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Job's cry is a deep lament out of the great pain that he is suffering. While the hand of his oppressor is that of Satan, he knows that the authority is God's. While previously Satan was hedged out (1:10), Job is now “hedged in” (3:23) by God. He is not yet trying to reason out why he is suffering. This is a simple cry of agony, “I wish I was never born”. There is no criticism or blame assigned. Job is no longer putting on the brave face. Deep and powerful as this chapter is, there is a formal dignity about it. The word ‘curse’ here is ‘qâlal’ meaning to make light, or despise (Strong, H7043), connotes a more formal declaration than the word ‘bârak’ meaning to kneel (Strong, H12) rendered curse in 1:11 and 2:9 (Barnes, note on 3:1 & 1:11). This is a powerful but dignified lamentation.
Like most of us, Job's first response is to turn inward. Self-centered pity is the response of the ‘natural’ man. It leads Job to despair. As one commentator declares, “Despair is a killer, it takes away all opportunities for deliverance” (Lucas, The Job Kind of Affliction). Job's key to deliverance is revealed in chapter 40.
There are many powerful lamentations in the Hebrew cannon, but this particular chapter of Job is likely the most powerful literary masterpiece of lamentation ever written. Images and allusions and even the wording appear in several other biblical lamentations, most prominently the lamentation of Jeremiah (Jer. 20:7-18). Compare, for instance, “Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived” (3:3) with “Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad” (Jer. 20:14-15).
The sheer force of this chapter makes it hard to resist being swept along in it. Perhaps this is the best way to approach it. Allow the passage to pull you into the full power of his agony. Don't ride on the poetry, feel the force of the images: “Why did I not die at birth, Come forth from the womb and expire? Why did the knees receive me, And why the breasts, that I should suck? For now I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept then, I would have been at rest” (3:11-13, NASB).
Lament, as we use the term, doesn't genuinely describe the force and power of this passage or most of the other similar ‘laments’ in the bible. The lament is not a complaint or an accusation, it is a deep cry of agony made in the most forceful language imaginable. This is not raging for television cameras, demands for an inquiry or a lawsuit, this is a call for a curse in the classic sense, not against any person or thing, but against the most fundamental of circumstances that have left him in agony, the day of his birth. While this expresses the depths of his pain, it doesn't try to draw a target on any one person or thing.
While the first two chapters are a prose prologue, this chapter begins the rich poetry that will carry through until the final epilogue. This heightens the drama of Job's cry, as if an angelic chorus had joined the telling of his misery. I am particularly impressed with Raymond Scheindlin's translation (Scheindlin, The Book of Job). He is a translator of Hebrew and Semitic poetry. He captures the archaic sound of the original, so his translation can be a bit jarring in spots, but once you get past that, his translation breaths a wonderful richness. Just a sample:
Blot out the day when I was born
and the night that said, “A male has been conceived!”
Make that day dark!
No god look after it from above,
no light flood it.
Foul it, darkness, deathgloom;
rain-clouds settle on it;
heat-winds turn it to horror.
Black take that night!
May it not count in the days of the year,
may it not come in the round of the months.
That night be barren! That night!
Joy never come in it!
Curse it, men who spell the day,
men skilled to stir Leviathan.
May its morning stars stay dark,
may it wait for light in vain.
never look on the eyelids of dawn—
because it did not lock the belly's gates
and curtain off my eyes from suffering.
(Scheindlin, Job 3:3-10)
Unfortunately there is a lot that is difficult to translate, not only because of language barriers, but also the long passage of time. We see here that in the depth of grief there is an animation of the night and the darkness as if all the forces of nature had conspired to bring about a curse. There is no theological statement here, only a long cry against the night.
The game afoot in the background is to bring Job to curse God. Job does not curse God, but curses his circumstances. Job calls for a curse on the day of his birth, “Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning” (3:8). This could indicate paid specialists who call up blessings or curses, as Balaam is hired by Balak (Numb. 22:5-6; Barnes, note on 3:8). However the actual Hebrew says those “who are prepared to rouse Leviathan” (3:8, NASB). ‘Leviathan’ is a sea monster or ‘a writhing serpent’ (Strong, H3882). There is some uncertainty as to whether this indicates some form of black arts to awaken Leviathan, or whether Leviathan was a well known allusion at that time. We might say, 'awaken Godzilla,' or as recent movies have called out, 'release the Kraken,' as a statement of grief and anger. King James gives us a more digestible understanding of the verse at the expense of understanding later, when we arrive at God's description of Leviathan in chapter 41. Barnes referring to the King James translation suggests, “This is not very intelligible, and it is evident that our translators were embarrassed by the passage” (Barnes, note on 3:8). A possible explanation is that the belief at the time was that the Leviathan during an eclipse would swallow the moon, thereby erasing a day (Smith, 34). Job could be calling for someone to conjure up Leviathan to swallow the day of his birth.
Scheindlin sums this view up well: “‘Men who spell the day’ are sorcerers. The Hebrew word for ‘day’ (yom) is nearly the same as the name of the god of the sea in Ugaritic mythology, Yamm, which is also the Hebrew word for ‘ocean.’ The poet uses this word here with both meanings in mind so that he can represent Job as not merely cursing the day of his birth but cursing the cosmos itself. The expression ‘men who spell Yamm’ calls to mind the ancient Canaanite myths of the victory of the god Baal over the ocean. Leviathan in our verse is the Hebrew form of the Ugaritic Lotan, the seven-headed sea monster that is another representation of the sea god defeated by Baal.... Job is actually asking for the overthrow of the order of the cosmos.” (Scheindlin, 164-165).
We will see that the allusion to sea monsters carries throughout the book of Job (7:12; 9:13; 26:12 & 41:1-34). Deep waters are the perfect allegory for the depths of a man. “The word of a man's mouth are as deep waters” (Prov. 18:4). “Counsel in the heart of a man is like deep water” (Prov. 20:5). In this case, Job is calling for those who are calling up something large and deadly from the depths to level a curse, as someone in a violent rage. I believe he is speaking allegorically, for his righteous sensibilities would not allow him to call on a conjuror. Leviathan comes up from the darkest depths of the soul. God will use the description of Leviathan as an allegory to describe something found in Job (chapter 41). The monster within the depths is the first of several important themes which keep appearing throughout the book of Job.
“Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?” (3:11). Job begins a litany of all those who suffer and find peace in death. Job's suffering is now great enough that he would welcome death as a relief. He imagines that if he had died in childbirth, he would have been laid down in sweet sorrow with kings and councilors in the dark of Sheol. Verse 14 appears to have an allusion to the elaborate but desolate tombs built by Egyptian kings and others. To one of the Hebrew culture, it must seem a sad joke that the king's empty abode remains above while the king himself lies in Sheol next to the prisoners who take their ease in death.
Job asks a timeless and difficult question: “wherefore is light given to him that is in misery?” (3:20). Why are some born to suffer? Why do some find that the life they have been given causes them to long for death, who “dig for it more than for hid treasures” (3:21). A dark despondency is closing around Job. His thoughts are turned inward. “Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?” (3:23). Job's entire life has become a black suffocating blanket that has left him hovering on the brink of death, but he does not die. The glory of this past is swallowed up; he can see no future but suffering until death blesses him.
Satan has made sure that Job cannot see the kindness of God anywhere. Job's friends will now turn against his anguished cry. There is no one who will come to lift Job's head, not even God (Psalm 3:3). God does not come as Job expects, not because Job does not cry, but because Job does not cry with a right heart. But, we will see that God is merciful, he continues to nudge Job's understanding along, so that when God does appear, Job is ready. There are several characters in the Bible who achieve a high place in God's respect, but only after long and difficult struggles against God's call. The case of Job is unique in that it is all contained in this one series of dialogues. The only event is the hammer blow of outrageous misfortune. The entire action is contained in the struggle of the heart and soul of Job coming to meet God on entirely new terms after all artifice of religion, creed, righteousness, or deprecation has been ripped away.
The fear of the Lord hangs over the book of Job like a dark cloud which obscures all clarity. Christians who have noticed how prevalent the call to a fear of the Lord is in the New Testament might be similarly confounded (Matt. 27:54; Luke 7:16; Acts 9:31 & 19:17; 2 Cor. 7:1; Eph. 5:21; Heb. 10:31; 1 Pet. 3:12; Rev. 14:7 and more). Job's piety is predicated on fear of the Lord, “For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came” (3:25-26). Out of fear of God, Job did not rest, nor was he quiet, nor did he hide (in safety), but he actively pursued righteousness. Eliphaz, in the next chapter, will allude to this fear of the Lord which motivates Job: “Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?” (4:6). Job feels the oppression of the Lord's hand upon him, and yet he knows that he has been taking all the precautions.
Later we will see Job encapsulate God's word to him on wisdom: “the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom” (28:28). More properly, it should be said: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps. 111:10). Job needs to discover the true depth of meaning in ‘the fear of the Lord’. “Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God” (Prov. 2:3-5). Job's cry will be long and muddled. Understanding will elude him for a long while (until chapter 42). Instead of crying for knowledge, Job begins to wrestle with his suffering. He also wrestles with his friends who will soon be his accusers.
When Job says, “the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me”. He is admitting that his fear is fear of the Lord's retribution. This is the fear of a small child who has done wrong and is afraid, not of what mom and dad think or feel, but of what mom and dad will do. Small children are by nature self-centered. Fear of retribution is self-centered. Job has carefully kept himself at the bottom of the retribution list. He is not receiving retribution. When fear of retribution is held onto for a long time, a person will pursue self-protection and self-reliance. Job is not relying on God, he relying on his righteousness. This is a form of rebellion against God and makes for a heart of stone (41:24). Fear of retribution works against Job in a severe way, for he is sure that God is angry with him. Job is convinced that this level of oppression can mean only one thing: he has done something to deeply offend God.
We know that a child is maturing when he or she sees that their activities greatly upset their parents, regardless of retribution. Conversely, we know that an adult is immature when they have no care for the results of their bad behavior, but only fear retribution. Our fear of the Lord is maturing when we begin to see just how much God hates sin. Only then do we start to understand just how merciful and longsuffering God is. Understanding this in the depths of our soul is often a long and difficult task, begun when we begin to lament.
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