Job 3:1-12

Introduction

Job curses the day of his birth, and regrets that he ever saw the light, Job 3:1-12. Describes the empire of death and its inhabitants, Job 3:13-19. Regrets that he is appointed to live in the midst of sorrows, for the calamities which he feared had overtaken him, vv.20-26.

Verse 1

After this opened Job his mouth - After the seven days' mourning was over, there being no prospect of relief, Job is represented as thus cursing the day of his birth. Here the poetic part of the book begins; for most certainly there is nothing in the preceding chapters either in the form or spirit of Hebrew poetry. It is easy indeed to break the sentences into hemistichs; but this does not constitute them poetry: for, although Hebrew poetry is in general in hemistichs, yet it does not follow that the division of narrative into hemistichs must necessarily constitute it poetry.

In many cases the Asiatic poets introduce their compositions with prose narrative; and having in this way prepared the reader for what he is to expect, begin their deevans, cassidehs, gazels, etc. This appears to be the plan followed by the author of this book. Those who still think, after examining the structure of those chapters, and comparing them with the undoubted poetic parts of the book, that they also, and the ten concluding verses, are poetry, have my consent, while I take the liberty to believe most decidedly the opposite.

Cursed his day - That is, the day of his birth; and thus he gave vent to the agonies of his soul, and the distractions of his mind. His execrations have something in them awfully solemn, tremendously deep, and strikingly sublime. But let us not excuse all the things which he said in his haste, and in the bitterness of his soul, because of his former well established character of patience. He bore all his privations with becoming resignation to the Divine will and providence: but now, feeling himself the subject of continual sufferings, being in heaviness through manifold temptation, and probably having the light of God withdrawn from his mind, as his consolations most undoubtedly were, he regrets that ever he was born; and in a very high strain of impassioned poetry curses his day. We find a similar execration to this in Jeremiah, Jer 20:14-18, and in other places; which, by the way, are no proofs that the one borrowed from the other; but that this was the common mode of Asiatic thinking, speaking, and feeling, on such occasions. Verse 3

There is a man-child conceived - The word הרה 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. Verse 4

Let that day be darkness - The meaning is exactly the same with our expression, "Let it be blotted out of the calendar." However distinguished it may have been, as the birthday of a man once celebrated for his possessions, liberality, and piety, let it no longer be thus noted; as he who was thus celebrated is now the sport of adversity, the most impoverished, most afflicted, and most wretched of human beings.

Let not God regard it from above - אל ידרשהו al yidreshehu, "Let Him not require it" - let Him not consider it essential to the completion of the days of the year; and therefore he adds, neither let the light shine upon it. If it must be a part of duration, let it not be distinguished by the light of the sun. Verse 5

Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it - יגאלהו yigaluhu, "pollute or avenge it," from גאל gaal, to vindicate, avenge, etc.; hence גאל goel, the nearest of kin, whose right it was to redeem an inheritance, and avenge the death of his relative by slaying the murderer. Let this day be pursued, overtaken, and destroyed. Let natural darkness, the total privation of the solar light, rendered still more intense by death's shadow projected over it, seize on and destroy this day, εκλαβοι αυτην, Septuagint; alluding, perhaps, says Mr. Parkhurst, to the avenger of blood seizing the offender.

Let a cloud dwell upon it - Let the dymme cloude fall upon it - Coverdale. Let the thickest clouds have there their dwelling-place - let that be the period of time on which they shall constantly rest, and never be dispersed. This seems to be the import of the original, תשכן עליו אננה tishcan alaiv ananah. Let it be the place in which clouds shall be continually gathered together, so as to be the storehouse of the densest vapors, still in the act of being increasingly condensed.

Let the blackness of the day terrify it - And let it be lapped in with sorrowe. - Coverdale. This is very expressive: lap signifies to fold up, or envelope any particular thing with fold upon fold, so as to cover it everywhere and secure it in all points. Leaving out the semicolon, we had better translate the whole clause thus: "Let the thickest cloud have its dwelling-place upon it, and let the bitterness of a day fill it with terror." A day similar to that, says the Targum, in which Jeremiah was distressed for the destruction of the house of the sanctuary; or like that in which Jonah was cast into the sea of Tarsis; such a day as that on which some great or national misfortune has happened: probably in allusion to that in which the darkness that might be felt enveloped the whole land of Egypt, and the night in which the destroying angel slew all the first-born in the land. Verse 6

As for that night, let darkness seize upon it - I think the Targum has hit the sense of this whole verse: "Let darkness seize upon that night; let it not be reckoned among the annual festivals; in the number of the months of the calendar let it not be computed." Some understand the word אפל ophel as signifying a dark storm; hence the Vulgate, tenebrosus turbo, "a dark whirlwind." And hence Coverdale, Let the darck storme overcome that night, let it not be reckoned amonge the dayes off the yeare, nor counted in the monethes. Every thing is here personified; day, night, darkness, shadow of death, cloud, etc.; and the same idea of the total extinction of that portion of time, or its being rendered ominous and portentous, is pursued through all these verses, from the third to the ninth, inclusive. The imagery is diversified, the expressions varied, but the idea is the same. Verse 7

Lo, let that night be solitary - The word הנה hinneh, behold, or lo, is wanting in one of De Rossi's MSS., nor is it expressed in the Septuagint, Vulgate, Syriac, or Arabic. The word גלמוד galmud, which we translate solitary, is properly Arabic. From ghalama or jalama, signifying to cut off, make bare, amputate, comes jalmud, a rock, a great stone; and jalameedet, weight, a burden, trouble, from which we may gather Job's meaning: "Let that night be grievous, oppressive, as destitute of good as a bare rock is of verdure." The Targum gives the sense, In that night let there be tribulation.

Let no joyful voice come therein - Let there be no choirs of singers; no pleasant music heard; no dancing or merriment. The word רננה renanah signifies any brisk movement, such as the vibration of the rays of light, or the brisk modulation of the voice in a cheerful ditty. The Targum has, Let not the crowing of the rural or wild cock resound in it. Let all work be intermitted; let there be no sportive exercises, and let all animals be totally silent. 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, Rosenmller, and after them Mr. Good, have labored much to make it plain. They think the custom of sorcerers who had execrations for peoples, places, things, days, etc., 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: יקבהו אררי יום העתידימערר לויתן 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. Verse 9

Let the stars of the twilight thereof - The stars of the twilight may here refer to the planets Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury, as well as to the brighter fixed stars.

Let it look for light - Here the prosopopoeia or personification is still carried on. The darkness is represented as waiting for the lustre of the evening star, but is disappointed; and these for the aurora or dawn, but equally in vain. He had prayed that its light, the sun, should not shine upon it, Job 3:4; and here he prays that its evening star may be totally obscured, and that it might never see the dawning of the day. Thus his execration comprehends every thing that might irradiate or enliven it. Verse 10

Because it shut not up the doors - Here is the reason why he curses the day and the night in which he was conceived and born; because, had he never been brought into existence, he would never have seen trouble. It seems, however, very harsh that he should have wished the destruction of his mother, in order that his birth might have been prevented; and I rather think Job's execration did not extend thus far. The Targum understands the passage as speaking of the umbilical cord, by which the fetus is nourished in its mother's womb: had this been shut up, there must have been a miscarriage, or he must have been dead born; and thus sorrow would have been hidden from his eyes. This seeming gloss is much nearer the letter and spirit of the Hebrew than is generally imagined. I shall quote the words: כי לא סגר דלתי בטני ki lo sagar dalthey bitni, because it did not shut up the doors of my belly. This is much more consistent with the feelings of humanity, than to wish his mother's womb to have been his grave. Verse 11

Why died I not from the womb - As the other circumstance did not take place, why was I not still-born, without the possibility of reviviscence? or, as this did not occur, why did I not die as soon as born? These three things appear to me to be clearly intended here: -

1. Dying in the womb, or never coming to maturity, as in the case of an abortion.

2. Being still-born, without ever being able to breathe.

3. Or, if born alive, dying within a short time after. And to these states he seems to refer in the following verses. Verse 12

Why did the knees prevent me? - Why was I dandled on the knees? Why was I nourished by the breasts? In either of the above cases I had neither been received into a mother's lap, nor hung upon a mother's breasts.