Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 3:3
Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night [in which] it was said, There is a man child conceived.
3. night in which it was said ] Rather, the night which said. The night is personified and cursed as a conscious agent, responsible for Job’s existence, comp. Job 3:10.
There is a man child conceived ] Rather, a man; “A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow; but as soon as she is delivered of the child she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world,” Joh 16:21.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Let the day perish – Perish the day! O that there had never been such a day! Let it be blotted from the memory of man! There is something singularly bold, sublime, and wild in this exclamation. It is a burst of feeling where there had been long restraint, and where now it breaks forth in the most vehement and impassioned manner. The word perish here yo’bad expresses the optative, and indicates strong desire. So the Septuagint, Apoloito, may it perish, or be destroyed; compare Job 10:18. O that I had given up the ghost. Dr. Good says of this exclamation, There is nothing that I know of, ia ancient or modern poetry, equal to the entire burst, whether in the wildness and horror of the imprecations. or the terrible sublimity of its imagery. The boldest and most animated of the Hebrew poets have imitated it, and have expressed themselves in almost the same language, in scenes of distress. A remarkably similar expression of feeling is made by Jeremiah.
Cursed be the day wherein I was born:
Let not the day wherein 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 very glad.
Be that man as the cities which yahweh overthrew and repented not!
Yea, let him hear the outcry in the morning,
And the lamentation at noon day!
Jer 20:14-16.
The sense of this expression in Job is plain. He wished there never had been such a day, and then he would not have been born. It is impossible to vindicate these expressions in Job and Jeremiah, unless it be on the supposition that it is highly worked poetic language, caused by sorrow so acute that it could not be expressed in prose. We are to remember, however, if this seems to us inconsistent with the existence of true piety, that Job had far less light than we have; that he lived at an early period of the world, when the views of the divine government were obscure, and that he was not sustained by the hopes and promises which the Christian possesses now. What light he had was probably that of tradition, and of the result of careful observation on the course of events. His topics of consolation must have been comparatively few. He had few or no promises to sustain him. He had not had before him, as we have, the example of the patient Redeemer. His faith was not sustained by those strong assurances which we have of the perfect rectitude of the divine government. Before we blame him too severely, we must place ourselves in imagination in his circumstances, and ask what our piety would have done under the trials which afflicted him. Yet with all allowances, it is not possible to vindicate this language; and while we cannot but admire its force and sublimity, and its unequalled power and boldness in expressing strong passion, we at the same time feel that there was a lack of proper submission and patience. – It is the impassioned language of a man who felt that he could bear no more; and there can be no doubt that it gave to Satan the hope of his anticipated triumph.
And the night in which it was said – Dr. Good renders this, And the night which shouted. Noyes, And the night which said. So Gesenius and Rosenmuller, Perish the night which said, a man child is conceived. The Vulgate renders it, The night in which it was said; the Septuagint, That night in which they said. The Chaldee paraphrases the verse, Perish the day in which I was born, and the angel who presided ever my conception. Scott, quoted by Good, translates it, The night which hailed the new-born man. The language throughout this imprecation is that in which the night is personified, and addressed as if it were made glad by the birth of a son. So Schultens says, Inducitur enim Nox illa quasi conscia mysterii, et exultans ob spem prolis virilis. Such personifications of day and night are common among the Arabs; see Schultens. It is a representation of day and night as sympathizing with the joys and sorrows of mankind, and is in the truest vein of Oriental poetry.
There is a man child conceived – Hebrew geber – a man; compare Joh 16:21. The word conceived Dr. Good renders brought forth So Herder translates it. The Septuagint, Idou arsen – lo, a male The common translation expresses the true sense of the original. The joy at the birth of a male in Oriental countries is much greater than that at the birth of a female. A remarkable instance of an imprecation on the day of ones birth is found in a Muslim book of modern times, in which the expressions are almost precisely the same as in Job. Malek er Nasser Daub, prince of some tribes in Palestine, from which however he had been driven, after many adverse fortunes, died in a village near Damascus in the year 1258. When the crusaders had desolated his country, he deplored its misfortunes and his own in a poem, from which Abulfeda (Annals, p. 560) has quoted the following passage: O that my mother had remained unmarried all the days of her life! That God had determined no lord or consort for her! O that when he had destined her to an excellent, mild, and wise prince, she had been one of those whom he had created barren; that she might never have known the happy intelligence that she had born a man or woman! Or that when she had carried me under her heart, I had lost my life at my birth; and if I had been born, and had seen the light, that, when the congratulating people hastened on their camels, I had been gathered to my fathers. The Greeks and the Romans had their unlucky days ( hemerai apofrudes dies infausti); that is, days which were unpropitious, or in which they expected no success in any enterprise or any enjoyment. Tacitus (Annals, xiv. 12) mentions that the Roman Senate, for the purpose of flattering Nero, decreed that the birthday of Agrippina should be regarded as an accursed day; ut dies natalis Agrippinae inter nefastos esset. See Rosenmuller, All. u. neue Morgenland, in loc Expressions also similar to those before us, occur in Ovid, particularly in the following passage, Epist. ad Ibin:
Natus es infelix (ita Dii voluere), nec ulla
Commoda nascenti stella, levisve fuit.
Lux quoque natalis, ne quid nisi tristo videres,
Turpis, et inductis nubibus atra fuit.
Sedit in adverso nocturnas culmine bubo,
Funereoque graves edidit ore sonos.
We have now similar days, which by common superstition are regarded as unlucky or inauspicious. The wish of Job seems to be, that the day of his birth might be regarded as one of those days.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 3. There is a man-child conceived.] The word harah signifies to conceive; yet here, it seems, it should be taken in the sense of being born, as it is perfectly unlikely that the night of conception should be either distinctly known or published.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Let the remembrance of that day be utterly lost; yea, I heartily wish that it had never been. Such wishes are apparently foolish and impatient, and yet have been sometimes forced from wise and good men in grievous distresses, not as if they expected any effect of them, but only to show their abhorrency of life, and to express the intolerableness of their grief, and to give some vent to their passions. In which it was said with joy and triumph, as happy tidings. Compare Jer 20:15. Conceived; or rather, brought forth, as this word is used, 1Ch 4:17; for the time of conception is unknown commonly to women themselves, and doth not use to be reported among men, as this day is supposed to be.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
3. the night in whichrather “the night which said.” The words in italicsare not in the Hebrew. Night is personified and poeticallymade to speak. So in Job 3:7,and in Ps 19:2. The birth of amale in the East is a matter of joy; often not so of a female.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Let the day perish wherein I was born,…. Here begins Job’s form of cursing his day, and which explains what is meant by it; and it may be understood either of the identical day of his birth, and then the sense is, that he wished that had never been, or, in other words, that he had never been born; and though these were impossible, and Job knew it, and therefore such wishes may seem to be in vain, yet Job had a design herein, which was to show the greatness of his afflictions, and the sense he had of them: or else of his birthday, as it returned year after year; and then his meaning is, let it not be kept and observed with any solemnity, with feasting and other expressions of joy, as the birthdays of great personages especially were, and his own very probably had been, since his children’s were, Job 1:4; but now he desires it might not be so for the future, but be entirely disregarded; he would have it perish out of his own memory, and out of the memory of others, and even be struck out of the calendar, and not be reckoned with the days of the month and year, Job 3:6; both may be intended, both the very day on which he was born, and the yearly return of it:
and the night [in which] it was said, there is a man child conceived; that is, let that night perish also; he wishes it had not been, or he had not been conceived, or for the future be never mentioned, but eternally forgotten: Job goes back to his conception, as being the spring of his sorrows; for this he knew as well as David, that he was shapen in iniquity, and conceived in sin, see Job 14:4; but rather, since the particular night or time of conception is not ordinarily, easily, and exactly known by women themselves, and much less by men; and more especially it could not be told what sex it was, whether male or female that was conceived, and the tidings of it could not be brought by any; it seems better with Aben Ezra to render the word w, “there is a man child brought forth”, which used to be an occasion of joy, Joh 16:21; and so the word is used to bear or bring forth, 1Ch 4:17; see Jer 20:15; and, according to him, it was a doubt whether Job was born in the day or in the night; but be it which it will, if he was born in the day, he desires it might perish; and if in the night, he wishes the same to that; though the words may be rendered in a beautiful and elegant manner nearer the original, “and the night [which] said, a man child is conceived” x; representing, by a prosopopoeia, the night as a person conscious of the conception, as an eyewitness of it, and exulting at it, as Schultens observes.
w “in lucem editus est vir”, Mercerus; “creatus, progenitus”, Drusius, so the Targum; “conceptus et natus est vir, vel mas”, Michaelis; so Ben Melech. x “et nox quae dixit”, Mercerus, Gussetius, Schultens.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
3 Perish the day wherein I was born.
And the night which said, A man-child is conceived!
4 Let that day become darkness;
Let not Eloah ask after it from above,
And let not the light shine on it.
5 May darkness and the shadow of death purchase it back;
Let a cloud lie upon it;
May that which obscures the day terrify it.
The curse is against the day of his birth and the night of his conception as recurring yearly, not against the actual first day (Schlottm.), to which the imprecations which follow are not pertinent. Job wishes his birth-day may become dies ater, swallowed up by darkness as into nothing. The elliptical relative clauses, Job 3:3 (Ges. 123, 3; cf. 127, 4, c), become clear from the translation. Transl. the night ( with parag. He is masc.) which said, not: in which they said; the night alone was witness of this beginning of the development of a man-child, and made report of it to the High One, to whom it is subordinate. Day emerges from the darkness as Eloah from above (as Job 31:2, Job 31:28), i.e., He who reigns over the changes here below, asks after it; interests Himself in His own ( ). Job wishes his birth-day may not rejoice in this. The relations of this his birth-day are darkness and the shadow of death. These are to redeem it, as, according to the right of kinsmen, family property is redeemed when it has got into a stranger’s hands. This is the meaning of (lxx ), not = , inquinent (Targ.). is collective, as , mass of cloud. Instead of (the Caph of which seems pointed as praepos), we must read with Ewald (157, a), Olshausen, (187, b), and others, , after the form , darkness, dark flashing (vid., on Psa 10:8), , tapestry, unless we are willing to accept a form of noun without example elsewhere. The word signifies an obscuring, from , to glow with heat, because the greater the glow the deeper the blackness it leaves behind. All that ever obscures a day is to overtake and render terrible that day.
(Note: We may compare here, and further, on, Constance’s outburst of despair in King John (3:1 and 3:4). Shakespeare, like Goethe, enriches himself from the book of Job.)
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
First long strophe JOB CURSES HIS EXISTENCE, Job 3:3-10.
a. He curses his birthday, Job 3:3-5.
3. Let the day perish Literally, Perish the day! I was to be born in it! Hitzig renders, , in which I should be born. “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.” The fathers, who were disposed to palliate this entire lamentation, call attention to the thought that it is the day of his birth, and not that of his prospective death, that he execrates; which Isidorus beautifully illustrates by the tears of Christ, “who wept,” he says, “not so much that Lazarus had died, as that he must call back to waves and storms him who had reached the port, and bring again the crowned victor into the battlefield of life.”
And the night it said Not, in which it was said, which takes away the startling abruptness of the original. Like a conscious existence, night personified has the power of speech. In the sublime conception of the poet, night makes report to the Most High of whatever takes place within its wide domain. The speculation is not unworthy of science, that all the deeds of the day are embodied in the reflected rays of light, from which they can never die out, at least so long as the light of the day continues to shine on through infinite space. In a similar manner night has a voice. Psa 19:2. On which Stier remarks: “We are to understand not merely what we see by day and night in the heavens, but, as the expression naturally imports, (that is, if viewed without respect to the connexion,) the whole that is done by day and night under the heavens.”
A man child , literally, a man. The birth of a son was one of the three great occasions of festivity among the Arabs. The two others, according to Pococke, were the birth of a foal of valued race, and the rising up of a poetical genius in any of their tribes. ( Spec. Hist. Ar., pp. 160, 367 . )
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 3:3. And the night in which it was said, &c. And the night which said, See, a man-child is born; Heath: who observes from Schultens, that the bearing of a son was a matter of great consequence among the Arabians; the form of their salutation to a newly-married woman being, frequently, “May you live happily, and bring forth male children.” It is no wonder, therefore, that the night subsequent to the day which had conferred so great a piece of good fortune on a family should be celebrated with a general rejoicing. Let not God regard it, in the next verse, is rendered also by this writer, May God not inquire after it; and by others, Let not God take account of it.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Job 3:3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night [in which] it was said, There is a man child conceived.
Ver. 3. Let the day perish wherein I was born ] He curseth his birthday, which the Greeks call , quasi : the beginning of a man’s nativity they call the begetting of his misery; because he is non prius natus quam damnatus (Aug.), no sooner born but damned to the mines of misery, Job 14:1 . Crying he comes into the world, and before he speaketh he prophesieth, and saith in effect, T ; , , , , &c.
Nasci poena, labor vita, necesse mori.
To be born is a penalty, to labour life, to die necessary. Oh that I had ne’er been born! Woe worth the day That brought me forth, and made me not away!
This whole life is overspread with sins and miseries as with a filthy morphew; A leprous or scurfy eruption or as Job was with his leprosy; the anguish whereof, together with his inward troubles, so grieved and galled him, that he not only crieth out (which is natural for a man to do), but giving the reins wholly to his grief, he roareth and rageth beyond all reason; and had not the Spirit held him back, he would surely have run headlong into blasphemy and desperation, which was Satan’s design. But in the saints, as the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and sometimes getting the upper ground (as it were), bears it down, as here in Job at this present; so the Spirit again lusteth against the flesh, and a great bustle there is in the good soul (as when two opposite things meet together, cold saltpetre and hot brimstone, there is a great noise; and as when Paul came to Ephesus, there was no small stir about that way, Act 19:28-41 ), so that ye cannot do the things that ye would, saith the apostle, Gal 5:17 . As Job cannot do and say the good that he would, because of the flesh, so neither could he do or say the evil that he would, because of the Spirit; he curseth indeed his day, but not his wife nor friends, much less his God, as those malcontents did, Isa 8:21 . Nay, so soon as God came into his mind, Job 3:20 , the flesh was thereby, though not altogether, quailed and quelled, yet so far daunted and damped, that it kept itself within the compass of weeping and wailing; and God himself, though he find fault with Job’s speeches for unadvised, and sometimes ranging beyond the precincts of godliness; yet acquitting him from all gross sin, he crowneth him with the garland of a famous victory, as Mr Beza here well observeth. Most wisely, therefore, and fitly doth St James warn us, that in thinking upon Job, we regard not so much what was done while the combat lasted, as what end the Lord made, Jas 5:11 . The saints do never more prevail and triumph than when it seemeth otherwise. See Rev 13:7 Job 12:11 . They gather strength by opposition, and conquer in being conquered, Rom 8:37 . They repent of their outbursts, as Job did, Job 42:5-6 . And Quem poenitet peccasse, pene est innocens (Senec.), he is little less than innocent who is afterwards penitent. Yea, it is almost more to repent of a fault, saith a Father, than to have been free from the fault (Ambr. in Psal.).
And the night
– Hanc fraenis, hanc tu compesce catenis.
For this bridle, this restrain you for chains. When God’s hand is on thy back, let thy hand be on thy mouth, keep it as with a bridle or muzzle, Psa 39:1 . Passionate speeches leniter volant, non leviter violant. The best that come of them is repentance; Job, when he was once out, could keep no mean; but what he had said against day and night, he amplifieth by the parts; and first for the day, Job 3:4-5 , and then for the night, Job 3:6-8 , &c.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
and = or. He knew not which it was. Compare Jdg 11:31.
man. Hebrew. geber. App-14.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Job 3:3-10
Job 3:3-10
JOB’S EXPRESSION OF SUPERLATIVE GRIEF
“Let the day perish wherein I was born,
And the night which said, There is a man-child conceived.
Let that day be darkness;
Let not God from above seek for it.
Neither let the light shine upon it.
Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own;
Let a cloud dwell upon it;
Let all that maketh black the day terrify it.
As for that night, let thick darkness seize upon it:
Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;
Let it not come into the number of the months.
Lo, let that night be barren;
Let no joyful voice come therein.
Let them curse it that curse the day,
Who are ready to rouse up Leviathan.
Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark:
Let it look for light, but have none;
Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning.
Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb,
Nor hid trouble from mine eyes.”
“Though Job will not curse God, he does curse his life; his soliloquy here is one of the most poignant expressions of despair ever written.” “Job’s trust in God is not destroyed, but it is overcast with thick clouds of melancholy and doubt.”
In the times when Job lived, there was not given any inspired revelation regarding the hope and blessing of the redeemed to be realized in the future. He had no way of knowing that, “The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18). One’s heart instinctively reaches out toward this ancient sufferer, who even in his despair refused to renounce his faith in God.
“Leviathan” (Job 3:8). This was a mythological sea-monster whom some charlatans pretended to be experts to rouse up against those whom the charlatan cursed. “The mention of this here should not be taken as evidence that Job believed either in Leviathan, or such experts.” Isaiah also mentioned Leviathan; and for the scriptural use of that myth as a metaphorical reference to Satan, see my commentary on Isaiah under Isa 27:1. It is now common to interpret Leviathan as “the crocodile.”
“Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning” (Job 3:9). The Hebrew here has, “The eyelashes of Shahar”; “But the use of this Canaanite god of the dawn is purely poetic and without any taint of polytheism.”
We shall find other references to mythological ideas in Job, but these are no reflection upon the views of Job as a devout monotheist. There are many mythological echoes in the speech patterns of all nations. Our own names for the days of the week and the months of the year are derived from ancient mythology. January is named for the Roman god of portals and beginnings; the word February is from a pagan festival celebrated in that month; March, like one of the planets, is named from Mars, the Roman god of war; May comes from Mata a pagan goddess of growth; June is derived from Juno, in Roman mythology; she was the wife of Jupiter, the goddess of marriage, and the queen of the gods; the name Tuesday is from Tiu (pronounced: te-oo), worshipped by the Teutons as the god of war; our name for Wednesday comes from Woden, the old English name for the chief of the Norse gods; and Saturday was derived from Saturn the Roman god of agriculture.
“Job’s cry of misery is repeated three times in this chapter, with ever deepening pathos (Job 1-10, 11-19, 20-26).”
E.M. Zerr:
Job 3:3. Day perish means that said day would better not have come. Day is used as a date in general, and night refers to the period in that date when childbirth usually takes place.
Job 3:4. From a figurative viewpoint, Job regards his birthday as so useless that God might well rule it out of all the record of facts.
Job 3:5. Job pictured the elements of creation as challenging his birthday, questioning its right to be recognized, because of the great emptiness it brought him.
Job 3:6. So unprofitable has the night of his birth proved to be, that it should be stricken from the calendar.
Job 3:7. Solitary is from a word that means fruitless. Since the night that ushered him into the world had proved to be so fruitless, there was nothing over which any voice could be joyful.
Job 3:8. Mourning is from LIVYATHAN and Strong defines it, “a wreathed animal, i. e. a serpent (especially the crocodile or some other large seamonster).” The curse due the night of his birth was so heavy that it could well require the strength of one who could raise up a sea-monster.
Job 3:9. As complete darkness would compare with a state of worthlessness, so Job pictured the day of his birth thereby; he even specified the divisions of the period. In the beginning of night the stars are wont to furnish some light; as the night draws to an end the dawning from the sun again brings some light. But on the occasion of that fateful event of his birth it was all inappropriate.
Job 3:10. The pronoun it refers to the day of Job’s birth. Now then, because it brought him forth he pronounced the curse upon it described in the several preceding verses. And in the present verse he makes the complaint that the day did not obstruct his mother’s womb so that he could not have been born. This desolate picture of Job must not be criticized, for there is another similar expression in the New Testament. In Mat 26:24, Jesus told of a man who would have been better off had he never been born. That was not because his fate was anything to be compared with that of Job; the likeness is in the idea of escaping from an unfavorable experience by not being born.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Let the day: That is, as we say, “Let it be blotted out of the calendar.” Job 10:18, Job 10:19, Jer 15:10, Jer 20:14, Jer 20:15
Reciprocal: 2Sa 1:21 – no dew Job 3:1 – cursed Job 6:26 – reprove Jer 31:22 – A woman
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 3:3. Here the metrical part of this book begins, which in the original Hebrew is broken into short verses, and is very beautiful, thus: Jobad jom ivaled bo, Vehalailah amar horah geber.
Let the day perish wherein I was born, And the night which said, A man child is conceived.
Let the day perish, &c. So far from desiring, according to the general and prevailing custom, that my birth-day should be celebrated; that any singular tokens of joy and gratulation should be expressed on it, in remembrance of my coming into the world, my earnest and passionate desire is, that it may not so much as be reckoned one of the days of the year, but that both it and the remembrance of it may be utterly lost. And the night in which it was said With joy and triumph, as happy tidings, There is a man-child conceived Or rather, brought forth, as the word , harah, signifies, (1Ch 4:17,) for the exact time of conception is commonly unknown to women themselves, and certainly is not wont to be reported among men, as this day is supposed to be. Indeed, this latter clause is only a repetition of the former, expressing that, whether it was day or night when he was born, he wished the time to be forgotten. Heath translates the words, And the night which said, See, a man-child is born; and he observes, from Schultens, that the bearing of a son was considered a matter of great consequence among the Arabians; the form of their appreciation of happiness to a new-married woman being, May you live happy, and bring forth male children.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
3:3 Let the day {c} perish wherein I was born, and the night [in which] it was said, There is a man child conceived.
(c) Men should not be weary of their life and curse it, because of the infinities that it is subject to, but because they are given to sin and rebellion against God.