Job 3

The prose narrative of chapters 1–2 of the Book of Job gives way in chapter 3 to the long poetic dialogue between Job and his friends. At the end of Job 2, Job's three friends sit with him in silence for seven days and seven nights, after which Job is the first to speak.

Outline

• Verses 1–2 Job opens his mouth and curses the day of his birth.
• Verses 3–10 He laments that the day he was born and the night he was conceived were not covered in darkness and blotted out altogether. In verse 8, the creature rendered "great crocodile" in the older Korean Revised Version is translated "Leviathan" in the New Korean Revised Version.
• Verses 11–19 He asks why he did not die in the womb. Had he done so, he says, he would now be at rest with the kings and counselors of the earth (royal advisers who deliberated on affairs of state) and with princes (high officials) who had amassed gold and silver. He portrays that place as one where the weary, the prisoners, and servants also find rest.
• Verses 20–26 He asks why light and life are given to those who suffer, and confesses that what he feared has come upon him and that he has neither peace nor rest.

Key Verses

• Job 3:3 "Let the day perish wherein I was born" — shows that Job's lament opens with a curse on the day of his birth.
• Job 3:23 "Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?" — this question, which asks God the reason for suffering, becomes the central thread of the dialogue that follows.
• Job 3:25 "For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me" — a frequently quoted verse whose interpretation is disputed.

Characters and Places

• Job: a man who has lost his property, his children, and his health; in this chapter he pours out his first extended lament.
• The "there" of verses 13–19 is the place where the dead rest; it is not named. Some readers associate it with the Old Testament concept of Sheol.

Points for Reflection

• In chapters 1 and 2, Satan claimed that Job would curse God, yet in this chapter Job curses not God but the day of his birth. Interpreters differ over whether the chapter depicts wavering faith or an honest lament offered before God. At the end of the book, God declares that Job had spoken rightly, in contrast to his friends (Job 42:7–10).
• Job longs for death, but he does not attempt to take his own life.
• Some sermons interpret verse 25 to mean that "fear invites calamity." Many interpreters, however, hold that in context it should be read as the lament of someone who has suffered calamity.
• Job's curse on the day of his birth resembles Jeremiah 20:14–18.
• In the New Testament, James 5:11 mentions the patience of Job.