Job 3:1-19 - Job Curses the Day of His Birth (Session 6)

In this verse-by-verse Bible study of Job chapter 3, Reasoning Through the Bible enters the poetic heart of the book of Job as Job opens his mouth and curses the day of his birth. This session explores one of the Bible’s most honest expressions of human despair and asks how believers should understand suffering, lament, and the feeling that life has become unbearably dark. 

This study explains how Job’s words reveal the depth of his pain without becoming a curse against God. It also highlights the beauty and force of Hebrew poetry in Job, including parallelism, darkness imagery, and the mention of Leviathan. The discussion examines whether despair is a failure of faith, whether suffering still has purpose when God seems silent, and how Job’s lament continues to help suffering people today. 

This episode also addresses difficult questions about pain, human purpose, stillbirth imagery, death as relief, and why God may allow His people to suffer without immediate answers. Job 3 reminds listeners that Scripture does not ignore human anguish. It gives language for it, while still affirming that God remains on the throne and has purposes beyond what suffering people can see in the moment.

Topics in this episode include:

•  Job 3 explained 
•  Job curses the day of his birth 
•  despair and lament in the Bible 
•  Hebrew poetry in Job 
•  Leviathan in Job 3 
•  is despair a failure of faith 
•  suffering when God seems silent 
•  purpose in suffering 
•  honest wrestling with God 

Reasoning Through the Bible is a verse-by-verse Bible teaching ministry committed to careful exposition, biblical context, and faithful application.

Transcript

When Life Feels Unbearable

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Have you ever found yourself in a very low place? Have you ever woken up one day and found that life is just very dark and things are not going well, that you're in a lot of emotional pain and you really wish that it would just end. You can't see a purpose to it, and you're even questioning why you're here. Well, today we're going to talk about Job, and Job's going to be in a very low place. In the Old Testament book of Job, we see a lot of answers that are very fresh to us today. Hi, my name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve. We have a ministry we call Reasoning Through the Bible, and we go chapter by chapter, verse by verse, through the Word of God. We're starting in Job chapter three. This is the poetic section of the book. We trust that you've been to our website where you can see our teaching materials where you can go and help teach these lessons in your church or your small group. Let's summarize a bit before we get into chapter three. We saw in chapter one that we're told that Job was blameless and upright. Heavenly beings were parading in front of God, including Satan. And God initiates the conversation. Have you considered my servant Job? It's interesting that God started the conversation. Satan said, Well, if you take away what's around him, Job will curse you to his face. But God was in total control of the entire affair. He told Satan in chapter one, this far and no further. Satan takes all of Job's wealth, his family, and Job is in a very bad emotional state by the end of chapter one. But he worships God and does not do evil. So chapter two had a basically a re repeat of chapter one. God is still in total control, as Job saw nothing but pain and destruction and chaos on the earth in heaven. We see things running nice, orderly, and systematically. God is still on the throne and God is in total control of what's going on. God has a purpose for everything. He doesn't always tell us, but he has a purpose. God allowed Satan to attack Job personally, but not take his life. Chapter one, God tells Satan this far and no further. Chapter two, God tells Satan this far and no further. God has always been in complete control of Satan, and Satan has never been in a position to have a true contest with the Lord God Almighty. Of course, Job knows nothing of this conversation that went on in heaven. In chapter three, we're going to see Job's response, his first lengthy lament. This section starts Hebrew poetry, and from now, really, through most of the rest of the book, the book is written in Hebrew poetry. The basic method or the basic unit of Hebrew poetry is a two-line parallelism or a couplet, which is a two-line piece of poetry that says the same thing in each sentence, but with different descriptive words. They repeat the same idea, but with different words. It's a very poetic way of doing things that translates into multiple languages. The poetry throughout the book of Job is some of the most vivid and picturesque language that you're ever going to hear in all of literature. The word pictures here are very emotional. They're very magnificent. It is just a great piece of literature. Yes, the Bible is the inspired word of God. It's true history, but it's also magnificent literature. And Job is some of the greatest poetry ever written. We'll see a taste of that today. As we pick up chapter three of Job, Satan has said that Job would curse God, and Job did not curse God, but curses the day he was born. Steve, can you read the first 10 verses of Job chapter 3?

Job Curses The Day Born

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Afterward, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. And Job said, May the day on which I was to be born perish, as well as the night which said, A boy is conceived. May that day be darkness. May God above not care for it, nor light shine on it. May darkness and black gloom claim it. May a cloud settle on it. May the blackness of the day terrify it. As for that night, may darkness seize it. May it not rejoice among the days of the year. May it not come into the number of the months. Behold, may that night be barren, may no joyful shout enter it. May those curse it who curse the day who are prepared to disturb Leviathan. May the stars of its twilight be darkened, may it wait for light but have none, and may it not see the breaking dawn, because it did not shut the opening of my mother's womb or hide trouble from my eyes.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

So here Job is in great misery. He's wishing that the day of his birth would be cursed. He's convinced that the world would be a better place if he had never been born. I'm reminded over in Jeremiah, Jeremiah was called the weeping prophet. He had a similar low point. In Jeremiah 20, 14, Jeremiah wishes that he had never been born. So later here in Job, his friends will say that Job had helped other people while they were in need. So here we have again Job saying the world would be better if I had never been born. So Steve, is he correct? Is Job correct? He's in a dark place and he's saying, if I had never been born, the world would have been a better place. Is that a true statement or a false statement?

Is Despair A Faith Failure

SPEAKER_00 6:30

I think that Job is expressing a natural human response when someone is at the very depth of their despair, when existence itself feels like a curse. And he's revealing the depth of his despair, not merely the circumstances that he's going through, but life itself to him has become unbearable. And I think that that's a natural response of us in our human condition. We don't know the future. We are not all knowing of what's going on. We're a day-to-day creature. We live for today. We can look back on the past, but we certainly can't look in the future. So, in a way, Job's theology is being tested. His faith is being tested. We're starting to see that suffering can shake the foundations of our faith when our theology, meaning his knowledge of God and his relationship with God and his understanding of God, doesn't account for innocent pain. Job doesn't know what's going on. So he's honestly wrestling with God. And I think that's preferable to just pretending that everything makes sense. We're seeing Job say, I'm so desperate that the day that my birth should just be cursed. I shouldn't have lived at all. Now, would life have been better off without him? I don't think so. He had seven sons and three daughters, although they're not alive now. They were blessed through that. Ostensibly, they had a relationship with God as well. So they are there with God, even though their life has been taken there in the afterlife. So I don't think that it's a question of whether life would have been better without Job being here. I think we all have a purpose. We've all been born for a reason. God wants to have a relationship with us. He has made a way for us to be redeemed back to him, and that's through Jesus Christ. And we can have that relationship with him regardless of what circumstances that come about.

Purpose In Suffering Today

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Job, I agree with you, Steve. He's in a very emotionally bad spot. And he's having a fallible human response because, like all of us, he's a fallible human. But as we're going to see, even Job's friends admitted that Job did some good for other people in his life. So Job's life, as we read this, he is being used by God for a heavenly purpose. So it is not the case that the world would be better off if he had not been born. Now, he can't see that because all he's seeing is the pain. But nevertheless, God does have a purpose. There is a purpose in all of his misery. Job doesn't know what it is, and Job doesn't see what God had been doing in heaven. Biblical counselors tell us that if we were next to somebody like Job that had just lost their entire family and all of their wealth and their health, that it would be a very callous thing to do to walk up to them and say, Well, you know, God has a purpose for all this suffering. And I'm sure that's not something that Job wanted to hear at that point, but it is nevertheless a true statement. There is a purpose for his suffering. He was being used right then. He's still being used. We have no clue by the end of the book whether Job ever really realized that he was going to be put into God's inspired word. But we have here Job being used to help other people. He's being used for God's purpose. There really is a purpose in his suffering. And I think that's one of the few things that can help people when they do get into an emotionally or physically painful circumstance, is that it is not the case that God just abandoned us. It is not the case that life's really rough and we die and that's it. No, there's there's a purpose behind all this. It is comforting to know that God really is in control. If we just submit to him, then whatever his grand purpose is will be made clear to us in the right timing. So God isn't using Job's suffering, and he has a purpose for it. If we carry that into today's world, Steve, is it still true today that there is a purpose for suffering?

When Pain Forces Daily Prayer

SPEAKER_00 11:12

There is a purpose in suffering as to it being God's purpose many times. And it can be simply nothing more than it's our time to leave this world and go to the next one. And God has a purpose for that in that He's taking us from this fallen world over into the next world, which is a lot better for us in many ways. And then down the line, we're again going to be reunited with our glorified body. Reconciling what we believe in God and the relationship that we have with him, with the circumstances that we're going through means that we ensure our understanding of God's character and promises actually shapes how we respond to these types of adverse situations, the real life situations. We're talking about extreme suffering right now, but there's other degrees of suffering, setbacks that we might experience. And through all of those different degrees that we go through, the less impact that we have, the easier it is for us to say, oh, well, God's in control and he knows what he's doing and there's a purpose behind this. But when it gets down to the point where Job is experiencing, it really gets to a point where it tends to test your faith. Having a strong conviction in your beliefs and God's character means that you're going to have a strong response. The danger is whenever we just take our theology and we just keep it abstract. We just keep it out here at an arm's distance and disconnected from human needs that are going on, meaning that people are suffering without general spiritual support. If you're just going along in the advice that you're giving to someone that's going through this type of depths of despair, that, well, God has a purpose for all of this, and you just have to keep your chin up and understand that he has a purpose. Well, yes, that's true, but there also must be actively engaged with them with the concrete situations that they're going through. Meaning that encourage their faith, encourage the relationship that they have. When you're going through it yourself, that's really whenever you find out, do I really believe and trust in God's promises that He has given to me and given to fellow Christians? Do I really believe it? That's when you find out where your faith really stands, is in the depths of these despairs. I've told this story before of a hostage that has been taken during the Israeli conflict recently. He was freed after almost a year of being held hostage in a horrible situation. And during that time of his captivity, he communed with God daily, every day, because that's all he had was God. After his freedom, he was asked how he felt to be free. And he said, In a way, I miss still being a hostage because now I don't have that need to daily commune with God like I had before. So I think through that we can see that in the depths of our despair, when there's no one else there, God is there. Sometimes that's the purpose that God has in this. Is the purpose that God has with Job for Job, or is it in relation to Satan? I think that's a question for us to ask, and that's a question that we're going to continue to see come back over and over again, and that we're essentially going to be addressing as we continue to go through the book of Job.

Trust Lived Out Not Abstract

SPEAKER_01 15:00

In the book, we meet Job at the beginning, and Job is going through life and things are well. All of these horrible things happen to him. Really, he Job doesn't hear from God until three dozen or so chapters down towards the end of the book, God finally shows up. But all during the first, again, almost three dozen chapters, God doesn't show up. And Job is in a great deal of pain, emotional pain, physical pain. His spirit is really down, and he's not hearing from God during this time. So, how difficult is it to go through painful circumstances while not seeing God do anything about it?

Leviathan And Forgotten Birthdays

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Well, again, I think it comes back to that what we believe in God needs to be lived out, not merely believed. One example we can look at related to what I just mentioned is Joseph. He was sold off into slavery. And at the end of it, when he was reconciled with his brothers, after he had gotten to the position of being the second in command over all of Egypt, he said, You meant selling me into slavery for evil, but God meant it for good, meaning that he was now there in order to protect his family and to take care of his family during the famine that was going to be taking place. So because we don't know the future doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to be happy with everything that happens with us. That's what I meant by that our trust in God needs to be lived out, not merely believed. When these situations happen, we need to know how we're going to respond. And the way that we respond is staying with God. It's what in our last session, Job's wife said, Why are you persisting and staying with your integrity of God? Just curse God and get it over with. And Job's response is back to her is, You're just sounding like everybody else. We need to accept the adversity that comes with us along with the blessings that come with us. And Job would not sin against God. He would not curse God. So I don't think that we need to look at this part here where he's cursing the day that he was born as cursing God. It's just an expression of he's at the depth of his despair. And he's saying, I'd like to get this over with because I don't know what's going to happen in the future, where this is going, but he's not abandoning God. He's still living out his trust and conviction that he has with God, in my opinion.

Stillbirth Imagery And Hope

SPEAKER_01 17:42

We have here in this section, Hebrew poetry, listing two opposites. That's one of the techniques, one of the methods, if you will, in Hebrew poetry is they'll list two opposites, suggesting that what it's talking about applies to everything in between. In verse three, Job wishes that both the day and the night of his birth perish. That means everything all in between. Verse six, Job is hoping the darkness of his birthday overcomes the day. He doesn't want anybody to even remember that it happened. He wants the day of his birth to be wiped from anyone's memory. Verse eight, he wants the birthday cursed. So instead of having his birthday cursed, what's actually happened? Well, what's actually happened is him and his life have been immortalized in the Word of God. Job's life has been a help to countless numbers of people over the centuries. He's turned into a great, great example that was used by God. And of course, Job could see nothing of this. All he did was feel the pain, but God was using Job for his grand purposes. Verse 8 mentions Leviathan. Leviathan is a poetic image of a large, ominous creature that is fierce. We're going to see Leviathan later in the book. Job says that the people who issue curses and disturb dragons should put a curse on my birthday so that I was never here. That's what the idea is here. Now, starting in verse 11, he also wishes that he had never existed in the first place. Let me read starting in Job 3 11. Why did I not die at birth, come out of the womb and pass away? Why were the knees there in front of me, and why the breasts that I would nurse? For now I would have lain down and been quiet, I would have slept then, I would have been at rest, with kings and counselors of the earth, who rebuilt ruins for themselves, or with rulers who had gold, who were filling their houses with silver, or like a miscarriage which is hidden, I would not exist, as infants that never saw light. There the wicked cease from raging, and there the weary are at rest. The prisoners are at ease together, they do not hear the voice of the taskmaster. The small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his master. So Steve, back in verse 11, what is Job saying?

SPEAKER_00 20:21

This goes into a section, Glenn, I think Job is expressing if he had been miscarried or if he had been stillborn, that he would have been better off, that he would have gone directly into the presence of God. That's what I think that he's talking about here. He says, Why didn't I die at birth? Why wasn't I stillborn? And it goes on in a couple of places that we'll discuss a little further. But he says, There I would have been with kings and counselors of the earth. And he says I'd be in an area where slaves are free. I think he's describing in this section that if he would have been stillborn or miscarried, that he would have gone directly into the presence of being with the Lord. And I think that that should give us some encouragement to some people who have lost children, and that the idea that he has here is that God is going to take care of them. I think that that's what he's saying. What do you think that he's saying in this section?

Do We Have A Right

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Oh, I agree. He's at a very, very low point. And he's saying it would have been better if I would have been a miscarriage or stillborn in the back room where nobody ever saw or knew about it, and I was totally forgotten about. I submit that that while it's tragic, it's also very emotional language. We can empathize with Job's misery, but it also brings up an ethical question. Even in Job's misery with all of his pain, does he have the moral right to say that he should not have been born or say that he should have died as an infant? If we ask that as a even a Hypothetical ethical question, I think that we are forced to say that no, only God has the right to determine who gets born and who doesn't. We naturally want to know why things happen, but we do not have the right to say, I should have died or never been born. That is a right that only exists with God. God gives life, he can take it back again as he wishes. We do not have the right to take an innocent life, and we are unable to give it. As much as we may hurt or be in pain, we do not have the moral ground to tell God that he made a mistake. And that's really what Job is hinting at. I should never have been born. It would have been better if I weren't here. Well, Job does not have the ethical ground to make that claim. It is not in the human prerogative to make those ethical decisions of who gets born and who doesn't. Remember, David, as Saul was chasing him, David had multiple opportunities to take Saul's life, but David wouldn't. He said, It is not my prerogative to take God's anointed. So we do not have the right to take an innocent life. Capital punishment, different. We have God's mandate to administer justice on earth on guilty people. But here, as far as taking the life of innocent people, Job did not have the right to take his own life or that of anyone else. Verses 17 to 19, Job is describing death as a place of peace. So here's another sort of ethical question here, Steve, that deals with this life and death. Is it a mistake for Job to describe death as a relief from the pain he's experiencing?

Death As Relief And Job’s Purpose

SPEAKER_00 23:54

I think he is imagining the peace of the grave where the suffering ceases and all distinctions of rich and poor, master and servant, they dissolve into equality, equality being that they're free from this earth, they're free from this pain that is happening to our bodies as they break down in old age or whatever we might see as disease takes hold of us. Many people ask, why is the book of Job, even here in the canon of scripture, what is its purpose? I think we're starting to see some of its purpose, Glenn, as we go through and discuss these things. You were talking about the ethics of whether or not we have the right to ask God to take our life or that we wouldn't been born at all. And that's God's prerogative. It's not our prerogative. But what we're seeing is we're seeing Job thinking out loud in the depths of his despair, he's talking about that there's temptation towards escapism just to take us from this reality and acknowledging that these dark impulses that we might have, and whenever we get to these types of despair is an honestly part of our faith. We shouldn't think of it as being something that's a failure of our faith. It's the questioning that goes on whenever we reach these types of despair. And as I mentioned before, in a very small way, whenever I lost my wife, Tina, it's something that was that you just can't explain to other people. And when you get to those types of situations, there are things that you ask and that you discuss between you and God. We're seeing Job doing part of that. And the purpose of Job through all of this, I think, is for us to discuss it, for us to teach about it, is for us to acknowledge that sometimes these discussions between people and God take place in the depths of their despair, and that through that, God gives a way for them to handle it through the advice that he's going to be getting from his friends and through the teaching that comes from various teachers and pastors through the decades and centuries. How do we deal with suffering for righteous people? When suffering comes about for righteous people, why does it happen? And I think Job gives us an opportunity to air it out and to discuss it and to talk about how we should handle it and how God is handling it and how God thinks about it.

What Comes Next In Job

SPEAKER_01 26:36

And I would agree. I would agree. We do not see the purpose for these things. We know from scripture that God is on the throne, he's in control, but nevertheless, we see and experience these painful circumstances, these painful human situations. One of the reasons for the book of Job is that God does indeed have a purpose. He's still on the throne. Things are still moving orderly in heaven. It may seem like chaos, misery here on earth, death and destruction, but it is not that way in heaven. As long as God does not take us, we should view our purpose as being where he has put us as here on earth. And we should submit to his will and value his image that's in all human beings as long as they are still breathing on this earth. Well, let's pause here for now. We've reached the end of our time today, but we're going to be answering a lot of these same human moral ethical questions as we continue to reason through the book of Job next time.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.