Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 3:8
Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.
8. The most probable sense of this verse is,
Let them that curse days curse it,
Them that are skilled to rouse up the Dragon.
They that curse days or the day are enchanters and magicians, who were believed to have power to cast their spells upon a day and overwhelm it with darkness and misfortune. Perhaps, however, the first half of the verse is explained by the second, and only one species of enchantment referred to, namely, rousing up the Dragon. The Heb. word is leviathan. This name is given in ch. 41 to a sea or river monster, probably, the crocodile, but it is difficult to find any logical connexion between rousing up the crocodile and cursing days. The word leviathan means twisted or having folds, and is an epithet for a serpent. In Isa 27:1 we read: In that day Jehovah with his sore and great and strong sword shall visit leviathan the fleeing serpent, and leviathan the serpent with coils. The key to the meaning of the verse, however, is found in Job 26:13, which rightly rendered means,
By His breath the heavens become bright,
His hand pierceth the fleeing serpent.
Here piercing the fleeing serpent and making the heavens clear are parallel acts. The fleeing serpent, therefore, was the cause of the darkness. In both passages in Job there is an allusion to the popular mythology, according to which the darkening or eclipse of the sun and moon was caused by the serpent throwing its folds around them, or swallowing them up. In its origin this mythology is probably nothing more than a stroke of the poetic imagination, which turned the dark cloud or eclipsing shadow into a huge Dragon. Enchanters were supposed to have power to set this Dragon in motion, and cause the lights of day or night to be swallowed up.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Let them curse it who curse the day – This entire verse is exceedingly difficult, and many different expositions have been given of it. It seems evident that it refers to some well-known class of persons, who were accustomed to utter imprecations, and were supposed to have the power to render a day propitious or unpropitious – persons who had the power of divination or enchantment. A belief in such a power existed early in the world, and has prevailed in all savage and semi-barbarous nations, and even in nations considerably advanced in civilization. The origin of this was a desire to look into futurity; and in order to accomplish this, a league was supposed to be made with the spirits of the dead, who were acquainted with the events of the invisible world, and who could be prevailed on to impart their knowledge to favored mortals. It was supposed, also, that by such union there might be a power exerted which would appear to be miraculous.
Such persons also claimed to be the favorites of heaven, and to be endowed with control over the elements, and over the destiny of men; to have the power to bless and to curse, to render propitious or calamitous. Balsaam was believed to be endowed with this power, and hence, he was sent for by Balak, king of Moab, to curse the Israelites; Num 22:5-6; see the notes at Isa 8:19. The practice of cursing the day, or cursing the sun, is said by Herodotus to have prevailed among a people of Africa, whom he calls the Atlantes, living in the vicinity of Mount Atlas. Of all mankind, says he, of whom we have any knowledge, the Atlantes alone have no distinction of names; the body of the people are termed Atlantes, but their individuals have no appropriate appellation. When the sun is at the highest they heap on it reproaches and execrations, because their country and themselves are parched by its rays; book iv. 184. The same account of them is found in Pliny, Nat. His. v. 8: Solem orientem occidentemque dira imprecatione contuentur, ut exitialem ipsis agrisque. See also Strabo, Lib. xvii. p. 780. Some have supposed, also, that there may be an allusion here to a custom which seems early to have prevailed of hiring people to mourn for the dead, and who probably in their official lamentation bewailed or cursed the day of their calamity; compare Jer 9:17; 2Ch 35:25. But the correct interpretation is doubtless that which refers it to pretended prophets, priests, or diviners – who were supposed to have power to render a day one of ill omen. Such a power Job wished exerted over that unhappy night when he was born. He desired that the curses of those who had power to render a day unpropitious or unlucky, should rest upon it.
Who are ready to raise up their mourning – This is not very intelligible, and it is evident that our translators were embarrassed by the passage. They seem to have supposed that there was an allusion here to the practice of employing professional mourners, and that the idea is, that Job wished that they might be employed to howl over the day as inauspicious, or as a day of ill omen. The margin is, as in the Hebrew, a leviathan. The word rendered ready athydym, means properly ready, prepared; and then practiced or skillful. This is the idea here, that they were practiced or skillful in calling up the leviathan; see Schultens in loc. The word rendered in the text mourning, and in the margin leviathan lvyathan, in all other parts of the sacred Scriptures denotes an animal; see it explained in the notes at Isa 27:1, and more fully in the notes at Job 41: It usually denotes the crocodile, or some huge sea monster.
Here it is evidently used to represent the most fierce, powerful and frightful of all the animals known, and the allusion is to some power claimed by necromancers to call forth the most terrific monsters at their will from distant places, from the vasty deep, from morasses and impenetrable forests. The general claim was, that they had control over all nature; that they could curse the day, and make it of ill omen, and that the most mighty and terrible of land or sea monsters were entirely under their control. If they had such a power, Job wished that they would exercise it to curse the night in which he was born. On what pretensions they founded this claim is unknown. The power, however, of taming serpents, is practiced in India at this day; and jugglers bear around with them the most deadly of the serpent race, having extracted their fangs, and creating among the credulous the belief that they have control over the most noxious animals. Probably some such art was claimed by the ancients. and to some such pretension Job alludes here.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 8. Let them curse it that curse the day] This translation is scarcely intelligible. I have waded through a multitude of interpretations, without being able to collect from them such a notion of the verse as could appear to me probable. Schultens, Rosenmuller, and after them Mr. Good, have laboured much to make it plain. They think the custom of sorcerers who had execrations for peoples, places, things, days, c., is here referred to such as Balaam, Elymas, and many others were: but I cannot think that a man who knew the Divine Being and his sole government of the world so well as Job did, would make such an allusion, who must have known that such persons and their pretensions were impostors and execrable vanities. I shall give as near a translation as I can of the words, and subjoin a short paraphrase: yikkebuhu orerey yom haathidim orer livyathan; “Let them curse it who detest the day; them who are ready to raise up the leviathan.” That is, Let them curse my birthday who hate daylight, such as adulterers, murderers, thieves, and banditti, for whose practices the night is more convenient; and let them curse it who, being like me weary of life, are desperate enough to provoke the leviathan, the crocodile, to tear them to pieces. This version is nearly the same as that given by Coverdale. Let them that curse the daye give it their curse also, then those that be ready to rayse up leviathan. By leviathan some understand the greatest and most imminent dangers; and others, the devil, whom the enchanters are desperate enough to attempt to raise by their incantations.
Calmet understands the whole to be spoken of the Atlantes, a people of Ethiopia, who curse the sun because it parches their fields and their bodies; and who fearlessly attack, kill, and eat the crocodile. This seems a good sense.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
That curse the day, i.e. their day, to wit, their birthday; for the pronoun is here omitted for the metres sake; for this and the following chapters are written in verse, as all grant. So the sense is, when their afflictions move them to curse their own birthday, let them remember mine also, and bestow some curses upon it. Or the day of their distress and trouble, which sometimes is called simply the day, as Oba 1:12. Or the day of the birth or death of that person, whose funerals are celebrated by the hired mourners, who in their solemn lamentations used to curse the day that gave them such a person, whom they should so suddenly lose; and therefore it had been better never to have enjoyed him, and to curse the day in which he died as an unlucky and execrable day. Or, the day, i.e. the daylight; which to some persons is a hateful thing, and the object of their curses, namely, to lewd persons and thieves, to whom the morning light is even as the shadow of death, Job 24:17; as also to persons oppressed with deep melancholy, as it is here implied, Job 3:20. So the sense is this, They who use to curse the day only, but generally love and bless the night, yet let this night be as abominable and execrable to them as the day-time generally is.
Who are ready to raise up their mourning; who are brimful of sorrow, and always ready to pour out their cries, and tears, and complaints, and with them curses, as men in great passions frequently do; or, such mourning men, or mourning women, whose common employment it was, and who were hired to mourn, and therefore were always ready to do so upon funeral occasions; of which see 2Ch 35:25; Jer 9:17,18,20; Eze 30:2; Joe 1:15; Amo 5:16; Mat 9:23. And this sense suits with the use of the last word in Hebrew writers, of which a plain and pertinent instance is given by the learned Mercer. But because that word is commonly used in another sense for the leviathan, both in this book and elsewhere in Scripture, as Psa 74:14; 104:26; Isa 27:1, and because this very phrase of raising the leviathan is used afterward, Job 41:25, others render the words thus, who are prepared or ready to raise the leviathan. It is evident that the leviathan was a great and dreadful fish, or sea monster, though there be some disagreement about its kind or quality, and that the raising of or endeavouring to catch the leviathan was a dangerous and terrible work, as is plain from Job 41. And therefore those seamen who have been generally noted for great swearers and cursers, especially when their passions of rage or fear are raised, being now labouring to catch this sea monster, and finding themselves and their vessel in great danger from him, they fall to their old trade of swearing and cursing, and curse the day wherein they were born, and the day in which they ventured upon this most hazardous and terrible work. Others understand this leviathan mystically, as it is used Isa 27:1, for the great enemy of Gods church and people, called there also the dragon, to wit, the devil, whom the magicians both now do, and formerly did, use to raise with fearful curses and imprecations. Not as if Job did justify this practice, but only it is a rash and passionate wish, that they who pour forth so many curses undeservedly, would bestow their deserved curses upon this day.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. them . . . curse the dayIf”mourning” be the right rendering in the latter clause ofthis verse, these words refer to the hired mourners of the dead (Jer9:17). But the Hebrew for “mourning” elsewherealways denotes an animal, whether it be the crocodile or some hugeserpent (Isa 27:1), such as ismeant by “leviathan.” Therefore, the expression, “cursersof day,” refers to magicians, who were believed to be able bycharms to make a day one of evil omen. (So Balaam, Nu22:5). This accords with UMBREIT’Sview (Job 3:7); or to theEthiopians and Atlantes, who “used to curse the sun at hisrising for burning up them and their country” [HERODOTUS].Necromancers claimed power to control or rouse wild beasts at will,as do the Indian serpent-charmers of our day (Ps58:5). Job does not say they had the power they claimed; but,supposing they had, may they curse the day. SCHUTTENSrenders it by supplying words as follows:Let those that are readyfor anything, call it (the day) the raiser up of leviathan,that is, of a host of evils.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Let them curse it that curse the day,…. Their own day, either their birthday, or any day on which evil befalls them; and now such as are used to this, Job would have them, while they were cursing their own day, to throw some curses upon his; or that curse the daylight in general, as adulterers and murderers, who are said to rebel against the light, see Job 24:13; and as some Ethiopians, who lived near Arabia, and so known to Job, who supposed there was no God, and used to curse the sun when it rose and set, as various writers relate g, called by others h Atlantes; or it may design such persons who were hired at funerals, to mourn for the dead, and who, in their doleful ditties and dirges, used to curse the day on which the person was born whom they lamented; or it may be rather the day on which he died; hence it follows:
who are ready to raise up their mourning; who were expert at the business, and who could raise up a howl, as the Irish now do, or make a lamentation for the dead when they pleased; such were the mourning women in Jer 9:17; and those that were skilful of lamentation, Am 5:16; some render the words, “who are ready to raise up Leviathan” i, and interpret it either of the whale, which, when raised up by the fishermen, they are in danger of their vessels being overturned, and their lives lost, and then they curse the day that ever they entered into such service, and exposed themselves to such danger; or of fish in general, and of fishermen cursing and swearing when they are unsuccessful: some understand this of astrologers, magicians, and enchanters, raising spirits, and particularly the devil, who they think is meant by Leviathan; but it seems best with a little alteration from Gussetius, and Schultens after him, to render the words thus,
“let the cursers of the day fix a name upon it; let those that are ready “to anything, call it” the raiser up of Leviathan;”
that is, let such who either of themselves are used to curse days, or are employed by others to do it, brand this night with some mark of infamy; let them ascribe all dreadful calamities and dismal things unto it, as the source and spring of them; which may be signified by Leviathan, that being a creature most formidable and terrible, of which an account is given in the latter part of this book; but many Jewish writers k render it “mourning”, as we do.
g Diodor. Sic. l. 3. p. 148. Strabo, Geograph. l. 17. P. 565. h Herodot. Melpomene, sive, l. 4. c. 184. Mela de Situ Orbis, l. 1. c. 8. Solin. Polyhistor, c. 44. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 8. i “Leviathanem”, Schmidt, Michaelis. Mr. Broughton renders the words, “who hunt Leviathan.” k Vid. Aben Ezram & Gersom in loc. R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 1. 1. Aruch in voce . So the word is used, T. Hieros. Moed Katon, fol. 80. 4.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(8) That curse the dayi.e., Let those who proclaim days unlucky or accursed curse that day as pre-eminently so; or let them recollect that day as a standard or sample of cursing. Let it be as cursed as Jobs birth day.
These people are further described as being ready to arouse leviathan (Authorised Version, raise up their mourning), or the crocodilepersons as mad and desperate as that. Let the most hopeless and reckless of mankind select that day as the one which they would choose to curse. This seems to be Jobs meaning.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
8. That curse the day Cursers of the day. Pliny says of the Atlantes, (Herodotus calls them Atarantes,) that as they look upon the rising and the setting sun they give utterance to direful imprecations against it as being deadly to themselves and their lands. ( Nat. Hist., book v, chap. 8.) Job does not refer to such, but to professional cursers, who imprecate evil on particular days. Superstition in the earliest times had its sorcerers, who were believed to possess the power, through incantations, of working injury to others. Balaam was summoned from his distant home to curse the people of Israel. Job invites those skilled in the art of cursing to join him in cursing that night.
Raise up their mourning Our version yields no intelligible meaning. The Septuagint renders the passage, “he that is ready to attack the great whale,” (or monster,) which is quite as meaningless.
The original reads, skilled to rouse up the dragon, (Leviathan.) This word, , has been a stumbling-block to all translators. The Complutensian editors (of the first polyglott, 1517) left it without attempting to translate it. Our own version, “their mourning,” together with that of Piscator and Tyndal, probably followed the Chaldee paraphrase, which may have been suggested by the ancient association of the profession of sorcery with professional mourning. They inferred that as the first clause of the verse meant sorcery, the second must mean “mourning.” 1. Furst, in common with modern lexicographers, gives the ground-form of the word as that which wreathes, or gathers itself into folds. Hence one meaning of the word is serpent, since it moves itself forward by folds. Umbreit and Vaihinger understand by the word a very large serpent. The art of charming serpents is common through the East. The serpent, too, fills a large place in all mythologies. In the last Indian Avatar, as well as in the Eddas, the world is to be destroyed by a serpent vomiting flames. 2.
According to Bochartus, Clericus, Carey, etc., the word should be rendered crocodile. This animal was regarded by the ancient Egyptians as the emblem of Typhon, the dark genius of their mythology. As it was in the shape of a crocodile that Typhon eluded the pursuit of Horus, they set apart a particular day for the hunt of this animal. They killed as many of them as they could, and afterwards threw their dead bodies before the temple of their god. The following translation of a papyrus found at Thebes gives us a form of the invocation of Typhon: “I invoke thee who livest in empty space: wind, or terrible invisible, all powerful, god of gods: maker of destruction: and maker of desolation: thou who hatest a flourishing family, since thou hast been expelled from Egypt and out of foreign countries.
Thou hast been named the all destroyer, and the invincible. I invoke thee Typhon Set: I perform thy magical rites. Because I invoke thee by thy genuine name, by virtue of which thou canst not refuse to hear come to me entire, and walk, and throw down that man or that woman by cold and heat. He has wronged me,” etc. Herodotus (ii, 32, 33) relates of the travels of the Nasamonians in Africa, that they came to a great river which flowed by a town of dwarfs, and which abounded in crocodiles. In this connexion he strangely informs us that they were a nation of sorcerers. 3 . Others, (Hirtzel, Furst, Schlottmann, Ewald, etc.,) who cite Van Bohlen, think that the expression refers to the dragon in the heavens, a constellation which, according to eastern mythology, followed the sun and moon like a relentless enemy, sometimes surrounding them with his mighty folds, and so bringing on darkness. Throughout the East the ancients believed that their magicians could work upon this monster. A similar belief with respect to a monster called Rahu prevails among the Hindus to the present time. In times of eclipse the natives (as do the Chinese) raise a great din to compel the dragon to release his prey. Job’s wish, according to this view, was, that these day-cursers might rouse up this dragon, and thus effect a complete obscuration of the night. 4. The fathers looked upon the passage from a spiritual standpoint, and regarded it as referring to a spiritual encounter with Leviathan. They saw in it a prophecy of the incarnated One who should overcome the great serpent, which is hostile not only to the light, but to the God of light. (See extended citations in Wordsworth, who favours this view.) Such an interpretation, however, is unnatural and forced.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 3:8. Curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning Houbigant renders it, May those curse it, who dread the day, who are ready to rouze the Leviathan. The word kabah rendered curse, says Heath, hath in the Arabic the signification of conceiving or exciting terror; and, being translated dread the day, makes better sense than the common rendering. The verse may be thus paraphrased: “Let even those who reckon the night as their protector, who dread the appearance of the day, curse this night; who are ready to awake, or arouse the Leviathan;” i.e. are weary of their lives, and are ready for the most desperate undertaking; as for waking the Leviathan, see ch. 41. Houbigant, however, is by no means satisfied with this interpretation. He thinks, that, to justify it, it should be shewn that they who rouse such monsters as the Leviathan, or crocodile, detest or dread either the coming or departing day; which by no means appears to be the case. He therefore renders it, Who prepare themselves to raise up the dragon, or serpent, meaning the old serpent which seduced our first parents, whom they are accustomed to raise up, who use magic arts, and with whom it is common to curse the approaching day, as preventive of those arts: so that Job seems to say, that that night in which he was conceived, is more to be detested than that day which they detest who exercise magic arts. For my own part, I should be apt to prefer to either of these interpretations the common version; which may certainly be justified, bears a sense much less forced than either of the foregoing, and seems well to correspond with the preceding verse.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
(8) Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning. (9) Let 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: (10) Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes. (11) Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? (12) Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? (13) For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest, (14) With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; (15) Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver: (16) Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light. (17) There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest. (18) There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. (19) The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.
I saw no reason to interrupt the progress of those verses, but wished them, as they are not divided in the Bible, not to be considered separately in the Commentary. The language is most pathetically chosen to convey the sorrows of an afflicted mind: but the fineness of the imagery cannot veil the anguish of the spirit with which they are delivered. What Job saith of the grave, if dying in Jesus, is true indeed, and most blessed. But, out of Christ, an untimely birth, as infants which never saw the light, must be preferable.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job 3:8 Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.
Ver. 8. Let them curse it, that curse the day ] As those atri et tetri Atlantes (before spoken of) curse the rising sun for scorching them, Non tam cute, quam corde Not so much skin as heart, (Aethiopici); as despairing persons, and malefactors led to execution, use to curse the time that ever they were born. The help of all such Job here calleth in against the harmless night he banneth with so much bitterness. Like as that desperate wretch mentioned by Mr Bolton, who being upon his death bed, albeit he swore as fast and as furiously as he could, yet desired he the bystandersy to help him with oaths, and to swear for him. Tremellius here thinks that Job calls to the stars and winds to help him curse, See his translation of the text, and his notes thereon.
Who are ready to raise up their mourning
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
their mourning = a dragon. Referring probably to what the constellation signified.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
who are ready: 2Ch 35:25, Jer 9:17, Jer 9:18, Amo 5:16, Mat 11:17, Mar 5:38
their mourning: or, a leviathan, Job 41:1, Job 41:10
Reciprocal: Psa 74:14 – leviathan Psa 104:26 – leviathan
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 3:8. Let them curse it that curse the day That is, their birth-day: when their afflictions move them to curse their own birth-day, let them remember mine also, and bestow some curses upon it; who are ready to raise up their mourning Who are full of sorrow, and always ready to pour out their cries, and tears, and complaints. A late writer paraphrases this verse as follows: So little am I concerned to have my birth-night celebrated by any public demonstrations of joy, by any solemn blessing or giving of thanks, that I would rather choose to hire a set of those men, whose business it is to curse the days that are esteemed inauspicious, and who are always ready on such occasions. Let them be produced, and let them apply all their skill in raising their mournful voices to the highest pitch: and let them study to find out proper expressions to load it with the highest and heaviest imprecations. If the reader will consult Poole and Dodd on the passage, he will find some reasons adduced which go to justify this exposition; but for which we have not room here.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
3:8 Let them curse it that curse the day, who are {f} ready to raise up their mourning.
(f) Who curse the day of their birth, let them lay that curse on this night.