Job 3

3:1-10 Job curses the day of his birth

Job pours out his grief and pain in a bold and dramatic way. It does not seem to be that Job is specifically addressing anyone specifically in Job 3:1-10. The fact there are so many psalms of lament show how common this is for the people of God. Job’s frustrations throughout the book cannot be blamed solely on his friend’s words because he speaks before they speak. One writer described Job 3 as “one of the most depressing chapters in the Bible” (Alden, 71). However, those who are presently experiencing this kind of pain may identify with and find great comfort in these words. Psalm 88 is filled with darkness. It is a psalm of lament that has no ending of praise and hope. The final word of the Hebrew text and most translations of Psalm 88 is the word darkness. I have found that preaching that psalm has led many people to come out and say seriously, “That was encouraging.”

Job’s longing to have never been born is similar to the request of Elijah (I Kings 19:4) and Jonah (Jonah 4:3) for the LORD to take their life. They knew life was in God’s hands and they asked him to take their life and they did not take matters into their own hands. There is a difference between Elijah and Jonah, however. Elijah is broken because his ministry as a prophet has been rejected. Jonah is discouraged because the Ninevites have responded to his message and repented and been spared by God. Jonah wanted the LORD to take his life because the wrong people listened and obeyed his preaching.

Jeremiah 20:14-18 Jeremiah had the difficult task of speaking for God and giving an unpopular message to a wicked people.[1] There are several similarities between Jer. 20:14-18 and Job 3. Both deals with cursing the day of one’s birth (Job 3:1, 8; Jer. 20:14). They both mention the announcement of a male child (Job 3:3; Jer. 20:15). Blocking the womb is described in both (Job 3:11; Jer. 20:17). Both use the same Hebrew word trouble (Job 3:10; Jer. 20:18). The hyperbole of Jeremiah 20:14-18 is even more stunning than Job 3:1-10. He asks that the LORD bring judgment upon the man who announced the happy news to his father that he had a son. Jeremiah asks that the judgment against him be like the judgment that fell on Sodom and Gomorrah (20:16; Gen. 19:25-26). He curses the man because he did not kill him before his birth (20:17). Clearly, the innocent man who brought the news to Jeremiah’s father of his birth should not have literally taken Jeremiah’s life in the womb. The text is speaking in using the most extreme exaggeration and overemphasis to say that he wishes he was never born. The words of Matt. 26:24 that it would have been better for Judas if he had never been born do not emphasize his stress in life but the horror of his judgment after death.

While we would be worried about anyone near us who uttered the words of Job 3:1-10 or Jer. 20:14-18, the text does seem to show that thoughts like these and expressing these thoughts may be part of the life of some of God’s faithful servants. When we feel completely broken, these passages affirm that many who have sought to follow God have felt the same way. These passages may give us guides for words we can use if we face similar circumstances. They neither curse God nor take His name in vain (Ex. 23:7; Lev. 24:10-16). They do not curse their parents (Ex. 20:12; 21:14). They do vent their frustration that they were born at all. While their efforts to write themselves out of history are not logical, they are understandable. Job and Jeremiah give full expression to their desires within certain limits and boundaries that they will not pass.

What roles do God and Satan play in Job’s suffering and suffering throughout Scriptures?

Satan appears in Job 1:6-12 and 2:1-6, 7. His hand in suffering is particularly emphasized in Job 1:12 and 2:6, 7. Satan’s hand in suffering is stressed in several New Testament passages as well. In Luke 13:16 the woman Jesus heals in the synagogues is one “whom Satan has bound for eighteen years.” In Acts 10:38 Jesus went about doing good and “healing all who were oppressed of the devil.” II Cor. 12:7 describes Paul’s thorn in the flesh as a “messenger of Satan.” In Jesus’ letter to the church of Smyrna he says that “the devil is about to cast some of you into prison” (Rev. 2:10). Each of these passages speak of Satan, the devil playing a significant role in human suffering. There are certainly other passages that tie Satan to temptation, sin, and spiritual suffering, but now we are focusing on physical suffering.

These truths from the book of Job about God’s hand in human suffering are consistent with the rest of Scripture.

Deuteronomy 32:39 “See now that I, I am He, and there is no god besides Me; It is who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal, and there is no one who can deliver from My hand.”

I Samuel 2:6-7 “The LORD kills and makes alive; He brings down to Sheol and raises up. The LORD makes poor and rich; He brings low, He also exalts.”

Isaiah 30:26 “The LORD binds up the fracture of His people and heals the bruise He has inflicted.”

Isaiah 45:7 “The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these.”

Jer. 32:42 “Just as I brought all this great disaster on this people, so I am going to bring on them all the good that I am promising them.”

Lam. 3:37-38 “Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass, unless the LORD has commanded it? Is in not from the mouth of the Most High that both good and ill go forth?”

Amos 3:6 “If a trumpet is blown in a city will not the people tremble? If a calamity occurs in a city has not the LORD done it?”

Heb. 12:1-11 The hostility followers of Jesus experienced from sinners in 12:1-4 seems to be the same as the discipline of the LORD in 12:5-11.

There are several events in which both God and Satan are said to be active. Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil (Matt. 4:1; Luke 4:1). The devil is trying to get Jesus to sin and undo God’s entire plan of salvation. God using to the same event to qualify Jesus as the perfect high priest (Heb. 2:17-18; 4:14-16). While Paul’s thorn in the flesh was a messenger of Satan, it was given to keep Paul from exalting himself (II Cor. 12:7-10). Obviously, keeping Paul from becoming proud was not Satan’s purpose but it was God’s purpose. While Satan entered Judas to entice him to betray Jesus (Luke 22:3; John 13:2, 27), all the things that happened around the crucifixion were to fulfill the will of God (Acts 2:23; 3:13-15; 4:27-28; 13:27). While Satan and God were both involved in these events, in none of these cases are God and Satan acting together. Satan is seeking to cause man to curse God. But God is working in the same events to seek to teach man things he would not have learned otherwise (Ps. 119:67, 71, 75). God is seeking to help man see Him more clearly than previously (Job 42:5-6). God is working to save man from sin. The message of the Bible is that nothing happens to us that is not ultimately controlled by the knowledge, love, wisdom, and power of our God of all comfort (II Cor. 1:3). The test of Job was ultimately a step in the utter defeat of Satan and not Job.

Job 2

2:1 Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD and Satan also came among them to present himself before the LORD- The scene in 2:1-6 is a repetition of the scene produced in 1:6-12. Just as parallelism can drive home the point in poetry, prose often stresses its point by repeating the narrative (Gen. 24:1-27;24:28-49). 2:1 is a verbatim repetition from 1:6 except 2:1 adds the three Hebrew words that end the sentence translated to present himself before the LORD.

2:3 And he still holds fast his integrity- The verse from this point on adds to the words of 1:8. This verb holds fast is a common verb and means be strong or strengthen (Josh.1:6, 7, 9; Job 4:3) or seize (Gen. 19:16). Job held fast to his integrity as some hold fast to deceit- Jer. 8:5. This word will be used also in Job in 2:9; 4:3; 8:15,20; 18:9 and 27:6. In Job 27:6 Job declares I hold fast to my righteousness.

The picture of the divine council does not eliminate the picture of an omniscient God (Psalm 139:1-6; Isa. 40:13-14).

2:4 What does skin for skin mean? Much has been written to answer this question, but few good answers have been provided. The meaning seems to be something along the lines that even if a person loses their possessions, children, and all else, that the person will respond differently when the suffering is his and his death is imminent. I think the meaning of the phrase is largely derived by the next line that all that a man has he will give for his life.

2:7 Deut. 28:35 speaks of boils from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. The phrase from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head is also used of Absalom in II Sam. 14:25. In II Sam. 14:25 there was no blemish on Absalom from his foot to his head. Job’s case is the opposite of Absalom’s attractiveness.

2:9 Then his wife said to him, ‘Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!’

These are the only words we have from Job’s wife. Job does make a reference to her in Job 19:17 saying that his breath is offensive to her. Job 19:13-20 demonstrates Job’s deep sense of alienation from those who we would expect to be closest to him. Job’s wife uses the same phrase that the LORD used in speaking of Job in Job 2:3 you hold fast your integrity. God used this to praise Job, but Job’s wife uses the phrase in criticism of Job. In The Testament of Job she sells her hair to buy bread for Job and herself. Does she believe the sin of cursing God will be punished by God with Job’s instant death?

2:10 ‘Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?’ The word adversity is also used in the next verse in 2:7, 10, 11. Some versions translate the Hebrew term ra’ by the English word evil. Evil can be moral evil (1:1, 8; 2:3) or it can refer to a calamity or disaster (2:10, 11; 42:11). “Out of about 640 occurrences of the word ra’ (which ranges in meaning from a ‘nasty’ taste to full moral evil) there are 275 instances where ‘trouble’ or ‘calamity’ is the meaning”[1] God is sovereign over good and bad (Deut. 32:39; Job 1:21). God is not responsible for moral evil (Hab. 1:13; Jas. 1:13), but His hand is involved in adversity (Isa. 45:7; Lam. 3:37-38; Amos 3:6). The translation adversity or calamity is better than the translation evil in this verse.

[1] J.A. Motyer, Isaiah, 359.