Job Chapter 3 Review

Chapter 3

Job 3:1-26 (KJV)

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

Job after the seven days of silence from his friends, after long meditations on his state of affairs, he cursed the day of his birth.  Job was certainly not a rash man.  He was not unaware of words, or impact of his words.  To curse. . . the Hebrew word can mean and is occasionally translated as to revile, or despise. Only God can truly curse something.  We are given no such power.  It is a measure of Job's pain, that after living a life measured in decades, which can only be viewed as hugely blessed that he was brought so low, in such an apparently short time.

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. 

What was long looked upon as a day of celebration, for in  those days male children were valued more than female, what started out as a day of celebration for his parents, Job now hugely regrets.  The statement ‘there is a man child conceived’, those words can only have been spoken in heaven.  For no earthly test existed then, which could determine gender before the day of birth.

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.

Is this not turning into a prayer from Job? In his consuming anguish. . . As any speaking to God is the definition of a prayer.  Asking God not to give the day of his birth any attention or recognition. . . erase it from the calendar of days.

The book of Job, is  considered to be the first book of the Old Testament written down.  This is beyond my knowledge, but according to scholars, the language used, and the fact that there is no mention of the Law in Job, indicates that it predates the books of Moses being known.

That being the case, Job appears to have been spiritually alone.  He didn’t have the encouragement of the Psalms, or the recorded miracles of the Hebrews deliverance from Egypt recorded to give him hope.  We depend. . . I depend on the Word of God in times of trial to bring a lamp unto my feet.  Job had none of this spiritual armor available to him.

Verse 5 “shadow of death” is the same Hebrew word (Strongs H6757 tsalmaveth) used in the 23rd Psalm:

Psalms 23:4 KJV

(4)  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Contrast the attitude of David, with Job.  David states that he will fear no evil.  Job is being overcome in the rising waters of the evil flood of events over his life.

In verses 5 and 6, the Hebrew word translated ‘darkness’ is other places translated as ‘thick darkness’:

Deuteronomy 4:11  And ye came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness.

This gives me the feeling of not merely being dark, but suffocatingly dark. 

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.

The sense here is not merely of a dark night, but of a suffocating, active, utter darkness.  Few have experienced absolute darkness. Even in the night in your bedroom, there is light enough to faintly see. In my youth, spelunking was a hobby.  One time we put out all the lights in a cave, and you are completely blind.  Your hand in front of your face is unknown to you.  It is being as profoundly blind, but the darkness Job was in was even deeper. . . beyond physical darkness. . . for the first time in his formerly blessed life, he as experiencing spiritual darkness.  He felt abandoned by God.

7 Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.

The Hebrew word here translated solitary (Strong’s H1565) can also mean sterile, desolate, hard.

 8 Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.

The Hebrew word  (Strong’s H3882) here translated ‘mourning’ occurs six times in the Bible.  This is the only verse where the translators have rendered it ‘mourning’, all the other instances, the translators have rendered it ‘leviathan’.

Job 41:1 KJV

(1)  Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?

Psalms 74:14 KJV

(14)  Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.

Psalms 104:26 KJV

(26)  There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.

Isaiah 27:1 KJV

(1)  In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.

This is a prime example why I like to have the underlying original language available.

Rather than as translated, “who are ready to raise up their mourning.” the sense of the Hebrew seems to be, “who are ready to raise up their leviathan.” or terrible sea monster. . . the modern sense might be to ‘poke the bear’. . . to rouse up something violent that is sleeping.

Note that this doesn't change any fundamental doctrineal meaning, but it seems to me that we have a closer understanding of Job's mental state with the ‘leviathan’ translation.  I emphasize, you can read your Bible in English, and gain benefit of the Word of God.  Don't feel badly if you read only English, but understand that there is ALWAYS a deeper layer of understanding, no matter how or how long you study the Word of God. 

There is a striking similarity between this passage in Job, and a passage in Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 20:14-18 (KJV)

14 Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. 15 Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad. 16 And let that man be as the cities which the LORD overthrew, and repented not: and let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide; 17 Because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me. 18 Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?

We must be aware that there is now, and indeed has been from the beginning in the garden of Eden, attempts to twist, corrupt, and invalidate the Word/Words of God.  Doubt is continually being cast on the accuracy, authenticity of the Word of God.

With the faintest hint, these ‘authorities’ will sow doubt as to the authorship of almost every book of the Bible.  Here from the similarity of these passages, they will say that Jeremiah wrote the book of Job, ignoring the equally likely. . . more likely possibility that Jeremiah borrowed this thought, this passage from Job.  Job’s passage in integral to the development of his  book.  Jeremiah's passage seems to be almost an afterthought at the closing of a chapter recounting his persecution at the hand of Pashhur.

Keep this in mind.  There are many supposed authorities. . . wolves in sheep's clothing that have a hidden agenda of destroying our faith in God by destroying the credibility of the Word of God.

 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: 

Here is another example.  The word translated ‘dawning’ here (Strong's H6079), is only translated ‘dawning’ in this verse.  In the other 9 verses where it is used, it is translated as ‘eyelids’.  What a deliciously expressive metaphor. . .”neither let it see the eyelids of the dawn”. . . How wonderful. . . how vivid is the Hebrew. . . 

Job 3:9 - Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning H6079 of the day:

Job 16:16 - My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids H6079 is the shadow of death;

Job 41:18 - By his neesings [sneezings] a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids H6079 of the morning.

Psalms 11:4 - The LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD'S throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids H6079 try, the children of men.

Psalms 132:4 - I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids, H6079

Proverbs 4:25 - Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids H6079 look straight before thee.

Proverbs 6:4 - Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids. H6079

Proverbs 6:25 - Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids. H6079

Proverbs 30:13 - There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids H6079 are lifted up.

Jeremiah 9:18 - And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids H6079 gush out with waters.

10 Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.

No where in the verse or indeed in this passage is God mentioned, but ‘it’ refers to the ‘night’, but the night has no power to shut up wombs, so in a backhand way Job is shaking his fist at God, without mentioning God.  Up to this point Job has lived a blessed life, with God's hedge around him.  That hedge has been removed, and Job sees this.  His frustration and anguish are deep.

11 Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?

Shifting the blame to himself.

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

Again shifting the blame, now to his mother.

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

Job is seduced by a  fallacy here,  the same fallacy that those who take their own lives are seduced by, that the grave is an end, rather than what we know it to be a doorway.  Job's vision is myopic.  He can only see things which are close. . . the pain, anguish, and suffering which beset him from dawn to dusk and beyond. He is blinded to long vision.  He is in the depths, and has no view of the mountain top vista, but the grave offers not an end, but another beginning. . . a beginning where our choices in this physical life, determine our abode in the afterlife. 

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.

Continuing to build in his mind the fantasy that death brings peace. That those infants who were born dead are the lucky ones.

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.

Job’s description of death makes it appear desirable. . . How enticing for anyone oppressed, is the ceasing of their daily trial. . . slaves, prisoners. . . all, in Job's presentation, finding freedom in death, but he completely misses the reality of an eternal prison. . . an eternal torment that awaits the ungodly at the door of death.  

20 Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;

Still Job avoids naming God. . . “Wherefore is light given. . . and life. . . “  Who is the giver of light and life but God?

21 Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures; 22 Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave? 23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?

24 For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters. 25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. 26 I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

At this point, Job needs someone to derail his train of thought.  His words. . . his output, has become his input, and like the output from a speaker fed into a microphone, it quickly becomes distorted into a painful squeal, so does a persons own thoughts becoming input input for further thoughts. . . becoming distorted without being counterbalanced by input from the outside.  At this point he is falling further and further away from God. . .