It's been a while since I've posted, but I'm going to go ahead and jump right back into Job. For those who have missed the beginning of Job, I strongly encourage you to go back and read the beginning of Job, and if you want to, my posts about it.

After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. And Job said:
"Let the day perish on which I was born,
and the night that said,
'A man is conceived.'
Let that day be darkness!
May God above not seek it
nor light shine upon it.
Let gloom and deep darkness claim it.
Let clouds dwell upon it;
let the blackness of the day terrify it.
That night--let thick darkness seize it!
Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;
let it not come into the number of the months.
Behold, let that night be barren;
let no joyful cry enter it.
Let those curse it who curse the day,
who are ready to rouse up Leviathan.
Let the stars of its dawn be dark;
let it hope for light, but have none.
nor see the eyelids of the morning,
because it did not shut the doors of my mother's womb,
nor hide trouble from my eyes.
Why did I not die at birth,
come out from the womb and expire?
Why did the knees receive me?
Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?
For then I would have lain down and been quiet;
I would have slept; then I would have been at rest,
with kings and counsellors of the earth
who rebuilt ruins for themselves,
or with princes who had gold,
who filled their houses with silver.
Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child,
as infants who never see the light?
There the wicked cease from troubling,
and there the weary are at rest.
There the prisoners are at ease together;
they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.
The small and the great are there,
and the slave is free from his master.

"Why is light given to him who is in misery,
and life to the bitter in soul,
who long for death, but it comes not,
and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,
who rejoice exceedingly
and are glad when they find the grave?
Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,
whom God has hedged in?
For my sighing comes instead of my bread,
and my groanings are poured out like water.
For the thing that I fear comes upon me,
and what I dread befalls me.
I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;
I have no rest, but trouble comes."

Some themes I immediately notice are: light vs. darkness, life vs. death, pain vs. rest.

First, Job curses the day of his conception/birth. He basically wishes he'd never been conceived. The language reminds me of the creation account in Genesis:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
And God said, "Let there be light", and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.


Job's seems to be wishing the act of creation undone on his day of conception. Indeed, he wishes it had been fruitless, because in contrast to God's creation, he believes that his life is not good, and shouldn't have been made. I suppose the darkness represents the lack of anything, in the same way that darkness meant the lack of anything in the creation account. God creates light first, and then the rest of creation.

Next he moves on to wondering why, seeing as he was conceived, he didn't die on his first day. He wishes he had been stillborn, dead at birth, or died young. He talks then about where he would be had that happened. This reflects the Hebrew belief in Sheol, the afterlife they believed awaited them. It seems all went there and were given rest - princes, stillborn children, the wicked, prisoners, slaves and masters, small and great. All except the living.

Finally, he wonders why, seeing as he lived through his childhood, he survives through all this suffering. He wishes he would die from all the pain, but somehow he goes on living (God has told the Devil to spare his life, in fact, God is maintaining his life). To Job this isn't a good thing, but he doesn't realize what awaits him after he is restored.

Job was conceived in darkness, and lived a fairly happy life (it appears from the beginning of the book) until he is struck by Satan. Then he wishes to return to death, un-life, or wishes he'd never been born. Eventually though, he will be restored, and will realize he was wrong for wanting to return from where he came. This seems like a theme in the Bible. The Israelites wanted to return to their Slavery in Egypt instead of enduring through the wilderness hardships (through the power of God) into the promised land. In the same way, sometimes we wish the gospel had never been revealed to us and want to return to a worldly way of life. Only through the power of God can we push on and be delivered. In fact, Job wanted out, but God preserved him, and he lived on, and eventually was blessed. It was in fact God's doing that Job lives, since God had forbidden Satan from ending Job's life.

This was written fairly quickly. Might edit later. Thanks for reading.

All scripture passages are from the ESV.