Job 3

Job’s Complaint

The patriarch breaks the long silence by bewailing his very birth and life. Better, he cries, never to have been born (1-10), or to have died at his birth or in infancy (11-19). Then follow general reflections on the profitlessness of life to the miserable (20-26).

1 cursed his day. Overcome by his sufferings, Job uttered expressions which cannot be vindicated: see his own confession, xlii. 3. We must remember that the light he enjoyed, and the sources of comfort open to him, were far inferior to ours.

3 the night in which it was said. Literally, as R.V., “the night which said”; a bold personification.

5 shadow of death. A single word (in Heb.), denoting the deepest darkness. It occurs very frequently in this book.

stain it. Rather, “claim it for their own,” as V.R.

7 solitary. Or, “barren,” unable to produce a succeeding day or a new life.

8 ready to raise up their mourning. Rather, “skilful in calling up Leviathan”; i.e., by their incantations. Two kinds of magicians are alluded to in this verse: (1) Those who professed to “curse the day,” making certain days unlucky; and (2) Those who professed to “rouse Leviathan,” the dragon who was popularly supposed to devour the sun or the moon, making eclipses, which were occasions of great terror.

9 the dawning of the day. Heb. (and R.V.), “the eyelids of the morning.”

12 prevent me. That is, “anticipate me,” or “welcome me.”

14 desolate places. Or, “lonely places.” Perhaps tombs, in allusion to the vast sepulchral structures built by departed monarchs.

17. There, etc. i.e., in the grave; where the tyrant and his victim, the captive and the taskmaster (18), the small and the great, the slave and his master, rest together. Job lingers mournfully over the thought of the equality of all in death.

23. Why is light given? Words supplied from ver. 20 to complete the sense. 24 my sighing cometh before I eat. Or, “my sighing comes in the place of my daily food”; i.e., is my daily food (Psa. xiii. 4; lxxx. 6). 25 For the thing which I greatly feared. Literally, “For I fear a fear, and it cometh upon me, and what I dread cometh to me. (26) I have no peace, and I have no quiet, and there cometh trembling.”