Job 3

THE POEM OR DEBATE ITSELF

(Job 3:2-42:6).

FIRST SERIES IN IT

(Job 3:1-14:22).

JOB FIRST

(Job 3:1-26).

Job 3:1-19.

JOB

CURSES THE

DAY OF

HIS

BIRTH AND

WISHES FOR

DEATH.

1. opened his mouth--The Orientals speak seldom, and then

sententiously; hence this formula expressing deliberation and gravity

(Ps 78:2).

He formally began.

cursed his day--the strict Hebrew word for "cursing:" not

the same as in

Job 1:5.

Job cursed his birthday, but not his God.

2. spake--Hebrew, "answered," that is, not to any actual question

that preceded, but to the question virtually involved in the case. His

outburst is singularly wild and bold

(Jer 20:14).

To desire to die so as to be free from sin is a mark of grace; to

desire to die so as to escape troubles is a mark of corruption. He was

ill-fitted to die who was so unwilling to live. But his trials were

greater, and his light less, than ours.

3. the night in which--rather "the night which said." The words

in italics are not in the Hebrew. Night is personified and poetically

made to speak. So in

Job 3:7,

and in

Ps 19:2.

The birth of a male in the East is a matter of joy; often not so of a

female.

4. let not God regard it--rather, more poetically, "seek it out." "Let

not God stoop from His bright throne to raise it up from its dark

hiding-place." The curse on the day in

Job 3:3,

is amplified in

Job 3:4, 5;

that on the night, in

Job 3:6-10.

5. Let . . . the shadow of death--("deepest darkness,"

Isa 9:2).

stain it--This is a later sense of the verb

[GESENIUS]; better the

old and more poetic idea, "Let darkness (the ancient night of chaotic gloom)

resume its rights over light

(Ge 1:2),

and claim that day as its own."

a cloud--collectively, a gathered mass of dark clouds.

the blackness of the day terrify it--literally, "the

obscurations"; whatever darkens the day [GESENIUS]. The verb in Hebrew expresses sudden

terrifying. May it be suddenly affrighted at its own darkness. UMBREIT explains it as "magical incantations that darken

the day," forming the climax to the previous clauses;

Job 3:8

speaks of "cursers of the day" similarly. But the former view is

simpler. Others refer it to the poisonous simoom wind.

6. seize upon it--as its prey, that is, utterly dissolve it.

joined unto the days of the year--rather, by poetic personification,

"Let it not rejoice in the circle of days and nights and months, which

form the circle of years."

7. solitary--rather, "unfruitful." "Would that it had not

given birth to me."

8. them . . . curse the day--If "mourning" be the

right rendering in the latter clause of this verse, these words refer

to the hired mourners of the dead

(Jer 9:17).

But the Hebrew for "mourning" elsewhere always denotes an

animal, whether it be the crocodile or some huge serpent

(Isa 27:1),

such as is meant by "leviathan." Therefore, the expression, "cursers of

day," refers to magicians, who were believed to be able by charms to

make a day one of evil omen. (So Balaam,

Nu 22:5).

This accords with UMBREIT'S view

(Job 3:7);

or to the Ethiopians and Atlantes, who "used to curse the sun at his

rising for burning up them and their country"

[HERODOTUS]. Necromancers

claimed power to control or rouse wild beasts at will, as do the Indian

serpent-charmers of our day

(Ps 58:5).

Job does not say they had the power they claimed; but, supposing they

had, may they curse the day. SCHUTTENS renders it

anything, call it (the day) the raiser up of leviathan, that is, of

a host of evils.

9. dawning of the day--literally, "eyelashes of morning." The Arab

poets call the sun the eye of day. His early rays, therefore, breaking

forth before sunrise, are the opening eyelids or eyelashes of morning.

12. Why did the knees prevent me?--Old English for "anticipate my

wants." The reference is to the solemn recognition of a new-born child

was bound to rear

(Ge 30:3; 50:23;

Isa 66:12).

13. lain . . . quiet . . . slept--a gradation. I should not only

have lain, but been quiet, and not only been quiet, but

slept. Death in Scripture is called "sleep"

(Ps 13:3);

especially in the New Testament, where the resurrection-awakening is

more clearly set forth

(1Co 15:51;

1Th 4:14; 5:10).

14. With kings . . . which built desolate places for themselves--who

built up for themselves what proved to be (not palaces, but) ruins! The

wounded spirit of Job, once a great emir himself, sick of the vain

struggles of mortal great men, after grandeur, contemplates the palaces

of kings, now desolate heaps of ruins. His regarding the repose of

death the most desirable end of the great ones of earth, wearied with

heaping up perishable treasures, marks the irony that breaks out from

the black clouds of melancholy

[UMBREIT]. The "for themselves" marks

their selfishness. MICHAELIS explains it weakly of mausoleums, such as

are found still, of stupendous proportions, in the ruins of Petra of

Idumea.

15. filled their houses with silver--Some take this to refer to the

treasures which the ancients used to bury with their dead. But see

Job 3:26.

16. untimely birth--

(Ps 58:8);

preferable to the life of the restless miser

(Ec 6:3-5).

17. the wicked--the original meaning, "those ever restless," "full of

desires"

(Isa 57:20, 21).

the weary--literally, "those whose strength is wearied out"

(Re 14:13).

18. There the prisoners rest--from their chains.

19. servant--The slave is there manumitted from slavery.

Job 3:20-26.

HE

COMPLAINS OF

LIFE BECAUSE OF

HIS

ANGUISH.

20. Wherefore giveth he light--namely, God; often omitted reverentially

(Job 24:23;

Ec 9:9).

Light, that is, life. The joyful light ill suits the mourners. The

grave is most in unison with their feelings.

23. whose way is hid--The picture of Job is drawn from a wanderer who

has lost his way, and who is hedged in, so as to have no exit of escape

(Ho 2:6;

La 3:7, 9).

24. my sighing cometh before I eat--that is, prevents my eating

[UMBREIT]; or, conscious that the effort to eat

brought on the disease, Job must sigh before eating [ROSENMULLER]; or, sighing takes the place of good

(Ps 42:3)

[GOOD]. But the first explanation accords best

with the text.

my roarings are poured out like the waters--an image from the rushing

sound of water streaming.

25. the thing which I . . . feared is come upon me--In the beginning of

his trials, when he heard of the loss of one blessing, he feared the

loss of another; and when he heard of the loss of that, he feared the

loss of a third.

that which I was afraid of is come unto me--namely, the ill opinion

of his friends, as though he were a hypocrite on account of his trials.

26. I was not in safety . . . yet trouble came--referring, not to his

former state, but to the beginning of his troubles. From that time I

had no rest, there was no intermission of sorrows. "And" (not, "yet") a

fresh trouble is coming, namely, my friends' suspicion of my being a

hypocrite. This gives the starting-point to the whole ensuing

controversy.