Job 3

Chap. III. Ver. 1—26. Job, in an agony of distress, breaks out into a passionate expression of his grief and misery, and wishes for death as a deliverance.—An elegant writer remarks, that “the inhabitants of the East, in general, are a solitary kind of people; they speak but seldom, and not long without emotion…. They are poetical and full of metaphor. Speaking with them is a matter of some moment, as we may gather from their usual introductions; for before they begin to deliver their thoughts, they give notice that they will open their mouth…. unloose their tongue…. utter their voice, and pronounce with their lips. These preambles bear a great resemblance to the old forms of introduction of Homer, Hesiod, and Orpheus, in which they are sometimes followed by Virgil.

I may subjoin, (adds this author,) that they are the very expressions adopted by the sacred writers.” (Blackwall’s Life of Homer.) Thus is Job’s speech introduced: “He opened his mouth, and cursed his day.” Here commences, according to the analysis we have adopted, the second part of this book, which comprises the first colloquy, or series of a poem. Job, completely overwhelmed, and believing himself abandoned by his Creator, gives a loose to all the wildness of despondency; and, in an address of exquisite force and feeling, laments that he ever beheld the light, and calls earnestly for death, as the only refuge of the miserable. This burst of agony is filled with the boldest images and imprecations, and might, perhaps, be thought, in some parts of it, too daring, but that it appears to have been regarded as a masterpiece by the best poets of Judea, and is imitated in its boldest parts by king David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.”

(Dr. Good, see (Jeremiah 20:14-18).; (Lamentations 3:1-20), &c.) But how shall we justify such language as this of Job? Happily we are not called upon to do this. It is no more said (as twice before) that “Job did not sin with his lips.” This was the language, not of his judgment, but of his feelings, and was, doubtless, sinful in the sight of God. It is not, however, for us to criticise it, who never felt his trials: let the man who has been visited with the gout, the stone, or the leprosy—let him, who, at the same time, has been bereaved of every earthly comfort, and reduced from affluence to penury—let him who, under such circumstances, never murmured nor repined—let him cast the first stone.