Job 3:3

JOB'S EXPRESSION OF SUPERLATIVE GRIEF

"Let the day perish wherein I was born,

And the night which said, There is a man-child conceived.

Let that day be darkness;

Let not God from above seek for it.

Neither let the light shine upon it.

Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own;

Let a cloud dwell upon it;

Let all that maketh black the day terrify it.

As for that night, let thick darkness seize upon it:

Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;

Let it not come into the number of the months.

Lo, let that night be barren;

Let no joyful voice come therein.

Let them curse it that curse the day,

Who are ready to rouse up Leviathan.

Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark:

Let it look for light, but have none;

Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning.

Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb,

Nor hid trouble from mine eyes."

"Though Job will not curse God, he does curse his life; his soliloquy here is one of the most poignant expressions of despair ever written."[5] "Job's trust in God is not destroyed, but it is overcast with thick clouds of melancholy and doubt."[6]

In the times when Job lived, there was not given any inspired revelation regarding the hope and blessing of the redeemed to be realized in the future. He had no way of knowing that, "The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18). One's heart instinctively reaches out toward this ancient sufferer, who even in his despair refused to renounce his faith in God.

"Leviathan" (Job 3:8). This was a mythological sea-monster whom some charlatans pretended to be experts to rouse up against those whom the charlatan cursed. "The mention of this here should not be taken as evidence that Job believed either in Leviathan, or such experts."[7] Isaiah also mentioned Leviathan; and for the scriptural use of that myth as a metaphorical reference to Satan, see my commentary on Isaiah under Isaiah 27:1. It is now common to interpret Leviathan as "the crocodile."

"Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning" (Job 3:9). The Hebrew here has, "The eyelashes of Shahar";[8] "But the use of this Canaanite god of the dawn is purely poetic and without any taint of polytheism."[9]

We shall find other references to mythological ideas in Job, but these are no reflection upon the views of Job as a devout monotheist. There are many mythological echoes in the speech patterns of all nations. Our own names for the days of the week and the months of the year are derived from ancient mythology. January is named for the Roman god of portals and beginnings; the word February is from a pagan festival celebrated in that month; March, like one of the planets, is named from Mars, the Roman god of war; May comes from Mata a pagan goddess of growth; June is derived from Juno, in Roman mythology; she was the wife of Jupiter, the goddess of marriage, and the queen of the gods; the name Tuesday is from Tiu (pronounced: te-oo), worshipped by the Teutons as the god of war; our name for Wednesday comes from Woden, the old English name for the chief of the Norse gods; and Saturday was derived from Saturn the Roman god of agriculture.[10]

"Job's cry of misery is repeated three times in this chapter, with ever deepening pathos (Job 1-10,11-19,20-16)."[11]