Job 3:1 After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth. 2 Job answered:
3 “Let the day perish in which I was born,
the night which said, ‘There is a boy conceived.’
4 Let that day be darkness.
Don’t let God from above seek for it,
neither let the light shine on it.
5 Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own.
Let a cloud dwell on it.
Let all that makes the day black terrify it.
6 As for that night, let thick darkness seize on it.
Let it not rejoice among the days of the year.
Let it not come into the number of the months.
7 Behold, let that night be barren.
Let no joyful voice come therein.
8 Let them curse it who curse the day,
who are ready to rouse up leviathan.
9 Let the stars of its twilight be dark.
Let it look for light, but have none,
neither let it see the eyelids of the morning,
10 because it didn’t shut up the doors of my mother’s womb,
nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.
11 “Why didn’t I die from the womb?
Why didn’t I give up the spirit when my mother bore me?
12 Why did the knees receive me?
Or why the breast, that I should nurse?
13 For now I should have lain down and been quiet.
I should have slept, then I would have been at rest,
14 with kings and counselors of the earth,
who built up waste places for themselves;
15 or with princes who had gold,
who filled their houses with silver:
16 or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been,
as infants who never saw light.
17 There the wicked cease from troubling.
There the weary are at rest.
18 There the prisoners are at ease together.
They don’t hear the voice of the taskmaster.
19 The small and the great are there.
The servant is free from his master.
20 “Why is light given to him who is in misery,
life to the bitter in soul,
21 Who long for death, but it doesn’t come;
and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,
22 who rejoice exceedingly,
and are glad, when they can find the grave?
23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,
whom God has hedged in?
24 For my sighing comes before I eat.
My groanings are poured out like water.
25 For the thing which I fear comes on me,
That which I am afraid of comes to me.
26 I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither do I have rest; but trouble comes.”
What do you fear?
Job’s worst fears seemed to be upon him: the loss of his children, the loss of his wealth, unremitting physical suffering, and all compounded by his wife urging him to curse, renounce God, and die. Job 2:9
But Job refused to curse God. He would not renounce God. Job 2:9 Instead he came to God honestly. God desires our honest prayers. Faith can wrestle with and question God without ceasing to believe. Faith can ask “Why?” Faith can express anguish without ceasing to believe. Instead of cursing God Job cursed the day of his birth, in other words, he wished that he had not been born. He sought for death like one seeks for a hidden treasure. v.21 Through all of this his faith in God never wavered. Job continued to believe that in death the weary are at rest. v.17
Similarly, throughout the Scriptures we see God’s children speaking openly and honestly with God.
Moses prayed: If this is the way that you are going to treat me, then kill me now. Numbers 11:15
David mourned his son saying: If only I had died instead of you. 2 Samuel 19:1
Elijah pleaded: Enough. Now Yahweh, take my life. 1 Kings 19:4
Job understood that in death believers would be with God, God who will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. Revelation 21:4
In his pain Job was going down a very dark road. Job reasoned that infants, who never saw the light v.16, are, in their premature deaths, better off than those who have experienced the joys of life only to have those joys wrenched away. Job pleads with God.
Why is light given to him who is in misery, life to the bitter in soul, who long for death, but it doesn’t come? v.20-21
Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in? v.23
Many in our world today, having been taught that life is just a cosmic accident coughed up by the impersonal forces of evolution and concluding that life is meaningless, have either embraced nihilism or hedonism. Nihilism is the rejection of all religious and moral values. If life is meaningless you might as well do whatever you want in your brief time here. Lying, cheating, stealing, murder, nothing is out of bounds because there is no God, no afterlife, and no final judgment. Hedonism is living exclusively for the sensual pleasures offered by sex, drugs, and other adrenaline rushes. If we only experience life for a short time we might as well squeeze every drop of enjoyment out of it while we are able.
By contrast, Job was unwilling to deny the existence of God. He was also unwilling to say that life is absurd. He knew that God exists. He knew that there is meaning to life. But, like us, he did not know the reasons behind God’s actions. We don’t know why things happen. Here on this side of heaven we may never know why events unfold the way they do as God weaves the tapestry of our lives. We are not privy to the councils of heaven. We live in the mystery but it is never wrong to ask God: Why?
After Job broke the silence, Job’s friend Eliphaz asks for permission to speak.