Job 29:25), but now he wanted that day erased and buried in forgetfulness. Let the world never know that such a man was born and lived, a man now made a public sight of misery. He also wished that heaven would frown on it. “Let not God care for it from above” (Job 3:4). Everything is what God makes it. A day is honored only when God honors it and marks it with his favor and blessing, as he did the seventh day of the week. But Job wanted his birthday never to be so honored.

He wanted it marked as an evil day, as though with a black mark. Let that day be darkness (Job 3:4). If the light of a day is darkness, how terrible that darkness is, because day is the time when we expect light. Job wanted the darkness of the day to match his own condition, for his sun had gone down at noon. As for the night of his birth, let it lose the benefit of moon and stars. Let thick darkness seize it, darkness so deep that it can almost be felt. That would not make the night restful, but fearful. Job also wished that all joy would leave it. “Let it be a sad night, alone, and not a joyful night of music and dancing.”

Let no joyful voice be heard there, Job 3:7. Let it be a long night, never seeing the first light of morning, Job 3:9, the light that brings joy with it. Let every curse fall on it, Job 3:8. Let no one ever wish for that night or welcome it when it comes. Instead, let those who curse a day also curse my birthday.

This may point to a custom of especially bitter cursing. Some people, when they were about to strike a whale or a crocodile, would heap curses on it, hoping their words would weaken it and help them gain control. Job may be alluding to some such practice. Bishop Patrick takes Leviathan here to mean the devil, while others think of the curses used by conjurers and magicians when they try to raise a demon or cannot put it back. In either case, Job wants his birth day to be treated as something dreadful and hated.

But what is the reason for Job’s complaint against the day and night of his birth? He says it is because they did not shut the doors of his mother’s womb, Job 3:10. This shows the folly of bitter discontent, and how wildly it speaks when self-control is gone. Is this the same Job whom people once honored for his wisdom, who was listened to with respect and silence, Job 29:21, Job 29:11? Surely his wisdom was clouded here.

He showed that weakness, first, by spending so much effort wishing he had never been born. That wish was empty, because nothing can make what never was become as if it had never been. Second, he was too free in cursing a day and night that could not be harmed by his words. Third, he wished something cruel for his own mother, that she had not given birth to him when her time came, which would have meant her own painful death. Fourth, he forgot God’s kindness in giving him life, such a noble and excellent gift, far above the life of any other creature on earth.

He treated that gift as if it were not worth having, only because it came with trouble attached. Yet that trouble had come only after many years of enjoying life’s pleasures. What a foolish thing it was to wish that his eyes had never seen the light, so they would not have seen sorrow, when he could still hope to see joy beyond it. Did Job believe he would, in his own flesh, see God at the last day, Job 19:26, and yet wish he had never been made for such a blessing, only because he suffered sorrow for the moment? May God’s grace keep us from this foolish and harmful sin of impatience.