Job 3

After this, Job spoke up and cursed the day he was born.

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

Note"Opened his mouth" is a set phrase in Hebrew that introduces a formal, deliberate speech, not just ordinary talk. And to curse something, in this world, was not merely to swear at it: a curse was a spoken formula believed to carry real force against its target. Job aims his at a date on the calendar.

2This is what Job said:

2And Job spake, and said,

3"Let the day I was born be wiped out, and the night that said, 'A boy has been conceived.'

3Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.

NoteHebrew poetry pairs the two halves: the day he was delivered and, going further back, the night he was conceived. The night is spoken of as if it were a person who made the announcement. The announcement names a male child specifically, because that is what such a birth report would say, and a son was the outcome a household celebrated.

4Let that day turn to darkness. Let God above pay no attention to it. Let no light shine on it.

4Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.

NoteThe wording deliberately runs the opening of Genesis backwards. Where that account has God say "Let there be light," Job says of his day, let there be darkness, and let God not look at it at all.

5Let darkness and deep shadow claim it. Let a cloud settle over it. Let the blackness of the day overwhelm it.

5Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.

Note"The shadow of death" in the King James renders a single Hebrew word meaning thick gloom or deep darkness, the blackness of a place light never reaches. The older translation heard the word "death" inside it; the sense is darkness so heavy it swallows things.

6As for that night, let thick darkness carry it off. Let it not be counted among the days of the year. Let it never be entered in any month.

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.

NoteDays and months were counted and recorded; Job asks that this one night be struck from the record, never tallied in any month, as though the calendar skipped it.

7Yes, let that night be barren and empty. Let no glad voice be heard in it.

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

NoteA "barren" night is one in which nothing is conceived and no child is born. The "glad voice" is the shouting that went up at a birth or a wedding celebration.

8Let those who curse days put a curse on it, those who are ready to rouse Leviathan.

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

NoteTwo difficult lines. "Those who curse days" appear to be professional cursers, people paid to lay a spell on a chosen day and make it unlucky. The second half of the Hebrew word can be read either as Leviathan, the great sea monster of ancient Near Eastern storytelling whose stirring meant chaos and darkness (some think of the beast believed to swallow the sun in an eclipse), or, by a different reading of the same consonants, as mourning or wailing, which is the route the King James took with "raise up their mourning." The ambiguity is in the text itself.

9Let the stars of its early morning go dark. Let it wait for daylight and get none. Let it never see the first light of dawn.

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:

NoteThe stars of the twilight are the last stars still visible before sunrise. The Hebrew for daybreak here is literally "the eyelids of the dawn," the first light showing like eyes opening.

10I say this because that night did not shut the doors of my mother's womb, and so it did not keep this misery hidden from my eyes.

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

NoteThe womb is pictured as a room with doors that can be shut. Elsewhere in Hebrew the same image is used for a woman who bears no children.

11Why did I not die at birth? Why did I not die the moment I came out of my mother's body?

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

Note"Give up the ghost" in the King James is simply seventeenth-century English for "die." It carries no suggestion of a ghost in the modern sense.

12Why were there knees waiting to receive me, and breasts for me to nurse?

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

NoteTwo things here. "Prevent" in 1611 English meant to go before, to meet or receive someone, the opposite of what the word means now. And the knees are a real custom: a newborn was laid on the knees of the father or a family elder, a gesture that publicly acknowledged the child and took it into the household.

13If I had died then, I would be lying down in peace now. I would be asleep and at rest,

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

14resting with kings and advisers of the earth, men who built places for themselves that are now empty ruins,

14With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves;

NoteThe Hebrew literally says these kings built "ruins" or "desolate places" for themselves, and readers disagree about what is meant: grand cities and monuments that now stand empty, or the tombs and burial chambers rulers built to lie in. Both readings are old, and the wording allows either.

15or with rulers who had gold, who filled their houses with silver.

15Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver:

16Or why was I not hidden away like a baby born dead, like infants who never see the light of day?

16Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.

Note"Untimely birth" in the King James means a miscarried or stillborn child. Such a child was buried quietly and quickly, which is what "hidden" points to.

17In the grave the wicked stop making trouble, and those who are worn out are at rest.

17There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.

Note"There" is the world of the dead, called Sheol in Hebrew: a shadowy place under the earth where everyone who dies goes, without distinction of rank or conduct. It is not pictured here as a place of reward or punishment but as a place where everything stops, which is exactly why Job finds it attractive.

18There prisoners are at ease together. They no longer hear the shouting of the man who drove them.

18There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.

NoteThe "oppressor" is the slave driver or taskmaster, and the "voice" is his shouted orders. Prisoners of war were regularly put to forced labor under such a man.

19Both the unimportant and the great are there, and the slave is free from his master.

19The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.

Note"Small and great" is the standard Hebrew way of saying people of low status and people of high status, that is, everybody.

20Why is light given to a person who is in misery, and life to people who are bitter inside?

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

Note"Light" here stands for life itself, as "see the light" does in verse 16. The Hebrew does not name who does the giving, though God is plainly meant; Job avoids saying so directly.

21They long for death, but it does not come. They dig for it harder than for buried treasure.

21Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures;

NoteDigging for buried treasure was a real and recognized pursuit; caches of silver and valuables were hidden in the ground in unsettled times, and people searched for them. Job says the desperate hunt for death harder than that.

22They are full of joy and celebrate when they finally find the grave.

22Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?

23Why is light given to a man whose road ahead is hidden from him, a man God has fenced in on every side?

23Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?

Note"Hedged in" uses the same picture as the accusation earlier in the book, that God had put a hedge around Job to protect him and everything he owned. Here the identical image has turned: the fence that kept trouble out now keeps him penned in with no way forward.

24Sighing comes to me instead of food, and my groans pour out like water.

24For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.

NoteThe word behind "roarings" is used of the roar of a lion. The first line can mean either that sighing comes to Job before he can eat, or that sighing has taken the place of food; the Hebrew allows both.

25The thing I greatly feared has happened to me. What I dreaded has come upon me.

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

26I have no ease, no quiet, and no rest. Trouble came."

26I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.