Job Wished He Could Die
May 12, 2021
Commentary
This chapter records the first great outpouring of complaint by Job, and not one of his visitors, that broke the seven days of silence. As he spoke, it was not with a casual greeting to his friends or small talk. His former positive manner has turned to bitterness, his patience to self-pity, and his integrity to ingratitude. There are two things Job is saying in this chapter. He wishes that he had never been born. However, having been born (vv. 1-10), he wishes that he had died at birth vv. 11-19). He finds no relief from his misery. Job had been living in peace and prosperity in the land of Uz. Now trouble has come upon him and he does not understand at all why it should have come (vv. 20-26).
Compared with the patient and positive Job we met in chapters 1-2, these are strange words, indeed, flowing from his mouth as he expresses his wishes that he had never been born). There was no rest, peace, nor quiet for Job. He is so low physically, mentally, and emotionally, that if he had been allowed to die he would have rejoiced with enthusiasm. To Job, it seemed that God didn’t care about him anymore. However, he never doubted that He was in control. He had been elevated to the highest peak and then dragged into the deepest pit. It is at this point that God will begin to help Job to put his life back together.
As unlikely as it may seem, many people in sorrow have found consolation in this chapter, as they have walked through dark valleys and have gone on to the light and joy on the other side. Job is mostly verbalizing his innermost thoughts and feelings in an outburst of anguish, misery and despair.
Application
I can learn from this passage of Scripture that if there was hope for someone as stricken with calamity as Job, there is certainly hope for someone like me.
Job 3:1– 26 (NET)
1 After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day he was born. 2 Job spoke up and said:
3 “Let the day on which I was born perish, and the night that said, ‘A man has been conceived!’
4 That day —let it be darkness; let not God on high regard it, nor let light shine on it!
5 Let darkness and the deepest shadow claim it; let a cloud settle on it; let whatever blackens the day terrify it.
6 That night—let darkness seize it; let it not be included among the days of the year; let it not enter among the number of the months!
7 Indeed, let that night be barren; let no shout of joy penetrate it!
8 Let those who curse the day curse it — those who are prepared to rouse Leviathan.
9 Let its morning stars be darkened; let it wait for daylight but find none, nor let it see the first rays of dawn,
10 because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb on me, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.
11 “Why did I not die at birth, and why did I not expire as I came out of the womb?
12 Why did the knees welcome me, and why were there two breasts that I might nurse at them?
13 For now I would be lying down and would be quiet, I would be asleep and then at peace
14 with kings and counselors of the earth who built for themselves places now desolate,
15 or with princes who possessed gold, who filled their palaces with silver.
16 Or why was I not buried like a stillborn infant, like infants who have never seen the light?
17 There the wicked cease from turmoil, and there the weary are at rest.
18 There the prisoners relax together; they do not hear the voice of the oppressor.
19 Small and great are there, and the slave is free from his master.
20 “Why does God give light to one who is in misery, and life to those whose soul is bitter,
21 to those who wait for death that does not come, and search for it more than for hidden treasures,
22 who rejoice even to jubilation, and are exultant when they find the grave?
23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has hedged in?
24 For my sighing comes in place of my food, and my groanings flow forth like water.
25 For the very thing I dreaded has happened to me, and what I feared has come upon me.
26 I have no ease, I have no quietness; I cannot rest; turmoil has come upon me.”
Illustration: Sigmund Freud Died at The Age of 83 Bitter And Disillusioned
Armand M. Nicholi, M. D. , professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, explains that Sigmund Freud died at the age of 83, a bitter and disillusioned man. Tragically, this Viennese physician, one of the most influential thinkers of our time, had little compassion for the common person. Freud wrote in 1918, “I have found little that is good about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all” (Veritas Reconsidered, p. 36). Freud died friendless. It is well-known that he had broken with each of his followers. The end was bitter. (Discoveries, Summer, 1991, Vol 2, No. 3, p. 1).