Job Expresses His Deep Grief In Job 3:1-26 Job expresses the depth of his grief. He first curses the day he was born (Job 3:1-10), then mourns his birth by wishing he were still born (Job 3:11-15), or miscarried (Job 3:16). He then declares the advantages of death over life (Job 3:17-19). He finishes his speech by asking why he was suffering so much in this life (Job 3:20-26).

Job 3:1  After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.

Job 3:1 Comments – Job curses his day, i.e., the night of his conception (usually occurs at night) and the day of his birth.

1. Night (Job 3:6-10)

2. Day (Job 3:4-5)

Job 3:12  Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?

Job 3:12 “Why did the knees prevent me?” Comments – The NIV reads, “Why were there knees to receive me” Note:

Gen 30:3, “And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees , that I may also have children by her.”

Job 3:12 Comments – Anyone who has lived in a third-world nation understands the significance of knees and breasts in nurturing a young infant. The mother sits on the ground, or on a small stool. She places the infant in her lap and he nurses the breast. As the child gets older, he continues to find security in the mother’s lap and often reaches up to take the mother’s breast, but now because it instinctively comforts him as much as it is nourishes him.

Job 3:13  For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,

Job 3:13 Comments – Job was seeking rest. Demons also seek rest by entering into human beings (Luk 11:24).

Luk 11:24, “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.”

Job 3:25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

Job 3:25 Comments – Many Full-Gospel churches in the 1980’s through the 1909’s began to teach that Job himself gave place to the Devil because he was in fear about calamities coming upon him. Then, the preacher quotes this verse to justify this statement. I was sitting with Jack Emerson on the tailgate of his truck in the early 1980’s listening to a cassette tape of a well-known teacher when him and I first heard this teaching. That night, the Lord spoke to Jack in a dream about this teaching and said, “I said that My servant Job was perfect.” In other words, Job did not give place to the Devil. Instead, it was a sovereign act of God to allow Job to be tested.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Job’s Dialogue with Three Friends – Job 3:1 to Job 31:40, which makes up the major portion of this book, consists of a dialogue between Job and his three friends. In this dialogue, Job’s friends engage in three rounds of accusations against Job, with him offering three defenses of his righteousness. Thus, Job and his friends are able to confirm each of their views with three speeches, since the Scriptures tell us that a matter is confirmed in the mouth of two or three witnesses (2Co 13:1). The underlying theme of this lengthy dialogue is man’s attempt to explain how a person is justified before God. Job will express his intense grief (Job 3:1-26), in which his three friends will answer by finding fault with Job. He will eventually respond to this condemnation in a declaration of faith that God Himself will provide a redeemer, who shall stand on earth in the latter days (Job 19:25-27). This is generally understood as a reference to the coming of Jesus Christ to redeem mankind from their sins.

Job’s declaration of his redeemer in Job 19:23-29, which would be recorded for ever, certainly moved the heart of God. This is perhaps the most popular passage in the book of Job, and reflects the depth of Job’s suffering and plea to God for redemption. God certainly answered his prayer by recording Job’s story in the eternal Word of God and by allowing Job to meet His Redeemer in Heaven. I can imagine God being moved by this prayer of Job and moving upon earth to provide someone to record Job’s testimony, and moving in the life of a man, such as Abraham, to prepare for the Coming of Christ. Perhaps it is this prayer that moved God to call Abraham out of the East and into the Promised Land.

The order in which these three friends deliver their speeches probably reflects their age of seniority, or their position in society.

Scene 1 First Round of Speeches Job 3:1 to Job 14:22

Scene 2 Second Round of Speeches Job 15:1 to Job 21:34

Scene 3 Third Round of Speeches Job 22:1 to Job 31:40

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Job Curses the day of His Birth.

Up till now Job had suppressed all thoughts of rebellion against God, every notion of dissatisfaction and impatience with the ways of Jehovah. But now he gives evidence of weakness.

v. 1. After this opened Job his mouth, in the formal manner, with deliberation and gravity, after the custom of the ancient sages, and cursed his day, namely, the day of his birth.

v. 2. And Job spake and said, in a wild and bold outburst, which showed that he was impatient with the afflictions laid upon him by God, Cf Jer 20:14,

v. 3. Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man-child conceived, rather, “the night which said,” for that night is personified as the witness and messenger of evil.

v. 4. Let that day be darkness, be covered with the everlasting shadows of death; let not God regard it from above, in any way inquire after it, as though interested in such an execrable time, neither let the light shine upon it, it should be shut out forever from the light of God’s presence.

v. 5. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it, the thickest darkness, the deepest death-gloom reclaiming and covering it as an unclean thing; let a cloud dwell upon it, encamping over it, obscuring and hiding it forever; let the blackness of the day terrify it, the thought being that, just as a day seems all the gloomier and more dismal after it has once been lit up by a flash of light, so the dismal bitterness of darkness should settle upon the day of his birth as a form of retribution for permitting his being born.

v. 6. As for that night, let darkness seize upon it, everlasting darkness holding it in its possession; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, rather, “let it not be glad of its existence among the days of the year,” as one of a joyful troop of nights which march by in glittering procession; let it not come into the number of the months, it should be omitted and forgotten, as utterly detestable.

v. 7. Lo, let that night be solitary, or, more forceful, “See, that night!” Let it be barren, and therefore utterly desolate, without a cheering voice; let no joyful voice come therein, not a single jubilant shout as over the happy birth of a welcome child.

v. 8. Let them curse it that curse the day, the sorcerers of old, whose ban was thought to bewitch a day so as to make it a day of misfortune, who are ready to raise up their mourning, literally, “those who are skilful in rousing up leviathan,” the great dragon of whom the ancients believed that he devoured the sun and the moon at the time of eclipses, whom the heathen sorcerers tried to drive away with their incantations. All the men who had influence over the powers of evil should join in cursing the night of Job’s conception.

v. 9. Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark, refusing to be the heralds of the dawn and thereby continuing the darkness; let it look for light, but have none, condemned to the everlasting curse of darkness; neither let it see the dawning of the day, literally, “the eyelashes of the dawn,” by which it might be refreshed and filled with pleasure;

v. 10. because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb, thus hindering his being conceived and born, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes, for if he had never been born, he would not now have been afflicted with this suffering. It was an impatient outburst which, although not directed at God outright, yet had the effect of a challenge of His providence and government of the world, and therefore was just as objectionable as similar outbursts on the part of believers today.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

The “Historical Introduction” ended, we come upon a long colloquy, in which the several dramatis personae speak for themselves, the writer, or compiler, only prefacing each speech with a very few necessary words. The speeches are, one and all of them, metrical; and are well represented in the Revised Version. The first colloquy extends from Job 3:1-26 to Job 14:22.

Job 3:1

After this opened Job his mouth. The first to take the word is Job, as, indeed, etiquette made necessary, when the visit paid was one of condolence. It can only be conjectured what the feelings were which had kept him silent so long. We may, perhaps, suggest that in the countenances and manner of his friends he saw something which displeased him, something indicative of their belief that he had brought his afflictions upon himself by secret sins of a heinous character. Pharisaism finds it very difficult to conceal itself; signs of it are almost sure to escape; often it manifests itself, without a word spoken, most offensively. The phrase, “opened his mouth,” is not to be dismissed merely as a Hebraism. It is one used only on solemn occasions, and implies the utterance of deep thoughts, well considered beforehand (Psa 78:21; Mat 5:2), or of feelings long repressed, and now at length allowed expression. And cursed his day; “cursed,” i.e; the “day of his birth.” Some critics think that “cursed” is too strong a word, and suggest “reviled;” but it cannot be denied that “to curse” is a frequent meaning of and it is difficult to see in Job’s words (verses 3-10) anything but a “curse” of a very intense character. To curse one’s natal day is not, perhaps, a very wise act, since it can have no effect on the day or on anything else; but so great a prophet as Jeremiah imitated Job in this respect (Jer 20:14-18), so that before Christianity it would seem that men were allowed thus to relieve their feelings. All that such cursing means is that one wishes one had never been born.

Job 3:2, Job 3:3

And Job spake, and said, Let the day perish wherein I was born. An idle wish, doubtless; the vague utterance of extreme despair. Days cannot perish, or, at any rate, one day cannot perish more than another. They all come, and then are gone; but no day can perish out of the year, which will always have its full complement of three hundred and sixty-five days till time shall be no more. But extreme despair does not reason. It simply gives utterance to the thoughts and wishes as they arise. Job knew that many of his thoughts were vain and foolish, and confesses it further on (see Job 6:3). And the night in which it was said; rather, which said. Day and night are, both of them, personified, as in Psa 19:2. There is a man child conceived. A man child was always regarded in the ancient world as a special blessing, since thus the family was maintained in being. A girl passed into another family.

Job 3:4

Let that day be darkness; i.e. let a cloud rest upon itlet it be regarded as a day of ill omen, “carbone notandus.” Job recognizes that his wish, that the day should perish utterly, is vain, and limits himself now to the possible. Let not God regard it from above; i.e. let not God, from the heaven where he dwells, extend to it his protection and superintending care. Neither let the light shine upon it. Pleonastic, but having the sort of force which belongs to reiteration.

Job 3:5

Let darkness and the shadow of death. “The shadow of death” () is a favourite expression in the Book of Job, where it occurs no fewer than nine times. Elsewhere it is rare, except in the Psalms, where it occurs four times. It is thought to be an archaic word. Stain it; rather, claim it, or claim it for their own (Revised Version). Let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. The hot, stifling “blackness” of the khamsin wind is probably meant, which suddenly turns the day into night, spreading all around a thick lurid darkness. When such a wind arises, we are told, “The sky instantly becomes black and heavy; the sun loses its splendour, and appears of a dim violet hue; a light, warm breeze is felt, which gradually increases in heat till it almost equals that of an oven. Though no vapour darkens the air, it becomes so grey and thick with the floating clouds of impalpable sand, that it is sometimes necessary to use candles at noonday”.

Job 3:6

As for that night. The night, that is, of Job’s conception (see above, verse 3). Let darkness seize upon it. The Revised Version has thick darkness‘ but this is unnecessary. Let it not be joined unto the days of the year. According to the Massorites’ pointing, we should translate, “Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;” and so the Revised Version. But many of the best critics prefer the pointing which is followed by the LXX. and by King James’s translators. The succeeding clause strongly supports this interpretation. Let it not come into the number of the months (comp. verse 3, and the comment on it). Job wishes the day of his birth and the night of his conception to be utterly blotted out from the calendar; but, aware that this is impossible, he subsides into a milder class of imprecations.

Job 3:7

Lo, let that night be solitary; or, sterile; “let no one be born in it.” Lot no joyful voice come therein; literally, no song. Perhaps the moaning is, “Let no such joyful announcement be made,” as that mentioned in Job 3:3.

Job 3:8

Let them curse it that curse the day. Very different explanations are given of this passage. Some suppose it to mean, “Let those desperate men curse it who are in the habit of cursing their day,” like Job himself (Job 3:1) and Jeremiah (Jer 20:14). Others suggest a reference to such as claimed power to curse days, and to divide them into the lucky and the unlucky. In this case Job would mean, “Let the sorcerers who curse days curse especially this day,” and would thus seem, if not to sanction the practice, at any rate to express a certain amount of belief in the sorcerers’ power. The second clause has also a double interpretation, which adapts it to either of these two suggested meanings (vide infra). Who are ready to raise up their mourning. This is an impossible rendering. Translate (with the Revised Version), who are ready to rouse up leviathan. “Rousing leviathan” may be understood in two ways. It may be regarded as spoken in the literal sense of those who are rash enough and desperate enough to stir up the fury of the crocodile (see the comment on Job 41:1), or in a metaphorical sense of such as stir up to action by their sorceries the great power of evil, symbolized in Oriental mythologies by a huge serpent, or dragon, or crocodile. On the whole, the second and deeper sense seems preferable; and we may conceive of Job as believing in the power of sorcery, and wishing it used against the night which he so much dislikes.

Job 3:9

Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; i.e. “let not even the light of a star illuminate the morning or evening twilight of that night; let it be dark from beginning to end, uncheered even by the ray of a star.” Let it look for light, but have none. Again a personification. The night is regarded as consciously waiting in hope of the appearance of morning, but continually disappointed by the long lingering of the darkness. And let it not see the dawning of the day; rather, as in the margin and in the Revised Version, let it not behold the eyelids of the morning (compare Milton’s ‘Lycidas,’ “Under the opening eyelids of the morn,” and Soph; ‘Antigone,’ ).

Job 3:10

Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb; literally, of my womb; i.e. “of the womb which bare me.” By a stretch of imagination, the night is supposed to have power to open or shut wombs, and is blamed for not having shut up the womb in which Job was conceived. Nor hid sorrow from mine eyes; i.e. “and did not so prevent all the sorrows that have befallen me.”

Job 3:11

Why died I not from the womb? “From the womb” must mean, “as soon as I came out of the womb,” not “while I yet remained within it” (comp. Jer 20:17, “Because he slew me not from the womb”). Many of the ancients thought that it was best not to be born; and next best, if one were born, to quit the earth as soon as possible. Herodotus says that with the Trauri, a tribe of Thracians, it was the custom, whenever a child was born, for all its kindred to sit round it in a circle, and weep for the woes that it would have to endure now that it was come into the world; while, on the other hand, whenever a person died, they buried him with laughter and rejoicings, since they said that he was now free from a host of sufferings, and enjoyed the completest happiness (Herod; Job 5:4). Sophocles expresses the feeling with great terseness and force: : “Not to be born is best of all; once born, next best it is by far to go back there from whence one came as speedily as possible.” Modem pessimism sums up all in the phrase that “life is not worth living.” Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? As so often, the second clause of the distich repeats the idea of the first, merely varying the phraseology.

Job 3:12

Why did the knees prevent me? i.e. “Why did my mother take me on her knees and nurse me, instead of casting me on the ground, where I should have perished?” There seems to be an allusion to the practice of parents only bringing up a certain number of their children. Or why the breasts that I should suck? i.e. “Why were breasts offered to me, that I should suck them? How much better would it have been if I had been allowed to perish of inanition!”

Job 3:13

For now should I have lain still and been quiet. “In that case, I should now () have been lying still and resting myself,” instead of tossing about, and being full of restlessness and suffering.” I should have slept. The life in the intermediate state is called “sleep,” even in the New Testament (Mat 9:24; Joh 11:11; Act 7:60; 1Co 15:18, 1Co 15:51, etc.). Job, perhaps, imagined it to be, actually, a sound, dreamless slumber. Then should I have been at rest; literally, then () would there have been rest for me.“

Job 3:14

With kings and counsellers of the earth. As a great man himself, nobly born probably, Job expects that his place in another world would have been with kings and nobles (see Isa 14:9-11, where the King of Babylon, on entering Sheol, finds himself among “all the kings of the nations”). Which built desolate places for themselves. Some understand “restorers of cities which had become waste and desolate;” others, “builders of edifices which, since they built them, have become desolate;” others, again, “builders of desolate and dreary piles,” such as the Pyramids, and the rock-tombs common in Arabia, which were desolate and dreary from the time that they were built. The brevity studied by the writer makes his meaning somewhat obscure.

Job 3:15

Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver. This may either mean simply,” princes who were rich in silver and gold during their lifetime,” or “princes who have gold and silver buried with them in their tombs.” It was the custom in Egypt, in Phoenicia, and elsewhere throughout the East, to bury large quantities of treasure, especially gold and silver vessels, and jewellery, in the sepulchres of kings and other great men. A tomb of a Scythian king in the Crimea, opened about fifty years ago, contained a golden shield, a golden diadem, two silver vases, a vase in electrum, and a number of ornaments, partly in electrum and partly in gold. Another Scythian tomb near the Caspian, opened by the Russian authorities, contained ornaments set with rubies and emeralds, together with four sheets of gold, weighing forty pounds. A third, near Asterabad, contained a golden goblet, weighing seventy ounces; a pot, eleven ounces, and two small trumpets. The tombs of the kings and queens in Egypt were so richly supplied with treasure that, in the time of the twentieth dynasty, a thieves’ society was formed for plundering them, especially of their golden ornaments. The tomb of Cyrus the Great contained, we are told (Arrian, ‘Exp. Alex.,’ Job 6:29), a golden couch, a golden table set out with drinking-cups, a golden bowl, and much elegant clothing adorned with gems. Phoenician tombs, in Cyprus especially, have recently yielded enormous treasures. If the “gold” and “silver” of the present passage refer to treasures buried with princes and kings, we must understand by the “houses” of the second clause their tombs. The Egyptians called their tombs their “eternal abodes” (Diod. Sic; 1.51).

Job 3:16

Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light. This is added as another way in which Job might have escaped his misery. Though conceived and brought to the birth, he might have been still-born, and so have known no suffering.

Job 3:17

There. The word has no expressed antecedent, but the general tenor of the passage supplies one. “There” is equivalent to “in the grave.” The wicked cease from troubling; i.e.” cease from their state of continual perturbation and unrest” (comp. Isa 57:20, “But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt “). This is their condition, so long as they live; nothing satisfies them; they are always in trouble themselves, and always causing trouble to others. In the grave alone do they rest, or seem to rest. And there the weary be at rest; literally, the weary in strength‘ or “in respect of strength;” i.e. those whose strength is utterly exhausted and worn out. Here Job undoubtedly alludes to himself. He looks to the grave as his only refuge, the only hope he has of recovering peace and tranquillity.

Job 3:18

There the prisoners rest together. “There those who in life were prisoners, condemned to work at enforced labours, enjoy sweet rest together.” They hear not the voice of the oppressor; rather, of the taskmaster (comp. Exo 3:7; Exo 5:6, where the same word is used). The task. master continually urged on the wearied labourers with such words as those of Exo 5:13, “Fulfil your works, fulfil your daily tasks. In the grave these hated sounds would not be heard.

Job 3:19

The small and great are there; i.e. “all are there, the small and great alike;” for

“Omnes eodem cogimur, cranium

Versatur urna serius ocius
Sors exitura, et nos in aeternum
Exilium impositura cymbae.”

(Her; ‘ Od.’)

And the servant is free from his master; rather, the slave ().

Job 3:20

Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery? Why, Job asks, is the miserable man forced to continue on the earth and see the light to-day? Why is he not sent down at once to the darkness of the grave? Surely this would have been better. Man often speaks as if he were wiser than his Maker, and could have much improved the system of the universe, if he had had the arranging of it; but he scarcely means what he says commonly. Such talk is, however, foolish, as is all captious questioning concerning the ways of God. The proper answer to all such questioning is well given by Zophar in Job 11:7, Job 11:8, “Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell (Sheol); what canst thou know?” And life unto the bitter in soul (see the comment on Job 11:11, ad fin.).

Job 3:21

Which long for death, but it cometh not; literally, which wait for death‘ anxiously and longingly (comp. Psa 33:20). And dig for it more than for hid treasures; i.e. “seek it more earnestly than even they seek who dig for hid treasures.” As Professor Lee remarks, “From the great instability of all Eastern governments, treasures were in Eastern countries often hid away”. And hence treasure-seeking became a profession, which was pursued with avidity by a large number of persons. Even at the present day Orientals are so possessed with the idea, that they imagine every European, who is eager to unearth antiquities, must be seeking for buried treasure.

Job 3:22

Which rejoice exceedingly; literally, to exultation‘ or “to dancing;” i.e. so that they almost dance with joy. And are glad, when they can find the grave. Job speaks as if he knew of such eases; and, no doubt, the fact of suicide proves that among men there are some who prefer to die rather than live. But suicides are seldom altogether in possession of their senses. Of sane men it may be doubted whether one in a thousand, however miserable, really wishes to die, or is “glad when he can find the grave.” In such thoughts as those to which Job here gives expression there is something morbid and unreal.

Job 3:23

Why is light given to a man whose way is hid? “Obscured,” that is, “darkened,” “placed under a cloud” (comp. Job 3:20, where the sentiment is nearly the same). And whom God hath hedged in. Not in the way of protection, as in Job 1:10, but of obstruction and confinement: (comp. Job 19:8 and Hos 2:6). Job feels himself confined, imprisoned, blocked in. He can neither see the path which he ought to pursue nor take steps in any direction.

Job 3:24

For my sighing cometh before I eat literally, before my meat; i.e. “more early and more constantly than my food” (Professor Lee). And my roarings are poured out. The word translated “roaring” is used primarily of the roar of a lion (Zec 11:3; comp. Amo 3:8); secondarily, of the loud cries uttered by men who suffer pain (see Psa 22:1; Psa 32:4). (On the loud cries of Orientals when suffering from grief or pain, see the comment on Job 2:12.) Like the waters; i.e. freely and copiously, without let or stint. Perhaps the loud sound of rushing water is also alluded to.

Job 3:25

For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me; literally, for I fear a fear, and it comes upon me. The meaning is not that the affliction which has come upon him is a thing which Job had feared when he was prosperous; but that now that he is in adversity, he is beset with fears, and that all his presentiments of evil are almost immediately accomplished. The second clause, And that which I was (rather, am) afraid of is come unto me, merely repeats and emphasizes the first (see the comment on verse 11).

Job 3:26

I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came. Some Hebraists give quite a different turn to this passage, rendering it as follows: “I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest; but trouble cometh”. Professor Lee, however, certainly one of the most eminent of modern Hebraists, maintains that the far more pregnant meaning of the Authorized Version gives the true sense. “If I rightly apprehend,” he says, “the drift of the context here, Job means to have it understood that he is conscious of no instance in which he has relaxed from his religious obligations; of no season in which his fear and love of God have waxed weak; and, on this account, it was the more perplexing that such a complication of miseries had befallen him”; and he translates the passage, “I slackened not, neither was I quiet, neither took I rest; yet trouble came.” Job’s complaint is thus far more pointedly terminated than by a mere otiose statement that, “without rest or pause, trouble came upon trouble.”

HOMILETICS

Job 3:1-10

The stricken patriarch’s lament: 1. Deploring his birth.

I. DELIBERATE DISCOURSE.

1. The time. “After this;” i.e. after the seven days’ silence, after waiting, perhaps, for some expression of sympathy from his friends, perhaps also after discerning no mitigation in his miseryan indication that Job spoke not under the influence of some sudden paroxysm of grief, but with fixed resolve and after mature consideration. Language that is passionate may also be deliberate; and although hasty words are sometimes more excusable than composed utterances, as a rule it is wiser and better, especially when under strong emotion, to be “swift to hear, but slow to speak” (Jas 1:19).

2. The manner. “Opened Job his mouth.” The usual Hebrew formula for intimating the commencement of a speech; this may also mark, in accordance with Oriental custom, the grave composure and solemn stateliness with which Job began his address, as well as hint at the exceptional character of his discourse. Already, since the beginning of his troubles, he had twice opened his mouth to bless God and justify his ways; never until now had he opened his mouth to curse.

II. IMPASSIONED ELOQUENCE.

1. The sublimity of Job‘s language. “There is nothing in ancient or modern poetry equal to the entire burst, whether in the wildness and horror of its imprecations, or the terrible sublimity of its imagery (Goode). “There is indeed a tremendous bulk and heat in his words; his imagination has Titanic grasp and violence in it. All nature’s powers he translates into living things” (Davidson).

2. The naturalness of Job‘s language. Even on the hypothesis that the verses contain rather the formulated conceptions of the author than the ipsissima verba of Job, one cannot but feel the dramatic suitability of beth their thought and language to the situation, as well as to the individual to whom they have been assigned. It does not strike one as too lofty for a man of the intellectual calibre of Job; nor does it appear to be inappropriate as a vehicle for the burning thoughts that were then struggling for utterance within his grief-laden soul.

3. The influence of Job‘s language. “The boldest and most animated poets of Jerusalem made it the model of their threnodies or grief-songs, whenever uttered in scenes of similar distress” (Goode; cf. Lam 3:1-20; Jer 20:14 16; Eze 30:14-18; Eze 32:7-9, etc.). Among the instances in which modem poetry has been indebted to the imagery of the present chapter, may be mentioned Shakespeare, ‘King John,’ act 3. sc. 1; act 3. sc. 4; ‘Macbeth,’ act 2. sc. 4.

III. WILD IMPRECATION.

1. The day of his birth is in general terms execrated: “Let the day perish wherein I was born” (verse 3); meaning, let it be erased from the calendar of existence, let it be filled with misery, buried in obscurity, and loaded with dishonour, or let it be blotted out from all remembrance. After which in detail he prays that it may be:

(1) Enshrouded in darkness (verse 4); unillumined by the light of heaven, which imparts loveliness to all mundane thingsan imprecation conversely reminding us of the value of light.

(2) Abandoned by God (verse 4), who, while interesting himself in all his other creatures, should never ask after it. “Job’s wish of darkness had done his day no great hurt, unless he had taken the eye of God from it also’ (Caryl). God’s favour is the greatest blessing of the creature; and neither day nor man can be truly happy from which that favour is withdrawn.

(3) Reclaimed by death (verse 5): “Let darkness and deathshade claim it”redeem it as a stray portion of their original kingdom, which had wandered into the realms of light, and carry it back to its primeval abode. Adhering to the metaphor which compares the light of day to a captive escaped from the prison-house of darkness, we may remember by whose power it was that the light was first liberated (Gen 1:3), and whose hand it is that still directs it to the ends of the earth (Job 37:3). We may note too that we have a better Kinsman than Job’s day hadone who can buy us back, not like it, from light to darkness, but from darkness to light.

(4) Haunted by terrors: “Let the blackness of the day terrify it” (verse 5); as if it were a living thing cowering and shrinking in abject horror before troops of black omens continually occuring on it, such as eclipses, unnatural obscurations, pestilential vapours, dark storm-clouds; meaning, let it be a day to inspire terror in all beholders. The human soul is easily alarmed by unusual phenomena; but why should it when God is in them (Psa 97:1-5)?

2. The night of his conception he likewise anathematizes in general terms (verse 3); after which, personifying it, he measures out for it too a series of detailed imprecations, imploring that it might be:

(1) Excluded from the calendar; being overtaken by the surging waves of primal darkness, seized and carried back upon its ebbing tide to “chaos and old night,” so that it should never join in the choral procession of the days and months that compose the year (verse 6)a foolish curse, since the blotting out of the night could have no effect upon his sorrow.

(2) Destitute of gladness; “sitting in solitary, unrelieved gloom, nothing living and rejoicing in life coming from its womb, while other nights around it experience a parent’s joy, and ring with birthday rejoicing” (verse 7)a cruel curse, which sought to transfer his own misery to others.

(3) Cursed by enchanters, those who by their incantations can bring calamities on days otherwise propitious, rousing up leviathan (whether the crocodile, as the emblem of evil, or the dragon, i.e. the constellation of the serpent, as the enemy of the sun and moon, vide Exposition) to swallow it up (verse 8)a superstitious curse, showing that good men are not always so enlightened as they should be.

(4) Doomed to darkness; always trembling on the verge of daylight, but never beholding the eyelids of the dawn (verse 9)a presumptuous curse, since it thought to arrest a divinely appointed ordinance.

IV. ASTOUNDING SELFISHNESS.

1. Thinking nothing of the happiness of others.

(1) Neither of his mother’s joy in his birth, who doubtless rejoiced over his advent into life, as Sarah did over Isaac’s, as Elisabeth did over John’s, and as every mother worthy of the name does over her babe’s; who probably, in the exultation of the moment, named him Job (“Joyous’), and experienced a fresh thrill of gladness every time she paused to note his opening manhood and his ripening piety;of all which she would have been bereft had Job not been born.

(2) Nor of the interest of others in his birthday, not, perhaps, because it was his, but because it was their own, or their children’s, or their parents’, or their friends’; and why should they have all their happiness blighted because Job counted it a terrible misfortune that he had been ushered into life?

2. Thinking continually upon the misery of himself. The sole reason for his tremendous imprecation is the tact that on that particular day (and night) he had entered on his miserable career of existence. Suffering and sorrow, which are sent, and supposed, to render men sympathetic, not unfrequently result in selfishness, especially when conjoined with impatience, which is “ordinarily a great ponderer of griefs, because they are ours, little weighing the troubles of others” (Hutcheson).

V. RASHNESS APPROACHING TO WICKEDNESS.

1. Its extenuations. Much to be ascribed to

(1) the emotional nature of Orientals;

(2) the comparatively unenlightened age in which Job lived;

(3) the extreme severity, multiplicity, and continuance of his troubles; and

(4) the provocation he may have received from the reproachful and suspicious looks of his friends.

2. Its aggravations. With every disposition to palliate Job’s offence, it is impossible to acquit him of sin; for

(1) he immoderately indulged his sorrow, which, though natural in itself, and at times becoming, and even sanctioned by religion, should yet never be permitted to exceed (1Co 7:30);

(2) he overstepped the bounds of propriety in speech, employing phrases and terms full of passion as well as force, whereas saints should exercise restraint upon their tongues as well as tempers (Psa 141:3; Col 4:6; Tit 2:8);

(3) he used the language of imprecation, which became not a good man (Rom 12:14), and was a frequent mark of bad men (Psa 10:7; Psa 109:18);

(4) if he cursed not God, he execrated God’s gift, his birthday, thus showing himself guilty of presumption in denouncing what God had blessed (Gen 1:28; Psa 127:1-5 :8), and of ingratitude in despising what God had bestowed, viz. life (Gen 2:7; Act 17:28);

(5) he did all this knowingly and deliberately (Job 3:1); and

(6) without regard to the interests of others.

Learn:

1. That a good man may stand long, and yet at length show symptoms of falling. “Be not highminded, but fear.”

2. It is specially to be deplored when great gifts are employed for sinful purposes. Upon every talent should be inscribed, “Holiness to the Lord!”

3. That the tongue is a world of iniquity when it is set on fire of hell “Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!”

4. That every creature of God is good, and to be received with thanksgiving; even birthdays, for which saints should bless God while they live.

5. That though sins may be palliated, they still require to be pardoned; excuses do not cancel guilt.

6. That from the greatest depth of wickedness into which a child of God can fall, he may ultimately be recovered. “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.”

Job 3:11-19

The stricken patriarch’s lament: 2. Bewailing his life.

I. THE DESPISED GIFTLIFE. In bitterness of soul, Job not only laments that ever he had entered on the stage of existence at all, but with the perverse ingenuity of grief which looks at all things crosswise, he turns the very mercies of God into occasions of complaint, despising God’s care of him:

1. Before birth. “Why died I not from the womb?” i.e. while I was yet unborn; surely a display of monstrous ingratitude, since, if God did not protect the tender offspring of men prior to their birth, it would be impossible that they should ever see the light (contrast Psa 139:13).

2. At birth. “Why did 1 not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?” To which he might himself have returned answer:

(1) Because of God’s sovereign will; man being God’s creature (Gen 5:1; Deu 4:32; Job 10:8; Job 12:10; Job 27:3; Job 33:4), and God ever doing according to his will among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of earth (Job 9:12; Job 12:9; Job 33:13).

(2) Because of God’s great power, the hour of birth being a time so fraught with peril to a tender babe as well as to a suffering mother, that only God’s watchful guardianship can account for a child not dying as soon as it is born (Job 31:15; Psa 71:6).

(3) Because of God’s spontaneous kindness; life being a gift to the bestowal of which God can be moved by nothing but his own free favour, as Job afterwards acknowledged (Job 10:12).

3. After birth. “Why did the knees prevent”i.e. anticipate”me? or why the breasts that I should suck?” (verse 12). To which, again, he might have responded that man is so helpless in infancy that without the safe shelter of a father’s arms and the strong support of a father’s knees, as well as the warm nest of a mother’s bosom and the rich consolations of a mother’s breasts, he must inevitably perish. That God has provided these for man is a signal proof of the Divine wisdom and loving-kindness. That any should despise them is a mark of thoughtlessness, if not of depravity (cf. Psa 22:9, Psa 22:10; Psa 71:5, Psa 71:6).

II. THE LOST BLESSINGTHE GRAVE. Thus undervaluing God’s great gift of life, he proceeds to depict a blessing of which he foolishly as well as sinfully supposes himself to have been deprived in consequence of having entered on the stage of existence, viz. the peaceful repose of the grave, in which he should have enjoyed:

1. Perfect rest‘ “Now should I have lain still,” like one reclining on his couch after the labours of the daydeath being compared to a night of resting after the day of working life (Ecc 9:1-18; Ecc 10:1-20; Psa 104:23; Rev 14:13). “And been quiet”at peace, withdrawn from every kind of trouble and annoyancethe grave being a place of absolute security against every form of temporal calamity (verses 17, 18; Ecc 9:5). “I should have slept”death being often likened to a sleep (Joh 11:11; Act 7:60; Act 13:1-52 :86; 1Th 4:13; 1Th 5:10). “Then had I been at rest;” my sleep being untroubled, a profound slumber unvisited by dreamsthe rest of the grave being, especially for the good man, a couch of the most peaceful repose (Gen 15:15; Ecc 12:5; Job 7:2 l; Job 30:23), in comparison with which Job’s maladies and miseries allowed him neither rest nor quiet.

2. Dignified companionship. “Then had I been at rest with kings and counsellors of the earth,” etc. Enjoying a splendid association with the great ones of the earth, now lying in their magnificent mausoleums, instead of sitting, as I presently do, on this ash-heap, in sublime but sorrowful isolation, an object of loathing and disgust to passers-by. The human heart, in its seasons of distress, longs for society, in particular the society of sympathetic friends; and sometimes the loneliness of sorrow is so great that the thought of the grave, with its buried millions, presents to the sufferer a welcome relief. However obscure, isolated, miserable, the lot of a saint on earth, death introduces him to the noblest fellowships of his fathers (Gen 15:15; Gen 25:8); of “the spirits of just men made perfect” (Heb 12:23); of the Saviour (Luk 23:43; Php 1:23).

3. Absolute equality. Whereas he was now spurned by his fellows, he would then, had he died in infancy, have attained to as much glory as the aforesaid counsellors, kings, and princes, who, notwithstanding their ambitious greatness, which had led them to construct gorgeous sepulchres and amass untold hoards of wealth, were now lying cold and stiff within their desolate palaces. Behold the vanity of earthly greatness!monarchs mouldering in the dust (Isa 14:11; Eze 32:23). See the impotence of wealthit cannot arrest the footsteps of death (Jas 1:11; Luk 16:22). Note that death is a great leveller (Ecc 2:14, Ecc 2:16; Psa 89:48; Heb 9:27), and the grave a place where distinctions are unknown (verse 19; Ecc 3:20).

4. Complete tranquillity. “As a hidden untimely birth I had not been, and as children that have never seen the light” (verse 16; cf. Ecc 6:4, Ecc 6:5); unconscious and still as non-existence itself, as those “upon whose unopened ear no cry of misery ever fell, and on whose unopened eye the light, and the evil which the light reveals, never broke;” a tranquillity deeper (and, in Job’s estimation, more blessed) than that of those who only attain rest after passing through life’s illsa doctrine against which both the light of nature and the voice of revelation protest (vide homily on verse 16).

5. Entire emancipation. A perfect cessation from all life’s troubles, and a final escape from the exactions of his unseen oppressor. “There the wicked cease from troubling,” etc. (verses 17-19; cf. Ecc 9:5-10)a sentiment, again, which is only partially correct, i.e. so far as it relates to the ills of life.

LESSONS.

1. God’s best gifts are often least appreciated.

2. Men frequently mistake ill for good.

3. What we have not commonly appears more desirable than what we have.

4. “Better is a living dog than a dead lion.”

5. The grave is a poor place for a man to hide his sorrows in.

6. It is better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.

7. It is well to scrutinize keenly all that we either think or say in trouble.

8. There is a greater sin than despising the gift of temporal existentence, viz. despising the offer of eternal life.

Job 3:13-19

The grave.

I. A REGION OF IMPENETRABLE DARKNESS.

II. A REALM OF UNBROKEN SILENCE.

III. AN ABODE OF DEEP TRANQUILLITY.

IV. A BED OF PEACEFUL SLUMBER.

V. A WORLD OF ABSOLUTE EQUALITY.

VI. A PLACE OF UNIVERSAL RENDEZVOUS.

VII. A HOUSE OF TEMPORARY LODGING.

LESSONS.

1. Humility.

2. Contentment.

3. Diligence.

4. Watchfulness.

Job 3:16

To be or not to be.

I. AGAINST BEING AND IN FAVOUR OF NOT–BEING.

1. Life is little other than a capacity for suffering affliction.

2. At the best, life is so short, and man’s powers so feeble, that nothing he undertakes can attain to perfection.

3. In every instance life involves the terrible necessity and painful experience of dying.

4. Life always carries in its bosom the possibility of coming short of everlasting felicity.

II. IN FAVOUR OF BEING AND AGAINST NOT–BEING.

1. Life in itself is a thing of pure enjoyment.

2. Man’s powers, though imperfect, are susceptible of infinite improvement.

3. The day of existence, whether long or short, affords a noble opportunity for serving God.

4. The fact that one is born gives him a chance, by being born again, of attaining to salvation and eternal life.

LESSONS.

1. Notwithstanding all the miseries of human life, it is better to have been born than to have remained in non-existence.

2. Notwithstanding all its brevity and imperfection, life is worth living.

3. Because of all its hardships and sorrows, it should be given up with resignation when God recalls it to himself.

Job 3:20-26

The stricken patriarch’s lament: 3. Desiring his death.

I. DOLEFUL LAMENTATION. Job pitifully wails forth that his soul was in bitterness because of:

1. The miseries of life. Which he depicts as:

(1) inward trouble; not merely bodily pain, but mental anguish, bitterness of soul (verse 20); the acutest form of all distress (Pro 18:14; cf. ‘Macbeth,’ act 5. sc. 3).

(2) Constant trouble, which came to him as regularly as his daily bread: “My sighing cometh before I eat” (cf. Psa 80:5; Isa 30:20).

(3) Abundant trouble, like the gushing forth of waters: “My roarings are poured out like the waters” (verse 24)a frequent image for affliction (cf. 2Sa 22:17; Psa 42:7; Psa 88:7).

(4) Paralyzing trouble, terror overtaking him the moment he thought of it: “I feared a fear, and it came upon me” (verse 25; cf. “He that but fearer etc; ‘Henry IV.,’ pt. 2, act 1. sc. 1).

(5) Superfluous trouble; i.e. his misery had not sprung upon him revelling in sinful and luxurious ease, which might have afforded some justification for so appalling a visitation as had overtaken him; but when already he was a stricken man, another and a greater sorrow leapt forth upon him: “I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came” (verse 26).

2. The perplexities of providence. To these he alludes when he describes himself as a man “whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in” (verse 23). The term “way” is often put for course of life (Psa 1:6; Pro 4:19; Isa 26:7; Jer 10:23); and a man’s way may be said to be hid (i.e. to himself) when either its future character is concealed from his perception, or the reason for its present shape is not understood. Now, to all men a veil inscrutable separates the future, the immediate no less than the remote, from the present (Pro 27:1; Jas 4:14). The special ground of complaint felt by Job was, not so much that he had been subjected to adversity, but that he could not discern the reason of God’s mysterious dealings with him; that his sufferings so engirt him like a lofty wall, that he not only knew not which way to turn, but that he failed to discover any way to turn. The like perplexity has frequently been experienced by God’s people (of Jer 12:1; Psa 42:5; l73:2; Lam 3:7). But it is unreasonable to expect that God’s ways should be perfectly patent to the finite understanding. Man cannot always fathom the purposes or comprehend the plans of his fellow-creatures: how much less should he think to gauge the counsel of him whose wisdom is “fold over fold” (Job 11:6); or discern the reason of every dark dispensation that is measured out by him whose judgments are a great deep (Psa 36:6)! Hence God charges his saints, when they see that clouds and darkness surround his throne, that his footsteps are in the sea, and that his way is not known, to preserve their souls in patience, to decline to be perplexed, and to calmly trust their present way and future course to him who always walketh in the light, and who, out of the greatest entanglements and darkest riddles of life, is able to evolve his own glory and their good (Psa 37:5; Isa 26:3, Isa 26:4; Rom 8:28).

II. QUERULOUS EXPOSTULATION. “Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery,” etc? (verses 20, 23). The interrogation indicated:

1. Astonishing presumption on the part of Job, not only in questioning the Supreme, seeing that he giveth no account of his doings unto any, and least of all to men (Job 33:13; Psa 46:10; Jer 18:6; Dan 4:35); but much more in addressing to him such a question, which practically meantWhy should a man be sent into this world? or, if sent into it, why should he be kept in it, unless his existence is to be always encircled with the radiance of prosperity, and exhilarated with the wine of joy, and unless he is to be assisted both to pierce the veil of futurity and to penetrate the overshadowing clouds of the present?

2. Monstrous ingratitude; in first depreciating what, after Christ and salvation, is God’s highest gift to man, viz. existence; in forgetting the manifold blessings he had enjoyed during the former period of his prosperity; and in overlooking the fact that he had some good gifts remaining still. But men are prone to forget past mercies (Psa 103:2; cf. ‘Troilus and Cressida,’ act 3. sc. 3), and to appreciate what the)’ have not more highly than what they have. True thankfulness magnifies the gifts it has received, and does not grudge that the great Giver still reserves something to bestow (cf. ‘Timon of Athens,’ act 3. sc. 6).

3. Extraordinary ignorance; in not discerning that the ultimate end and chief aim of life are not to render men happy, but to make them holy; not to make them wise as the gods (Gen 3:5), but to form them into sons of God (Hebrews if. 10); and that these sublime purposes may be secured as well through adversity as through prosperity. But perhaps the absence of gospel light should explain and extenuate in Job’s case what in ours would be reprehensible in the extreme.

III. MELACHOLY EXULTATION. Job’s vehement longing for death bespoke:

1. An intense pressure of misery. Seeing that life is essentially joyous (Ecc 11:7), that men naturally cling to life above every earthly possession (Job 2:4), and that the intrinsic worth and happiness of life are a thousandfold increased by the addition of Heaven’s favour, it indicates an amount and degree of wretchedness transcending ordinary experience when a man yearns for life’s extinction, exults in the prospect of dissolution, would be blithe to find a grave, however humble or obscure

“Mad from life’s history,
Glad to death’s mystery,

Swift to be hurl’d,

Anywhere, anywhere out of the world.”

(Hood, ‘Bridge of Sighs.’)

They who find life’s calamities in any measure tolerable have reason to bless God for laying on them no heavier burden than they are able to bear, and for imparting to them strength to bear the burden which he does impose. God’s grace alone keeps men from sinking beneath the weight and pressure of life’s ills. Contrast with Job’s present state of mind that of St. Paul in the Roman prison (Php 1:23).

2. An utter extinction of hope. “The miserable hath no other medicine, but only hope”hope that things will eventually improve; that the clouds of adversity will yet give place to the fair sunshine of prosperity; but even this the patriarch appears to have abandoned. It would be incorrect to affirm that Job had absolutely lost his hold on God; but of hope in a return to health and happiness he had none. Yet in this Job errederred two ways: in thinking himself at the worst, which he was not; and in despairing of recovery, which he should not. It is seldom so sad with any one that it could not be sadder; and it is seldom so bad that it cannot be improved. All things are possible with God, and God reigneth; therefore nil desperandum either in nature or in grace.

3. A sad want of faith. Had Job been able calmly to trust himself and his future to God, it is certain he would not have so inordinately longed for death. He would have reasoned that neither the miseries of life nor the perplexities of providence were a sufficient reason for God’s cancelling the grant of life, or for a saint seeking the relief of death; since:

(1) God has an absolute right to dispose of his creatures as he may.

(2) No man has a claim on God for complete exemption from trouble.

(3) Affliction in some shape or another is every man’s desert in this world.

(4) The higher purposes of life may be secured better through adversity than through prosperity.

(5) It is not certain that escape from misery would in every instance be attained by escape from life.

(6) And it is possible for bodily calamity and mental trouble and soul-anguish to pass away before the end of life, while life once withdrawn can never be restored.

Learn:

1. Men are apt to think there is no reason for that for which they can see no reason.

2. The best gifts of God may become burdensome to their possessors.

3. Some look for death, but cannot find it; death ever finds those for whom it looks.

4. Afflictions are commonly accompanied by much darkness, which faith only can illumine.

5. Though a man’s way is sometimes hid from himself, it never is concealed from God.

Job 3:20

Two marvels that are no mysteries.

I. LIVING MEN ARE OFTEN MISERABLE.

1. Surprising; when we consider

(1) that men are the creatures of a loving God;

(2) that their Creator designed them for happiness;

(3) that the most abundant provision has been made for their felicity. Yet:

2. Not inexplicable; when we remember

(1) that men are sinful creatures, and deserve to be miserable;

(2) that men carry the true source of misery within themselves, in their sinful hearts; and

(3) that men not unfrequently neglect that which alone can remove their miseryGod’s grace and Christ’s blood.

II. MISERABLE MEN OFTEN CONTINUE LIVING.

1. Astonishing; if we reflect upon

(1) the frailty of life, and the ease with which it may be terminated;

(2) the heaviness of that burden of sorrow it is sometimes called to support;

(3) the intensity with which sufferers not unfrequently long for death. Still:

2. Not insoluble; if we recollect

(1) how they are kept in life by the power of God; and

(2) why they are kept in life, viz.

(a) to glorify God, by exhibiting his power in sustaining them, and his grace in giving them opportunity to improve;

(b) to benefit themselves, by allowing time for suffering, if possible, to perfect them in obedience; and, supposing this end attained,

(c) to instruct their fellows how to bear and how to profit by affliction.

Job 3:23

(along with Job 1:10).

The two hedges; of the hedge of prosperity and the hedge of adversity.

I. IN WHAT THEY COMPARE.

1. In being planted by God. Job’s prosperity was from God; his adversity was not without God.

2. In encircling the saint. Job was equally a pious man in both positions.

3. In being both removable. If Job’s prosperity was exchanged for adversity, his adversity was afterwards succeeded by prosperity,

II. IN WHAT THEY CONTRAST.

1. In the frequency of their setting. Adversity a more frequent experience than prosperity.

2. In the comfort they afford. Prosperity a hedge of roses; adversity of thorns.

3. In the effects they produce. Prosperity more dangerous to a man’s spiritual interests than adversity.

III. IN WHAT THEY SUGGEST.

1. That God’s hand is in everything.

2. That the saint’s good may be advanced by everything.

3. That the devil’s arrows shoot at everything.

HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON

Job 3:1-26

The eloquence of grief.

This book, so entirely true to nature, presents here one of the darkest moods of the grief-stricken heart. The first state is that of paralyzed silence, dumbness, inertia. Were this to continue, death must ensue. Stagnation will be fatal. The currents of thought and feeling must in some way be set flowing in their accustomed channels, as in the beautiful little poem of Tennyson on the mother suddenly bereaved of her warrior-lord-

“All her maidens, wondering, said,
She must weep or she must die.”

A period of agitation ensues when the mind resumes its natural functions; and the first mood that succeeds to silent prostration is that of bitter resentment and complaint. As we hail the irritability of a patient who has been deadly sick as the sign of returning convalescence, so we may look upon this petulance of grief when it finds at length a voice. We do not blame; we pity, and are tender towards the irritable invalid whose heart we know to be in its depth patient and true; and he who knows the heart better than we do is forbearing with those wild cries which suffering may wring from even constant and faithful bosoms like Job’s. We may read these words of passion with consideration if God can listen to them without rebuke. There are three turns in the thought here expressed.

I. THE SPIRIT OF MAN IN REVOLT FROM LIFE. Curses on the day of his birth. (Verse 1-10.) There seems to be some reference to the ancient belief, which we find in later times among the Romans, in unlucky or ill-starred days. Such a day, to the sufferers present feeling, must have been the day of his birth. But he will learn better by-and-by. He cannot see things rightly through the present medium of pain. True religion teaches usthe Christian religion above allthat no “black” days are sent us from him who causes his sun to shine on the evil and the good. It is only ill deeds that make ill days. We have met with Job’s complaint again and again in different forms. Men and women have complained that they were brought into the world without their consent being asked, and sometimes passionately exclaim, “I wish I had never been born!” Let us admit what our calm and healthy judgment dictatesthese feelings are morbid and transitory; and they are partial, because they represent only one, and that an extreme, mood of the ever-changing mind. We must take our morning, not our midnight, moods if we would know the truth about ourselves. The instinct which leads us to keep birthdays with joy and mutual congratulation should instruct us in our debt of thankfulness: “Thanks that we were men!”

II. THE IRRATIONALITY OF DESPAIR. (Verses 11-19.) But such wishes against the inevitable and for the impossible, the mind, even in the paroxysm of despair, feels to be absurd. It sinks to a degree less irrational in the next wish that an early death had prevented all this misery. Would that a frost had nipped the just-blown flower (verses 11, 12)! Yet this mood is only a shade less unreasonable than the former. For does not the instinct which leads us all to speak of death in infancy and early childhood as “untimely, premature,” rebuke this fretfulness, and witness to the truth again that life is a good? And does not the common aspiration after “length of days,” so marked in the Old Testament, supply another argument in the same direction? Job will yet live to smile, from out of the depths of a serene old age, at these passionate clamours of a turbulent grief. Again, he passes into the contemplation of death with pleasure, with a deep craving for its rest. He describes, in simple, beautiful language, that final earthly resort, where agitated brains and restless hearts find at last peace (verses 17-19). Such a sentiment, again, is common to the experience of suffering hearts, is deeply embedded in the poetry of the world. But how far more common and frequent the happy, healthy mood which finds a zest and relish in the mere sense of existence, in the simple, natural pleasures of every day! The longing for the rest of the grave is the mood of intense weariness and disease; and it is counteracted by the mood of restored health, which longs for activity, even in heaven. Well has that poet, who has entered so deeply into all the phases of modern sadness, sung

“Whatever crazy Sorrow saith,
No life that breathes with human breath
Hath ever truly longed for death.
life whereof our nerves are scant;
Oh, life, not death, for which we pant;
More life and fuller, that we want.”

III. INTERROGATION OF LIFE‘S MYSTERIES. (Verses 20-26.) Once more, from longing for death, the distressed mind of the sufferer passes to impatient questioning. Why should life, if it is to be given to any, be given to sufferers who desire death? why should it be given to him who can find no rest, who is ever in dread of fresh woes? This complaint, again, is natural, but it is not wise. We are impatient of pain; we should otherwise have no quarrel with the mystery of being. But pain is a great fact in the constitution of the world; it is there; it is there evidently by Divine appointment; it cannot be glozed over nor explained away. The wisdom of piety is in reconciling ourselves to it as the dispensation of God, in submitting to it as his will, supporting it with patience. Then, “though no affliction for the present be joyous, but grievous, yet afterward it will yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness” (Heb 12:11). In hope let us

“Strain through years
To catch the far-off interest of tears.”

To the question of Job the answer isSuffering is the signet of a majestic being. The light of eternity, falling athwart our tears, forms a rainbow prophetic of our glorious destiny. But the final and most significant of all answers is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is the union of highest life with extremest suffering. Born to suffer, and by suffering to be made perfect, the Lord Jesus Christ supplies for them that trust in him a power by which they can rise out of the mysterious darkness of pain, believing that what is tried, even as by fire, shall be found unto praise and honour and glory at his appearing. The study of this paroxysm of extreme pain of mind will be instructive if it help us to govern any similar moods which may arise in our own minds.

LESSONS.

1. There is a natural and precious relief from mental pain in words,

“Poor breathing orators of miseries!
Let them have scope; though what they do impart
Help nothing else, yet they do ease the heart.”

2. God, our gracious Father, is not offended by our sincerity. Greater than our hearts, he knows all things. This book and many of the psalms teach us a childlike piety by repeating words in which sufferers poured forth all their complaints as well as thanksgivings into the ear of him who misunderstands nothing.

3. There is an exaggeration in all the moods of depression. We are prone to overstate the ills of life, and to forget the numberless hours of joy in which we have instinctively thanked God for the blessing of existence.

4. The very intensity and exaggeration of such moods point forward to a reaction. They will not continue long in the course of nature. God has mercifully so constructed this fine mechanism of body and mind that these extremes bring their own remedy. Patience, then. The hour is darkest that is nearest the dawn. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”J.

HOMILIES BY R. GREEN

Job 3:1-12

Human infirmity revealed in deep affliction.

Frail is the heart of man. With all its heroism, its endurance and power, yet the stout heart yields and the brave spirit is cowed. The strongest bends beneath the heavy pressure. But if the human life is to be truthfully presented, its failures as well as its excellences must be set forth. It is an evidence that the writer is attempting an impartial statement, and in the midst of his poetical representations is not led away to mere extravagance and exaggeration in depicting the qualities of the righteous man. Job’s strength of heart receives a shock. He is in the whirlpool of suffering and sorrow. He will recover himself in time; but for the present he is as one who has lost his balance. Let it not be forgotten how severe the strain upon him is. His possessions have been torn from him; his family stricken down by death; his body is the seat of a fierce and foul disease; his friends are powerless to help him. No wonder that “his grief was very great.“ Out of that grief springs his wail of complaintthe cry of a spirit overburdened. This is an instance of what may escape from the lips of a strong and good man under the pressure of unusual affliction. In judging the cry of sorrow or forming our estimate of the character of him who raises it, we must remember

I. THAT IT DOES NOT ACCURATELY REPRESENT THE UTTERANCE OF A CALM UNBIASED JUDGMENT. The sufferer is so liable to be unmanned at such an hour. There is too vivid a perception of the pains of life for the cry to be an accurate judgment on life itself.

II. THAT IT IS THE EXPRESSION OF THE SOUL‘S FEELINGS IN THE EXTREMITY OF ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. And although the true test of strength is in an ability to bear the heaviest pressure, yet that perfection of virtue by which the severest strain can be borne with calmness is only an uncommon experience; if, indeed, it can ever be found but in the Perfect One.

III. THE INHERENT HUMAN FRAILTY. In this instance Job, “the perfect man and upright,” falls behind the one absolute Example of patient endurance of the severest sufferings. Job, judged by the ordinary standard of human life, must be pronounced a model of patient endurance. The inherent weakness, the true mark of humanity, is apparent here. The world needed one “greater than Job” as its typical Example of patience.

IV. But in all we may also learn THE USELESSNESS OF THAT CRY OF SORROW WHICH DEMANDS THE IMPOSSIBLE. In quietness and self-composure Job would not have cried thus. Reason is not always supreme. In moments of great suffering her authority is assailed, impaired, even sometimes lost.

In our judgment upon the cries of our frail brethren, we must, therefore, extend our utmost charity, make every allowance for the extreme conditions of which they are the expressions; and in our own habit of life accustom ourselves so to receive our minor afflictions that we may be tutored to comport ourselves rightly under the extremset pressure.R.G.

Job 3:13-19

The grave a rest.

In the toil and sorrow of life men long for rest. They lighten the toils and brighten the darkness of the present by the hope of repose and gladness in the future. Without such a hope life’s burdens would be much heavier than they are; and in some cases almost insupportable. As the worn labourer longs for the rest of the even-tide, so does the over-wrought spirit of the sad desire the rest of the grave. It is proper to consider if this is a healthy, a just, a well-grounded desire. To the grave men of widely different characters look for rest. Let us think of the grave

I. AS LONGED FOR BY THE WEARY. “Then had I been at rest.” This is not always to be commended. The present is our time for toil. These are the hours of the day. They that sleep should sleep in the night. It is not a Christian spirit to wish life shorter. Rather should we ask for grace to be faithful, even unto death. Resignation, obedience, hope, will check the desire to diminish the term of life. What is suicide but the adding violence to this desire? For our change we must wait.

II. AS THE ONLY REST KNOWN TO THE IGNORANT. By Christian teaching and discipline we learn where the spirit may find rest; and we are encouraged to wait for the end of our toil. But the ignorant know nothing of this good hope.

III. THE GRAVE BRINGS NO REST TO THE UNFAITHFUL. He owns rest who does a day’s work. To him that rest is sleep. To the idler death will bring no rest. It will change the canditions and surroundings of life. But it is a dire delusion to suppose that the spirit, in putting off the garment of the flesh, will escape from all toil. Its burdens are within itself, not in the fleshy tent. All sensation is in the mind during the bodily life, and all the sad weariness of the spirit, springing from consciousness of disobedience, that spirit carries with it. The sting of punishment for the wicked pierces the spirit; often through the flesh, it is true. But the sting is not left in the flesh, to be cast off when the body is laid down. The weapons of the spiritual foe penetrate beyond the clothes. The wicked deluded in life is deluded by death. Some long so eagerly for death that they rush through the thin veil that separates them from the regions of the dead. But it is rushing from darkness to light. It is rushing into the presence of the All-seeing One whose apprehended judgment upon life is the severest of all punishments.

IV. THE REST OF THE GRAVE IS A TRUE REWARD TO THE FAITHFUL. Fidelity in toil has its reward in rest. To the faithful ones it is sweet. But not as a mere cessation of activity.

1. It ends for them the time of exposure to temptation.

2. It marks the limits of probation.

3. It exchanges warfare for triumph; hard toil for honourable repose; danger for safety; the cross for the crown.

4. It brings the perfectness of all blessing in the everlasting life and the fulness of joy which are promised to the obedient and the pure.R.G.

Job 3:20-26

The unanswered question.

From the lips of Job words escape which prove how deeply he suffered. “Why?” is ever on the lips of men when they consider God’s hidden work. But he giveth none account of his ways. Clouds and darkness are round about him. Happy the man who at all times is persuaded that justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne. The question here proposed by Job is the unanswered question running through the whole book. Until all is accomplished, the design of the process is unexplained. That the afflictions of Job had some other purpose than merely to respond to Satan’s appeal, none will deny; but what the purpose was is not stated in words. The whole story alone explains it. New Testament readers have light upon the mystery of human suffering denied to the -saints of old. But with all the light and teaching granted, a veil of mystery still hangs over all. Partial answers may, however, be found. The demand of Job is unreasonable. It amounts to requiring that all who suffer should be permitted at once to end their sorrows in the silence of the grave. In other words, that none should suffer. “Why is life given unto the bitter in soul?” It is the cry of a sufferer distracted by his pain. Reasons why death should not come immediately to him that longs for it may be readily given. Let our thoughts rest on the purposes that are obviously answered by pain.

I. SUFFERING ARISES FROM THE INFRINGEMENT OF SOME NATURAL LAW, EITHER WILFULLY OR IGNORANTLY DONE. Pain, therefore, is the guardian of the life, giving sharp warning of disobedience or of ignorant exposure to wrong. How often would life be sacrificed in ignorance were not pain to declare the departure from the path of safety!

II. PAIN FORMS AN ELEMENT OF THAT TESTING OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT BY MEANS OF WHICH CHARACTER IS DEVELOPED. Patience, bravery, faith, resignation, hope, and obedience, and many other graces that adorn the human spirit, are celled into play and strengthened by the sharp severities of pain. It is a means of growth.

III. Afflictions, if not directly imposed by a Divine hand, are USED AS MEANS OF SPIRITUAL CORRECTION, INSTRUCTION, AND GOVERNMENT. The great law finds its application here, “It is for chastening that ye endure.” A wise father disciplines his loved son, not suffering him to run wild. So the Lord, the true Father, “dealeth with” men “as with sons.”

IV. The true end of all suffering is thus found in the GROWTH, THE SANCTITY, THE CULTURE, AND ]PERFECTING OF THE SOUL. “That we may be partakers of his holiness.”R.G.

Job 3:1

The curse of despair.

Job had endured bravely up to this moment. But when his courage broke down his despair swept all before it like an avalanche. Existence itself then seemed only a curse, and Job thought it a matter of regret that he had ever been brought into the world. In his despair he cursed the day of his birth.

I. THE CAUSES OF THE CURSE. Job was no mere dyspeptic pessimist. His utterance of despair was not simply bred from the gloom of a discontented mind. Nor was he a hasty, impatient man who rebelled against the first sign of opposition to his will. The curse was wrung out of him by a most terrible conjunction of circumstances.

1. Unparalleled calamities. He had lost nearly allnot property only, but children; not outside things only, but health and strength. He was bereft of almost everything in the world that promised to make life dear. Why then, should he value it any longer?

2. Long brooding over trouble. Job did not speak in haste. For seven days he had been sitting dumb with his three silent companionsdumb, but not unconscious. What an array of thoughts must have passed through his mind while he thus suppressed all utterance! Benumbed at first, perhaps, his mind must have gradually roused itself to take in all the truth. Thus he had time to realize it. Nothing is worse than to suffer without being able to do anything to meet and conquer our trouble. Action is a powerful antidote to despair. Inaction intensifies pain. Thought and imagination add tremendous horrors of the mind to the greatest external and bodily troubles.

3. Sympathy. The kind presence of his friends broke down Job’s self-restraint. Men can bear in solitude with calmness; but sympathy opens the wells of emotion. This is best, for the heart that does not let out its pent-up feelings will break with concealed agony.

II. THE CHARACTER OF THE CURSE.

1. Its bitterness. Satan said, “Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life” (Job 2:4). Now Job unconsciously answers the superficial word of the accuser, though from an unexpected point of view. Life itself may become so cruel as to be not worth living, as to be a curse rather than a blessing. But the trouble must indeed be great that can thus conquer and reverse a primary instinct of nature. The exceeding bitterness of future punishment will be that the life which has become dead, and yet which is not unconscious, must still be endured.

2. Its humiliation. Job cursed his day, only his day; he did not curse his God, nor the universe. He did not vent his agony in rage against the whole order of things. He confined it to his own miserable existence. At worst he only complained that he had been brought into being; he did not complain that the general order of the world was unjust. Here is a token of humility, patience, self-control. Weak sufferers rail against all things in earth and heaven. They take their experience as a sign of universal mismanagement. It is, indeed, difficult not to judge the universe by our own feelings.

3. Its mistake. Job’s despair was very excusable. Yet it was an error. It was an outbreak of impatience, though sadly provoked and bravely limited. No man is able to judge of the worth of his own life. The life which is miserable to its owner may yet be serving some high Divine purpose, may yet be a blessing to mankind. This was the case with Job’s. We cannot know the use and value of life till we see it as a finished whole and from the other side of the grave.W.F.A.

Job 3:14

The pyramids.

The rock-tombs, mausoleums, and pyramids, which are most striking features of Eastern and especially of Egyptian architecture, are noted by Job with some feeling of envy. It is not that the splendour of these strange works excites his admiration. His thought dwells rather on their desolation, but this desolation is brought out the more vividly by contrast with their vastness and original magnificence. To be associated with such imposing embodiments of the idea of death is just the most enviable goal of despair. Job thus directs our attention to the pyramids. Let us note their significant features.

I. THEIR USE. What was the object of the builders of these monstrous structures? For a long while men regarded the question as an insoluble riddle. Some suggested that the pyramids contained mystic prophecies shaped in symbolical measurements of architecture. Others saw in them astronomical records and libraries of science. But whatever subsidiary ends they may have served, it is now generally agreed that the primary object of the pyramids was to serve as tombs for their builders. Thus they emphasize the importance of death. We strive to banish the thought of our end; the Egyptians kept it most prominently before their eyes. We toil for the present ministry of life; the Egyptians toiled for the dead. A Pharaoh spent far more in constructing a home for his corpse than in building a palace for his present life. Here was a strange perversion of the idea that we should prepare for death and look forward to existence beyond.

II. THEIR VASTNESS. The great Pyramid of Gizeh was one of the wonders of the world, and already of hoary antiquity when the Book of Job was written. It is now certainly the most stupendous structure that has ever been built.

1. A sign of patient toil. Thousands of poor slaves must have been sacrificed to the construction of such a building. There is scarcely any limit to the results that may be produced by unremitting labour.

2. A proof of concentration of effort. Only a Pharaoh could build a pyramid in those old days. It needed the master of a nation to gather together the materials and the workmen. The greatest works come from combination of efforts. The highest spiritual efforts must not be in isolation. We must learn to unite and concentrate our spiritual service.

III. THEIR DESOLATION. These pyramids were “desolate places” from the first. They were never beautiful. The dismal use to which they were put must always have given to them an atmosphere of gloom. They were and are the most enduring structures in the world; yet their polished surface has been stripped off, and on near approach they appear like massive ruins. They were designed to preserve the mummied remains of their masters in safety; but their secret chambers are emptied, robbed by unknown hands of their carefully concealed contents. We cannot disguise the fact that death is desolation. We may build a splendid tomb, but it will only cover loathsome corruption. We cannot cheat death and decay by any earthly device. True immortality cannot be found on earth. But the Christian looks forward to a more solid and enduring home than any pyramidto “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”W.F.A.

Job 3:17

The peace of the grave.

I. TROUBLE ANTICIPATES THE PEACE OF THE GRAVE. There is a famous picture of Orcagna’s in the Campo Santa at Florence, representing Death suddenly appearing in a motley crowd of men and women, and producing the most opposite effects. The rich, the young, and the gay flee in terror; but the poor, the miserable, and the sick stretch forth arms of longing welcome to their deliverer. When life is despaired of, death is sweet. Seeing that all must die, this is some compensation for the inequalities of life. The sleep of the tired toiler is deep and calm; and the footsore pilgrim on life’s highway looks forward at times to his final rest with unspeakable eagerness. He can endure in view of the delicious repose which he sees beyond all his sufferingsa repose, however, which has no attraction for the healthy end happy. It is only a false sentimentalism that leads vigorous young people to apply the well-known words of the text to themselves.

II. WICKEDNESS IS AT THE ROOT OF THE TROUBLE THAT MAKES THE PEACE OF THE GRAVE DESIRABLE. Job’s first thought is that the wicked cease from troubling in the land of the dead. There the captive no longer hears the odious voice of his oppressor. Injustice and heartless selfishness make a hell of this earth, which would be a very paradise if all men lived in the atmosphere of 1Co 13:1-13. It is horrible to think how often man’s cruelty to man has turned the natural love of life into a yearning for the release of death. Certainly this wrong cannot continue beyond the grave. And yet there is a deeper and more personal truth. Our own sin is our greatest trouble. Too often we are ourselves the wicked who trouble our own hearts.

III. CHRISTIANITY OFFERS SOMETHING BETTER THAN THE PEACE OF THE GRAVE. We must remember that we have not here a complete Divine oracle concerning the future. Job is merely giving utterance to his despair. There is a certain truth in what he says, but it is not the whole truth. It is true that “there remaineth a rest to the people of God” (Heb 4:9). But Christ offers more than negative relief from the troubles of this life. He brings to us eternal life. To the Christian death is not sinking into silence for ever, but sleeping in Christ to awake in a new resurrection-life. Job looked forward to the still grave. We can anticipate the blessed heaven,

IV. THE CHRISTIAN HOPE RESTS ON MORE THAN THE EXPERIENCE OF DEATH. To die was all that Job hoped for; to die as an embryo dies who has never known life seems to him far better than to drag out such a weary existence as he now sees before him. Thus the mere dying and ceasing to be are enough. But for the larger Christian hope more is needed. Death is not the door to heaven; Christ is that Door. There is no certain road to peace through death; for death may lead to darker distress in a future of banishment from God. There is no peace in the “outer darkness,” but “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” For future rest even, and for the life eternal which is better than rest, we have to be born from above, and w be walking on earth in the footsteps of Christ. If we are doing this, it is not for us to long for death, but to “work while it is day; for the night cometh, wherein no man can work.”W.F.A.

Job 3:19

Death, the leveller.

No thought is more hackneyed than the idea that the present inequalities of life end at death. Yet the practical significance of this idea is never fully realized and acted on. Let us consider its lessons. What does death the leveller teach us?

I. IT TEACHES HUMILITY. The master of an empire will soon own but six feet of soil The worms will shortly feed on one to whom princes bowed as slaves.

“O mighty Caesar! dost thou lie so low?
Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,
Shrunk to this little measure?
But yesterday the word of Caesar might
Have stood against the world: now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.”

II. IT WARNS AGAINST INJUSTICE. The oppressor’s sway is but brief. After a few swift years the rod will fall from his hand, and he will lie exactly on a level with the oppressed. How will he face his victims when he and they are in equal state? Christ bids his disciples make themselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness, that at the end they may receive them into everlasting habitations. There is a generous way of using money and influence that helps to win true friends among our brethren. They who have acted in the opposite way must expect a friendless future.

III. IT ENCOURAGES PATIENCE. The injustice is but temporary. The hard servitude will cease with death. The slave may look forward to his complete liberation. Hope may be the present inspiration of those whose lot is the most bitter, if only they can be assured of a portion in the life beyond the grave.

IV. IT POINTS TO HIGHER THAN EARTHLY THINGS FOR TRUE GREATNESS. If there were nothing above the words of our text, Job’s thought would suggest a cynical contempt for all ambition and aspiration, because, if all must end at last in the low plain of death, nothing can be of permanent value. But if there is another world, the collapse of this world should urge us the more to store our treasures in that heavenly region. This does not mean that we are simply to live in preparation for the future beyond death; for we may have heaven in the present life; but it means that we should find true greatness in heavenly things, in spiritual grace and service.

V. IT CALLS US INTO TRUE BROTHERHOOD. Why should we wait for death to abolish the shams and pretensions, the unjust claims and cruel oppressions, of earth? The large liberty of the future should be a type and pattern for more fair dealings in the present. Already we might begin the process of liberation and justice which death will ultimately accomplish. We need not resort to the violent levelling processes of the anarchist. Nihilism is not Christianity. But it is incumbent upon us to do all that is in our power to establish a state of society which recognizes the brotherhood of man.W.F.A.

Job 3:23

The mystery of limitations.

Job here refers to two kinds of limitationslimits to knowledge and limits to power. Each is mysterious and perplexing.

I. THE MYSTERY OF LIMITED KNOWLEDGE. There are many kinds of knowledge that are of no immediate and practical importance to us. It would satisfy our curiosity if an answer could be found for our inquiries about such subjects; but it is by no means necessary that an answer should be forthcoming, and we can very well be content to go on without it. But the case is very different where we have to do with our own lives and their course of experience. Here the mystery is as perplexing and distressing as it is profound and insoluble. This is just Job’s trouble. His way is hid.

1. The meaning of the present is not seen. The events that happen are so contrary to expectation and apparently to reason. Changes seem to happen like the aimless shiftings of a kaleidoscope. Useless troubles appear to fall upon us, Undeserved calamities seem to assail us.

2. The prospect of the future is obscure. If we could discern a happy issue out of our troubles, they might be endured with equanimity. But perhaps, as in Job’s case, it is often impossible to see whither they are leading us. There is no bow in the cloud.

3. The discipline of life is conducted in mystery. Assuredly there is a purpose in the mystery, though we cannot see it. It would be bad for us to know all. Job could not have proved his disinterested devotion so effectively as he did prove it if he had known that the eye of the universe was on Satan’s experiment of which he was the subject. God trains us in faith by means of obscurity. In the mean time he does not leave us. Our way may be hidden, but it is known to God. He is able to lead us safely over the darkest paths.

II. THE MYSTERY OF LIMITED POWER.

1. Human faculties are limited. They must be, or we should be infinite beings, i.e. we should be as God. But if there are necessarily some bounds to our power, we have only a question of degree when we are considering where this boundary is set. Still, the weak man wonders why he is not strong. Why should not the pigmy be a giant? Why should not the commonplace man have the intellect of a Plato? Why cramp him with a small mind? This is all mysterious, as it seems to bring injustice. But God only expects according to what is given, and surely there are some who cannot be trusted with the powers which others are capable of using.

2. Human circumstances are limited. A man has great powers; but he is hedged in. How hard this seems! If only he were at liberty what grand feats would he perform! So the poor man thinks he would do wonders if he were but a millionaire. But we have all to learn that “he shall choose our inheritance for us,” because he knows us better than we know ourselves. Meanwhile the very hedge has its good effect. Satan had complained that God had set a hedge about Job (Job 1:10) for protection. Job apparently sees another hedge, and thinks it a hindrance. But may not the hindrance be a protection? The river runs the swifter when its channel is narrowed. There is a gathering of strength from the concentration of effort that limited circumstances require. There is an inspiration in difficulty. If we all had perfect liberty and power, we should lose the bracing discipline which now helps to train us. Finally, observe, no hedge set up by God can keep us from our true mission or our rightful heritage. Job did not fail, but, on the contrary, did his great life’s work the better through’ the mysterious cramping of his circumstances.W.F.A.

Job 3:25, Job 3:26

Fears confirmed by facts.

Job complained that he was not foolishly confident in his prosperity, and so courting a reverse of fortune by pride and presumption. On the contrary, he was anticipating the possibility of evil and walking in fear. His action, as it appears in the opening verses of the book, shows us a man of an anxious temperament (Job 1:5). He thinks it hard that trouble should come to him who had feared it. This may be unreasonable in Job; but it is quite natural, and not at all inexplicable. Inconsistent as it may seem, our very anticipation of evil is unconsciously taken as a sort of insurance against it. Because we are prepared to expect it we somehow come to think that we should not receive it. Our humility, foresight, and apprehension are unconsciously treated as making up a sort of compensation which shall buy off the impending evil. When they turn out to be nothing of the kind we are sadly disappointed.

I. OUR WORST FEARS MAY BE REALIZED.

1. On earth. Anxious people are not ipso facto saved from trouble. The world does contain great evils. The ills of life are not confined to the imagination of the despondent. They are seen in plain prosaic facts.

2. After death. The fear of death will not save from death, nor will the fear of hell save from hell. A person may have very dark views of his impending fate, and, if he deserves it, he may find that it is quite equal to his fears. Nothing can be more disastrous than the notion that the expectation of future punishment is only the dream of a scared conscience. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” is a great fundamental law of nature.

II. THE RIGHT WAY TO DISPEL FEARS IS TO REMOVE THEIR GROUNDS. To soothe fears without touching the facts which justify them is the height of folly. The facts remain, however much we may be hoodwinked into disregarding them. Salvation is not to be got by means of any manipulation of the sinner’s fears. Sin is the fundamental cause of all ruin, and the justification of men’s worst fears. The one necessity is to remove the sin; then the fears will vanish of their own accord. The sickening letters from condemned criminals, who are quite sure that they are going straight from the gallows to heaven, although they give no sign of genuine penitence for sin, reveal a very unwholesome style of religious instruction. Surely the chief business of a Christian teacher is not to lull the fears of an alarmed conscience, and induce a condition of placid resignation. Hypnotism would do this more effectively; but to be hypnotized into placidity is not to be saved. If, however, men learn to confess their sins, and to loathe themselves on account of those sins, then indeed the gospel of Christ assures perfect redemption for all who turn to him in faith. When this is the soul’s experience fear may be banished. Trouble, indeed, may come. But it is useless to anticipate it. It is better to take our Lord’s advice, and “be not anxious for the morrow.”W.F.A.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

CHAP. III.

Job detests the day of his birth; wishes that he had never been born, and complains that the thing which he feared is come upon him.

Before Christ 1645.

Job 3:1. After this opened Job his mouth The days of mourning being now over, and no hopes appearing of Job’s amendment, but his afflictions rather increasing, he bursts into a severe lamentation, and wishes that he had never existed, or that his death had immediately followed his birth; life, under such a load of calamity, appearing to him the greatest possible affliction. It may be proper just to remark, that the metrical part of the book begins at the third verse of this chapter.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

FIRST CHIEF DIVISION OF THE POEM

THE ENTANGLEMENTOR THE CONTROVERSIAL DISCOURSES OF JOB AND HIS FRIENDS

Job 3-28

The Outbreak of Jobs Despair as the Theme and Immediate Occasion of the Colloquy

Job 3

a. Job curses his existence

Job 3:1-10

1After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. 2And Job spake, and said,

3Let the day perish wherein I was born,

and the night in which it was said, There is a man-child conceived!

4Let that day be darkness;

let not God regard it from above,
neither let the light shine upon it!

5Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it;

let a cloud dwell upon it;
let the blackness of the day terrify it!

6As for that night, let darkness seize upon it;

let it not be joined unto the days of the year,
let it not come into the number of the months!

7Lo, let that night be solitary;

let no joyful voice come therein!

8Let them curse it that curse the day,

who are ready to raise up their mourning!

9Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark;

let it look for light but have none;
neither let it see the dawning of the day!

10because it shut not up the doors of my mothers womb,

nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.

b. He wishes that he were in the realm of the dead rather than in this life

Job 3:11-19

11Why died I not from the womb?

why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?

12Why did the knees prevent me?

or why the breasts that I should suck?

13For now should I have lain still, and been quiet;

I should have slept, then had I been at rest,

14With kings and counsellors of the earth,

which built desolate places for themselves;

15or with princes that had gold,

who filled their houses with silver:

16or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been,

as infants which never saw light.

17There the wicked cease from troubling,

and there the weary be at rest.

18There the prisoners rest together;

they hear not the voice of the oppressor.

19The small and great are there;

and the servant is free from his master.

c. He asks why he, being weary of life, must still live

Job 3:20-26

20Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery,

and life unto the bitter in soul;

21which long for death, but it cometh not;

and dig for it more than for hid treasures;

22which rejoice exceedingly,

and are glad, when they can find the grave?

23Why is light given to a man whose way is hid,

and whom God hath hedged in?

24For my sighing cometh before I eat,

and my roarings are poured out like the waters.

25For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me,

and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

26I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet;

yet trouble came!

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. The caption or prose introduction of Jobs out-gushing lamentation. Job 3:1-2.

Job 3:1. After this opened Job his mouth and cursed his day. [: after the appearance of the friends, their seven days silence, and after their conduct had wrought its full effect on the mind of Job.E. Opened his mouth; in conformity to the sensuous and poetic nature of Hebrew speech and thought, which uses the physical action to represent the mental. Dav.]. His day, viz.: his birthdaythe day on which he had come into the world. Comp. Job 1:4.

Job 3:2. And Job began and spake.The verse consists only of these three words: . The literal meaning of is, and he answered; for is, in general, to begin to speak when incited to it, whether the antecedent occasion consist of words or of actions; precisely the same as the New Testament . [See Conants note in loco, proving that in most of the cases quoted in support of the signification to speak up, to begin speaking (Ges. Lex. 2, and others), the reference to something prior, as the occasion of speaking, is clear, and in all of them there is ground for the writers choice of this form of expression.] Here accordingly it is the persistent and expressive silence of the friends to which Job replies, not to any question, nor to any uttered remark of theirs., with Pattach in the final syllable, although the word is Milel, is found only in the prose captions of the discourses in our book; here, however, in every case: comp. Job 4:1; Job 6:1; Job 8:1, etc.After these brief words of introduction, begins the poetic part of the book, distinguished by the poetic accentuation of the Masoretes. Comp. Introd. 3. From this point on the epic calmness with which the hero has suffered, and the poet told his story, yields to the pathos of the drama. Dillmann. The contents of this first tragic, high-soaring, poetic discourse of Job are expressly given in the caption in Job 3:1 as being the cursing of the day of his own birth, an ardently expressed longing for death. Comp. Jeremiahs abbreviated imitation in Job 20:14-18. [There is a passage of Jeremiah so exactly similar that it might almost be imagined a direct imitation: the meaning is the same, nor is there any very great difference in the phraseology; but Jeremiah fills up the ellipses, smooths and harmonizes the rough and uncouth language of Job, and dilates a short distich into two equal distichs, consisting of somewhat longer verses. The imprecation of Jeremiah has more in it of complaint than of indignation; it is milder, softer, and more plaintive, peculiarly calculated to excite pity, in moving which the great excellence of this prophet consists: while that of Job is more adapted to strike us with terror than to excite our compassion. Lowth. And to the same effect Michaelis: Jobi est tragica illa et regia tristitia, dicam, an desperatio: Jeremi flebiles elegi, misericordiam provocantes, nec lacrimis major luctus.] In respect of form, this mournful lamentation, which contains the theme and starting point of the following discussions, falls into three strophes of about equal length; Job 3:3-10; Job 3:11-19; and Job 3:20-26, of which the last alone gives evidence of a slight abridgement at the end, and that no doubt intentional, as the short, blunt breaking off of the second member of Job 3:26, which consists of only two words, , gives us to understand. That, with the majority of modern expositors, we are to adopt this three-fold division of the strophes, and not, with Stickel and Delitzsch, a greater number of divisions, longer or shorter, is made certain by the , which recurs at the beginning of the 2d and 3d strophes (comp. Introd. l. c.).

2. First Long Strophe: Job curses his existence; Job 3:3-10.First strophe: Job 3:3-5.

Job 3:3. Perish the day wherein I was born., with Pattahh in the last syllable, the accent having been retracted on account of the tone-syllable following (Ewald, 139, b).The elliptical relative clause, , as also the like clause () in the following member, are to be explained by the excited, rapid movement of the poetic style. The Imperf. [alias Fut.], (instead of which the parallel passage in Jer 20:14 exhibits the Perf. [Prt.] ), is the Imperf. of the Past, as is , Job 3:11. Comp. Ewald, 136, b [who calls it the prsens prteriti, = nascendus eram: and see Green, Gr. 263, Job 5 : the speaker, by a bold figure, places himself before his birth, and prays that the day which was to give him existence might be annihilated, so that he might be saved from the misery of living.]And the night which said: A man-child is conceived.The night of Jobs conception is poetically personified, as a living being, endowed with the gift of speech (comp. Psa 19:3). It weakens the expression, and furthermore is by no means required by the masc. (for is masc.), to supply before , the night in which it was said (Pesh., Vulg. [E. V.], etc.). In the deep excitement of feeling which now possesses him, all the objects of his thought become living powers, concrete, plastic forms. This is the case here with the night of his conception. For this is the night which is meantnot that of his birth, as the invariable usage of the verb , to be conceived, shows. Had the second member been intended to be synonymous in thought and expression with the first, would have been used, the usual synonym elsewhere in poetry of . It is not only the language, however, which may be urged in favor of the literal construction of , but the general style of the discourse, which is characterized by poetic vividness and restless alternation. To this add that in what follows each of these two epochs of the life is made the object of a separate and vehement curse; to wit, first, in Job 3:4-5, the day of birth, and then, in Job 3:6-10, the night of conception. For this sharp and obviously intentional distinction between these two initial points of the life, comp. Psa 51:7. [, not a man-child, Eng. Ver., but a man, the name proper to the mature state being applied by anticipation to the infant or embryo. The emphasis is not upon the sex, implying greater joy at the birth of a son than a daughter; Job says, a man, because he is speaking of himself. Green. Heb. Chrest.]

Job 3:4-5. A special curse of the day of birth: an expansion of Job 3:3 a.

Job 3:4. That daylet it be darkness.Let it be a dies ater s. infaustus. Whether the thought particularly intended is, that at each annual return of the birth-day darkness, that is to say, stormy weather, should prevail instead of bright and clear weather (Hirz., Dillmann), may well be doubted in view of the indefinite brevity of the language. Moreover such a meteorological interpretation would have something trivial about it.Let not God from above ask after it:i.e. let not God, who is throned on high above (Job 31:2; Job 31:28), interest himself in it from thence (comp. in Deu 11:12), let him not bring it forth out of its dark hiding-place. [Let it pass away as a thing lost and unsought. Con.] And let not light shine forth upon it., radiance of light, brightness of day, found only here; one of the many feminine forms of nouns peculiar to our book, such as , Job 3:5; , Job 4:6; , Job 4:18; , Job 5:8 (Hirz.).

Job 3:5. Let darkness and death-shade reclaim it., to redeem, reclaim, to make good ones right to (not=, to defile, Targ.), [stain E. V. The expression seems to refer back to Gen 1:2, which mentions the primeval darkness, out of which by the Divine Fiat the light, together with its product, the day, was evolved. That Darkness was thus the original proprietor of the days, and is here called on to reclaim Jobs birth-day. E. The idea being that that day was a stray portion of the kingdom of death in the midst of light, and to be reclaimed again by death. Dav.] The conceptions darkness and death-shade form a sort of hendiadys, signifying the thickest darkness, the deepest death-gloom: comp. Job 10:21; Job 34:22, etc.; also Luk 1:79 ( is, with Ew. 270 c, and with Dillm., to be read , and defined black darkness). Let clouds encamp above it: continually to hide it [, collective: , to pitch ones tent; fig. for settling or spreading]. Comp. . Joe 2:2.Let the obscuration of the day terrify it: or literally the obscurations of the day [i.e. all that makes a day dark and dismal. E.]. Instead of the of the Masora (to which reading Ges., Schlott., Hahn, adhere: [the Chireq is an attenuated Pattach from the lessening of the tone in the construct state: Con.]), we are to read , and take the sing. of this construct plural as a synonym of (duskiness), a noun of the same formal structure (comp. also , tapestry, and other similar words of like structure in Ewald, 157, a): [with the third radical repeated, as is customary in words descriptive of color. Dillmann]. The darkening, blackening of the day ( from the root , to be burnt, blackened) is a result produced in a specially marked and striking manner by the eclipse of the sun; for which reason we are here to associate solar eclipses with the dark mass of clouds, thus intensifying the effect (Olsh., Dillm., Del., etc.). If we adhere to the Masoretic reading we should have to follow Aquila, the Targum, the Vulgate, in translating: terreant eum quasi amaritudines diei [Marg. of E. V.: let them terrify it, as those who have a bitter day. Hengst.: May whatever is bitter to a day terrify it: according to his explanation, Job would have retribution overtake that day; and as he himself had been filled with bitternesses, he would have the day from which all his sufferings took their origin, be afflicted with whatever might be bitter to it. E.]. But this instead of a strengthening, would be a weakening of the thought. Umbreits explanation: let it be terrified as by incantations (comp. Arab. marr, incantamentum), which darken the day, anticipates that which is not expressed until further on, in Job 3:8, and is furthermore chargeable with being excessively artificial. [With Umbreits may be classified the rendering of Merx, who, reading , translates: May the priests of day frighten it away! There can be little doubt that the rendering darkenings of the day is the one best suited to the context, and this whether with Ges., Con., etc., we retain the Masoretic Chiriq, or with Ewald, Zckler, etc., change it to Pattach.E.]

Second Strophe: Job 3:6-10. A special curse of the night of conception: an expansion of Job 3:3 b. The reason why this expansion is twice as long as that of Job 3:3 a, is found by Hirzel and Dillmann to lie in the fact that it was in particular the night of his conception which gave Job his existence (see Job 3:10). [Twice as many verses, for it was twice as guilty, and the crime of his existence lay chiefly with it. Dav.] This, however, would be attributing to the author altogether too much premeditation and systematic deliberation.

Job 3:6. That nightlet thick darkness take it;i.e. let everlasting darkness seize on it and hold it fast as its possession, so that it can never come forth into the light of day. [, an intenser gloom than , deepest primitive darkness, chaos and old night. Dav.] Let it not rejoice among the days of the year. (for , with an auxiliary Pattach [furtive]; comp. Ewald, 224, c. [Green, 109, 2], from , gaudere (Exo 18:9), is evidently equivalent to: let it not be glad of its existence among the days of the year. [The night is not considered so much to rejoice on account of its own beautyfingitur pulchra nox de se ipsa gandere, Ges.as to form one of the joyous and triumphant choral troop of nights, that come in harmonious and glittering procession. Dav.] More insipid is the sense given by the reading followed by the Targum and Symmachus: , let it not be joined to the days of the year, let it not be enrolled among them, Comp. Ges. 49:6. [So E. V., Ren., Merx]. [Of course not natural days, as in Job 3:3-4, but civil days, embracing the entire diurnal period, in which sense they include the night. Green. Chrest.] Let it not come into the number of the months:i.e. let it not be numbered among the days, the sum of which constitutes the twelve months of the year (LXX. correctly: ). Comp. Wieseler, Beitrge zur richtigen Wrdigung der Evangelien und der evangel. Geschichte, Gotha, 1869, p. 291; which correctly finds here a reference to the fact that the ancient Hebrews reckoned according to the lunar year; i.e. by years of 354 days (consisting of twelve months, alternating in length between 30 and 29 days, and equalized with the solar year by an intercalary month of 30 days about every three years).

Job 3:7. Ha, that night!let it be barren. , lit. stony hard, here and also in Isa 49:21 (where it is used of [Zion, personified as] a woman), the same as barren. [Sitting in the everlasting darkness, that Night remains barren. It utters no shout of joy over the children born to it. Schlott. This sense is in better harmony with the etymology, and the vivid personification of the passage, as well as Jobs vindictive feeling over the fact that that night had conceived him, than the solitary of the Eng. Ver. (Vulg. desolate, Syr.E.] Let no shout of joy come therein., not a song of the spheres (Fries), [a conception and expression foreign to the Heb.: see the opposite thought, expressed Psa 19:3.E.]; but a jubilant shout of joy over the birth (or conception) of a man.

Job 3:8. Let them curse it who curse days, they who are skilled to rouse up the dragon [leviathan]. [He wishes everything dire and dreadful to be heaped upon it, or employed against it, not only all real evils, but even such as are imaginary and fictitious. He therefore invokes the aid of sorcerers, who curse the day, who claim the power of inflicting curses on it. Green, Chrest.] , cursers of the day, i.e. sorcerers, who, according to the superstition of the old oriental world, knew how by their ban to make dies infausti, and who, therefore, had the power so to bewitch any particular day as to make it a day of misfortune. This art of sorcery, the actual existence of which the poetic style of the discourse concedes and assumes without going further, is characterized still more particularly, and with vivid gradation in the language, by the following clause: they who are skilled (capable, empowered) to rouse up ( in poetry for , comp. Ewald 285, c) leviathan, i.e. the great dragon, who is the enemy of the sun and the moon, and seeks accordingly by swallowing them up to create darkness. That there is here an allusion to this well-known superstition in respect to solar and lunar eclipses, which is found among several other nationalities, e.g. the ancient inhabitants of India (see Bohlen, Das alte Indien, I. 290), the Chinese (Kuffer, Das chines. Volk, p. 123), the North-African natives of Algeria (comp. Delitzsch 1:79) appears: (1) From the connection, which forbids our taking either as in 40:25 seq.; Psa 104:26, in its usual sense, of the crocodile, or again of terrestrial serpents (dragons), and so, with Umbreit and others, to think of snake-charmers or crocodile-tamers. (2) From the parallel passage in Job 26:13, where the mention of the fleeing serpent points to the same astronomical superstition. (3) From Isa 27:1, where the collocation of the words designate the same mythical being (the dragon rhu or ktu of the Hinds). The poet accordingly in the passage before us gives to the curse that is to be pronounced on the day this highly poetic turn, by wishing that the sorcerers might secure the consummation of the curse by instigating the celestial dragon against the sun and moon, thus producing an eclipse of those bodies. To identify that dragon here (and in Job 26:13) with a constellation, by a reference to the dragon whose convolutions lie between the Great and Little Bear, or to any other serpent-figure among the stars (Hirz., Hahn, Schlott., etc.), does not harmonize well with the unmistakable meaning of , to excite, rouse up. [The explanation of Umbreit, Rosenm., Noy., Bar., etc., a little more fully stated, is that the verse probably refers to a class of persons who were supposed to have the power of making any day fortunate or unfortunate, to control future events, and even to call forth the most terrific monsters from impenetrable forests, or from the deep, for the gratification of their own malice, or that of others. Balaam, whom Balak sent for to curse Israel, affords evidence of the existence of a class of persons who were supposed to be capable of producing evil by their imprecations. Noyes. One objection to this view is stated above by Zckler, that it is not favored by the connection. Another objection suggested by Dav. is that it is somewhat flat. The second member, instead of rising in significance, seems to fall, for to curse the day appears a much profounder exercise of power, reaching much further, and laying a spell much deeper, even on the hidden principles of nature and time, than any mere charming of an animal, however terrible. According to the Fathers (whom Lee and Words. follow), Leviathan here is typical of Satan, the great spiritual Leviathan. When it is remembered that the same writers find the same typical significance in the description of leviathan in chap. 41., the extravagance of the fancy will at once appear. Davidson objects that it cannot be shown that the superstition [above referred to] was current in Semitic lands; it belongs to India. It is true, however, that among the Egyptians, with whose institutions the author of this book was well acquainted, eclipses were attributed to the victory of Typhon over the sun-god, that the crocodile (the leviathan of chap. 41.) was a representative of Typhon, and moreover that Egypt was celebrated above all lands for her sorcery. These three facts taken together would of themselves suffice to account for and to explain Jobs language in the passage before us.E.]

Job 3:9. Let the stars of the twilight be dark; the stars, namely, of its morning twilight, the precursors of approaching day-light, the meaning accordingly being: Let this night be followed by no genuine days radiance. In favor of this sense of , to wit, morning twilight, crepusculum, may be urged, apart from the two following members of the verse, the analogy of Job 7:4; Psa 119:147, where has the same signification, though elsewhere certainly it signifies the evening twilight (diluculum), as e.g. Job 24:15; Pro 7:9; 2Ki 7:5. And let it not gaze upon the eye-lashes of the dawn. Delitzsch: let it not refresh itself with the eye-lashes of the dawn: correctly as to the sense; for here, as always denotes beholding with the feeling of pleasure, enjoying the sight of anything. The eye-lashes of the dawn (the same expression is found in Job 41:10) are the first rays of the rising dawn, opening as it were its eyes: comp. , Soph. Antiq. 103. [To be noted is the full form of the fut. , instead of the apocopated.]

Job 3:10. The with which the verse begins refers back to the beginning of the period in Job 3:6, and thus gives the ground of the violent curse just pronounced upon the night of his conception. Because it shut not up the doors of my mothers womb;i.e. did not make the same barren, did not prevent his conception: comp. Gen 16:2; Gen 20:18; 1Sa 1:5. , a poetic ellipsis for . [Comp. Job 19:17, where the expression , acc. to Ges., means brethren born out of the same mothers womb. See, however, on the passage. Juvenal has used the same liberty of expression, Sat. 6:1:124: Ostenditque tuum, generose Britannice, ventrem. Con.]And so hide sorrow from my eyes. The force of the negation extends out of the first over this, the second member of the verse, as is the case also in Job 3:11. Comp. Gesen. 152 [ 149], 3. [The influence of the negative extended here by means of Vav consecutive. See Ewald 351 a.] The indefinite, and, so to speak, absolute term, , denotes some great and fearful affliction which Job was even then suffering.

3. Second Long Strophe: Job utters his choice to be in the realm of the dead rather than in this life, Job 3:11-19. The strophe embraces three sub-divisions, or strophes, of equal length, each consisting of three verses.

a. Job 3:11-13. [The wish that he had died at birth.]

Job 3:11. Why died I not from the womb?i.e., immediately after birth, immediately after I saw the light of this world.So should be explained here, according to the parallelism of the second member of the verse, not according to Jer 20:17, which passage speaks rather of dying in the womb ( being used there in the local, not the temporal sense), of dying, therefore, as an embryo, a thought which is foreign to our author. (So in opposition to Schlott. and Del.) [The view of Junius, as given by Schlott., of the gradation of thought in this verse and the following, is at least striking enough to be stated here. It represents Job as here cursing his life in four stages of its development: in the womb, immediately after birth, when taken up by the father, and finally when put to the mothers breast. It may be doubted nevertheless whether Jobs impassioned outburst is characterized by such careful and minute discrimination. The future , like in Job 3:3, is an example of the poets bold idealization, which, taking its position back of the moment of birth, asks, Why may I not die from the womb? See Green, 263, 5; Ew. 136, 6.E.] Come forth out of the womb and expire?Expire, to wit, immediately after coming forth. On the extension of the negation over the second member, comp. notes on Job 3:10. [The Fut. (or Imperf.) expressing that which is subsequent to the Pret. (Perf.) .]

Job 3:12. Why did knees anticipate me? [Con.: Why were the knees ready for me?Prevent, in A. V., in the obsolete sense, to come before, and so to anticipate]: i.e., the knees or lap of the father, joyfully saluting the newly-born child. Comp. Gen 50:23; Isa 66:12. It is less natural to understand the knees of a woman to be meant, to wit, the knees of an attendant midwife or nurse. Comp. Gen 30:3. [The longing and anxious desire of the yearning mother to nurse her unborn darling has never been so happily expressed elsewhere. Good.] There is certainly nothing in the passage which points to any custom of heathen antiquity, involving the formal recognition of the child by the father, as Hirzel supposes. [At all events, as Dillm. observes, such a recognition is not the leading thought of the passage.E.] And what (=why) the breasts that I should suck?[There is a certain impatience and disgust in the : Why, what were the breasts that I should suck? Dav. The dual forms of the original, two knees, two breasts, are preserved in the translation by Dav. and Renan, perhaps with needless literality.] consecutive, as in chs. Job 6:11; Job 7:12; Job 10:6and often. The Imperf. (Fut.) describing an action immediately following after that which is previously mentioned, like , Job 3:11; and , Job 3:13, etc.

Job 3:13. For now I should have lain down and been quiet. A reason for the wish contained in the questions of Job 3:10; Job 3:12; therefore here=for, not surely (Del.), like elsewhere, then, by this time. Comp. Job 13:19; 1Sa 13:13. I should have slept (lit.: I should have fallen asleep; and so also in the first member: I should have laid myself down), then would there be rest for me, viz., the rest of the dead in the under-world, of the shades in Sheol, which, as compared with the inexpressible misery of this upper world, is evermore rest and repose. For the impersonal use of comp. Isa 23:12; Neh 9:28.

b. Job 3:14-16. A more particular description of the rest in the realms of the dead, which Job longs for. Job 3:14-15 are still dependent on the verbs in Job 3:13.

Job 3:14. With kings and counsellors of the land. , the counsellors of a land, i.e., the highest officers of the state, royal advisers, not kings themselves. Who built ruins for themselves.If the reading is correct, then the passage certainly speaks of the building of ruins (comp. the same word in Isa 58:12; Isa 61:4; Mal 1:4). The expression, however, can scarcely mean the rebuilding of fallen structures, a thought which many of the ancient writers found in it, but which is obviously far-fetched and foreign to the context, especially if the rebuilding of ruined edifices is taken as of the same meaning with the expression, to be rich, to be well endowed, opibus abundare. Neither can it refer to the building of mausoleums, houses for the dead, or, in particular, pyramids; an interpretation defended by Hirzel, Ewald, Frst, Delitzsch, Dillmann [Kamphausen, Wemyss, Bernard, Barnes, Wordsworth, Carey, Renan, Rodwell, Elzas, Merx], but not sufficiently verified etymologically. The Coptic cannot, without further evidence, be identified with , even admitting that the interchange of and is not something unheard of. In any case it could not be proved that the author had in mind the pyramids of Egypt, so that the passage cannot be wrested to favor the theory of the Egyptian nationality of the poet; comp. Introd. 7. The simplest and most obvious way of explaining it is, with Umbreit, Hahn, Schlottmann, Vaihinger, Heiligstedt [Gesenius, Noyes, Hengstenberg, Green in Chrestom.], to recognize in the an ironical designation of great, splendid palaces, which, notwithstanding their grandeur, must at last fall into ruina process which, in the East, as every where in hot countries, takes place with startling rapidity and suddenness. The expression is thus to be taken in a catachrestic sense, of that which is not yet indeed a ruin, but which will inevitably become such (comp. dust, ashes, grass, a worm, etc., used to designate man: Job 10:9; Psa 103:14-15; Psa 90:5, etc.). The difficulty of the expression has suggested several attempts to amend the text, as, e.g., by Bttcher (de inferis, 298), , streets, courts; by Olshausen, , palaces; by J. D. Michaelis (Suppl. p. 905), , which, according to the Arabic, would be temples, sanctuaries. Comp. also the LXX., which translates by , the text of which would be . [The expression as it stands in the text is certainly a difficult one, and unquestioning confidence in regard to the true interpretation is scarcely to be looked for. The rendering adopted by Zckler, who have built themselves ruins, is indeed, as he claims, the simplest and most obvious rendering of the words as they now read. But, on the other hand, it may be urged: (1) This proleptic ironical use of the word ruins in the connection would be an unlooked for and an artificial interruption of the pathetic flow of thoughtof the ardent, plaintive yearning for death, or for the condition in which death would place him. (2) The kind of irony which would thus be expressed is unsuited to the state of Jobs feelings in this discourse. Irony there is in the passage doubtless, but it is the irony of personal feeling, suggested by the contrast between his present misery and destitution, and the rest and equality of the grave. The irony which would have led him to see ruins in the palaces of the great would have been altogether alien to the intense subjectivity of his mood. Job is here thinking of himselfof what he would have beenof the rest, and the equality with earths greatest, which would have been his, had he died at his birth. To interject here a sudden satire on the destiny awaiting the external splendor of others would be untrue to nature, and so unworthy of the poets art. (3) The anticipation of ruin seems scarcely in harmony with the particular object of the immediate context, which is to describe the greatness of kings and counsellors, as of men high in rank and rich in their possessions. As Davidson says of this interpretation, it is a sense which does not magnify, but minishes, the reputation of the great dead. On the other hand, the interpretation mausoleums or pyramids is in harmony with the particular object of the context, enhancing the greatness of the persons spoken of, as well as with the general train of thought and feeling in this strophe, dwelling as it does on the condition and surroundings of the dead. It does not seem unreasonable, therefore, to conclude either that the word in its present form may be thus defined, or that the word in its original form being an unusual one, or of foreign origin, it was afterwards modified under the influence of the familiar Hebrew phrase, to build ruins, .E.]

Job 3:15. Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver.If the of the preceding verse are not pyramids, the of this verse cannot possibly be understood to mean houses of the dead, as Hirzel explains. But even if that construction of the former verse be the true one, it would still be in the highest degree unnatural, artificial, and forced, to understand the expression in the passage before us as meaning any thing else than the riches which princes during life heap up in their palaces. Comp. Job 22:18.

Job 3:16. Or like a hidden untimely birth I should not be.I should not exist, have no being. , lit. a falling away (), an abortion, as in Psa 58:9; Ecc 6:8. For in the sense of to hide in the ground, to bury, comp. Gen 35:4; Exo 2:12. The second member more particularly describes the condition of these abortions, as of those who never saw the light (the light of life; comp. Job 33:30). Furthermore, as to its contents, the entire verse, although varying in construction from the verse preceding, is by the at the beginning made co-ordinate with it; and this immediate juxtaposition of the founders of great palaces [or pyramids], of rich millionaires, andof still-born babes! produces a contrast most bizarre and startling in its effect. All these are removed from the sufferings of this life in the quiet of their gravebe their grave a ruin gazed upon by their descendants, or a hole dug out in the earth, and again filled in as it was before. Delitzsch.

c. Job 3:17-19. Exhibiting more in detail the extent to which death equalizes the inequalities of mens lots in life.

Job 3:17. There the wicked have ceased their raging., in the state of the dead, in the under-world [conceived of after the analogy of sepulchral caves, and where the dead were deemed to preserve the same relations which they had held during their life. Ren.]. , the godless, the abandoned, who are ruled by evil passions and lusts, as in Isa 48:22; Isa 57:21; Psa 1:4, etc. Hence is the stormy agitation, or inward raging of such men [corresponds to the radical idea of looseness, broken in pieces, want of restraint, therefore of Turba, contained etymologically in .Del.]; comp. Isa 57:20; Jer 6:7. Dillmann understands by the raging of the wicked the furious ravaging of insolent tyrants, with which is then vividly contrasted in the second member the enfeebled, powerless condition of those who are exhausted of strength. But there is nothing in the connection to show that any such contrast was intended between tyrants and the oppressed, between persecutors and the persecuted; and even the mention of the taskmaster in Job 3:18 has nothing in it to confirm this interpretation, which arbitrarily attributes to the sense of . Comp. Job 15:20; Job 27:13; Isa 13:11; Isa 25:3; Psa 37:25, etc. [in most of which passages, however, it will be found that the parallelism sustains the notion of the equivalence of the two terms, and of the frequent use of the former in the sense assigned to it by Dillmann. Do we not hear in these words an echo of Jobs own calamities? Were not the turbulent, restless, fierce Chaldeans and Sabeans fit types of the with their ? and was not Job himself in his present helplessness one of the very ?E.]

Job 3:18. Together rest the prisoners., all together, so many as there are of them, as in Job 24:4. [The Pilel signifies perfect freedom from care. Del.]They hear not the taskmasters voice, i.e., the voice of the overseer, or slave-driver, issuing his orders, urging to work, and threatening with blows. Comp. Gen 3:7; Gen 5:6; Gen 5:10; Zec 9:8.

Job 3:19. Small and great are there the same. ; not are there, are found there (LXX., Vulg., Hirz., Hahn, Schl. [Hengstenb.; Ren., Good, Lee, Con., Dav., Rod.]), but are there the same, equal in rank and worth. here accordingly is emphatic= , idem, as also in Isa 41:4; Psa 102:28. [So Umbr., Ew., Del., Wem., Elz. The thought is substantially the same, according to either view. According to the former, refers with emphasis to each subject, individually, he, each is there, implying equality of condition; according to the latter, has more the quality of a predicate, expressing equality of condition. The former is preferable, as being simpler, more customary, and better suited to the double subject, small and great. Elsewhere in the sense of idem it is used of a single subject. Comp. ref. above.E.] Furthermore, the second member: and free (is) the servant from his master, shows in a special manner that our verse is parallel in sense to the preceding; as there prisoners and taskmasters are contrasted, so here in the first member small and great, in the second servant and master. [Davidson, perhaps, finds too much in these words when he says (although the remark is a striking one): It is this last that fascinates Job in the place of the deadthe slave is free from his master; and Job is the slave, and one whom he will not name is the masterHas not man a hard service on the earth, and as the days of a hireling are his days? Job 7:1.]

4. Third Long Strophe (divided into two shorter strophes of three and four verses respectively): Job asks, why must he, who is weary of life, still live? Job 3:20-26.

a. Job 3:20-22. [The question in a general form.]

Job 3:20. Wherefore gives He light to the wretched one?The name of God, who is unmistakably the subject of the clause, is not expressly mentioned, from a motive of reverential awe; it is presupposed as a thing self-evident that he who gives light is God, and none other. Comp. Job 24:22. [The Eng. Ver. takes the verb impersonally: Wherefore is light given, etc.? And so Good, Lee, Wemyss, Ren., etc. Schlottmann and Green also prefer the impersonal construction on the ground that it is better suited to the present discourse and the state of feeling from which it proceeds, and that supplying God as the subject gives an uncalled-for appearance of open and conscious murmuring to these moanings of uncontrollable anguish. It is to be observed, however, that in verse 23 the hedging of man about is directly ascribed to God; and that although God is not formally challenged by name as yet, there is through the whole discourse an audible under-tone of suppressed defiance, which seems all the time on the point of expressing itself. At the same time, one cannot but feel that this Curse is a cry of anguish rather than a cry of defiance, and that the suppression of Gods name in this connection is a most natural manifestation of Jobs feelings in their present stage of developmentalthough, as Hirzel has shown, it is quite in our authors manner thus to omit the name of God. See Job 8:18; Job 12:13; Job 16:7; Job 20:23; Job 22:21; Job 25:2; Job 27:22; Job 30:19. Gives he, a distant fling at God, though a certain reverence refuses to utter His name, but He is at the base of such awful entanglement and perverse attitude of things. (Dav.).E.]

Parallel with , to the wretched, stands in the second member, , to the troubled in soul, those whose heart is troubled [lit. the bitter in soul, i.e., those whose souls have known lifes bitterness.E.] The same expression is found in Pro 31:6; 1Sa 1:10; 1Sa 22:2.

Job 3:21-22 contain specifications in participial form of the phrase , with finite verbs attached in the second member of each verse, a construction which elsewhere also is not unfrequently met with (see Ew. 350, b).

Job 3:21. Who wait long for deathand it comes not (lit. and it is not, , comp. verse 9), and dig for it more than for [hidden] treasures.The Imperf. consec. is used here in the sense of the Present, as also elsewhere occasionally (see Ew. 342. a). [The Vav. consec. would indicate that the digging for death is consequent upon waiting for itthe passive waiting and longing being succeeded by the more active digging and searching for it. A terrible picture of the progress of human misery.E.] It is not necessary (with Hahn and Schlottmann) to translate by the subjunctive form, who would dig (would willingly do so). Delitzschs assumption, that the fut. consec. is used because the sufferers are regarded as now at last dead, is altogether too artificial. The discourse presents rather an ardent longing after death on the part of those who are as yet livingand this longing is described so as to harmonize with the figurative representation of a digging after pearls or treasures. Comp. chap, Job 28:1 sq., 9 sq. [Ewald, not inaptly: for death, like such treasures, seems to come out of earths most secret womb, even as Pluto is the god of both.] On with accus. of the thing which is dug out, comp. Exo 7:24 [showing the incorrectness of the assertion that in the sense of digging, the verb takes only the accusative of the cavity produced by digging, and so justifying the rendering to dig here.E.]

Job 3:22. Who are joyful, even to raptureheightening the thought: usque ad exultationem, exactly as in Hos 9:1. In like manner the following contains a still further advance in the strength of the thought. [The verse is a climax, (1) rejoice, (2) to exultation, (3) dance for joy. Dav.

Who rejoice, even to exultation,
And are triumphant, when they can find out the grave.

Good.]

Job 3:23-26. [The individual application of Jobs question.]

Job 3:23 resumes, after the parenthesis contained in the two preceding verses, the dative construction begun in Job 3:20, and governed by the verb of that verse. To a man whose way is hidden:viz. to me, to Job himself; comp. the following verses, in which the speakers own person appears as the prominent theme of discourse. [, to a man, a general expression as yet, although evidently the speaker is thinking of himself. The verse forms the transition from the general description of the verses preceding to the direct description of the verses following.E.] For a similar use of the figurative expressions covering and hedging the way to represent the act of putting a man in a helpless, forsaken, inextricable situation; comp. Job 19:8; also Lam 3:5; Isa 40:27. [Renan translates:

To the man whose way is covered with darkness,
And whom God has environed with a fatal circle.
He means, by having his way hid, being bewildered and lost: the world and thought and providence become a labyrinth to him, out of which and in which no path can be found, his speculative and religious belief hopelessly entangled, and his heart palsied and paralyzed by its own conflicting emotions and memories, so that action and thought were impossible, a hedge being about him, his whole life and condition being contradiction and inexplication, a step or two leading to a stand-still in any direction. Dav.]

Job 3:24. For [, personal confirmation of the preceding statement] instead of my bread comes my sighing. here not in the local sense, before [in presence of it, and hence in effect along with it. Meaning: even at that season of enjoyment and thankfulness, when food is partaken, I have only pain and sorrow. Con.], but as also in Job 4:19; 1Sa 1:16, for, instead of (comp. the Latin pro). [Akin to this is the definition like, from the idea of comparison involved in that of presence or nearness. So Schult., Dav., Ren.] Less suitable is the temporal construction: before my food [=before I eat] sighing still comes to me. [My groans anticipate my food. Wem.] (so Hahn, Hirz., Schl., etc., after the LXX., Vulgate, etc.) [The temporal sense is somewhat differently given by Green, Chrest., before, sooner than; perpetually repeated, with greater frequency than his regular food. The suggestion found in Rosenm., Bar., etc., that Jobs disease made his food loathsome in the act of eating gives a meaning needlessly offensive, and is not suited either to the connection or to the terms employed. The fut. is used in the frequentative sense.E.] And my groans pour themselves forth like water:i.e. as incessantly as water, which flows ever onward, or is precipitated from a height. As is evident, a strong comparison, and one which would be greatly weakened by the explanation of Hirzel and others, who find in it an allusion to the water of Jobs daily drink, parallel with , his daily bread. For the masc., before the fem. subj. , comp. Job 16:22; Ewald 191 b. [Future frequentative like ], For , lit. roaring (Job 4:10) in the sense of groaning, the moaning of a sufferer. Comp. Psa 22:2; Psa 32:3.

Job 3:25. For if I trembled before anything, it forthwith came upon me. Lit.: For a fear have I feared, and forthwith it has overtaken me. [Let me but think of a terror, is present and concessive, understood, suppose me to fear a fear, to conceive a terror; it is no sooner conceived than realized: and not past and positive, I feared a fear, as if Job, in the height of his felicity, had been haunted by the presentiment of coming calamity, a meaning which is opposed to the whole convictions of antiquity, and contradicted by the anguish and despair of the man under his suffering, which was to him inexplicable and unexpected. The picture refers exclusively to the present misery of the man. It overtakes me, , vav consec. introduces the issue of the dread: the thing dreaded immediately comes. Dav. So Green in Chrest.: The meaning is not that he had apprehensions in his former prosperity, which have now been fulfilled; but all that is dreadful in his esteem has been already, or is likely soon to be (, fut.), realized in his experience. He endures all that he has ever conceived that is frightful.] For the poetic full-sounding form , comp. chap, Job 12:6; Job 16:22; Job 30:14 (Ew. 252, a. [Green, 172, 3]).

[Merx, transposing Job 3:23, introduces it here, as immediately following Job 3:25. His version accordingly reads as follows:

For the Terror, of which I was afraid, overtook me;
And that which with shuddering I looked for came to me,
To the man whose path was covered;
Whom Eloah hedged in round about.
He thus makes the before a repetition of the , end of Job 3:25, and not of , Job 3:20, according to the old position. He further would make the verse in its new position an ironical echo of Satans words in Job 1:10.The conjecture is certainly highly ingenious. But there are decisive objections to the change. The first and weightiest is that the irony loses all its force, and the words themselves become all but meaningless in Jobs mouth when it is remembered that the words were first spoken by Satan in the heavenly council, where Job was not present. It is an essential part of the mystery of the drama here unfolded that Job knows nothing whatever of the transactions between God and Satan. Any conscious allusion to anything in those transactions on the part of Job would be a blunder of art of which our author is incapable; and without such conscious intent the words lose all their pertinency. Moreover, the verse in its old position, as is remarked in the notes above, furnishes the transition from the general description of Job 3:20-22 to the more personal application of Job 3:24-26.E.]

Job 3:26. I have no quiet, no repose, no rest; and still trouble comes. On the abrupt brevity of the second member, comp. above, No. 1., here certainly more in the sense of grief, pain, trembling, than of passionate excitement, or rage, and so with a meaning different from Job 3:17 : but always (and so in Job 3:17, as well as here) of an inward affection, not of external distress (Schlott.), or of a storm (Hahn), etc. Vaihingers rendering: restless life, is correct as to sense, but fails of doing justice to the pointed brevity of the expression. [The Vulgate reads this verse interrogatively: Was I not in safety? had I no rest? was I not in comfort? Yet trouble came. So also the Targ. with curious amplifications: Did I not dissimulate when it was told me concerning the oxen and the asses? did I not sleep when it was told me concerning the fire? etc.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. In so far as we may be disposed to find the theme of the following discussion in the preceding chapter, it behooves us in any case to hold for certain that this theme is expressed only partially, and altogether formally, or only, so to speak, in an interrogative form. Job certainly does not come across the question in this discourse. To curse his existence, to ask again and again after the incomprehensible Wherefore of that existencethis constitutes the whole of this violent outbreak of feeling, with which Job initiates the discussion which follows. He does not give the slightest intimation in regard to the right way of solving the problem which torments himthe problem touching the enigma of his sorrowful existence; indeed he makes not the slightest attempt at such a solution. He pours forth in all its bitterness and harshness his despairing lamentation concerning the helpless misery of man, who is become the object of the divine anger. What he puts forth vividly reminds us from beginning to end of those well-known utterances of the Greek poets, which declare it best never to have been born, and next best to die as quickly as possible. Comp. Theognis:

,

also the similar expressions of Bacchylides (Fragm. 3), sop (Anthol. Gr. x. 123), Sophocles (Oed. Col. 1225: , , , , : not to have been born surpasses everything which can be said: or if one has come to the light, to descend there whence he came as quickly as possible is by far the second best thing), of Alexis (in Athenus, Deipnos. iii. 124, 6), of Pliny (Hist. Nat. vii. 1), etc. Especially current in heathen literature, although indeed often enough hinted at by the singers of the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms and the Lamentations of Jeremiah, is this manifoldly uttered lament over the ruined estate, the bankruptcy of the natural man in his unredeemed condition, left to himself, delivered over without remedy to the consequences of sina lament which here falls on our ears, without a single ray of comfort from on high to shine on its deep gloom, without any alleviating influence whatever from the hope of a better Hereafter, of which not a trace is as yet visible here.

2. Notwithstanding all this, however, Job does not altogether fall into the tone of those heathen, of those (Eph 2:12; comp. 1Th 4:13). He does indeed ask: Why does God give light to the sorrowful, and life to the bitter in soul (Job 3:20)? He is not found now, as aforetime (Job 1:21 seq.), praising God in the midst of his sufferings; in so far as with all earnestness he curses his birth and conception, he is palpably guilty of sinning with his lips (Job 2:10), instead of exhibiting, as he had previously done, a childlike pious submission. But he by no means goes over to the side of Satan, that enemy of God, who is the author of his temptation. He does not go so far astray as presumptuously to curse God to His face (Job 1:11; Job 2:7), as Satan had purposed that he should. He curses indeed the divine act of creation which had given him being, but not the Creator himself; the curse which he pronounces on his day does not put forth that wicked blasphemous sentiment which H. Heine expresses in one of his last poems:

Tis well to die; but better still
It were had mother never borne us.

His words are words of lamentation and despondency, of doubt and questioning, but not words of blasphemy, nor even of atheistic doubt, renouncing all faith in a living, good and just God. They show, indeed, that the trust which he had hitherto exercised in God had been violently shaken, that there was a wavering and faltering in the child-like obedience which, with touching loyalty, he had hitherto constantly yielded to God. But they are nevertheless only preparatory to the later, and far more passionate outbreaks of discontent with Gods dealings to which he gives way. Even when he mentions here a man whose way God has hidden and hedged about (Job 3:23), he is still far from indulging in any accusation of God as a cruel and unjust persecutor; it is as yet a comparatively harmless complaint, in the utterance of which the bitter accusation of his later discourses is only remotely anticipated. It is a fact, however, that he who has hitherto lived blamelessly in his fidelity to God does, in the complaints which in this discourse gush forth from his heart, enter on that downward path which, in proportion as his friends prove themselves to be unskilful comforters, and as physicians accomplished only in torturing, not in healing, leads him ever further from God and ever deeper into the abyss of joyless despair. Comp. Delitzsch (1:84): Job nowhere says, that he will have nothing more to do with God; he does not renounce his former faithfulness. In the mind of the writer, however, as may be gathered from Job 2:10, this speech is to be regarded as the beginning of Jobs sinning. If a man, on account of his sufferings, wishes to die early, or not to have been born at all, he has lost his confidence that God, even in the severest suffering, designs his highest good; and this want of confidence is sin. There is, however, a great difference between a man who has in general no trust in God, and in whom suffering only makes this manifest in a terrible manner, and the man with whom trust in God is a habit of his soul, and is only momentarily repressed, and, as it were, paralyzed. Such interruption of the habitual state may result from the first pressure of unaccustomed suffering; it may then seem as though trust in God were overwhelmed, whereas it has only given way to rally itself again. It is, however, not the greatness of the affliction in itself which shakes his sincere trust in God, but a change of disposition on the part of God, which seems to be at work in the affliction. The sufferer considers himself as forgotten, forsaken and rejected of God; therefore he sinks into despair; and in this despair expression is given to the profound truth (although with regard to the individual that expression is a sinful weakness), that it is better never to have been born, or to be annihilated, than to be rejected of God (comp. Mat 26:24, ). In such a condition of spiritual, and, as we know from the prologue, of Satanic temptation (Luk 22:31; Eph 6:16), is Job. He does not despair when he contemplates his affliction, but when he looks at God through it, who, as though He were become his enemy, has surrounded him with his affliction as with a rampart. It is indeed inconceivable that a New Testament believer, even under the strongest temptation, should utter such imprecations, or especially such a question of doubt as in Job 3:20 : Wherefore is light given to the miserable? But that an Old Testament believer might very easily become involved in such conflicts of belief may be accounted for by the absence of any express divine revelation to carry his mind beyond the bounds of the present.1

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The above chapter presents as a whole but little material for homiletic use. The description of human misery, as here elaborated by Job, before the coming of the Redeemer, is too much pervaded by a passionate one-sidedness, to be susceptible of practical application in the way of exhortation or encouragement. Unless, as with many of the ancient and most of the Romish commentators, the discourse of Job be idealized, and that which is objectionable in it be set aside, after the fashion of an artificial, moralistic and allegoristic exegesis, it presents more which from the Christian point of view is to be censured than to be accepted as sound and authoritative teaching. It behooves us at all events to treat it critically, and from the stand-point of a higher and maturer evangelical perception of the truth to discriminate in Jobs complaints and doubtful questionings that which belongs wholly to the Old Testament era, before Christ, and to an imperfectly regenerated humanity, and which is incompatible with the spirit and belief of a suffering saint under the New Dispensation. It behooves us, in a word, to set beside each other the impatient sufferer, Job, with the most patient of all sufferers, Christ. It behooves us to show the contrast between him, who, oppressed by the weight of his sufferings, cursed the day of his birth, and Him, who, when confronted by a yet more bitter and terrible cup of suffering, prayed: O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt! It must be noted that Job, in cursing his existence, and thereby (at least indirectly) calling in question Gods goodness and justice, departs from the stand-point of the pious sufferers of the Old Testament, and seemingly betakes himself to that of the heathen in their disconsolate and hopeless estate (comp. Doctrinal Remarks, No. 1), whereas the strongest utterance of lamentation and anguish which Christ puts forth is that exclamation from the Psalms: My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? Let this question of the Crucified One accordingly be taken, and put alongside of the two questions of Job beginning with the interrogative why (Job 3:11 seq. and Job 3:20 seq.), and this comparison be formulated thus: The Why of the suffering Job, and that of Christ; or: Job and Christ, the sorely tried sufferers, and the different questions addressed by them to God. Comp. Brentius in his introductory Meditation on the Chap.: Christ exclaims that He is forsaken, because the Lord appears solely in the character of Judge, inflicting sentence of death, thus hiding in the meanwhile His paternal . This the Scriptures call sometimes forsaking, sometimes being asleep. There is the same judicial character in the treatment of Job. For during his first trials (chap. 12) he feels the Lord to be as yet his Father, and His hand to be supporting him; and so he stands without difficulty, being founded on a firm rock. But now, the Father being hidden from him, a horrible sentence of death is set before him. No longer therefore do you hear thanksgivings from him, but blasphemies and curses, so that you may say, that the Lord alone is good and true, but that every man, however just and pious, is a liar.

Particular Passages. Job 3:3-10 : Osiander: If a mans heart be not ruled and curbed by the grace of the Holy Spirit, it fumes and rages under the cross, instead of bearing it patiently.Wohlfarth: This saying (Cursed be the day wherein I was born, etc.) is rightly imputed to the tried sufferer as a great sin by the Holy Scripture, and by himself, because the day of our birth comes to us from God, the best Father, and makes us witnesses of so many instances of His grace. Jobs case may warn you against incurring such guilt, as to murmur against your Lord, and teach you, so far from cursing the day of your birth, much rather to thank God for it, Psalm 134:14 sq.

Job 3:11-19. Brentius: The godly and the ungodly alike declare that death is the last limit of earthly affairs, that it is a quiet deliverance from lifes ills. But the one class declare this in unbelief, the other in faith. For the godly man wishes to depart and to be with Christ, seeing that he has no other release from the sinfulness of the flesh than death, which nevertheless is not his death, but his redemption. But the ungodly, feeling in himself the heavy scourgings of Divine judgment, desires death as rest and deliverance from these scourgings. It is unbelief, however, that produces this wish, which longs after death, not because of the sinfulness of the flesh, but on account of the scourgings.v. Gerlach. Death seems in this and in similar sections of the book (as is so often the case also in the Psalms) as a state of peace and quiet, it is true, but as being at the same time a pale, empty, shadowy existence, such as it was conceived to be among the heathen, as e.g. in the Eleventh Book of the Odyssey. These and similar descriptions we are not to esteem as the human representations appropriate to a crude superstitious age; rather is this to be regarded as the actual condition of the departed without the redemption which is through Christ. It was in this condition that Christ found them after completing His redemptive work on earth, when He preached to the spirits in prison (1Pe 3:18 sq.). The awful truth of these descriptions of the realm of the dead in our book and in the Psalms should accordingly fill even the Christian, who still lives in the body and in the world with holy earnestness, when he remembers the character of that state which follows a life out of Christ; and how with these descriptions the narrative which Jesus gives of the rich man in the place of torment links itself.

Job 3:20-26. Cocceius: Under the yoke of the law, before the revelation of the Gospel, a burden lay upon our fathers, such as they could neither bear nor lay aside. And although they panted after the liberty of the sons of God, there were still so many hindrances in the way, that they could never enjoy the full blessedness which results from a conscience , and inwardly absolved. Whoever, therefore, of them cursed his life should be regarded by us not so much as resisting the ordinance of God, or spurning His kindness, but rather as panting after the liberty of the Gospel, while struggling with the yoke of the law.Zeyss (on Job 3:23-24): God often shuts up the way of His children with the thorns of affliction, in order that they may never turn aside out of it; He knows, however, how easily to open it again, after He has tried them first. The bread of tears is the most common food of pious Christians in this world; it is their comfort, however, that the true bread of joy will certainly follow hereafter; Psa 80:6; Psa 102:10; Psa 126:5-6; Joh 16:20. Hengstenberg: The answer to Jobs questions is this: God chastises the pious in righteous retribution, and for their good, but He does not deliver them over to death. There is no wretched one (Job 3:21) in Jobs sense of the term, understanding by it, as he does, one who is absolutely miserable. The man who should be permanently miserable would be so in consequence of his sin, as the penalty of his delinquency, the suffering which should lead him to God, and put him in spiritual union with Him, having driven him away from God.

Footnotes:

[1]On the relation of Jeremiahs outburst of despair (Job 20:14-18), in which the prophet partially imitates in expression the passage before us, to Jobs similar lament, comp. Delitzsch (i. 86 seq, who is certainly right in calling attention to the greater brevity of the passage in Jeremiah, and who is for that reason not disinclined, with Hitzig, to attribute to the prophet a momentary paroxysm of excitement, occasioned by the extremely disconsolate condition of his nation at that time); also Ngelsbach on Jeremiah l. c.; as also Hengstenberg. Das Buch Hiob, p. 120 [see also Lowths remarks in the Exegetical Notes].

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

DISCOURSE: 453
JOB CURSES THE DAY OF HIS BIRTH

Job 3:1. After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.

IT is Worthy of observation, that the most eminent saints mentioned in the sacred records are reported, not only to have sinned, but to have failed in those very graces for which they were most distinguished. Abraham, the father of the faithful, who is set forth as the great pattern for all future believers, repeatedly denied his wife through the influence of unbelief: and Moses, the meekest of all men upon the face of the earth, spake unadvisedly with his lips, and thereby provoked God to exclude him from the earthly Canaan. Of the patience of Job the Scripture speaks in the highest terms: but, behold, he is here set forth to our view in a state of grievous impatience. Let us consider,

I.

The manner in which he expressed his impatience

It should seem as if Satan had now assaulted, not his body only, but his soul also, and had succeeded in wounding him with his fiery darts. It is probable too, that the continued silence of his friends had produced an unfavourable impression on his mind. But however these things might be,
He vented his complaints in very unbecoming terms
[He first cursed the day of his birth, wishing it to be marked, both by God in his providence, and by men in their feelings, as a day of darkness and gloominess, even to the latest generations [Note: ver. 310.]. He next expressed his regret, that he had not been left to perish as soon as he came out of the womb; seeing that he should then have escaped all his calamities, and been quiet in the tomb, where all of every class, whatever their situations and circumstances were whilst they were living upon earth, are enjoying equal repose [Note: ver. 1119.]. And, lastly, he complained that whilst his grievous sufferings tormented him beyond measure, they did not prevail to take away his life [Note: ver. 2026.].

We have a similar instance of impatience in another eminent saint, the Prophet Jeremiah, who seems almost to have adopted the very expressions in the chapter before us [Note: Jer 20:14-18.].

Alas! how weak a creature is man when left in any measure to himself!]
But is this an uncommon line of conduct?
[No, truly: there is the same spirit in every man, ready to break forth whenever occasion offers: and in too many of us it breaks forth almost without any occasion at all. How little a thing will discompose the minds of the generality!
How small a provocation will cause them to vent their displeasure in angry and opprobrious language! If trials be at all heavy and of long continuance, how will they disquiet our minds, and destroy all the comfort of our lives! Is it an uncommon thing for men under some calamity to feel weary of their existence, and even to entertain thoughts of terminating their sorrows by suicide? Yea, do not multitudes, who have not one half of Jobs trials, actually destroy their own lives, and rush headlong into hell itself, in order to get rid of their present troubles?
Whilst then we lament the imperfections of this holy man, let us turn our eyes inwards, and contemplate the prevalence of our own corruptions, which a single loss, or disappointment, or injury, is sufficient to call forth in their utmost extent.]
Having viewed the impatience of Job, let us notice,

II.

Some observations arising from it

We may justly notice,

1.

The folly of arraigning the providence of God

[Had Job been able to see the design of God in that dispensation towards him, (as sent in the purest love;) and the end in which it was soon to issue, (his greatly augmented happiness and prosperity;) had he contemplated the benefit that was to arise from it to his own soul (both in present sanctification and in eternal glory,) and to the Church of God in all ages, (in having such an example of sufferings and patience set before them,) he would never have uttered such complaints as these: he would have acknowledged then, what he afterwards so clearly saw, that the Judge of all the earth did right. Thus if we also in our trials would look to the final issue of them, we should bear them all, whether little or great, with resignation and composure. We see Jacob complaining, All these things are against me, and yet at last find, that the loss he so deplored was the salvation of him and all his family: it was a link in the chain of providence to accomplish Gods gracious purposes in the preservation of the chosen seed, and ultimately in the redemption of the world, by Him who was to spring from the loins of Judah. And if we saw every thing as God does, we should see that the very trials of which we complain are sent by God as the best means of effecting the everlasting salvation of our souls; and we should unite in the testimony of David, that God in very faithfulness has caused us to be afflicted. Let us be contented then to leave every thing to the disposal of an all-wise God: let us in the darkest seasons possess our souls in patience; assured, that he doeth all things well; and let us say with Job when in his better mind, Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.]

2.

The inability of Satan to prevail against the Lords people

[Satan had hoped that he should instigate Job to curse God to his face: but in this he was disappointed. Job did indeed curse his day; but never for a moment thought of cursing his God. On the contrary, he often spake of God in the most honourable and reverential terms. But Satan is a chained adversary: he can prevail no further than God sees fit to permit him. He could not have done any thing against Job, if he had not first obtained leave of God. Neither can he do any thing against the least of Gods people, any further than God is pleased to suffer him with a view to their eternal good. He desired to sift Peter as wheat: but the intercession of Christ preserved his servant from being finally overcome. He is a roaring lion, going about seeking whom he may devour: but he cannot seize on one of the lambs of Christs flock. They are kept in safety by the Good Shepherd; and none can pluck them out of his hand. God has provided for his people, armour, by means of which they shall be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand [Note: Eph 6:10-18.]. Nor do the more aged and experienced alone defeat him; the young men also overcome him [Note: 1Jn 2:13-14.], yea, all that are begotten of God are enabled so to resist him, that he flees from them [Note: Jam 4:7.], and toucheth them not [Note: 1Jn 5:18.]. He may be permitted to tempt and try us [Note: Rev 2:10.]; but he is a vanquished enemy [Note: Joh 12:31.], and shall be bruised under our feet shortly [Note: Rom 16:20.].]

3.

The necessity of fleeing from the wrath to come

[There is a period fast approaching, when all the ungodly will be reduced to a state infinitely more calamitous than that of Job. They will indeed then, and with justice too, curse the day of their birth; for it would, as our Lord himself testifies, be better for them that they had never been born. O what a day of darkness awaits them; a day wherein there will not be one ray of light to cheer their souls! Then will they curse and blaspheme their God, because of the plagues that he inflicts upon them [Note: Rev 16:9; Rev 16:11.]. They will wish for death also, and call upon the rocks to fall upon them, and the hills to cover them [Note: Rev 6:15-17.]; but all in vain. Now if we were informed that only such troubles as Jobs were coming upon us, what diligence should we use to avert them! how careful should we be to preserve our property, and to guard against the disorders with which we were threatened! Not a moment would be lost by us, nor should we decline the use of any means, to ward off such awful calamities. How earnest then should we be in fleeing from the wrath to come! Think, Brethren, what a fearful thing it will be to fall into the hands of the living God, and to be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched [Note: Mar 9:43-48. with Rev 14:10-11.]. O delay not one moment to flee for refuge to the hope set before us in the Gospel: flee to Christ, as the city of refuge, where, notwithstanding all your past iniquities, you may find perfect rest and security. Do not put off the great work of your souls to a time of sickness and trouble: such a season is but ill calculated for so great a work. Look at Job: if he had neglected his soul hitherto, how incapable would he have then been of performing those offices of repentance and faith, which require all the energies of the mind! He could not even compose his mind to bear his affliction aright; much less could he have employed that season in calling his past ways to remembrance, and in turning unto God with all his heart. So we also shall find it quite enough to bear up under the pains or weakness of a dying hour. Let us then improve the time of health and prosperity, in preparing for a better world, where neither sin nor sorrow shall molest us more, but we shall be for ever happy in the bosom of our God.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

CONTENTS

We have in this chapter, the complaints of Jobadiah The whole, from beginning to end, is an unceasing lamentation. The afflicted mourner dwells much upon the miseries of life, and the happiness of death.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

(1) After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. (2) And Job spake, and said, (3) Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived. (4) Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. (5) Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. (6) As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months. (7) Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.

It is worthy our closest observation in this account of Job, (and indeed it is one of the most important considerations in his history) that in the example of great and good men, the Holy Ghost hath been pleased to open to the view of the church, their frailties and imperfections also. While we are called upon to behold the patience of Job, Jas 5:11 . we are to be taught, no less, that he was a man of like passions with ourselves. So in the examples of David, Peter, and others. Jeremiah acted as Job did under his affliction: Jer 20:14-18 . What Job hath said of the day of a man’s birth, indeed, as it concerns our being born in sin, is true enough. And in this spiritual sense, the day of our death, when we die to sin, and are new born unto a life of righteousness in Jesus, by the quickening of the Spirit, is, as the wise man observes, for better. Ecc 7:1 . But, otherwise, a child of God, under the heaviest affliction, hath a consolation in Jesus, to sweeten all. Reader! if the Lord, in infinite mercy, hath given you and me a new life, what blessings may we trace, both in our old creation, and in our new? Many a poor sinner hath been tempted to curse the day of his birth in nature. Oh! how may you and I bless the day of our new birth in grace!

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Job 3:1-4

He had long been in the habit of ‘lamenting’ his birthday, though, in earlier days, Stella and other friends had celebrated the anniversary. Now it became a day of unmixed gloom, and the chapter in which Job curses the hour of his birth lay open all day on his table.

Sir Leslie Stephen, Swift, p. 198.

Job 3:6

Sept. 6, 1879. Red Sea. I am in a very angry mood. I feel sure that, doing my best, I cannot get with credit out of this business; I feel it is want of faith, but I have brought it on myself, for I have prayed to God to humble me to the dust, and to visit all the sins of Egypt and the Soudan on my head; it would be little to say, take my life for theirs, for I do earnestly desire a speedy death…. Read the third chapter of Job, it expresses the bitterness of my heart at this moment.

General Gordon.

Job 3:13-14

Hippocrates after curing many diseases himself fell sick and died. The Chaldeans foretold the death of many, and then fate caught them too. Alexander and Pompey and Caesar, after so often completely destroying whole cities, and in battle cutting to pieces many thousands of cavalry and infantry, themselves too departed at last from life. Marcus Aurelius (iii. 3).

Job 3:17

Luxury is indeed possible in the future innocent and exquisite; luxury for all, and by the help of all; but luxury at present can only be enjoyed by the ignorant; the cruelest man living could not sit at his feast, unless he sat blindfold. Raise the veil boldly; face the light; and if, as yet, the light of the eye can only be through tears, and the light of the body through sackcloth, go thou forth weeping, bearing precious seed, until the time come, and the kingdom, when Christ’s gift of bread, and bequest of peace, shall be ‘unto this last as unto thee’; and when, for earth’s severed multitudes of the wicked and the weary, there shall be holier reconciliation than that of the narrow home, and calm economy, where the wicked cease not from trouble, but from troubling and the weary are at rest.

Ruskin, Unto this Last, 85.

Lockhart narrates how Sir Walter Scott one day, at the sad end of his life, fell asleep in his chair among the pillows, and how, ‘when he was awaking Laidlaw said to me “Sir Walter has had a little repose”. “No, Willie,” said he, “no repose for Sir Walter, but in the grave.”‘

Compare Charlotte Bront’s words after the death of her sister, Emily, in 1848: ‘Some sad comfort I take, as I hear the wind blow and feel the cutting keenness of the frost, in knowing that the elements bring her no more suffering; this severity cannot reach her grave; her fever is quieted, her restlessness soothed; her deep, hollow cough is hushed for ever; we do not hear it in the night nor listen for it in the morning; we have not the conflict of the strangely strong spirit and the fragile frame before us relentless conflict once seen, never to be forgotten. A dreary calm reigns round us, in the midst of which we seek resignation.’ ‘Youth,’ says somebody, ‘is a garland of roses.’ I did not find it such. ‘Age is a crown of thorns.’ Neither is this altogether true for me. If sadness and sorrow tend to loosen us from life, they make the place of rest desirable.

Carlyle.

‘I don’t pity anybody who leaves the world,’ Thackeray once wrote to Mrs. Brookfield; ‘not even a fair young girl in her prime…. On her journey, if it pleases God to send her, depend on it there’s no cause for grief, that’s but an earthly condition. Out of our stormy life, and brought near the Divine light and warmth, there must be a serene climate. Can’t you fancy sailing into the calm?’

References. III. 17. Archbishop Bourne, Sermons Preached in Westminster Abbey, p. 152. A. K. H. Boyd, Counsel and Comfort Spoken from a City Pulpit, p. 128.

Job 3:19

Compare Jowett’s sentences on Charles Dickens ( Miscellaneous Sermons, pp. 274-75): ‘And so we bid him “farewell” once more, and return to our daily occupations. He has passed into the state of being, in which, we may believe, human souls are drawn to one another by nearer ties, and the envious lines of demarcation which separate them here are broken down. And, if we could conceive that other world, we might perhaps imagine him still at home, rejoicing to have a place at that banquet to which the poor and the friendless, the halt and the lame, are specially invited. “The small and the great are there, and the servant is free from his master;” “there the prisoners rest together, they hear not the voice of the oppressor”; “there the weary are at rest”.’

Job 3:21

We cannot die just when we wish it and because we wish it…. Nature compels us to live on, even with broken hearts as with lopped-off members.

Mrs. Craik.

Job 3:22

Epictetus (i. 9) depicts pessimists coming to him with the plaint: ‘Epictetus, we can no longer endure being bound to this poor body…. Are we not in a sense kinsmen of God, and did we not come from Him? Let us depart to the place whence we came. Here there are robbers and thieves and courts of justice, and those who are named tyrants, and who think they have some power over us thanks to the body and its possessions…. And I,’ says Epictetus, ‘would reply, “Friends, wait for God: when He gives the signal to release you from this service, then go to Him; but for the present endure to dwell in the place where He has put you”.’

Most people’s downfalls are not dangerous; they are like children who have not far to fall, and cannot injure themselves; but when a great nature is dashed down, he is bound to fall from a height. He must have been raised almost to the skies; he has caught glimpses of some heaven beyond his reach. Vehement must the storms be which compel a soul to seek peace from the trigger of a pistol.

Balzac in La Peau de Chagrin, chap. 1.

Job 3:23

This pathetic inquiry rises from all parts of the globe, from millions of human souls, to that heaven from whence the light proceeds. From the young, full of eager aspirations after virtue and glory; with the glance of a falcon to descry the high-placed aim, but ah! the wing of a wren to reach it! The young enthusiast must often weep…. The old! O their sighs are deeper still! They attempt to unroll their charts for the use of their children, and their children’s children. They feed the dark lantern of wisdom with the oil of experience, and hold it aloft over the declivity up which these youths are blundering in vain.

Margaret Fuller.

The hardest moment in my present sad life is the morning, when I must wake up and* begin the dreary world again. I can sleep during the night, and I sleep as long as I can; but when it is no longer possible, when the light can no longer be gainsaid, and life is going on everywhere, then I too rise up to bear my burden. How different it used to be. When I was a girl I remember the feeling I had when the fresh morning light came round. Whatever grief there had been the night before, the new day triumphed over it. Things must be better than one thought, must be well, in a world which woke up to that new light, to the sweet dews and sweet air which renewed one’s soul. Now I am thankful for the night and darkness, and shudder to see the light and the day returning.

From Mrs. Oliphant’s Autobiography, for 1894.

Fair prospects wed happily with fair times; but alas! if times be not fair! Men have oftener suffered from the mockery of a place too smiling for their reason than from the oppression of surroundings over-sadly tinged.

Thomas Hardy.

The incline was the same down which D’Urberville had driven with her so wildly on that day in June. Tess went up the remainder of its length without stopping, and on reaching the edge of the escarpment gazed over the familiar green world beyond, now half-veiled in mist. It was always beautiful from here; it was terribly beautiful to Tess today, for since her eyes last fell on it, she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing, and her views of life had been totally changed for her by the lesson. She could not bear to look forward into the Vale.

Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

References. III. 23. R. J. Campbell, A Faith for Today, p. 79. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlvi. No. 2666. IV. A. W. Momerie, Defects of Modern Christianity, p. 93.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

The Trial of Job

Job 3

Job has made two speeches up to this point Both of them admirable more than admirable, touching a point to which imagination can hardly ascend in its moral sublimity:

“Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, and said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:20 , Job 1:21 .)

Mark in how short a space the sacred name is mentioned three times. The second speech is equal in religiousness to the first:

“Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10 .)

Again the divine name is invoked, and set in its right place, at the very centre of things, upon the very throne of the universe. Job’s first speech was so full of noble submission, and so truly religious and spiritually expressive, that it has become a watchword in the bitterest Christian experience. Who has not said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord”? Sometimes there has been hesitation as to the close of the sentence; the voice has not been equally steady throughout the whole enunciation: the sufferer has been able to say, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away,” then came a mark of punctuation not found in the books, not known to writers and scholars a great heart-stave; and after that the words were added with some tremulousness “blessed be the name of the Lord.” But it is not easy talk. Do not let us imagine that passages like this can be quoted glibly, flippantly, thrown back in easy retort when grief has come and darkened the house and turned the life into a cloud. Words so noble can only be uttered by the heart in its most sacred moments, and then can hardly be uttered in trumpet tone, but in a stifled voice; yet, notwithstanding the stifling and the sobbing, there is a strong tone that goes right through all the bitterness and the woe, and magnifies God. Where have we found these words? We have found them on our tombstones. Walk up and down the cemetery, and read the dreary literature which is often to be found there, and you will in many instances come upon the words of Job, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” It has helped many to bear the loss of children: is there any greater grief in all the resources of woe? This passage has wrought miracles in face of the empty cot. Strong men have been able to write even upon the tombstones of little children “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away.” Hardly like the Lord when he so took away. He might have taken away all the flock, and ripped up all the trees in one black night, and the passage could have been quoted with somewhat of exultation; the loss would have been as nothing; so long as the children were about the mourner they would make him forget his loss. What but the grace of God, the Father of the universe, could make a man bear the silence which follows the loss of children? The miracle has been wrought, and the bearing of that silence has not been a stoical answer to a great distress, but an answer full of intelligence intelligence growing up into consent, and consent that has sometimes said in moments of rapture, “I would not have it otherwise.” These are the eternal miracles of grace.

Reckoning the first and second speeches as one deliverance, we now come to another view of Job’s case. Job’s tongue is loosened, and his words are many. How did he come to speak so much? Because his friends had gathered around him, and after seven days and seven nights of silence, “Job opened his mouth, and cursed his day.” What a secret masonry is this of friendship and sympathy. Job would have taken his grief downward, as it were, swallowed it, digested it, and turned it mayhap into some degree of spiritual strength; but the sight of friendship, the touch of sympathy, brought it out of him evoked, elicited it; and what other form of speech was so true to his inmost feeling as the form which is known as malediction? Do not read the words as a grammarian would read them. Do not parse this grammar! the speech is but one sentence, and it rushes from a soul that is momentarily out of equipoise. Our friends often draw out of us the very worst that is in us. It is one of two things under the mysterious touch of fellowship and sympathy: either we surprise our friends by the dignity and volume of our prayer, or we amaze them by our power of deprecation and malediction. But the Lord’s recording angel never sets down the words as terms that are to be grammatically examined, critically scrutinised, as if we had gathered ourselves up for a supreme literary composition, and were prepared to be judged finally by its merits as a literary structure. We best comment upon such words by repeating them, by studying the probable tone in which they were uttered. We read them best when we read them through our tears. They do us good when we forget the letters but feel all the magic of the grief. Let no wanton man trample upon this sacred ground: no lion should be here, nor any ravenous beast go up hereon; it should not be found here; but the redeemed of the Lord should read this chapter, and they should annotate it with their own experience, and say, Thank God for this man, who in prose-poetry has uttered every thought appropriate to grief, and has given anguish a new costume of expression. To the end of time the wobegone will come to this chapter to find the words which they could never themselves have invented.

Notice how terrible after all is satanic power. Look at Job if you would see how much the devil can under divine permission do to human life: the thief has taken away all the property; the assassin has struck blows of death at unoffending men and women; the malign spirit: whose name is Cruelty has carried the trouble from the body into the soul. When the Lord said, “but save his life,” he seemed almost to add a drop to the agony rather than assuage the pain. Within a limited sphere, it would seem as if it had been more merciful to say, “Kill him, outright, at one blow; do not prolong the agony; smite him with a blow which means death.” The words read, “but save his life,” save his power of feeling, save his sensibility, save that peculiar nerve which feels everything, and which becomes either the medium of ecstacy or of agony. But we must not judge the words within limits which our invention could assign; we must wait the issue to know God’s meaning in sparing a life out of which the life was taken. Oh! what an irony, what a contradiction in terms a lifeless life, a life all death! Yet even into the meaning of that mystery some souls can come today. Look at the picture, and as you look at it write underneath, This is what the enemy would do in every case. If there is any other picture in human life, do not credit that picture to the devil; if there is a happy little child anywhere, do not say, This is the devil’s work; if today in all life’s black misery there is a man who is momentarily glad, call that gladness a miracle of God: we owe nothing of beauty, music, love, trust, progress to the enemy; every smile is a sunbeam from above; every throb of gladness is communicated from the life of God. Perhaps it was well that in one instance at least we should see the devil at his worst. Such historical instances are needed now and again in any profound and complete perusal of human life. There must be no play-work here. The devil must show what he would, do in every case by what he has done in one. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” There be those who ask whether there is any personal devil: why ask such a question? We have already answered that the devilishness, which is obvious, makes the existence of the devil more than a presumption: if there were no devilishness, there would be no devil. Let his work certify his existence.

What miracles may be wrought in human experience! The word “miracles” is not misapplied when we study Job’s bitter malediction upon the day of his birth. See how existence is felt to be a burden. Existence was never meant to be a heavy weight. Existence is an idea distinctively God’s. “To be” who could have thought of that but the “I AM”? Existence was meant to be a joy, a hope, a rehearsal of music and service of a quality and range now inconceivable; every nerve was made to tingle with pleasure; every faculty was constructed to bring back to its owner harvests from the field of the universe. But under satanic agency even existence is felt to be an intolerable burden to be, is to be in hell. “To be” the verb of every speech, and without which speech is impossible, is a conjugation of agony. Go through all the moods of this infinite verb, and it is like going through the gamut of grief. Even this miracle can be wrought by Satan. He can turn our every faculty into a heavy calamity. He can so play upon our nerves as to make us feel that feeling is intolerable. Then in the case of Job all the blessed past was forgotten. Not a word is said about the good time he has already enjoyed; there is nothing here of spiritual remembrance: there is no reference to the time when “his substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east” ( Job 1:3 ). It is easy to forget sunshine. It is no miracle on our part that we obliterate the past in the presence of an immediate woe. We are accustomed to this obliteration. Our hand, with infernal skill, rubs out the record of yesterday’s redemption. To this pass would the devil drive us! We should have no memory of light, music, morning, joy, festival: the past would be one great black cold cloud, without a hint of summer through which the soul has passed. Then again, in the case of Job, the spirit of worship was driven out by the spirit of atheism. There is no God in this malediction. Only once is the divine name invoked, and then it is invoked for no spiritual purpose. Yet the same man made all the three speeches. The man who said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord”; “Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” uttered the whole of this back monologue. There is but a step between the soul and atheism. We have but to turn round from the altar to face a prayerless state and to forget the living God. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” What is there so easily shaken off as religious usage, spiritual habit, and all that constitutes an outward and public relation to the altar of heaven?

But the speech of Job is full of profound mistakes, and the mistakes are only excusable because they were perpetrated by an unbalanced mind. The eloquent tirade proceeds upon the greatest misapprehensions. Yet we must be merciful in our judgment, for we ourselves have been unbalanced, and we have not spared the eloquence of folly in the time of loss, bereavement, and great suffering. We may not have made the same speech in one set deliverance, going through it paragraph by paragraph, but if we could gather up all reproaches, murmurings, complainings, which we have uttered, and set them down in order, Job’s short chapter would be but a preface to the black volume indited by our atheistic hearts. Job makes the mistake that personal happiness is the test of Providence. Job did not take the larger view. What a different speech he might have made! He might have said, Though I am in these circumstances now, I was not always in them: weeping endureth for a night, joy cometh in the morning: I will not complain of one bitter winter day when I remember all the summer season in which I have sunned myself at the very gate of heaven. Yet he might not have said this; for it lies not within the scope of human strength. We must not expect more even from Christian men than human nature in its best moods can exemplify. They are mocked when they complain, they are taunted when they say their souls are in distress; there are those who stand up and say, Where is now thy God? But “the best of men,” as one has quaintly said, “are but men at the best.” God himself knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust; he says, They are a wind which cometh for a little time, and then passeth away; their life is like a vapour, curling up into the blue air for one little moment, and then dying off as to visibleness as if it had never been. The Lord knoweth our days, our faculties, our sensibilities, our capacity of suffering, and the judgment must be with him. Then Job committed the mistake of supposing that circumstances are of more consequence than life. If the sun had shone, if the fields and vineyards had returned plentifully, answering the labour of the sower and the planter with great abundance, who knows whether the soul had not gone down in the same equal proportion? It is a hard thing to keep both soul and body at an equal measure. “How hardly” with what straining “shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God.” Who knows what Job might have said if the prosperity had been multiplied sevenfold? “Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked.” Where is the man who could bear always to swelter under the sun-warmth of prosperity? Where is the man that does not need now and again to be smitten, chastened, almost lacerated, cut in two by God’s whip, lest he forget to pray? “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.” “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then ye are bastards, and not sons.” Let suffering be accounted a seal of sonship, if it come as a test rather than as a penalty. Where a man has justly deserved the suffering, let him not comfort himself with its highest religious meaning, but let him accept it as a just penalty; but where it has overtaken him at the very altar, where it has cut him down when he was on his way to heaven with pure heart and pure lips, then let him say, This is the Lord’s doing, and he means to enlarge my manhood, to increase the volume of my being, and to develop his own image and likeness according to the mysteriousness of his own way: blessed be the name of the Lord! But what a temptation there is to find our religion in our circumstances! Who can realise the profound truth that to live is better than to have? We are prone to say that not to have is not to live. What a mystery is life! Men cling to it oftentimes in the extremest pain. Sometimes, indeed, just when the agony is at its most burning heat, they may say, Oh that I could die! but all human history shows that men would rather put up with much misery than give up life. There is a mystery in life; there is a divine element in being, in existing, in having certain faculties and powers. This is the way of the Lord!

Why has Job fallen into this strain? He has omitted the word which made his first speech noble. We have pointed out that in the first speech the word “Lord” occurs three times, and the word Lord never occurs in this speech for purely religious purposes; he would only have God invoked that God might carry out his own feeble prayer for destruction and annihilation; the word “God” is only associated with complaint and murmuring, as, for example, “Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it” ( Job 3:4 ); and again “Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?” ( Job 3:23 ). This is not the “Lord” of the first speech; this is but invoking Omnipotence to do a puny miracle: it is not making the Lord a high tower, and an everlasting refuge into which the soul can pass, and where it can for ever be at ease. So we may retain the name of God, and yet have no Lord living, merciful, and mighty, to whom our souls can flee as to a refuge. It is not enough to use the term God; we must enter into the spirit of its meaning, and find in God not almightiness only but all-mercifulness, all-goodness, all-wisdom. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Yet we must not be hard upon Job, for there have been times in which the best of us has had no heaven, no altar, no Bible, no God. If those times had endured a little longer, our souls had been overwhelmed; but there came a voice from the excellent glory, saying, “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.” Praised for ever be the name of the delivering God!

Note

Cursing the Day. The translation of this passage is wrong, so far as the second clause is concerned, though the margin of our Bibles gives the word “leviathan” instead of “mourning.” Rendered literally the text would run “Let the curse of the day curse it they who are skilled to raise up leviathan.” Leviathan is the dragon, an astro-mythological being, which has its place in the heavens. Whether it be the constellation still known by the name “draco,” or dragon, or whether it be serpens, or hydra, constellations lying farther south, it is not possible to decide. But the dragon, in ancient popular opinion, had the power to follow the sun and moon, to enfold, or even to swallow them, and thus cause night. Eastern magicians pretended to possess the power of rousing up the dragon to make war upon the sun and moon. Whenever they wished for darkness they had but to curse the day, and hound on the dragon to extinguish for a time the lamp that enlightened the world. Job, in his bitterness, curses the day of his birth, and utters the wish that those who control leviathan would, or could, blot that day and its deeds from the page of history. Biblical Things not Generally Known.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

(See the Job Book Comments for Introductory content and general conclusions and observations).

ANALYSIS OF THE DRAMA

Act 1 . Job’s Complaint,

Job 3

1. That he was ever born (Job 3:1-10 )

(1) Curses the day of his birth (Job 3:4 f.)

(2) Curses the night of his conception (Job 3:6-10 )

2. That he had not died at birth (Job 3:11-19 )

3. That he cannot now die (Job 3:20-26 ) This complaint the three friends understand to imply accusation against God.

Act II. Debate with the Three Friends, Job 4-5 Scene 1. First Round of Speeches (Job 4:4-14 )

1. Speech of Eliphaz (Job 4:4-5 )

(1) You show weakness to break down under afflictions wherein you have comforted others (Job 4:1-5 )

(2) Your integrity is ground for hope, since only the wicked are utterly destroyed (Job 4:6-11 )

(3) It is folly to question God’s providence (Job 4:12-5:7 )

(a) It is irreverent (Job 4:12-21 )

(b) It is through impatience self-destructive (Job 5:1-5 )

(c) It is erroneous, since trouble is conditioned by man’s own moral nature (Job 5:6 f.)

(d) God is good, and will therefore deliver you since you are really a righteous man (Job 5:8-27 )

2. Job’s Reply (6-7)

(1) My impatience has adequate cause in my afflictions (Job 6:1-13 )

(a) My affliction is exceedingly heavy (Job 6:1-7 )

(b) I am not rebellious but undone (Job 6:8-13 )

(2) Sympathy from you as a friend would be more timely than blame (Job 6:14-27 )

(3) Likewise from God my helplessness should elicit pity rather than this continued torture (Job 6:28-7:21 )

3. Speech of Bildad (Job 8 )

(1) You wrongfully imply injustice in God (Job 8:1-3 )

(2) If you will go to God aright in prayer he will give relief (Job 8:4-7 )

(3) For only the wicked are permanently cut off (Job 8:8-19 )

(4) Because you are a just man God will surely restore you (Job 8:20-22 )

4. Job’s Reply (Job 9-10) Proposition: I cannot get a fair trial of my case (Job 9:1 f).

(1) Because my adversary (God) is too powerful for me (Job 9:3-13 ).

(2) Because my adversary is judge in the case; my right is not heard (Job 9:14-21 ).

(3) He is an unjust judge, dispensing rewards and punishments without moral discrimination (Job 9:22-24 ).[This marks the climax of the moral tragedy. And this is the tragedy of tragedies. It is the deepest depth of the moral world. The climax of the debate and of the drama are reached later.]

(4) There is no use for me to try; moral improvement will do no good (Job 9:25-31 )

(5) Oh, for a third party to act as umpire and protect me against God’s tyranny (Job 9:32-35 )

(6) God made me weak and yet takes advantage of this to afflict me (Job 10:1-22 )

5. Speech of Zophar (Job 11 )

(1) Your arrogant speech is provoking and deserves punishment (Job 11:1-6 )

(2) God’s wisdom is beyond your grasp (Job 11:7-12 )

(3) But if you will turn to God and pray he will deliver you (Job 11:13-20 )

6. Job’s Reply (Job 12-14)

(1) Your attempt to explain and defend God to me is contemptible presumption (Job 12:1-13:12 )

(2) I will dare to plead my cause before God and challenge him to convict me (Job 13:13-28 ). (Read Job 12:15 a, “Though he . . . I will not wait”)

(3) Man’s natural weakness, the brevity of life, and the uncertainty of a future life call for leniency in the Almighty (Job 14:1-22 )

[Thus far the friends have made no attempt to explain the cause or purpose of Job’s affliction. The only charge they bring is that of a wrong spirit toward God in the affliction. The debate centers in the nature and conduct of God.] Scene 2. Second Round of Speeches (Job 15-21)

1. Speech of Eliphaz (Job 15 )

(1) Your talk is imprudent and self-condemnatory (Job 15:1-13 )

(2) It is preposterous that you, iniquitous fellow, should justify yourself before God in whose sight good men and even angels are unclean (Job 15:14-16 )

(3) The explanation of your calamities is the doctrine of retribution. Your terrible forebodings verify it (Job 15:16-35 )

2. Job’s Reply (Job 16-17)

(1) Your speech is vain; the matter cheap, and the method cruel (Job 16:1-5 )

(2) My awful affliction is not punishment for sin (Job 16:6-17 )

(a) That men think so according to an accepted doctrine only intensifies my sorrow (Job 16:6-8 )

(b) There were no forebodings all was sudden (Job 16:9-15 )

(c) I am innocent, both in deed and thought (Job 16:16 f.)

(3) I turn from men to God; my only hope is that God will vindicate me after death (Job 16:18-17:9 )

(4) To talk of restoration in this life is foolish (Job 17:10-16 )

3. Speech of Bildad (Job 18 )

(1) You are talking senseless rage (Job 18:1-4 )

(2) Retribution is the clear explanation of your case. The extent and severity of your calamities prove it (Job 18:5-21 )

4. Job’s Reply (Job 19 )

(1) You are doing me no good (Job 19:1-4 )

(2) The occasion of my affliction is not in me, but God (Job 19:5-22 )

(3) I am more sure that I shall be vindicated beyond the grave (Job 19:23-29 )

5. Speech of Zophar (Job 20 ) Certainly your sorrow is the fruit of sin. The brevity of your dashing prosperity and the suddenness and completeness of your fall, prove it so before reason and tradition

6. Job’s Reply (Job 21 ) Your theory is not supported by the facts; the wicked often prosper indefinitely and pass away in peace [In the second round the interest has centered in the moral perversity of Job as cause of his sorrows. While the conflict of debate is sharper, Job’s temper is more calm; and he is perceptibly nearer a right attitude toward God. He is approaching a victory over his opponents, and completing the more important one over himself.]

Scene 3. Third Round of Speeches (Job 22-26)

1. Speech of Eliphaz (Job 22 )

(1) Your sin is the only possible ground for your suffering; for God does not afflict you for any selfish interest, and certainly not because you are pious (Job 22-1-4)

(2) Denial only aggravates your original guilt. Yours is highhanded wickedness, well known to God and men (Job 22:5-14 )

(3) It is mad folly for you to persist in the wicked way whose course and end are an old story (Job 22:15-20 )

(4) Repent and reform, and God will forgive and greatly bless you (Job 22:21-30 )

2. Job’s Reply (Job 23-24)

(1) The weight of my affliction I have not adequately expressed (Job 23:1 f.)

(2) Conscious of my integrity, I expect final vindication, but am puzzled and grieved to be held in the dark at this helpless distance from God (Job 23:3-17 )

(3) As for your doctrine of universal and even retribution, the facts utterly disprove it and puzzle me (Job 24:1-25 ). [Climax of the debate.]

3. Speech of Bildad (Job 25 ) Ignore your facts. You have no right to be heard before the majesty of God.

4. Job’s Reply (Job 26 ) You help me not; it is not the fact of God’s power that I seek to know, but his use of it. [Job’s victory is complete; Zophar does not speak; the debate is closed. The traditional and prevalent doctrine that all sin is punished in this life and that all suffering is punishment of specific sin, is confuted by Job. This result, however, is negative; the explanation of his calamities he has not found. It is clear that along with Job’s struggle for theoretical solution of the mystery, a far more significant one is waging in his moral attitude toward God in the affliction. With calmer temper and hopefulness, he is steadily ascending from the depths (Job 9-10) to this practical heart solution of the problem.]

Act III. Job’s Formal Restatement of His Case (Job 27-31)

Introduction: My statement shall be in conscious integrity and the fear of God (Job 27:1-12 )

1. I maintain the ‘great doctrines which I have been supposed to deny (Job 27:13-28:28 )

(1) God’s justice in punishing the wicked (Job 27:13-23 )

(2) God’s wisdom in ordering the universe (Job 28:1-27 )

(3) That the highest human wisdom is to fear God and live righteously (Job 28:28 )

2. Now my experience I will place side by side with this current creed which I also hold (Job 29-30)

(1) My former blessed state (Job 29 )

(2) My present miserable state in contrast (Job 30 )

3. The experience is not explained by the doctrines. These would point to moral obliquity in me which I solemnly deny. There must be a hitherto unrecognized principle in God’s providence (Job 31 )

Act IV. Interposition of Elihu (Job 32-37)

The author’s narrative prose introduction (Job 32:1-5 ) The speaker’s introduction (Job 32:6-33:7 )

(1) In spite of my deference to age I must speak, imperiled by the failure of these distinguished men to convict Job of his guilty error (Job 32:6-22 )

(2) My speech will be sincere and candid (Job 33:1-5 )

(3) Job, I will discuss with you in God’s stead (Job 33:6 f.)

1. Job, you are very wrong; God’s concealed and severe providences are to wean men from their evil and work their good (Job 33:8-33 )

2. You wise men have allowed Job to triumph in his rebellious implications of injustice in God. His facts are not pertinent, since God’s plans are inscrutable to men (Job 34 )

3. Human conduct affects only men, not God. Your challenge is arrogance, which it is well for you that he has not visited with due punishment (Job 35 )

4. God’s works are mighty, his dispensations just, his designs merciful, his counsels inscrutable. Therefore, fear him (Job 36-37)

[Elihu makes a distinct advance on the three friends toward the true meaning of the mystery. They claimed to know the cause; he, the purpose. They said that the affliction was punitive; he, beneficent. His error is that he, too, makes sin in Job the occasion at least of his sorrow. His implied counsel to Job approaches the final climax of a practical solution.]

Act V. Intervention of God (Job 38:11-42:6Job 38:11-42:6Job 38:11-42:6 )

[Out of the storm cloud which has been gathering while Elihu spoke, God now addresses Job.]

Scene 1. First Arraignment and Reply (Job 38:11-40:5 )

1. God’s arraignment of Job (Job 38:1-40:2 )

It is foolish presumption for a blind dependent creature to challenge the infinite in the realm of providence. The government of the universe, physical, and moral, is one; to question any point is to assume understanding of all. Job, behold some of the lower realms of the divine government and realize the absurdity of your complaint.

2. Job’s Reply (Job 40:3-5 ) I see it; I hush.

Scene 2. Second Arraignment and Reply (Job 40:6-42:6 ) To criticize God’s government of the universe is to claim the ability to do it better. Assuming the role of God, suppose, Job, you try your hand on two of your fellow creatures, the hippopotamus and the crocodile.

2. Job’s Reply (Job 42:1-6 ) This new view of the nature of God reveals my wicked and disgusting folly. Gladly do I embrace his dispensations in loving faith. [Here is completed Job’s moral triumph, and this is the practical solution, of the great problem and the climax of the drama.]

The Epilogue (Prose) Job 42:7-17

1. God’s rebuke of the three friends (Job 42:7 f.) God commends Job’s earnest, honest, though impatient, search for the truth rather than the friends’ vehement unthinking defense of him upon a popular half-truth that has become an accepted creed. Apparently Elihu’s position is so nearly correct as not to call for censure.

2. Job’s Exaltation (Job 42:9-17 )

SOME CONCLUSIONS 1. There seems no ground to question the integrity of the book. The portions refused by some part of Job’s restatement and the whole of Elihu’s discourse are thoroughly homogeneous and essential to the unity of the book. Likewise the prose portions.

2. It has been complained that the problem of the book that of the suffering of the righteous receives no solution at the close from Jehovah. The truth of life and the master stroke of the production is that the theoretical solution is withheld from the sufferer while he is led to the practical solution which is a religious attitude of heart rather than an understanding of the head.

3. The final climax is the highest known to human heart or imagination. A vital, personal, loving faith in God that welcomes from him all things is the noblest exercise of the human soul. Dr. Moulton is not guilty of extravagance when he says that the book of Job is the greatest drama in the world’s literature.

4. The moral triumph came by a more just realization of the nature of God. This gives motive to all good and from all evil. It is a cure for most human ills. Much helpful literature on this book is cited by Dr. Tanner, but the author cautions the student to bear in mind that Davidson and Driver are radical critics. This syllabus is the best analysis of the book of Job in literature, but there are two serious faults with it, or objections to it:

(1) In the first speech of Eliphaz, his interpretations are rather weak and not very clear. The reader will do well to compare these with those of the author which are given at the proper place in his interpretation of the book.

(2) The main objection is that he failed to see the necessity of a revelation from God to man.

QUESTIONS

1. In general terms what of the book of Job?

2 Where do we find this book?

3. Of what times in the world’s history does it treat and what the proof?

4. In the Genesis early world history where would you place these times?

5. Was it written in or near the times of which it treats?

6. Who the probable author and what the arguments tending to prove it?

7 Is it history or a moral lesson based on supposititious characters and what the proof?

8. What the problems of the book?

9. What the objects of the book?

10. What the prose sections of the book and what their relations to the poetical parts?

11. What the literary character of the poetical sections?

12. What questions have been raised against the integrity of the book and the author’s reply to each of them?

13. What singularity does this book share with the book of Jonah?

14. In general, what may be noted of the commentaries on this book?

15. In particular, what helps commended by the author?

16. Give a brief introductory outline to the book.

17. Whose syllabus on this book is given here and why?

18. What Tanner’s express purpose and method in his treatment of the book?

19. What helpful literature on the book cited by Tanner and what caution with respect to some of these by the author?

20. According to Tanner what important questions to be answered in the study of this book?

21. What the author’s criticism of this syllabus, both favorable and unfavorable?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

(See the Job Book Comments for Introductory content and general conclusions and observations).

IV

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE POETICAL DRAMA AND JOB’S COMPLAINT

Job 3:1-26 .

The names and lineal descent of the human persons in the drama, their relationship, and their religious ideas are as follows:

1. Job was a descendant of Uz, the son of Nahor, who was the brother of Abraham (Gen 22:20-21 ). The father of Abraham and Nahor was an idolater, but Nahor shared in the light given to Abraham. Hence it is said, “The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor.” So, also, Nahor’s descendants shared the knowledge of the true God.

2. Eliphaz was a descendant of Teman, the son of Esau, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham. Hence his knowledge of God. Eliphaz, himself a prophet, received revelations (Job 4:12-17 ). Teman, his country, ages later, was renowned for wisdom (Jer 49:7 ).

3. Bildad was a descendant of Shuah, the son of Abraham and Keturah (Gen 25:1-2 ). Hence his traditional knowledge of God.

4. Zophar was a Namathite. Naamah in Joshua’s time was a city bordering on Edom and included by conquest in Judah’s territory. Hence, probably, Zophar was also a descendant of Esau, or possibly one of the Amorite confederates of Abraham ‘ (Gen 14:13 ).

5. Elihu, the Buzite, was a descendant of Buz, the brother of Uz the son of Nahor the brother of Abraham (Gen 22:20 ). Hence his knowledge of the true God. The religious ideas of these men were founded on the tradition of special revelations from God. Eliphaz was a prophet and probably received revelations direct from God. The agreement of their ideas doubtless was due to their common source and wherein they disagreed was due to deviations caused by not having a written revelation and the different points of view from which they made observations) as individuals. It is probable that Job’s ideas with reference to sin and suffering were the same as these three friends which were commonly accepted as the theory till his experience upset them and put Job to thinking. Elihu was most correct of all, but not that he had more light than the others but because, in all probability, he was more balanced in his observations, and thus formed better conclusions. In view of the striking and distinguishing characteristics of these five men, the peculiarities of mind, temper, and creed, the good and bad elements of their respective arguments, so clearly brought out in the development of this discussion, and in view of their peculiarities of style, idioms of speech and local references, bearing on the times, country, and habitat assigned to each, and in view of subsequent Old Testament and New Testament references to the story, to which one of these two conclusions are we driven:

1. Are they fictitious persons, children of the writer’s creative brain, who weaves his background of story in the drapery of a parable, and then sets forth in the literary form of a poetical drama his philosophy concerning divine providence?

2. Is this history; are these real persons voicing their own actual experiences, observations, and convictions; is everything true to character the time, the persons, the events, the style, and the idioms of speech?

They are not fictitious persons, children of the writer’s creative brain, like the characters of a novel, but are real persons, voicing their own actual experiences, observations, convictions, and their several philosophies of life. They are all descendants of Shem and of the two brothers, Abraham and Nahor, though none of them in the promised line through Abraham which developed into the chosen nation. The place of the book is Uz, a district of central Arabia, southeast of Palestine, touching or connecting with Edom on the south, the lower Euphrates on the east, and on the northeast the mountains east of the Jordan. In loose terms, it is known as the East Country, a country largely desert, traversed by caravans, largely pastoral, but with agricultural sections and with settled communities here and there that in that time were called cities.

The time in general and in particular is as follows:

1. In general, the patriarchal days somewhere between the time of Jacob and the bondage in Egypt

2. In particular, some months after Job was smitten with leprosy (Job 7:3 ; Job 29:2 )

The theme of the poetical drama is the mystery of divine Providence in the government of men prior to revelation, and the three necessities which this trial of Job reveals as relating to law, worship, the future state, prayer, and the supernatural interference with men, as illustrated in the case of Job are as follows:

1. The necessity of a revelation

2. The necessity of the incarnation

3. The necessity of a daysman (See Psa 19 ; Psa 73 .)

Now the following is a good, brief outline of the poetical drama and epilogue:

THE POETICAL DRAMA, Job 3:1-42:6

Act I. Job’s complaint (Job 3 )

Act II. Debate with the three friends (Job 4-26) Scene 1. First round of speeches (Job 4-14)

Scene 2. Second round of speeches (Job 15-21)

Scene 3. Third round of speeches (Job 22-26)

Act III. Job’s formal restatement of his case (Job 27-31)

Act IV. Interposition of Elihu (Job 32-37)

Act V. Intervention of God (Job 38:1-42:6Job 38:1-42:6Job 38:1-42:6 )

Scene 1. First arraignment and reply (Job 38:1-40:5 )

Scene 2. Second arraignment and reply (Job 40:6-42:6 )

THE EPILOGUE, PROSE, (Job 42:7-17 )

1. God’s rebuke of the three friends (Job 42:7 )

2. Job’s intercession (Job 42:8 )

3. Job’s exaltation (Job 42:9-17 )

It will be noted that this drama consists of five acts and many scenes. It commences with Job 3 and closes with Job 42:6 .

The several acts are Job’s complaint, the debate with the three friends, Job’s restatement of the case, Elihu’s interposition, and Jehovah’s intervention.

The problem of the prose prologue, “Can there be disinterested piety?” having been solved affirmatively, now gives way for an entirely new and broader problem: The solution of the mystery of God’s providential dealings with man on earth and in time, particularly in the undeserved sufferings of the righteous and in the undeserved prosperity of the wicked. This problem assumes in the progress of the discussion many shades of interrogative form, as follows:

1. Is exact justice meted out to man on earth so that we may infallibly infer his moral character from the blessings or sufferings which come upon him?

2. If this be true in general, in the case of the individual, to what extent is the problem complicated by the unity and responsibility of society as blessings or sufferings come upon a community, a city, a tribe, or a nation? What becomes of the individual case in this larger view? How much greater the complications when the individual is seen to be only an infinitesimal part of the universe?

3. Can the finite mind solve such a problem? Is this life the whole of man’s life? If not, what the folly of inferring character from an imperfect view of a fragment of earth life and of seeking a final judgment in each passing dispensation of time?

4. Considering man’s ignorance of the extraneous and supernatural forces, both good and bad, which touch man’s life, can he confidently infer the cause, purpose, and extent of temporal adversity and prosperity?

5. Are all earth sufferings penal and all of its blessings a reward of desert?

6. Can unaided man find out and comprehend the Almighty and Omniscient? Can man contend with the Almighty without a Surety? Is there not a necessity for a divine incarnation so that man unterrified may talk to God face to face as with a friend? Shall not God become visible, palpable, and human before a solution is possible? In view of human imperfection and divine perfection is not a superhuman interpreter needed in order to man’s full understanding? In view of sin, is not a daysman, or mediator, needed? In view of requisite holiness and the dreadfulness of sin, is not a written revelation, and infallible standard of right, needed that man may authoritatively know the indictment against him and how to meet it?

The discussion of these and kindred questions not only set this book apart as the profoundest philosophy of time, but also clearly indicates its object, namely, a preparation for a written revelation and an incarnation which will supply the needed surety, umpire, daysman, mediator, and redeemer. Now I will give a summary of Job’s complaint which is a brief outline of Job 3 . He complains:

1. That he was ever born (Job 3:1-10 )

2. That he had not died at birth (Job 3:11-15 )

3. That he had not been an abortion, failing of being before reaching the period of quickening (Job 3:16-19 )

4. That he cannot now die (Job 3:20-26 ) He means, by cursing the day of his birth, this: Let not God regard it; let man leave it out of the calendar; let those who curse days neglect not to curse this one; let it be eclipsed by darkness and let this darkness be the deepest, even the shadow of death.

By cursing the night of his conception he means: Let it be solitary and barren; let it have no dawn; let it be an eternal night.

Days may become accursed or blessed in the popular mind, by association with great events. Friday, or hangman’s day, is counted unlucky for marriages, the undertaking of new enterprises, or the commencing of a journey. November 5 as long marked for celebration in the English Calendar because the date of the discovery of the Guy Fawkes’ gunpowder plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament. So, in the American Calendar, July 4 becomes Independence Day. The presumption of cursing one three-hundred-and-sixty-fifth part of all future time because of one calamity to one man is an awful presumption, yet Job himself afterward called these words “rash words,” extorted by great anguish (Job 6:1-3 ) and that as “speeches of one that is desperate; they are as wind” and called not for serious reproof (Job 6:26 ).

In Job 3:13-19 we have Job’s idea of the peace and restfulness of death, so far as its subjects can be touched by the living. He says that there they are quiet, asleep, at rest, with counselors, and princes, like unborn infants; no troubles from the wicked and no oppression of servants. Though Job so thoroughly believed that his disease was incurable, his restoration to former prosperity impossible, was hopeless of vindication in his life, and so earnestly longed and begged for a speedy death, yet he never did think of suicide, and the bearing of this on the superiority of his religion over all the great heathen philosophies is tremendous. Compare Hamlet’s soliloquy commencing, “To be, or not to be, that is the question.” Job’s idea of man’s responsibility to God pre-vented him from thinking of suicide. He believed in the absolute ownership of God as to human life, and man therefore has no right to take his own life. He understood the disposition of life to belong to God. On the other hand, heathen philosophies taught that if life’s ills became unbearable, man had a right to end his own life under such circumstances by his own hand. They never realized the sanctity of human life as taught by the Christian religion. Thus, Job had a better religion than men attained to by philosophical inquiry.

The meaning of “shadow of death,” in the book of Job, in the Psalms, and the Prophets is not death itself, but as a shadow it may fall across the path of life at any point. In Pilgrim’s Progress Bunyan locates the “Valley of the Shadow of Death,” early in the pilgrimage and not just before death. “Death” is one thing, and the “shadow of death” is an entirely different thing.

There is a difficulty in the text, translation and meaning of Job 3:8 . The word rendered “leviathan” occurs elsewhere in the book. What is a leviathan? Does the crocodile of the Nile come up to the description in Job 41 ? Is it possible that “leviathan” in Job 3:8 is used figuratively like “the great dragon” in Rev 12:7 ? In the phrase, “let them that curse the day,” is there a reference to enchanters or to the power attributed to Balaam by Balack in Num 22:6-7 ? The Revised Version is in keeping with the Hebrew in this passage. It is properly translated “who are ready to rouse up leviathan.” “Leviathan” literally means crocodile, but in this passage it is used, I think, in a figurative sense, meaning reptile, serpent, the devil.

QUESTIONS

1. What the names and lineal descent of the human persons in the drama, showing their relationship and accounting for their religious ideas?

2. What can you say of the character of this book, negatively and positively?

3. What the place of the book?

4. What the time in general and in particular?

5. What the theme of the poetical drama?

6. What three necessities does this trial of Job reveal?

7. Give an outline of the poetical drama and epilogue.

8. What in particular the new problem of the drama?

9. What the various interrogative forms of this new problem?

10. What the purpose of the book as set forth in the discussion of these questions?

11. Give a summary of Job’s complaint.

12. What does he mean by cursing the day of his birth?

13. What does he mean by cursing the night of his conception?

14. How many days become accursed or blessed in the popular mind? Give examples.

15. What can you say of the presumption of cursing one three-hundred-and-sixty-fifth part of all future time because of one calamity to one man and how does Job afterward regard it?

16. Why did Job not commit suicide?

17. What was Job’s idea of the peace and restfulness of death, so far as its subjects can be touched by the living?

18. What the meaning of “shadow of death,” in the book of Job, in the Psalms, and in the Prophets?

19. What the difficulty in the text, translation and meaning of Job 3:8 . The word rendered “leviathan” occurs elsewhere in the book. What is a leviathan? Does the crocodile of the Nile come up to the description in Job 41 ? Is it possible that “leviathan” in Job 3:8 is used figuratively like “the great dragon” in Rev 12:7 ? In the phrase, “let them that curse the day,” is there a reference to enchanters or to the power attributed to Balaam by Balack in Num 22:6-7 ?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Job 3:1 After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.

Ver. 1. After this ] After so long silence of his friends, and to provoke them to speak, who haply waited for some words from him first, as knowing him wise and well spoken. Or [After this] After that Job’s pains were somewhat allayed, so that he could breathe, recollect himself, and utter his mind; for some troubles are above speech, Psa 77:4 , they will hardly suffer a man to take breath, Job 9:18 , See Trapp on “ Est 4:14 “ or to hear anything, though never so wholesome or comfortable, Exo 6:9 .

Job opened his mouth ] But better he had kept it closed still: either be silent, saith the Greek proverb, or else say something that is better than silence. But it may befall the best, left to themselves, to speak unadvisedly with their lips, as meek Moses did at the waters of Meribah, for which sin of his, some Jews say that he was damned, because we read not of his repentance. And a like wretched censure they pass upon holy Job for his cursing his day here, saying, that although in words he cursed the creature only, yet interpretatively and indeed, he cursed the Creator; like as he that spitteth upon a king’s picture, or robe royal, doth the same to the king himself. But why do they not then say the same of Jeremiah, and pronounce him a reprobate for cursing his birthday too? Jer 20:14 . R. Levi answereth, because it appeareth to be otherwise by Jeremiah’s whole prophecy besides. And may we not say the like for Job, if we wisely weigh his words in their right sense, and the end which the Lord made, Jas 5:11 , propounding him for a pattern of patience, not of impatience, whereof nothing is said against him, though he had his outbursts, as here; and must have his allowance (as good gold hath when it comes to the scale) that so he may pass. If he had blasphemed God, or denied his providence, ascribing all events to the conjunction of the stars at a man’s birth (as the Talmudists falsely gather from this chapter), Satan had had his design upon him; and God would never have justified him, and preferred him before his friends, as he did, Job 42:7-8 True it is, that, Job 38:2 , when he had spoken his mind overly freely, and indeed sinfully (as there is not a man upon earth that liveth, and sinneth not), as if the Lord had dealt unkindly, if not unequally, with him, God in the end steppeth forth, as it were, from behind the hangings, overhearing him, and taking him up, Who is this, saith he there, that talketh thus? how now? After which Job was not only hushed, Job 40:4-5 , but humbled, Job 42:6 . And truly it should be considered, say both Ambrose and Chrysostom, in Job’s defence, that, though patient in the two former chapters, yet now he begins to be wet to the skin; yea, the drops of God’s wrath began to soak into his soul; the devil also set upon him with all violence, as some conceive from the next verse, Job answered and said, sc. to some dispute with the devil. Now, therefore, that he thus falleth a roaring and a cursing his day, it is, saith Chrysostom, as a sick man, who, being under the physician’s hands, of whom he is well persuaded, useth all patience towards him; but, being in extremity of pain, lays about him, and strikes at the bystanders, &c. Exemplo Iobi liquet, it is evident from the example of Job saith another good writer; by this example of Job it appeareth, that in extreme trials of the best it oft happens that pain and grief speaketh rather than the man himself, and that in the sieve of temptations, upon a more violent sifting, the holes being worn or widened, not the offal only, but some grains of good wheat, that is, of faith, do slip through; which yet the right hand of a gracious God is wont to gather, and to lay up in the granary of his grace (Bucholc.). Job cannot altogether be excused, saith Fetus upon this chapter, neither is he said, as before, not to have sinned in these following expressions. Rather is it to be held, that the Lord, who before stood by him, now for a time left him, to try what is in man, even the best man living, if he be not strengthened by God continually. David was most courageous when he went against Goliath, but fearful when Saul pursued him. Elijah was most zealous for the Lord of hosts when he slew 450 of Baal’s priests: Tantus tamen fulminator ad Iezabelis minas trepidat, factus seipso imbecillior, saith one; and yet this valiant prophet flees at the threats of Jezebel, and heareth from heaven, “What doest thou here, Elijah?” So Jeremiah, Peter, Father Latimer, Pray for me, saith he, I say, pray for me; for I am sometimes so fearful that I would creep into a mouse hole; sometimes God doth visit me again with his comforts; so he cometh and goeth, to teach me to feel and know mine infirmity. Thus he writeth to Bishop Ridley, with whom he afterwards suffered at the same stake. His last words were, Fidelis est Deus, &c., God is faithful, who will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able, &c. This was also Job’s comfort, when himself, doubtless; for at this time it was Ego non sum Ego I am not I, with him, and God considered it; for he knoweth our mould, he remembereth we are but dust.

And cursed his day ] Diem, non Deum; his day, and not his God, as the devil would have had it. It was too much howsoever of that; and Job should have opened his mouth to better purpose. In the Revelation, whensoever heaven opened, some memorable matter followed; when wisdom openeth her mouth, she speaketh excellent things, Pro 8:6 . When Asaph opened his mouth, he spake parables, Psa 78:2 . When our Saviour did so, he delivered that famous Sermon on the Mount, Mat 5:2 . But Job, alas, in the extreme pain of his body, and anguish of his soul, openeth his mouth, and curseth bitterly; curseth his day in a most emphatical manner, and in most exquisite terms, wishing all the evil to it that it was any way capable of. Now the day that he here curseth, is either the day wherein he suffered such a world of evils, as Oba 1:12 Isa 2:12 , or rather the day which gave occasion to his sufferings, his birthday, as Job 3:3 . Jeremiah did the like by a like infirmity, Job 20:14 , and some others; but never hath any yet been heard to curse the day of his new birth, nor ever shall as whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these we might be partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust: and besides an entrance ministered unto us further and further into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 2Pe 1:4 ; 2Pe 1:11 . There is a , a multiplied happiness in holiness.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Job Chapter 3

I need not go into every word of the chapter, but it is all to this effect: “Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived. Let that day be darkness” (Job 3:3 , Job 3:4 ). And so he speaks in highly poetic language, and in language of deep emotion. That is the real character of poetry of the best kind; it is the language of deep feeling and emotion. And Job breaks out into that language – a kind of poetic prose which the Book carries out till very nearly the end. But the great point is the mourning over this terrible lot of his, that he was ever allowed to come into the world to bear such awful suffering. Where do you find that in Christ? “For this cause was I sent.” The Lord accepts it; He felt, deeply felt; was troubled in spirit. He felt it, but also He accepted it. For this cause He had come. But not so Job. He could not understand – although his sufferings were not to be compared with those of Christ – why a holy God should allow such suffering. It was inexplicable to Job.

So we have in a very beautiful manner, to the end of the chapter, this idea in various points of view. You observe therefore that I am not going to enter into every phrase minutely in this Book; that would take me a very considerable time; but I am going to give what I think is a substantial view of the mind of God, as far as I have learnt it, to help my brethren who may not have fully weighed the lessons of God in it. And I shall take, therefore, each part of the remainder of the Book, ‘the attack’ I may call it, the insinuation, the blame of these friends of Job; their expostulation because of his grief, and their suspicion of something wrong at the bottom of it; and Job’s answer. I shall take these throughout the rest of the Book until we come to a part where they are all silenced. Job has the last word; the friends are silenced and a new man enters the scene; and then after that Jehovah appears as the Arbiter of this great debate; and finally the grand winding up and solution of it all; Job vindicated after he owned his fault; Job acknowledging it fully, which his friends did not. They were not broken down as Job was; but they were sorry to be found altogether wrong; and there they were, biting their lips or their tongues through vexation; and they had to be prayed for, they had to be delivered at the intercession of Job; we shall see that at the close. But this may now suffice.

Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)

After this: i.e. after this long restraint.

cursed. Here we have the Hebrew kalal, which was in the primitive text. See note on Job 1:5.

his day: i.e. his birthday. Compare Job 3:3.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 3

And finally Job spoke up. Job begins to curse the day of his birth.

Job opened his mouth, and he cursed his day ( Job 3:1 ).

Notice he didn’t curse God; just the day in which he was born.

Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a boy that is conceived. Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. As for the night, let darkness seize upon it ( Job 3:3-6 );

You notice the repetition of darkness, blackness, darkness. This is Hebrew poetry. It’s that repetition and all of a thought and of an idea with amplification upon it.

Let that night be solitary, let no joyful sound come therein. Let them curse it as the curse of the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning. Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, and have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day: Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hid the sorrows from mine eyes. Why died I not from the womb? ( Job 3:7-11 )

Why wasn’t I stillborn?

why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of her belly? Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should nurse? For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest, With kings and counselors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver: Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light ( Job 3:11-16 ).

Why didn’t I die where it would all be over with? I would have just been quiet. I would have never experienced anything.

There [he said] the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and the great are there; and the servant is free from his master. Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul; Which long for death, but it does not come; they dig for it more than for hid treasures; Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, which can find the grave. Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in? For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters. For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came ( Job 3:17-26 ).

Now let me point out, first of all, that you should not take the statements of Job in his misery and seek to develop from them biblical doctrine. For the Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah Witnesses, and others have taken these statements of Job here and they have developed the doctrine of soul sleep out of these statements of Job where he declares, verse Job 3:17 , “There the wicked cease from troubling; there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.” He’s talking about the grave. “Why didn’t I just die where even the wicked is at rest? Where nobody is troubled. Where there’s silence. Where there’s nothing.” Remember now the context. This is Job, he’s crying out of the misery of his own experience. These are not God’s inspired truths that he is crying. These are his endeavors to understand God and the ways of God. Job is actually challenging God. “Why did God ever allow me to live? Why wasn’t I born dead?” And the reason why you cannot take these statements of Job as he is talking about death where there is no trouble, where everybody is at rest and peace and so forth, the reason why you cannot take these for biblical doctrine is verified in the thirty-eighth chapter of the book of Job. For after the vain endeavor of man to understand what was going on, God finally came on the scene.

And in the thirty-eighth chapter, when God began to speak to Job, God began to question Job. He said, first of all, the first question, “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” ( Job 38:2 ) Now what is expressed in Job is the greatest knowledge of the day. The philosophies of men and the wise men of that day. And God speaks of all of their speculations of being words without knowledge, which indeed they were. All of this counsel lacks real knowledge to it. It did. None of them really understood what was really going on behind the scenes. “Who is this that darkeneth words of counsel without knowledge?” And then in verse Job 3:17 , God said to Job, “Have the gates of death been opened unto you? Or have you seen the doors of the shadow of the death?” ( Job 38:17 ) Okay, Job, you’ve been talking about hey, I wish I were dead where everything is quiet, where there is no trouble. Where there are no problems. Everyone rests together. God said, “Wait, have the gates of death, have you been there? Do you know what’s going on there? You know, you’re talking, Job, with words that have no knowledge. You’re talking of things you don’t know about. You haven’t been there. You don’t know that that’s the case.”

Therefore, if you want to develop doctrine concerning what transpires to a person when he dies, you cannot go to the words of Job or to the words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes. Nor even to the Psalms, because many times these men were speaking of things of which they did not know. Expressing the ideas, the thoughts, the wisdom of man and the limited knowledge of man. If you really want to know what happens beyond the grave, you better go to the words of Jesus. Who knows better than He? If you want to develop doctrine of what happens when a person dies, you have to go to the words of Christ or to the inspired words of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. God rebukes Job because he’s talking about something that he knows nothing about. Talking about death and what he imagines what would be if he were dead. But God says, “You’re wrong.”

Now there are those blessed, misguided saints who are just as ignorant as Zophar and Bildad and Eliphaz who take the scripture where Job declared, “What the thing I feared, the thing I feared is come upon me,” and they say that was Job’s problem. He lacked faith and he was fearing these things all the time, and you know, what you say is what you get. And so Job had this fear which shows the lack of faith. Had he had enough faith, this never would have happened to him. That’s as stupid and ignorant as Eliphaz or Bildad or any of the rest of them that were trying to understand Job’s condition. These men showed the same ignorance. Only they have no excuse for their ignorance because God had told us in the beginning what was going on. At least Eliphaz and Bildad, Zophar, they have an excuse for their ignorance because they weren’t able to read the first chapter of Job to know what was really happening. But it is, well, I can’t get into that. But it is so…it’s not biblical exposition. It is sheer stupidity to use this scripture, to say, “Well, you know, the person, because you were fearing this, this is why it happened to you and all. The thing that you fear is going to come upon you.” That is not true. You can look at David and he said, “I know that one day Saul is going to kill me.” That’s a negative confession, Dave. What you say is what you get. No, Saul didn’t kill him. You don’t have to be worried about making some negative confession. It isn’t that God is waiting and listening and you make some negative. “All right, you said it so I’m going to do it.” What kind of a God is that?

In the same token, you can make a positive confession for something that is not good for you and God is gracious enough not to do it for you. You don’t control God, and please don’t try. The world is in enough of a mess now. And it would be even worse if I were the one that began to take over and ordered the things that were going to happen. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Job 3:1-2

Job 3

Introduction

“After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed his day. And Job answered and said:”

Writers have understood this to mean “after the seven days and nights of silence,” but the text does not say that. “In the Ugaritic texts, `after this’ introduces the transition to a new episode.” Here we have the beginning of the second section of Job.

JOB’S LAMENT

JOB’S PITIFUL CRY FROM THE DEPTHS OF HIS AGONY

Here we come to the long middle section of Job, which is characterized by a number of speeches by Job and his friends. These speeches are not mere conversation, but essay-like statements of the sentiments, theological convictions, philosophies and exhortations of the speakers.

“Job speaks nine times in this section, Eliphaz and Bildad three times each, Zophar twice, Elihu once, and God once, his declaration ending the colloquy.”

Job broke the silence which marked the first period of his friend’s visit; and his bitter cursing of the day he was born is a feature of this first chapter.

“Cursing one’s natal day is not a very wise act, since it could not have any effect whatever; but even so great a prophet as Jeremiah did the same thing (Jer 20:14-18). All that this chapter really means is that Job, in the depths of his misery, wishes that he had never been born, or that he had died in infancy.”

Watson entitled this chapter, “The Cry From the Depth.”

Job 3:1-2

“After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed his day. And Job answered and said:”

Writers have understood this to mean “after the seven days and nights of silence,” but the text does not say that. “In the Ugaritic texts, `after this’ introduces the transition to a new episode.” Here we have the beginning of the second section of Job.

E.M. Zerr:

Job 3:1. Cursed his day. The first word is not the severe term that is usually seen in its use. It has the sense as if Job had said, “My day was a very unprofitable one.” The connection shows he had reference to the day of his birth.

Job 3:2. This is a proper place to make some remarks on the several statements of Job about his condition. It has been charged that Job was really not very patient since he had so much to say about his afflictions. Such a criticism overlooks two vital truths. God wished us to have an inspired account of the experiences of Job, and that made it necessary for him to give us all the details. Another thing, the meaning of patience is misunderstood. It does not mean the false pretense of having nothing to complain of when all the indications were to the effect that the complaints were many and just. The fundamental meaning of the word is perseverance. Job complained much of his afflictions, yet he never permitted them to move him in a single instance from the path of righteousness. That is what constitutes true patience. And so, as he was writing by inspiration, the greater the detail used in describing his condition, the more significance we will see in such statements as in Jas 5:11.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Silent sympathy always creates an opportunity for grief to express itself. Job’s outcry was undoubtedly an answer to their sympathy. So far, it was good, and they had helped him. It is always better to tell out the dark questionings of the heart than to brood over them. This lamentation of Job is of the nature of a cry for escape, rather than a description of the oppressing sorrows. In it there are three movements. The first consists of a terrible cursing of the day of his birth and the night of his conception (1-10). In it the anguish which hates the very fact of being sobs itself out in agony.

The second consists of lamentation over his preservation (11-19). In it he contemplated the blessings of death. To him in these hours of living sorrow cessation of being would be, he thought, the greatest blessing, a condition in which men escape the troubles of life.

Finally, existence is lamented in his own particular case, because characterized by such unceasing and irremedial sorrow (20-26). It is a great lamentation, pulsing with pain, expressive of the meanings of the most terrible of all sorrows, the sense of mystery, the inexplicability of it all.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

Is Life Worth Living?

Job 3:1-26

In the closing paragraphs of the previous chapter three friends arrive. Teman is Edom; for Shuah see Gen 25:2; Naamah is Arabia. The group of spectators, gathered round Jobs mound, reverently make way for them.

Job opens his mouth in a curse. But it was not, as Satan had expected, against God. The Hebrew word is different from that used in Job 2:9. He does not curse God, but the day of his birth, and asks that his stripped and suffering existence may be brought to as speedy an end as possible. Jobs words are very profitable for all whose way is hid. Is the joy of life fled? Yet its duties remain. Continue in these and the path will lead back to light.

This opening elegy consists of two parts: the first, Job 3:1-10, calls on darkness to blot out the day which witnessed the beginning of so sad a life; the second, Job 3:11-26, inquires why, if he were doomed to be born, the luxury of instant death had not been also granted. Oh, human heart, of what sore anguish art thou not capable!

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Job 3:17

This text speaks to us over nearly four thousand years. Job lived in days when the light of truth was dim; the Sun of righteousness had not yet risen above the horizon; Jesus had not yet brought life and immortality to light; and thus it is possible that we are able to understand Job’s words more fully and better than he understood them himself. The text may be read first as of the grave, but in its best meaning it speaks of a better world, to which the grave is but the portal.

I. Think of these words as spoken of the grave. (1) In the grave, Job says, for one pleasant thing, “the wicked cease from troubling.” Cross the line that parts life from death, and the strongest human hand cannot reach to vex or harm any more. There is nothing more striking about the state of those who have gone into the unseen world than the completeness of their escape from all worldly enemies, however malignant and however powerful. (2) But there is something beyond the mere escape from worldly evil. Now the busy heart is quiet at last, and the weary head lies still. “There the weary are at rest.” It is sometimes comforting, and we cannot say it is not sometimes fit and right, to think of a place where we shall find rest and quiet, where “the weary are at rest.” But though a deep sleep falls on the body, it is only for a while, and indeed there is a certain delusion in thinking of the grave as a place of quiet rest. The soul lives still, and is awake and conscious, though the body sleeps; and it is our souls that are ourselves. Even that in us which does sleep-even the body-sleeps to wake again.

II. Though these are Old Testament words, we read them in a New Testament light, as those who know that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life to all His people. These words speak of a better world. They point us onward to heaven. The two great things of which they assure us and remind us are safety and peace, (1) There is to be safety, and the sense of safety. “There the wicked cease from troubling.” Not wicked men only, but everything wicked: evil spirits, evil thoughts, evil influences, and our own sinful hearts. When the wicked cease from troubling, there will be no trouble at all. (2) “The weary are at rest.” We know the meaning of all the vague and endless aspirations of our human hearts. It is that “this is not our rest.” Our rest is beyond the grave. There is something of life’s fitful fever about all the bliss of this life; but in that world the bliss will be restful, calm, satisfied, self-possessed, sublime. It will be “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding.”

A. K. H. B., Counsel and Comfort Spoken from a City Pulpit, p. 128.

Reference: Job 3:17.-G. Durrant, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 371.

Job 3:23

I. We have in the text a great certainty-light is given. The light within the soul falls from other worlds, from unseen, unrealised heights beyond the soul. “The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord.” Those strange, perceptive intuitions which pry and penetrate into metaphysical subtleties, those frequently even unhallowed inquisitivenesses which question all things-and sometimes, it may be, too daringly-whence are they? Yes, “the light is given.”

II. We have in the text a great perplexity-“the way is hid.” It seems that the light only reveals itself, neither the objects nor the way. It seems as if our consciousness became paralysed at the touch of speculation; a dark, black wall rises where we anticipated we should find a way. The light tantalises; it distresses. Like a handful of men in camp besieged and beleaguered by the mighty armies of the foeman, the soul exclaims, “I am among lions! Which is the way out?” Knowledge is the saddest condition of the soul if there is not the knowledge of the true God and eternal life.

III. Light can only be seen in Christ. God can only be known in Him. “Why is light given to a man whose way is hid?” (1) To enable him to find his way and to escape beyond the hedge. Light is not its own end, excepting as it shall guide us to the Source of all light. Be the almoner of the light thou hast. God gives the candle for the day, for the occasion. Be faithful to the light of today. (2) Light is given to teach man his dependence, to show him that “it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” (3) What is naturally illegible to sense, and to the apprehension of sense, is legible to faith. “He who believeth shall not walk in darkness.” His way is not hid. “The light that never was on sea or land” shines on that way.

E. Paxton Hood, Dark Sayings on a Harp, p. 91.

References: Job 3:23.-Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs, p. 118. Job 3-S. Cox, Expositor, 1st series, vol. iv., p. 241; Ibid., Commentary on Job, p. 60. Job 4:6.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 314. Job 4:12-21.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. xi., p. 197.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

CHAPTER 3 Jobs Lament

1. Job curses the day of his birth (Job 3:1-9)

2. He longs for death (Job 3:10-23)

3. The reason why (Job 3:24-26)

Job 3:1-9. The silence is broken by Job. Alas! his lips do not utter praises now, but he cursed the day of his birth. It was a sore trial for Job to look into the faces of these pious friends, in perfect health and strength, and he, even more pious than they, stricken and smitten of God. It was an aggravation of Jobs grief and sorrow.

But let us notice though Job gives way to his feelings in this passionate outburst, he did not renounce God, nor is there a word of rebellion against Him. All through his address in answer to the arguments of his friends he does not lose sight of God, and over and over again expresses confidence in the unseen One, as in that matchless utterance, Though He slay me, yet will I trust (13:15).

Unmanned by the presence of his friends he curses the day of his birth. The chapter, and in fact all the chapters which follow, should be read in a good metrical version.

Perish the day when I was born to be,

And the night which said a man-child is conceived.

That day! may it be darkness;

Let not God regard it from above,

Neither let the light shine upon it.

Let darkness stain it and the shade of death.

Let densest clouds upon it settle down.

Let gathering darkness fill it with alarm.

That night–let gloom seize upon it.

Let it not rejoice among the days of the year.

Let it not come into the number of the months.

We give this as a sample of a metrical version. As the full quotation of the text is beyond the compass of our work, we recommend to our readers the translation of the Old Testament made by John Nelson Darby. It is the best we know and all poetical sections are given in this metrical arrangement.

Jeremiah, the great weeping prophet, also broke out in the midst of sorrow and treachery, in a similar lament, which reminds us of Jobs words.

Cursed be the day wherein I was born.

Let not the day in which my mother bare me be blessed.

Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father,

Saying, A man-child is born unto thee, making him glad.

Wherefore came I forth out of the womb

To see labour and sorrow

That my days should be consumed with shame?

Such expressions are the failures of poor, frail man. And He who knoweth our frame and remembereth that we are but dust, is like a father who pitieth His children (Psa 103:13-14). Since critics associate the sufferings of Job with the suffering Servant of the Lord in Isaiahs great prediction (Isa 53:1-12), we also can make this application, but not as meaning the nation, but our Lord Jesus Christ. What are Jobs sufferings in comparison with the sufferings of our Lord! Job sat upon an ash-heap, but the Son of God was nailed to the cross and then He was forsaken of God. Never did a murmur escape those blessed lips.

(The correct translation of verse 8 is as follows:

Let those engaged in cursing days, curse this day,

Who are ready to rouse Leviathan.

It voices heathen superstitions and myths.)

Job 3:10-23. He next wishes that he had died at the time of his birth and he looks upon death as a great relief and rest, saying:–

There the wicked cease from troubling

And there the wearied are at rest.

We see from these expressions that his mind turned to death as the great emancipator. Moses and Elijah exhibit the same trend of thought and weakness; so did disappointed Jonah when he said, it is better for me to die.

Weighed in the light of the New Testament all these expressions are found wanting. Death is not a friend whose visit is to be desired, but an enemy. The hope of Gods people in affliction and sorrow in the light of the gospel is not relief by death, but the coming of the Lord. The promise of the New Testament, We shall not all sleep but be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye (1Co 15:52) is unknown in the Old Testament, for it is one of the mysteries hidden in former ages. Jobs language is that of a man in despair; he seems to have quite forgotten the bright and blessed days of the past and fears a hopeless future.

Job 3:24-26. In this final paragraph Job states the reasons for his lament and longing for death to release him. We quote the last two verses.

For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me,

And that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

I was not careless, neither had I quietness

Neither was I at rest; yet trouble came.

He evidently in the days of his prosperity feared that just such calamities might overtake him. He knew the testing times would come and had no quietness. But now as they have come and the three anticipated evils overwhelmed him he would be glad to find the grave.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

After: Job 1:22, Job 2:10

opened: Job 35:16, Psa 39:2, Psa 39:3, Psa 106:33

cursed: Job 3:3, Job 1:11, Job 2:5, Job 2:9, Jer 20:14, Jer 20:15

his day: That is, the day of his birth.

Reciprocal: Gen 30:1 – or else I die Gen 40:20 – birthday Exo 16:3 – we had Job 4:1 – answered Job 33:2 – I Jer 15:10 – my Mat 5:2 – General Rev 13:6 – he opened

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Job’s Sorrows and Sighs

Job 2:9-13; Job 3:1-26

INTRODUCTORY WORDS

In this study we will consider the verses which lie in the second chapter of Job beginning with verse nine where we left off in the former study and continuing through verse thirteen.

1. A helpmeet who proved a hindrance. Job’s wife came unto him in verse nine of chapter two and said unto him, “Dost thou still retain thine integrity, curse God, and die.”

If ever there was a time that Job needed words of sympathy and of love it was in this hour of his extremity. Nevertheless, he received from his wife no more than a nagging appeal to curse God.

Let us link up the words which Satan had said before God, “Touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse Thee to Thy face,” with the words which his wife said, “Curse God, and die.” There must be some vital connection between these two statements. For our part we believe that Satan entered Job’s wife just as truly as he ever entered Judas.

2. A servant who stood the test. Job quietly replied to his wife, “What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” Here is a statement that we may well weigh. There are many who are given over to complaints for the ills which befall them; but they utterly fail in their praise for the manifold good which is bestowed upon them.

In view of all this the words of Job are most assuring.

3. Satan’s final strategy. Added to the boils which covered Job, and added to the nagging of the wife who failed as a helpmeet, Satan sent along three friends, to bemoan Job.

These three, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar had heard of all the evil which had come upon Job, and had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him, and to comfort him.

For our part we are sure they might better have stayed at home. Where is he who has never heard of “Job’s comforters”? They are a byword among men.

Job’s three friends remind you of the one who visited a sick friend, and related to the sick one the story of all the friends and relatives that he had known who had died of the same disease.

We cannot see how they thought such actions could cheer a man who was borne down with grief.

I. JOB CURSED HIS DAY (Job 3:1)

1. He did not curse his God. Job had already told his wife, when she bade him to curse God, that she spoke as one of the foolish women speaketh. Why blame God for everything which brings us grief and sorrow?

We are willing to grant that God permits every pain and every heartache that comes to one of His children, but He does not necessarily send it. Even when He permits it, He moves graciously in our behalf.

2. Job did curse his day. In this he was unwise. We do not condemn Him, for it is altogether human to do what he did. We sympathize with Job because he had the devil and men set against him, and his grief was very great.

Our sympathy, however, does not change the fact that Job was wrong. When the night is dark, it is the time to lean the more heavily upon God. We need to remember that “all things work together for good to them that love God.”

When the Lord Jesus had broken the bread, and had drunk the wine, we read, “And when they had sung an hymn, they went out.”

The Lord was like a nightingale singing in the hour of His greatest sorrow.

II. JOB BEMOANED THE DAY OF HIS BIRTH (Job 3:3)

How piteously did Job cry, “Let the day perish wherein I was born, * * let that day be darkness; * * neither let the light shine upon it.”

Job wished that he had never been born, or else that he had died as an infant. In this Job forgot, for the moment, all of the marvelous blessings which God had showered upon him through many years. When they were gone he forgot them. In this Job forgot all of the eternal blessings which lay ahead of him. But God was with him, even through these hard tests.

1. It is true that, with some men, it were better never to have been born. Jesus Christ said of Judas, the man who betrayed Him, “But woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born.”

It is better never to be born, than to live in pleasure and prosperity for awhile, and then to be cut off forever, Asaph wrote, in the Spirit, “I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” But Asaph further wrote, “When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; until I went into the Sanctuary of God; then understood I their end. * * Thou castedst them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terror.”

2. It was better for job, and better for us that Job was born. Job simply was overwhelmed with grief. He did not weigh well his words. Could job have seen beyond the curtain that hid God from him, he would have felt differently. Could Job have seen the end of the Lord, he would have rejoiced in his sorrow. Could Job have seen the eternal glories which awaited him, he would have shouted for joy.

III. JOB’S CURSES AGAINST THE DAY OF HIS BIRTH (Job 3:4-8)

1. Job’s anathema against “that day.” Let us observe six statements which Job made against the day in which he was born. Job said:

1.”Let that day be darkness.”

2.”Let not God regard it.”

3.”Neither let the light shine upon it.”

4.”Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it.”

5.”Let a cloud dwell upon it.”

6.”Let the blackness of the day terrify it.”

Job certainly was a master in language, and he was far from a child in pronouncing anathemas. He rolled up words against the day of his birth until there was nothing left to be said. It was not a day of song, nor of gladness to him. He would have taken from his mother the joy that a man child had been born into the world. He would have taken from his father the ambition that may have flooded his soul for his new baby boy, as the men of the street gave him congratulations.

As we think of the darkness of that day our minds go to another day that was dark. The Bible reads, “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.” This day, however, that was dark was a day of death, and not of birth. It was the day in which Christ suffered, the Just for the unjust. It was the day when God hid His eyes from His well beloved Son, because in mercy He had opened His eyes upon us who had sinned.

2. Job’s anathema against “that night.” Let us observe nine statements which Job made against the night, which formed part of the day, in which he was born. Job said:

1.”Let darkness seize upon it.”

2.”Let it not be joined unto the days of the year.”

3.”Let it not come into the number of the months.”

4.”Let that night be solitary.”

5.”Let no joyful voice come therein.”

6.”Let them curse it that curse the day.”

7.”Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark.”

8.”Let it look for light, and have none.”

9.”Neither let it see the dawning of the day.”

Another experience of just such darkness, and blackness, and joylessness is described in the Word of God. It is a day that awaits this old earth. It will come in the time of tribulation, when God shall arise to judge men for their iniquity. That day is called in the Prophets, “The day of the Lord.” It is described as follows:

“A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains.”

“The day of the Lord is darkness, and not light. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?”

When Job was cursing his day, he probably did not know that a day was coming when the Lord would make the earth empty and waste, turning it upside down, and scattering abroad the inhabitants thereof. He did not know that the earth would be defiled under its inhabitants, and that God would cause the mirth of the tabrets to cease, and the noise of them that rejoiced to end; that all joy would be darkened, and the mirth of the land would be gone.

IV. WHY JOB BEMOANED THE DAY OF HIS BIRTH, MEDITATION 1 (Job 3:10)

1. Job cursed the day of his birth because his life had been eclipsed with sorrow. We may feel that in this Job did foolishly, but his grief was so great that the blackness that enshrouded him dimmed his eyes to all the blessing of the light which had for so long rested upon him. He could not remember the past blessings, because of the present afflictions. To him the grief of an hour seemed heavier than the joy of a lifetime.

We do not condemn Job, we sympathize with him. We know that had he been fully panoplied of God, God’s grace would have been sufficient. Some, like Paul and Silas, have sung in the darkest of hours.

As we think of Job’s anguish and bitterness of soul, we must not fail to remember that his faith did not utterly fail. Every now and then he had wonderful visions of God’s grace, and, at times, he made unprecedented exclamations of praise, and of far sighted hope.

2. Christ passed; into His night of sorrow and His day of grief. The Psalmist, in describing that day, wrote these words:

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring; O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.”

Thus did the Spirit write of the darkness that shrouded the Cross, and yet, in the midst of that hour, the Spirit described the perfect trust and the unshakeable confidence of Christ in God. The words which follow the quotation above, are these:

“But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.”

Would that we, in every hour of travail, might have so perfect a trust! In the Garden of Gethsemane, with the cup of death pressed close to the lips of the Master, Christ cried: “Nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done.”

V. WHY JOB BEMOANED THE DAY OF HIS BIRTH, MEDITATION 2 (Job 3:13-17)

1. Instead of sorrow and sickness, he would have had quiet and rest. Job was willing to forego all of the years of blessing which had fallen upon him rather than to suffer the pain that now pressed him. He said that if he had died as an infant, that he should have lain and been quiet, that he should have slept and been at rest. This is indeed a beautiful conception of death. Jesus Himself said of Lazarus, when he died, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth.” The Holy Spirit tells us that those who “sleep in Jesus” will God bring with Him. The words “quiet” and “slept” and “rest” do not teach cessation of existence, nor do they teach the unconsciousness of the dead.

The Word of God, in discussing the martyrs who were slain for their testimony, said. “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus. And I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, sayeth the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.”

2. Instead of the reproach of his friends, he would have been protected from them. Verse seventeen says, “There the wicked cease from troubling: and there the weary be at rest.”

We believe that this verse points us back to Job’s dread concerning the onslaught of the three men who for seven days and seven nights had sat there without speaking a word. The afflicted man surmised what was coming, and dreaded it. He wished he had died with an untimely birth, or as an infant who had never seen the light, rather than to live and to be forced, in his weakness and grief, to face these would-be comforters.

VI. JOB LONGS FOR DEATH (Job 3:20-25)

1. Is it a sin to long to die? Job speaks of the one in misery and bitter in soul. He says these long for death, but it cometh not; they dig for it more than for hid treasures. They rejoice, and are glad, when they find the grave.

We would say emphatically that it is wrong for any one under any condition to take his own life. The Word of God is positive in this. We would say, however, that it is not wicked for a saint, who is borne down with pain, and is overwhelmed with grief, to long to be taken to the Lord. We can easily understand how the martyrs were glad to die.

Paul, the Apostle, said, “I * * [have] a desire to depart, and to be with Christ.” He said this although he was not at the time in anything like Job’s circumstance. He simply longed for the Lord.

The Lord Jesus, as He faced the agony of death, said, “With desire I have desired to eat this passover.” He was speaking, to be sure, of the bread and the wine: but these, He said, were His broken body and His shed Blood.

2. Job once more a type of Christ. Verse twenty-four says, “My sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.”

The Psalmist, in describing the anguish of Christ upon the Cross, wrote, “My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me? why art Thou so far from helping Me, and from the words of My roaring?” The Lord Jesus upon the Cross was pressed beyond measure. He said, “O my God, I cry in the daytime, but Thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.”

Job had quite a similar experience. He, too, said, “My roarings are poured out like the waters.”

AN ILLUSTRATION

Augustine lived at a time when it cost something to be a follower of Jesus Christ, and in the following words he taught that, “You can’t hurt a Christian.”

“Having considered and examined into these things closely, now see whether any evil can happen to the good and faithful which ought not to be converted into a blessing for them * *. They lost all that they had. But did they lose their faith? Did they lose their godliness? Did they lose the treasures of the heart? This is the wealth of the Christian * *. Wherefore, our dear friend Paulinus, the Bishop of Nola, a man of the amplest means, who in the fullness of his heart became extremely poor, yet abundantly sanctified, after the barbarians had looted the country, and while he was kept a prisoner in bonds, used to pray in his heart, as I afterwards learned from him-‘Lord, let me not be troubled for gold or silver, for where all my treasure is, Thou knowest.”-Texas Christian Advocate.

Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water

Job 3:1. After this Job opened his mouth The days of mourning being now over, and no hopes appearing of Jobs amendment, but his afflictions rather increasing, he bursts into a severe lamentation; he wishes he had never existed, or that his death had immediately followed his birth; life under such a load of calamity appearing to him the greatest affliction. Undoubtedly Satan, who had been permitted to bring the fore-mentioned calamities upon him, and to torment his body so dreadfully, had also obtained liberty to assault his mind with various and powerful temptations. This he now does with the utmost violence, injecting hard thoughts of God, as being severe, unjust, and his enemy; that he might shake his confidence and hope, and produce that horror and dismay, which might issue in his cursing God. For, as is justly observed by Mr. Scott, unless we bring these inward trials into the account, during which we may conclude that he was deprived of all comfortable sense of Gods favour, and filled with a dread of his wrath, we shall not readily apprehend the reason of the change that took place in his conduct, from the entire resignation manifested in the preceding chapters, to the impatience which appears here, and in some of the subsequent parts of this book. But this consideration solves the difficulty: the inward conflict and anguish of his mind, added to all his outward sufferings, caused the remaining corruption of his nature to work so powerfully, that at length it burst forth in many improper expressions. And cursed his day His birth-day, as is evident from Job 3:3. In vain do some endeavour to excuse this and the following speeches of Job, who afterward is reproved by God, and severely accuses himself for them, Job 38:2; Job 40:4; Job 42:3; Job 42:6. And yet he does not proceed so far as to curse God, and therefore makes the devil a liar: but although he does not break forth into direct reproaches of God, yet he makes indirect reflections upon his providence. His curse was sinful, both because it was vain, being applied to what was not capable of receiving blessing or cursing, and because it reflected blame on God for bringing that day into existence, and for giving him life on that day. Some other pious persons, through a similar infirmity, when immersed in deep troubles, have vented their grief in the same unjustifiable way. See Jer 20:14.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Job 3:1. After this opened Job his mouth. The Masoretic Jews, as well as our modern divines, seem agreed that Job now began the drama, and spake in poetic effusions of verse. They say the same of the prophets; and our infidels call the prophets all poets. The psalms we know have a poetic character, and mostly run in metaboles. But where shall we find in the prophetic writings, with the exception of certain passages, any thing analogous to ancient posy? We have Greek poetry of various metres. The Sibyline verses are hexameters, and the Voluspa of our northern prophetess or pythoness, is in biameters; two feet, or four syllables in a line. The poetry of the holy prophets is then left without a name; for the poetic accents and numbers which they use were not allowed to disturb the sense. Fenelon, in his Telemaque, has admirably succeeded in a similar kind of flowing metre, lively in figures, and impressive in sentiment.Job cursed his day; that is, his birthday. The ancient princes made great feasts at their birthdays. The Trojans called Helens son, prince of the city. Jeremiah, in anguish of heart for a despised ministry and a lost country, uses if possible, still stronger language than Job. Jer 20:14-18. The cloud of darkness for the time was too impervious for the eye of faith; yet he arraigns not the Almighty at his bar. The language, as was usual with the ancients, is strong; but self-murder is abhorred. God sends sunshine after the darkest day.

Job 3:8. Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning. The plainest reader must suspect that the translation here is unsuccessful. Hebrew, Leviathan, which in anger disturbs the seas, denotes storms of trouble and grief. Therefore Gussetius, in his commentary on Hebrew grammar, reads, under the root , Let the execrators of days, who are ever ready to excite leviathan, execrate it. The allusion is to the unhallowed language of mariners, who are apt to curse the tempest, or to the pythonesses and incantators, who execrate unlucky days.

Job 3:10. Nor hid sorrow from mine eyes. Why had not leviathan, as in the Hebrew text, the crocodile, been prepared to swallow me up?

Job 3:11. Why died I not from the womb? This verse begins the second part of Jobs anguish.

Job 3:19. The servant, the slave, is free from his master. This is a strong word to designate the bitterness of slavery; but assuredly it is more bitter still to deny the poor slaves the consolations of religion, as was heretofore the case in the British colonies.

Job 3:23. Why is light given to a man? Light is put here for life, because in a morning it cheers and revives a slumbering world by the return of day.

REFLECTIONS.

Job was the first to open his mouth, and grief is eloquent when it finds a tongue. Overwhelmed with darkness, and seeing no way of escape, the language of anguish is surely admissible now, if ever admissible at all. The ebullitions of his soul turn on the preference he gives to the state of the dead, compared to his present groaning under all his complicated afflictions. But though he groans under the hand of the Almighty, he dares not arraign his justice, nor dream of accelerating his exit. Riding on the tempest in darkness, pain and anguish, he merely regrets his birth, and does it in a torrent of the sublimest grief, in which he represents his complicated miseries as having overbalanced all the blessings and advantages of life. As David in grief for Saul and Jonathan said, Let there be no rain, no dew on the mountains of Gilboa; so says Job of the night of his birth, Let no joyful voice be there; let the stars not give twilight, nor the light of the morning succeed.

The second part of Jobs anguish is uttered in the strong forms of interrogatives. Why died I not from the womb. My children are dead; my servants are slain; my cattle are carried away; heaven and earth have fought against me. The kings, the wise men of the earth, who have built for themselves mausoleums in desolate places, sleep in repose. The tomb, which refuses admission to me, is their retreat. There the wicked cease from wars; there the prisoner has broken his chains, and the slave is liberated from the lash of his master. The visitations which I feared, when offering sacrifices for my children, are come upon me.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Job 3:1-20. Jobs Lamentation.Here the later poem begins, and at once we pass into another world. The patient Job of the Volksbuch is gone, and we have instead one who complains bitterly that ever he was born. This cry of misery is thrice repeated, ever in deepening pathos (Job 3:1-10, Job 3:11-19, Job 3:20-26).

Job 3:1-10. The first cry of miseryWould to God I had never been born. This is the idea when Job curses his day, and wishes it blotted out of existence. First he curses the day of his birth and the night of his conception together (Job 3:3) and then each separately, the day in two verses and the night in four (Davidson).

Job 3:2. The day is here regarded, not as a measure of time, but as a living being, which of its own accord brings forth men and things. So in Psalms 19 the days and nights are animated beings, who narrate what they have experienced (Duhm).

Job 3:4. The days have to appear when their turn comes, and God takes care that they do so, just as He marshals the stars (Isa 40:26). God calls the days all in turn to appear, but this day may remain unsummoned! The name used for God here is Eloah, a late form. The poet does not, like the Volksbuch, put into the mouth of an Edomite the Israelite name Yahweh. This, like the form he uses, is the mark of a later age. Let darkness and deep gloom (mg.) reclaim that day for their own. It is to be restored to the realm of chaos and old night, whence the world first arose. Let all that makes black the day terrify it, i.e. eclipses, etc.

Job 3:6. Let thick darkness seize upon that night and carry it off to its monstrous realm (as Pluto carried off Persephone). In that land there is no time, no years or months, no order. Let that night be barren; let no joyful voice tell of the birth of a child upon it.

Job 3:8. Let enchanters curse it, who have skill to rouse up Leviathan (the twisted serpent) i.e. the great dragon of the abyss, the enemy of the light. His arising from the deep at the enchanters summons, would mean the return of the primitive chaos (Gen 1:2*).

Job 3:9. Let the stars of the twilight that end that night be dark, i.e. go out. Let it never greet the dawn. [The exquisite phrase the eyelids of the morning (Job 41:18) presupposes a Dawn myth, the Dawn being thought of as a lovely goddess, as in Isa 14:12. Such faded myths add much to the beauty and picturesqueness of poetry.A. S. P.]

Job 3:11-19. Would to God I had died from my birth. If Job must be born, why did he not die at once? Why was he kindly received upon the fathers knees (Gen 50:23)?

Job 3:12 reflects a time, when the father could choose whether to bring up the child or not. If he did, he took it upon his knees as a sign of adoption, and then handed it to the mother or the nurse. Job thinks of all the chances of death which he has lost. His misery makes the mercies that compassed his infancy seem a cruelty.

Job 3:13 f. Had Job died, he would have been at peace in Sheol, where small and great are alike at rest:

Golden lads and girls all must,

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust (Cymbeline).

Job is fascinated by the picture of the painless stillness of death, and dwells upon it long, enumerating with minute particularity those who enjoy a common peace. The thought of the stillness of death brings a certain calm to the sufferers mind, and the passionateness of his former words subsides (Davidson).

Job 3:14. Davidson interprets waste places as meaning ruined cities, which these princes had rebuilt. This meaning is, however, too general. Job speaks of something which they built for themselves. Duhm translates pyramids, which sense, however, cannot be proved. The text is probably incorrect. The best emendation seems to be Cheynes, who built everlasting sepulchres (qibroth olam).

Job 3:16. Duhm places this verse immediately after Job 3:11.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

JOB’S BITTER COMPLAINT

(vv.1-26)

Though Job would not dare to curse God for his trouble, yet it seems that the presence of his friends only caused a stronger, gradual build-up of bitter distress in the heart of Job, so that eventually the thoughts of his heart broke out in words of painful complaint.

WISHING HE HAD NEVER BEEN BORN

(vv.1-10)

Job did not even now charge God foolishly, but he did curse the day of his birth. This was not directly blaming God, but however little he realised it, he was indirectly blaming God, for it was God who gave him life. The language of Job is amazingly graphic, as indeed are all his succeeding speeches and those of his friends. Job’s grief was so deep that he did not even consider that what he was saying was an impossibility. How could the day perish in which Job was born? (v.3). How could history reverse itself? That day had passed long before and at the time was a day of light that a man-child had been born into the world. Could Job’s words change that light to darkness? He mentions God once in this section, desiring that God would ignore that day (v.4). Later Job would thank God he had been born, and that thankfulness will endure for eternity. But when trouble comes such as Job was called to bear, we do not tend to think soberly and with calm deliberation, though wishful thinking will never accomplish anything. The doors of Job’s mother’s womb had been opened long ago (v.10), and Job knew this could never be reversed. But he was moved by his anguish, not by faith.

WISHING HE HAD DIED AT BIRTH

(vv.11-19)

If it could not be that Job could reverse the fact of his birth, yet he now expressed the wish that he had died at birth. Was there any more hope of this than that he had never been born? Of course not! If only he had died, he says, he would be at rest (v.13). In death at least, he affirms, the wicked cease from troubling, the weary are at rest, the prisoners are released and the slave is free from his master (vv.17-19). But wishing is not facing facts as they are. Faith faces facts and gives God credit for doing what He knows is best. But Job’s faith had become very weak.

WISHING FOR DEATH NOW

(vv.20-26)

In these verses Job comes closer to facing facts as they actually were. He was in misery and bitterness of soul, and he questions why life should be given to one in such a state, though he longs for death and it does not come. It is good, however, that he does not even consider suicide, as many would do today who are in such a condition. Satan had been told to spare Job’s life while being allowed to make him suffer so grievously, and God knew Job’s sufferings were necessary to accomplish results of great blessing. So that Job’s wish for death was not according to the will of God. Job would not die until God ordained it so.

In verse 25 Job records the fact that the thing he greatly feared had come upon him. Such a thing often happens. He had not been feeling secure and confident of continuing in constant prosperity. He greatly feared that he might be reduced as now he found himself to be. Sometimes people are mortally afraid they might contract a certain disease, and that disease overtakes them. Why? Is it not because God is showing them that His grace is sufficient for them even in the most dreaded circumstances? Thus Job was not at ease, not quiet; he had no rest, yet trouble came (v.26). He needed to learn the heart of God as he did not know it.

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

3:1 After this opened {a} Job his mouth, and {b} cursed his day.

(a) The seven days ended, Job 2:13.

(b) Here Job begins to feel his great imperfection in this battle between the spirit and the flesh, Rom 7:18 and after a manner yields yet in the end he gets victory though he was in the mean time greatly wounded.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

A. Job’s Personal Lament ch. 3

The poetic body to the book begins with a soliloquy in which Job cursed the day of his birth. This introductory soliloquy corresponds to another one Job gave at the end of his dialogue with his three friends (chs. 29-31), especially chapter 31 in which he uttered another curse against himself. These two soliloquies bracket the three cycles of speeches like the covers of a book and bind them together into a unified whole.

Evidently the passing of time brought Job no relief but only continued the irritation of his persisting pain. In chapter 2, Job restrained his words and manifested a submissive attitude. In chapter 3, his statements are assertive and angry. In this individual lament Job articulated a death wish. He actually expressed three wishes. Another way to divide chapter 3 is: Job’s curse (Job 3:3-13) and his lament (Job 3:14-26). [Note: Hartley, p. 88.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

1. The wish that he had not been born 3:1-10

Job evidently considered his conception as the beginning of his existence (Job 3:3; cf. Psa 139:13-16). His poetic description of his birth set forth his regret that he had left his mother’s womb alive (cf. Jer 20:14-18).

"Leviathan [Job 3:8] was a seven-headed sea monster of ancient Near Eastern mythology. In the Ugaritic literature of Canaan and Phoenicia, eclipses were said to be caused by Leviathan’s swallowing the sun and moon. Job said, ’Let thou curse it [the night of my conception] who curse the day, who are prepared to arouse Leviathan.’ He was referring to a custom of sorcerers or enchanters, who claimed to have the power to make a day unfortunate by rousing the dragon asleep in the sea and inciting it to swallow the sun or moon. Thus, if the daytime or nighttime luminary were gone, Job’s birthday would, in a sense, be missing. Was Job indicating belief in a creature of mythology? No, he was probably doing nothing more than utilizing for poetic purposes a common notion that his hearers would understand. This would have been similar to modern adults’ referring to Santa Claus. Mentioning his name does not mean that one believes such a person exists." [Note: Zuck, Job, p. 24. Cf. 41:1; Psalms 74:14; 104:26; Isaiah 27:1. For fuller discussion of the Canaanite mythology involving Leviathan, see Marvin H. Pope, Job, pp. 329-31; and Smick, "Job," pp. 863-71.]

Job wanted to express in many ways his regret that he had been born. Evidently the reason Job longed for nonexistence was his failure to understand his relationship with God or his place in the universe. Job had many questions about the creation order. He seems to have realized that understanding his relationship to God and his place in creation required an understanding of creation. In clarifying Job’s relationships, Elihu and God also said much about creation. This appears to be the reason the creation motif is so prevalent in the Book of Job. [Note: See Parsons, pp. 145-47, for further discussion of the creation motif, and Leo G. Perdue, "Job’s Assault on Creation," Hebrew Annual Review 10 (1986):295-315.] An understanding of creation is indeed essential to our correct understanding of who we are and what our relationship to God is (Genesis 1-2). This is one reason people need to understand the Genesis record of creation accurately. [Note: Three fine organizations that provide books, pamphlets, audio tapes, videos, seminar speakers, etc. for all ages to this end are: The Institute for Creation Research, 10946 Woodside Avenue North, Santee, CA 92071; Answers in Genesis, P.O. Box 6330, Florence, KY 41022; and Creation Science Foundation, P.O. Box 6302, Acacia Ridge DC, QLD 4110, Australia.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

II. THE DIALOGUE CONCERNING THE BASIS OF THE DIVINE-HUMAN RELATIONSHIP 3:1-42:6

This major part of the book begins with a personal lament in which Job expressed his agony (ch. 3). Three cycles of speeches follow in which Job’s friends dialogued with him about his condition (chs. 4-27). Job then voiced his despair in two soliloquies (chs. 28-31). Next Job’s fourth friend, Elihu, offered his solution to Job’s problem (chs. 32-37). The section closes with God speaking to Job twice and Job’s responses (chs. Job 38:1 to Job 42:6).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

VI.

THE CRY FROM THE DEPTH

Job 3:1-26

Job SPEAKS

WHILE the friends of Job sat beside him that dreary week of silence, each of them was meditating in his own way the sudden calamities which had brought the prosperous emeer to poverty, the strong man to this extremity of miserable disease. Many thoughts came and were dismissed; but always the question returned, Why these disasters, this shadow of dreadful death? And for very compassion and sorrow each kept secret the answer that came and came again and would not be rejected. Meanwhile the silence has weighed upon the sufferer, and the burden of it becomes at length insupportable. He has tried to read their thoughts, to assure himself that grief alone kept them dumb, that when they spoke it would be to cheer him with kindly words, to praise and reinvigorate his faith, to tell him of Divine help that would not fail him in life or death. But as he sees their faces darken into inquiry first and then into suspicion, and reads at length in averted looks the thought they cannot conceal, when he comprehends that the men he loved and trusted hold him to be a transgressor and under the ban of God, this final disaster of false judgment is overwhelming. The man whom all circumstances appear to condemn, who is bankrupt, solitary, outworn with anxiety and futile efforts to prove his honour, if he have but one to believe in him, is helped to endure and hope. But Job finds human friendship yield like a reed. All the past is swallowed up in one tragical thought that, be a man what he may, there is no refuge for him in the justice of man: Everything is gone that made human society and existence in the world worth caring for. His wife, indeed, believes in his integrity, but values it so little that she would have him cast it away with a taunt against God. His friends, it is plain to see, deny it. He is suffering at Gods hand, and they are hardened against him. The iron enters into his soul.

True, it is the shame and torment of his disease that move him to utter his bitter lamentation. Yet the underlying cause of his loss of self-command and of patient confidence in God must not be missed. The disease has made life a physical agony; but he could bear that if still no cloud came between him and the face of God. Now these dark, suspicious looks which meet him every time he lifts his eyes, which he feels resting upon him even when he bows his head in the attempt to pray, make religion seem a mockery. And in pitiful anticipation of the doom to which they are silently driving him, he cries aloud against the life that remains. He has lived in vain. Would he had never been born!

In this first lyrical speech put into the mouth of Job there is an Oriental, hyperbolical strain, suited to the speaker and his circumstances. But we are also made to feel that calamity and dejection have gone near to unhinging his mind. He is not mad, but his language is vehement, almost that of insanity. It would be wrong, therefore, to criticise the words in a matter-of-fact way, and against the spirit of the book to try by the rules of Christian resignation one so tossed and racked, in the very throat of the furnace. This is a pious man, a patient man, who lately said, “Shall we receive joy at the hand of God, and shall we not receive affliction?” He seems to have lost all control of himself and plunges into wild untamed speech filled with anathemas, as one who had never feared God. But he is driven from self-possession. Phantasmal now is all that brave life of his as prince and as father, as a man in honour beloved of the Highest. Did he ever enjoy it? If he did, was it not as in a dream? Was he not rather a deceiver, a vile transgressor? His state befits that. Light and love and life are turned into bitter gall. “I lived,” says one distressed like Job, “in a continual, indefinite, pining fear; tremulous, pusillanimous, apprehensive of I knew not what; it seemed as if the heavens and the earth were but boundless jaws of a devouring monster wherein I, palpitating, waited to be devoured Man is, properly speaking, based upon hope, he has no other possession but hope; this world of his is emphatically the Place of Hope.” We see Job, “for the present, quite shut out from hope; looking not into the golden orient, but vaguely all round into a dim firmament pregnant with earthquake and tornado.”

The poem may be read calmly. Let us remember that it came not calmly from the pen of the writer, but as the outburst of volcanic feeling from the deep centres of life. It is Job we hear; the language befits his despondency, his position in the drama. But surely it presents to us a real experience of one who, in the hour of Israels defeat and captivity, had seen his home swept bare, wife and children seized and tortured or borne down in the rush of savage soldiery, while he himself lived on, reduced in one day to awful memories and doubts as the sole consciousness of life. Is not some crisis like this with its irretrievable woes translated for us here into the language of Jobs bitter cry? Are we not made witnesses of a tragedy greater even than his?

“What is to become of us,” asks Amiel, “when everything leaves us, health, joy, affections, when the sun seems to have lost its warmth, and life is stripped of all charm? Must we either harden or forget? There is but one answer, Keep close to duty, do what you ought, come what may.” The mood of these words is not so devout as other passages of the same writer. The advice, however, is often tendered in the name of religion to the life weary and desolate; and there are circumstances to which it well applies. But a distracting sense of impotence weighed down the life of Job. Duty? He could do nothing. It was impossible to find relief in work; hence the fierceness of his words. Nor can we fail to hear in them a strain of impatience, almost of anger: “To the unregenerate Prometheus Vinctus of a man, it is ever the bitterest aggravation of his wretchedness that he is conscious of virtue, that he feels himself the victim not of suffering only, but of injustice. What then? Is the heroic inspiration we name Virtue but some passion, some bubble of the blood? Thus has the bewildered wanderer to stand, as so many have done, shouting question after question into the sibyl cave of Destiny, and receiving no answer but an echo. It is all a grim desert, this once fair world of his.”

Job is already asserting to himself the reality of his own virtue, for he resents the suspicion of it. Indeed, with all the mystery of his affliction yet to solve, he can but think that Providence is also casting doubt on him. A keen sense of the favour of God had been his. Now he becomes aware that while he is still the same man who moved about in gladness and power, his life has a different look to others; men and nature conspire against him. His once brave faith-the Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away-is almost overborne. He does not renounce, but he has a struggle to save it. The subtle Divine grace at his heart alone keeps him from bidding farewell to God.

The outburst of Jobs speech falls into three lyrical strophes, the first ending at the tenth verse, the second at the nineteenth, the third closing with the chapter.

I.

“Job opened his mouth and cursed his day.” In a kind of wild impossible revision of providence and reopening of questions long settled, he assumes the right of heaping denunciations on the day of his birth. He is so fallen, so distraught, and the end of his existence appears to have come in such profound disaster, the face of God as well as of man frowning on him, that he turns savagely on the only fact left to strike at, -his birth into the world. But the whole strain is imaginative. His revolt is unreason, not impiety either against God or his parents. He does not lose the instinct of a good man, one who keeps in mind the love of father and mother and the intention of the Almighty whom he still reveres. Life is an act of God: he would not have it marred again by infelicity like his own. So the day as an ideal factor in history or cause of existence is given up to chaos.

“That day, there!

Darkness be it.

Seek it not the High God from above;

And no light stream on it.

Darkness and the nether gloom reclaim it,

Encamp over it the clouds;

Scare it blacknesses of the day.”

The idea is, Let the day of my birth be got rid of, so that no other come into being on such a day; let God pass from it-then He will not give life on that day. Mingled in this is the old world notion of days having meanings and powers of their own. This day had proved malign, terribly bad. It was already a chaotic day, not fit for a mans birth. Let every natural power of storm and eclipse draw it back to the void. The night too, as part of the day, comes under imprecation.

That night, there!

Darkness seize it,

Joy have it none among the days of the year,

Nor come into the numbering of months.

See! That night, be it barren;

No song-voice come to it:

Ban it, the cursers of day

Skilful to stir up leviathan.

Dark be the stars of its twilight,

May it long for the light-find none,

Nor see the eyelids of dawn.

The vividness here is from superstition, fancies of past generations, old dreams of a child race. Foreign they would be to the mind of Job in his strength; but in great disaster the thoughts are apt to fall back on these levels of ignorance and dim efforts to explain, omens and powers intangible. It is quite easy to follow Job in this relapse, half wilful, half for easing of his bosom. Throughout Arabia, Chaldaea, and India went a belief in evil powers that might be invoked to make a particular day one of misfortune. The leviathan is the dragon which was thought to cause eclipses by twining its black coils about the sun and moon. These vague undertones of belief ran back probably to myths of the sky and the storm, and Job ordinarily must have scorned them. Now, for the time, he chooses to make them serve his need of stormy utterance. If any who hear him really believe in magicians and their spells, they are welcome to gather through that belief a sense of his condition; or if they choose to feel pious horror, they may be shocked. He flings out maledictions, knowing in his heart that they are vain words.

Is it not something strange that the happy past is here entirely forgotten? Why has Job nothing to say of the days that shone brightly upon him? Have they no weight in the balance against pain and grief?

“The tempest in my mind

Doth from my senses take all feeling else

Save what beats there.”

His mind is certainly clouded; for it is not vain to say that piety preserves the thought of what God once gave, and Job had himself spoken of it when his disease was young. At this point he is an example of what man is-when he allows the water floods to overflow him and the sad present to extinguish a brighter past. The sense of a wasted life is upon him, because he does not yet understand what the saving of life is. To be kind to others and to be happy in ones own kindness is not for man so great a benefit, so high a use of life, as to suffer with others and for them. What were the life of our Lord on earth and His death but a revelation to man of the secret he had never grasped and still but half approves? The Book of Job, a long, yearning cry out of the night, shows how the world needed Christ to shed His Divine light upon all our experiences and unite them in a religion of sacrifice and triumph. The book moves toward that reconciliation which only the Christ can achieve. As yet, looking at the sufferer here, we see that the light of the future has not dawned upon him. Only when he is brought to bay by the falsehoods of man, in the absolute need of his soul, will he boldly anticipate the redemption and fling himself for refuge on a justifying God.

II.

In the second strophe cursing is exchanged for wailing, fruitless reproach of a long past day for a touching chant in praise of the grave. If his birth had to be, why could he not have passed at once into the shades? The lament, though not so passionate, is full of tragic emotion. The phrases of it have been woven into a modern hymn and used to express what Christians may feel; but they are pagan in tone, and meant by the writer to embody the unhopeful thought of the race. Here is no outlook beyond the inanition of death, the oblivion and silence of the tomb. It is not the extreme of unfaith, but rather of weakness and misery.

Wherefore hastened the knees to meet me,

And why the breasts that I should suck?

For then, having sunk down, would I repose,

Fallen asleep there would be rest for me.

With kings and councillors of the earth

Who built them solitary piles;

Or with princes who had gold,

Who filled their houses with silver;

Or as a hidden abortion I had not been,

As infants who never saw light.

There the wicked cease from raging,

And there the outworn rest.

Together the prisoners are at ease,

Not hearing the call of the taskmaster.

Small and great are there the same,

The slave set free from his lord.

It is beautiful poetry, and the images have a singular charm for the dejected mind. The chief point, however, for us to notice is the absence of any thought of judgment. In the dim underworld, hid as beneath heavy clouds, power and energy are not. Existence has fallen to so low an ebb that it scarcely matters whether men were good or bad in this life, nor is it needful to separate them. For the tyrant can do no more harm to the captive, nor the robber to his victim. The astute councillor is no better than the slave. It is a kind of existence below the level of moral judgment, below the level either of fear or joy. From the peacefulness of this region none are excluded; as there will be no strength to do good there will be none to do evil. “The small and great are there the same.” The stillness and calm of the dead body deceive the mind, willing in its wretchedness to be deceived.

When the writer put this chant into the mouth of Job, he had in memory the pyramids of Egypt and tombs, like those of Petra, carved in the lonely hills. The contrast is thus made picturesque between the state of Job lying in loathsome disease and the lot of those who are gathered to the mighty dead. For whether the rich are buried in their stately sepulchres, or the body of a slave is hastily covered with desert sand, all enter into one painless repose. The whole purpose of the passage is to mark the extremity of hopelessness, the mind revelling in images of its own decay. We are not meant to rest in that love of death from which Job vainly seeks comfort. On the contrary, we are to see him by and by roused to interest in life and its issues. This is no halting place in the poem, as it often is in human thought.

A great problem of Divine righteousness hangs unsolved. With the death of the prisoner and the down-trodden slave whose worn out body is left a prey to the vulture-with the death of the tyrant whose evil pride has built a stately tomb for his remains-all is not ended. Peace has not come. Rather has the unravelling of the tangle to begin. The All-righteous has to make His inquisition and deal out the justice of eternity. Modern poetry, however, often repeats in its own way the old-world dream, mistaking the silence and composure of the dead face for a spiritual deliverance:-

“The aching craze to live ends, and life glides

Lifeless-to nameless quiet, nameless joy.

Blessed Nirvana, sinless, stirless rest,

That change which never changes.”

To Christianity this idea is utterly foreign, yet it mingles with some religious teaching, and is often to be found in the weaker sorts of religious fiction and verse.

III.

The last portion of Jobs address begins with a note of inquiry. He strikes into eager questioning of heaven and earth regarding his state. What is he kept alive for? He pursues death with his longing as one goes into the mountains to seek treasure. And again, his way is hid; he has no future. God hath hedged him in on this side by losses, on that by grief; behind a past mocks him, before is a shape which he follows and yet dreads.

“Wherefore gives He light to wretched men,

Life to the bitter in soul?

Who long for death; but no!

Search for it more than for treasures.”

It is indeed a horrible condition, this of the baffled mind to which nothing remains but its own gnawing thought that finds neither reason of being nor end of turmoil, that can neither cease to question nor find answer to inquiries that rack the spirit. There is energy enough, life enough to feel life a terror, and no more; not enough for any mastery even of stoical resolve. The power of self-consciousness seems to be the last injury, a Nessus-shirt, the gift of a strange hate. “The real agony is the silence, the ignorance of the why and the wherefore, the Sphinx-like imperturbability which meets his prayers.” This struggle for a light that will not come has been expressed by Matthew Arnold in his “Empedocles on Etna,” a poem which may in some respects be named a modern version of Job:-

This heart will glow no more; thou art

A living man no more, Empedocles!

Nothing but a devouring flame of thought-

But a naked eternally restless mind

To the elements it came from

Everything will return-

Our bodies to earth,

Our blood to water,

Heat to fire,

Breath to air.

They were well born,

They will be well entombed-

But mind, but thought-

Where will they find their parent element

What will receive them, who will call them home?

But we shall still be in them and they in us

And we shall be unsatisfied as now;

And we shall feel the agony of thirst,

The ineffable longing for the life of life,

Baffled forever.

Thought yields no result; the outer universe is dumb and impenetrable. Still Job would revive if a battle for righteousness offered itself to him. He has never had to fight for God or for his own faith. When the trumpet call is heard he will respond; but he is not yet aware of hearing it.

The closing verses have presented considerable difficulty to interpreters, who on the one hand shrink from the supposition that Job is going back on his past life of prosperity and finding there the origin of his fear, and on the other hand see the danger of leaving so significant a passage without definite meaning. The Revised Version puts all the verbs of the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth verses into the present tense, and Dr. A.B. Davidson thinks translation into the past tense would give a meaning “contrary to the idea of the poem.” Now, a considerable interval had already elapsed from the time of Jobs calamities, even from the beginning of his illness, quite long enough to allow the growth of anxiety and fear as to the judgment of the world. Job was not ignorant of the caprice and hardness of men. He knew how calamity was interpreted; he knew that many who once bowed to his greatness already heaped scorn upon his fall. May not his fear have been that his friends from beyond the desert would furnish the last and in some respects most cutting of his sorrows?

“I have feared a fear; it has come upon me,

And that which I dread has come to me.

I have not been at ease nor quiet, nor have I had rest;

Yet trouble has come.”

In his brooding soul, those seven days and nights, fear has deepened into certainty. He is a man despised. Even for those three his circumstances have proved too much. Did he imagine for a moment that their coming might relieve the pressure of his lot and open a way to the recovery of his place among men? The trouble is deeper than ever; they have stirred a tempest in his breast.

Note that in his whole agony Job makes no motion towards suicide. Arnolds Empedocles cries against life, flings out his questions to a dumb universe, and then plunges into the crater of Etna. Here, as at other points, the inspiration of the author of our book strikes clear between stoicism and pessimism, defiance of the world to do its worst and confession that the struggle is too terrible. The deep sense of all that is tragic in life, and, with this, the firm persuasion that nothing is appointed to man but what he is able to bear, together make the clear Bible note. It may seem that Jobs ejaculations differ little from the cry out of the “City of Dreadful Night,”

“Weary of erring in this desert, Life,

Weary of hoping hopes forever vain,

Weary of struggling in all sterile strife,

Weary of thought which maketh nothing plain,

I close my eyes and calm my panting breath

And pray to thee, O ever quiet Death,

To come and soothe away my bitter pain.”

But the writer of the book knows what is in hand. He has to show how far faith may be pressed down and bent by the sore burdens of life without breaking. He has to give us the sense of a soul in the uttermost depth, that we may understand the sublime argument which follows, know its importance, and find our own tragedy exhibited, our own need met, the personal and the universal marching together to an issue. Suicide is no issue for a life, any more than universal cataclysm for the evolution of a world. Despair is no refuge. The inspired writer here sees so far, so clearly, that to mention suicide would be absurd. The struggle of life cannot be renounced. So much he knows by a spiritual instinct which anticipates the wisdom of later times. Were this book a simple record of fact, we have Job in a position far more trying than that of Saul after his defeat on Gilboa; but it is an ideal prophetic writing, a Divine poem, and the faith it is designed to commend saves the man from interfering by any deed of his with the will of God.

We are prepared for the vehement controversy that follows and the sustained appeal of the sufferer to that Power which has laid upon him such a weight of agony. When he breaks into passionate cries and seems to be falling away from all trust, we do not despair of him nor of the cause he represents. The intensity with which he longs for death is actually a sign and measure of the strong life that throbs within him, which yet will be led out into light and freedom and come to peace as it were in the very clash of revolt.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary