Wherefore did I not die from the womb, -- come forth from the belly and expire?
Job has lost everything, and after seven days of silence he curses the day he was born. This verse is the sharpest edge of that lament, and it raises a hard question: why did God let a patient man break like this?
Job had held steady while the losses fell. It was human company, not calamity, that finally opened his mouth.
Job remained as exemplary in his adversity as he had been in his prosperity. The root of sin was not yet reached. He then became more remarkable for his patience than even for his goodness. Scripture bears this testimony to it: "You have heard of the steadfastness of Job." God at last permits his friends to come and offer him comfort. How many hardships we can endure alone; but as soon as our friends see them, our pride stirs. The compassion of man often provokes our impatience; and Job, so distinguished for patience, at last curses the day of his birth!
Job weighs the care given to a newborn against the agony that same life has now brought him.
He was in the depth of his trial, and the silence of his friends made it worse. Soon they would make it worse still, attacking him with suspicion they voiced more and more openly. And so he asks, in the anguish of his soul, why, if this was to be his lot in life, he did not die at birth. Why should he have been so tenderly cared for, only to meet such agony in the end?
Job aims his curse at the day, not at God.
Job did not even now charge God foolishly, but he did curse the day of his birth. This was not directly blaming God, but however little he realised it, he was indirectly blaming God, for it was God who gave him life... Later Job would thank God he had been born, and that thankfulness will last for eternity. But when trouble comes like the trouble Job had to bear, we do not tend to think soberly and calmly. Yet wishful thinking never achieves anything. The doors of his mother's womb had been opened long ago, and Job knew this could never be reversed. But he was moved by his anguish, not by faith.
To wish the womb had been a grave is to reject the very kindness that kept him alive as a helpless infant.
It is sad indeed when someone cannot look back on those early days of helplessness with tender thoughts. Loving care watched over him while he lay there unaware. Of all creatures, man is the most helpless and dependent in infancy. It is to hide pride from him, and to call out love on his behalf. To curse his infancy in this way was to trample on what is best in our fallen humanity. It shows a soul far from communion with God.
Job pictures the grave as one long sleep, the same for everyone.
Job puts everyone into an unconscious sleep, "as infants who never see the light." Is there no distinction between the condition of the wicked and of the righteous after death?... The constant contrast between the righteous and the wicked, and their moral unlikeness, points quite clearly to very different futures. Scripture says: "The wicked is overthrown through his evildoing, but the righteous finds refuge in his death." By blurring the future in this way, Job shows how far his soul had drifted from the truth of God.
The same words can come from a learner or from a rebel, and everything depends on which.
Every question can be asked in two ways. One person asks in humility, with a sincere desire to learn. Another asks in presumptuous rebellion against the answer, whatever it may be. In the first case the questioner honestly takes the place of a learner, which is the right thing for him to do. In the second case he assumes there is no satisfactory answer, or that the answer is withheld.
Why did God let a godly man reach this point?
Job must know himself, in a way he never could have imagined otherwise. To know yourself is a very different thing from being converted to God, and it is necessary if we are to be fully blessed... A man might be pious and yet never have really stood in God's presence for himself. I mean a thorough judgment of self, measured by God Himself.
- Pressure. Job bore his losses in silence. It was his friends' presence that finally drew out the curse on his birth.
- Aim. He cursed the day, not God — yet the day came from God's hand, so the complaint reached further than he knew.
- Anguish. Pain moved him, not faith. He asked for something that could never be undone — yet later he would thank God he had been born.
- Drift. Wishing the womb had been his grave despised the care that kept him alive. It also painted death as blank sleep for everyone alike.
- Purpose. God let the question stand so Job would know himself in God's presence — you can ask the same "why" as a learner or as a rebel.
Why did the knees meet me? and wherefore the breasts, that I should suck?
Job breaks his silence in chapter 3 with a wish that his life had ended before it began. Now he goes further and protests against the arms that held him and the milk that fed him as a baby.
Job sets the tender care he once received against the agony he is in now.
And so he asks, in the anguish of his soul, why, if this was to be his lot in life, did he not die from the womb? Why should he have been so tenderly cared for, only to meet such agony in the end? Why did he not share the quiet of the grave with the great ones of the earth? They spent their lives building monuments that decay, or cramming their houses with silver and gold they must leave behind.
Both images cover a baby's first days: arms that hold, and milk that feeds. Job wants none of it.
In the second part of his lament (verses 10-12) Job wishes he had died at birth, or that no one had cared for him or fed him. It is sad when someone cannot look back on those early days of helplessness with tender thoughts. Loving care watched over those hours he cannot even remember. Of all creatures, man is the most helpless and dependent in infancy. It is to hide pride from him, and to call out love on his behalf. To curse his infancy in this way was to trample on what is best in our fallen humanity. It shows a soul far from communion with God.
Job asks for something already settled and impossible to undo. And the wish falls back on the One who gave him that life.
Job did not even now charge God foolishly, but he did curse the day of his birth. This was not directly blaming God. But however little he realised it, he was indirectly blaming God, for it was God who gave him life... The doors of Job's mother's womb had been opened long ago (v.10), and Job knew this could never be reversed. But his anguish moved him, not faith.
The same writer draws the practical line between wishing and faith:
But wishing is not facing facts as they are. Faith faces facts and gives God credit for doing what He knows is best. But Job's faith had become very weak.
Dark as the words are, Job stops short of one thing.
But notice this. Job gives way to his feelings in this passionate outburst, yet he did not renounce God, and there is not a word of rebellion against Him. All through his answers to the arguments of his friends he does not lose sight of God. Again and again he expresses confidence in the unseen One, as in that matchless saying, "Though he slay me, I will hope in him" (13:15).
The most patient man on earth talks this way, and that is the point. His collapse brings out what his heart had been resting on.
Job had never really been brought into the presence of God... He was resting in what he was to others, and not in the favour of God Himself... So God goes on dealing with Job, until He brings him to nothing in the very thing Job was most famous for. Job, the most patient man, curses the day of his birth. Why is this? Because we must be broken down. We must be brought to a sense of what we are, as well as of what we have done. Then God can deal with us out of His own heart.
There is one Sufferer whose sorrow never turned into words like these.
He was dependent, sorrowful, made to suffer and despised, but He never murmured and was never embittered. No despairing words fell from Him like those we may hear from a Moses or an Elijah, a Job or a Jeremiah (Num. 11:11-14; 1 Kings 19:4; Job 3:3-14; Jer. 20:14-18).
- Care. The knees and the breasts stand for the helpless dependence of infancy. Job wishes that care away, though it exists to hide pride from us and to call out love.
- Cause. Anguish moved him, not faith. Wishing never faces facts; faith faces them and gives God credit for doing what He knows is best.
- Complaint. Cursing his birth did not blame God directly, yet God gave the life he now wishes away. The doors of the womb opened long ago, and nothing can reverse that.
- Confidence. Even here there is no renouncing of God and no rebellion; the same mouth will later say, "Though he slay me, I will hope in him."
- Purpose. God brought the most patient man to nothing so that Job would learn what he was, not only what he had done. Then God could deal with him out of His own heart.
For now should I have lain down and been quiet; I should have slept then had I been at rest,
Job breaks seven days of silence by wishing he had died at birth, and this verse is his reason. Two questions follow: how did the most patient man reach this point, and was he right about death?
Job had borne much suffering without this outburst. What opened his mouth was the silence of his friends.
We hear the outburst of passionate grief at last from Job. He could not stand the presence of his friends. He had borne many sorrows and bitter suffering. But these friends came and looked at his misery without a word. It was too much for Job. Did they suspect him? He could not endure doubts about God's view of him, especially from them. Were they not friends? If they loved him, why that silence — that ominous silence for seven days and seven nights?
Job's longing for the grave was not just pain talking. God was using it to show Job what he really was.
Job had never really been brought into the presence of God. There had been a certain work in his soul, which produced fruits... He was resting in what he was to others, and not in the favour of God Himself... So God goes on dealing with Job, till in the very thing in which Job was most famous he is brought to nothing. Job, the most patient man, curses the day of his birth. Why is this? Because we must be broken down. We must come to a sense of what we are, as well as of what we have done. Then God can deal with us out of His own heart.
What Job describes over the next verses is one rest shared by everyone, with all earthly rank cancelled.
Death is described here as a rest that all share equally. The old and the young, even the unborn baby, are at rest. So are the great and the small. Kings whose palaces have crumbled into ruins, and princes who left all their wealth behind, lie here at last in deep and equal rest. The wicked cannot trouble them. No master can demand work from his slave. Prisoners and their captors are no different in the presence of death, that great leveler of mankind.
Commentators differ over how much blame Job's words deserve. One reading holds that Job blurred the difference between the wicked and the righteous after death.
Everywhere the righteous and the wicked stand in contrast, morally unlike each other. This points clearly to very different futures: "The wicked is overthrown through his evildoing, but the righteous finds refuge in his death" (Prov. 14:32). In blurring the future in this way, Job shows how far his soul had drifted from the truth of God. In plain language he is longing for annihilation.
Another reading takes the same words as death seen from the outside. Job had no fuller revelation to draw on.
But here I see no reason to blame these words on the unbelief that worked in Job's heart alongside much right feeling. This was simply how death appears. A man died, and no one saw him again until the end of all things... he uses words that fit with ignorance of another world and of the state between death and resurrection. But they certainly do not say the dead have stopped existing. They imply the opposite.
Some take this verse as proof that the dead simply stop existing. Job's own word for death points the other way.
So Job's words do not contradict what we have seen elsewhere to be the revealed truth about those who have died. To a man as weary as he was, the unseen world was indeed a place of "rest". But "rest" is not extinction. And even if it were also a "land of darkness", darkness and non-existence are completely contradictory ideas.
Job's own later words, and the language of faith after him, answer the nothingness he longed for here.
Job's own words refute his unbelief here: "For I know that my Redeemer lives" (Job 19:25). David also said, "when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness" (Ps. 17:15)... The New Testament letters speak of being "away from the body and at home with the Lord," and of "My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better." Do such words echo Job's unbelieving laments?
- Trigger — Disaster did not break Job's silence. His friends' wordless staring did.
- Purpose — God broke Job down so that a man resting in what he was to others would learn what he was before God.
- Picture — Job paints death as one level rest. Kings, slaves and unborn infants all share it.
- Dispute — Commentators differ. Some see a soul drifting toward a longing for annihilation. Others see a man describing death with the little light he had.
- Answer — Whatever Job meant, rest is not extinction. His own words, "I know that my Redeemer lives," outlive the wish he voices here.
With kings and counsellors of the earth, who build desolate places for themselves,
Job has lost his children, his wealth and his health, and he breaks his silence by wishing he had never been born. Picturing the grave, he names the company he would have kept there: kings, their counsellors, and princes with houses full of silver.
Job's opening speech moves in stages, and this line belongs to the middle one. One writer sets out the shape of the whole lament:
First: Job curses the day of his birth (vv. 1-9). Second: He wishes he had died in infancy (vv. 10-12). Third: Death is described as a rest (vv. 13-19). Fourth: He longs for death (vv. 20-23). Fifth: He is oppressed by terror (vv. 24-26).
The ESV says these kings "rebuilt ruins for themselves." One writer, using an older translation that reads "build desolate places," takes those places to be the tombs kings built:
He asks why he had ever been born, one destined to such misery. Why was he not left instead, as he says so sharply, "with kings and counsellors of the earth, who build desolate places"? Is this what the greatness of this world comes to — kings building ruins for themselves? "Or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver?" But gold and silver cannot buy escape from sorrow or death. Was this life? Was this the work in which the kings of Egypt sought fame, the building of their own tombs?
Job's list runs downward from kings to slaves, and the point is that the grave makes no distinction between them:
Death is here described as a rest (vv. 13-19) in which all have an equal share. The old and the young, even the unborn baby, the great and the small, are alike at rest. Kings whose palaces have crumbled into ruins, and princes whose vast wealth has all been left behind, are here at last in deep and equal repose. The wicked cannot trouble them. A master cannot demand service from his slave. Prisoners and their captors find no difference in the presence of death, that great leveller of mankind.
But rest is not all Job asks for here. One writer weighs what his picture of death leaves out:
Job goes further and puts all in an unconscious sleep, "as infants who never see the light." Is there no difference between the condition of the wicked and of the righteous after death?… By blurring the future in this way, Job shows how far his soul had drifted from the truth of God. In plain language he is longing for annihilation.
The strongest answer to Job's mood comes from Job himself, later in the book:
Job's own words disprove his unbelief here: "I know that my Redeemer lives" (Job 19:25). David also said, "when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness" (Ps. 17:15).
Job's cure for his pain is to have died at birth. One writer sets that wish beside faith:
If only he had died, he says, he would be at rest. In death at least, he claims, the wicked stop troubling, the weary are at rest, the prisoners are released and the slave is free from his master. But wishing is not facing facts as they are. Faith faces facts and gives God credit for doing what He knows is best. But Job's faith had become very weak.
Job's collapse was not a failure in God's plan. One writer explains what God was after in it:
Job had never really been brought into the presence of God… He was resting in what he was to others, and not in the favour of God Himself… So God keeps dealing with Job, until He brings him to nothing in the very thing for which Job was most famous. Job, the most patient man, curses the day of his birth. Why is this? Because we must be broken down. We must come to a sense of what we are, as well as of what we have done. Then God can deal with us out of His own heart.
- Ruins. Kings and counsellors built their own tombs. The greatness of this world ends in the ruins they built for themselves.
- Gold. Princes filled their houses with silver, and none of it could buy them out of sorrow or death.
- Level. In the grave the great and small, master and slave, captor and prisoner lie in the same rest. Death is the great leveller.
- Drift. Job's picture of rest slides toward wanting to stop existing, and his own later words answer him: "I know that my Redeemer lives."
- Purpose. The most patient man curses the day he was born. God was not after better fruit, but a heart broken down and brought into His presence.
Or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver;
Job has broken his long silence, and in his grief he pictures the death he wishes had taken him at birth. He names the richest men on earth as his company there — so what does their wealth buy them now, and is the grave really the rest he imagines?
Job puts himself among the highest ranks of the earth. One writer draws out what that company shares now.
Death is here described as a rest (verses 13-19) in which all have an equal share — the old and the young, even the unborn baby. The great and the small alike are at rest. Kings whose former palaces have crumbled into ruins, and princes who have left all their vast wealth behind, are here at last in deep and equal rest. The wicked cannot trouble them, and a master cannot demand service from his slave. In the presence of death, prisoners and their captors are no different — death is the great leveller of mankind.
Job names these princes right after the kings who built ruins for themselves. One commentator hears bitter irony in that pairing.
He asks why he had ever been born, if he was destined to such misery. Why was he not left instead, in his cutting words, "with kings and counsellors of the earth, who build desolate places?" Is this what the greatness of this world comes to, kings building ruins for themselves? "or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver?" But gold and silver cannot redeem from sorrow or death. Was this life? Or was life the work by which the kings of Egypt sought fame — building their own tombs?
The wealth stays behind. Writing about the resurrection body, one writer points to these same princes to show what the grave does to human dignity — and what undoes it.
If corruption expresses the effect of a mortal condition, dishonour is a confession of its moral degradation. Our bodies are bodies of humiliation, and the grave is their hiding-place of shame. Human pride may refuse to admit this. Princes who had gold may try in vain to keep a shadow of their rank in the desolate houses they build for themselves. But the worm is their brother still... But if sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory.
Kelly reads Job's question the same way — the grandeur is real, and it is temporary.
Why did he not share the quiet of the grave with earth's great ones, who spent life building monuments that decay themselves, or stuffing their houses with silver and gold they must leave behind?
Some have used Job's words here to argue that the dead stop existing. Answering one such teacher, a writer tests that claim against the word "rest" itself.
Mr. Roberts may say, "There (in the grave) the weary are at rest," but Job does not say "in the grave"... Mr. Roberts would give righteous and wicked alike rest in non-existence in the grave. But is this "rest"? Who rests? Can a thing that is not, rest? I think not, if words have meaning.
Another writer weighs what Job did know, and what his words about the wicked actually say.
In Job's day there was not much light about the unseen world. Yet he knew that death did not mean the end of existence. For the saint it meant rest, and freedom from the trouble caused by the wicked, such as he had suffered from the Sabeans and Chaldeans. "There the wicked cease from troubling" — they stop troubling other people, but they are not free from trouble themselves.
These are the words of a suffering man, not settled teaching. Job's own later words answer them.
Job's own words disprove his unbelief here: "I know that my Redeemer lives" (Job 19:25)... And do the full Christian statements of the letters echo Job's unbelieving laments? Think of "away from the body and at home with the Lord," or "my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better."
Commentators differ on how far to press Job's error. Ridout says Job "shows how far his soul had drifted from the truth of God." Grant is gentler: Job "was surely thinking of his own sorrows," not teaching that the dead cease to be.
- Company. Job wants to lie with kings, counsellors and rich princes. Death has already levelled them all into "deep and equal rest."
- Cost. The verse names the world's best security. The answer is blunt: "gold and silver cannot redeem from sorrow or death."
- Carried. Their houses were full of silver, but "the worm is their brother still." Nothing crosses over. Only resurrection reverses the dishonour.
- Comfort. Job's "rest" cannot mean non-existence, because "a thing that is not" cannot rest. There the wicked stop troubling others, but their own trouble does not end.
- Correction. This is grief talking, and Job himself later answers it: "I know that my Redeemer lives."
Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants that have not seen the light.
Job's lament has climbed from cursing the day of his birth to something more extreme. Here he wishes he had never lived at all — which raises two questions: how far had his faith slipped, and does his picture of the unborn dead tell us the truth about death?
The lament has a shape, and this line belongs to its third movement. One writer maps it out in five steps:
Taking up now the lament, we may divide it into five parts. First: Job curses the day of his birth (vv. 1-9). Second: he wishes he had died in infancy (vv. 10-12). Third: death described as a rest (vv. 13-19). Fourth: he longs for death (vv. 20-23). Fifth: he is oppressed by terror (vv. 24-26).
So the stillborn child is not an isolated horror. It is one item in a list of people Job envies, and what they share is that nothing can reach them any more.
Death is here described as a rest (vv. 13-19) in which all have an equal share — the old and the young, even the unborn baby. The great and the small alike are at rest. Kings whose palaces have crumbled into ruins, and princes who left behind all their vast wealth, are here at last in deep and equal repose. The wicked cannot trouble them. A master cannot demand service from his slave. Prisoners and their captors find no difference in the presence of death, that great leveller of mankind.
Job is not just sad. He is reasoning: if this was always going to be my life, why was I kept alive at all?
He asks, in the anguish of his soul, why, if this was to be his lot while living, did he not die from the womb? Why was he cared for so tenderly, only to meet such agony at last?… Or why was he not like a stillborn baby that never saw light, and so be where the wicked trouble no more, and the weary are at rest?
The narrative has already told us Job did not charge God wrongly. Yet the wish in this verse points somewhere.
Job did not even now charge God foolishly, but he did curse the day of his birth. This was not directly blaming God. But however little he realised it, he was indirectly blaming God, for it was God who gave him life… Later Job would thank God for his birth, and that thankfulness will last for eternity. When trouble comes like the trouble God called Job to bear, we do not tend to think soberly and calmly. And wishful thinking will never do anything.
Commentators differ sharply here. One reads it as a real collapse in Job's grasp of the future:
Job goes further and puts everyone into an unconscious sleep, "as infants who never see the light." Is there no difference between the condition of the wicked and of the righteous after death?… By blurring the future like this, Job shows how far his soul had drifted from the truth of God. In plain language he is longing for annihilation. Materialists and believers in conditional immortality have turned to these and similar sayings to support their unscriptural views.
Another writer replies to a man who built such an argument on this verse:
"Infants who never see the light," despite Mr. R.'s protest, are beings that have begun to live. His argument from Job's reference to them has no foundation. Besides, that is not the point. Job speaks of non-existence as to the present scene, not absolute non-existence.
The same writer adds a simple test: rest needs someone to rest.
To weariness like his, the unseen world was indeed a place of "rest." But "rest" is not extinction. And if it were a "land of darkness" too, darkness and non-existence are flatly contradictory thoughts.
Job could not see why he had been brought into a world holding such pain. Another Sufferer faced the same question and answered it.
The great point is his mourning over his terrible situation: that he was ever allowed to come into the world to bear such awful suffering. Where do you find that in Christ? "For this purpose I was sent." The Lord accepts it. He felt it, and felt it deeply. He was troubled in spirit. He felt it, but He also accepted it. For this purpose He had come. But not so Job.
And Job himself would later overturn his own words:
Job's own words are a refutation of his unbelief here: "I know that my Redeemer lives" (Job 19:25)… And what of the full Christian statements in the letters? Do words like "away from the body and at home with the Lord," or "my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better," echo Job's unbelieving laments?
- Darkness wanted. Job wishes he had never lived. If this is life, better the hidden child who never saw daylight.
- Darkness levelled. He envies the dead because nothing reaches them. Kings, princes, slaves, prisoners and unborn infants lie in the same quiet.
- Darkness misread. Commentators differ. One says Job has drifted into longing for annihilation. Another says he means non-existence as to this world only, since extinction cannot rest.
- Darkness accepted. Job asked why he was ever brought into such suffering. Christ met His suffering and said, "For this purpose I was sent."
- Darkness answered. The same mouth that wished it had never seen light later said, "I know that my Redeemer lives." The Christian letters answer too: "to depart and be with Christ" is far better.
There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the wearied are at rest.
Job breaks seven days of silence with a curse on the day he was born, not with a prayer. In the middle of that outburst he pictures death as a place of quiet, where oppressors stop and the exhausted lie down. Is this faith speaking, or a crushed man's longing for escape?
One commentator notes what Job cursed and what he did not. He reads Job's words about rest as real, if dim, knowledge of what death held for a believer.
Their presence, their tears, their torn robes and the dust on their heads affected Job. At last he broke the silence. He opened his mouth and cursed his day. He did not curse God, note that. He called down a curse on the day he was born, regretting that he had not died when his mother gave him birth. In Job's day people had little light about the unseen world. Yet he knew that death did not mean the end of existence. For the believer it meant rest, and freedom from the trouble caused by the wicked — the kind of trouble he had suffered from the Sabeans and Chaldeans.
after_note: DELETE
The phrase is easily misread as a promise that evil people find peace after death. It says something narrower.
"There the wicked cease from troubling" (Job 3:17) — from troubling other people, not from being troubled themselves. There those whose strength is worn out are at rest.
Kelly gives another rendering of the verse:
There the wicked cease from raging, and there the weary are at rest.
Job is not describing one grave but the state of everyone in it.
Death is described here as a rest (verses 13-19) that all share equally. The old and the young, even the unborn baby, the great and the small, are all at rest. Kings whose palaces have crumbled into ruins, and princes who left all their vast wealth behind, are here at last in deep and equal repose. The wicked cannot trouble them. A master cannot demand service from his slave. Prisoners and their captors are no different in the presence of death, that great leveller of mankind.
Kelly reads the same list as a comment on human greatness — kings "spending life in building monuments that decay themselves, or cramming their houses with silver and gold they must leave behind."
One writer marks the difference between wishing for rest and trusting God for it.
If only he had died, he says, he would be at rest (v.13). In death at least, he claims, the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. The prisoners go free, and the slave is free from his master (vv.17-19). But wishing is not facing facts as they are. Faith faces facts and gives God credit for doing what He knows is best. But Job's faith had become very weak.
Commentators differ on how far Job had drifted. Ridout is hard on him, hearing in this rest a sleep with no moral difference left in it.
Is there no distinction between the condition of the wicked and of the righteous after death? … The righteous and the wicked are always contrasted, and they are morally unlike. This points clearly to very different futures. By blurring the future in this way, Job shows how far his soul had drifted from the truth of God.
Frederick Grant reads him more kindly. He insists that Job's subject here is his own case, not the fate of the wicked.
He was surely thinking of his own sorrows. About the "wicked," all he says is that they "cease from troubling." … He was not thinking about the portion of the wicked, but about what his own portion would be. In death a "land of darkness" stretched before him, and his eye could see very little into it. Yet he had something of the Psalmist's confidence in One who would be with him there.
Some take these words as evidence that death is simple non-existence. The reply turns on the words "there" and "rest".
One writer says, "There — in the grave — the weary are at rest." But Job does not say "in the grave." That writer would give the righteous and the wicked alike rest in non-existence in the grave. But is this "rest"? Who rests? Can a thing that is not, rest? I think not, if words have meaning.
The answer to chapter 3 comes from Job himself, later in the book, and from the New Testament letters.
Job's own words disprove his unbelief here: "I know that my Redeemer lives" (Job 19:25). … Then there are the full Christian statements of the letters. Do words like "My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better" echo Job's unbelieving laments?
- Rest defined. The wicked stop troubling others. The verse promises relief to the oppressed, not peace to the oppressor.
- Rest levelled. Kings, princes, prisoners and slaves lie down together. Death takes away every earthly rank.
- Rest wished. Job wants this rest instead of trusting God for it. Wishing is not faith. Faith faces the facts and trusts God to know best.
- Rest misread. "Rest" needs someone to rest. The words cannot prove that the dead have stopped existing.
- Rest secured. Job later says, "I know that my Redeemer lives." That word, and the desire to depart and be with Christ, answer the darkness of this lament.
The prisoners together are at ease; they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.
Job has broken his long silence. Wishing he had never been born, he pictures the grave as a place of quiet — where taskmasters have no voice and prisoners rest together. The verse raises two questions: what did Job mean by calling death a rest, and is that picture the whole truth?
This line sits inside one long question Job is asking: why was he ever born? One writer traces that question back to the womb.
And so he asks, in the anguish of his soul, why, if this was to be his lot while living, did he not die from the womb? Why should he have been so tenderly cared for, only to meet such agony at last?
The prisoner in this verse is one item in a longer list — kings, princes, babies, slaves.
Death is described here as a rest (verses 13-19) in which all have an equal share. The old and the young, even the unborn baby, the great and the small, are alike at rest. Kings whose palaces have crumbled into ruins, and princes who left all their vast wealth behind, lie here at last in deep and equal repose. The wicked cannot trouble them, and no master can demand service from his slave. Prisoners and their captors find no difference in the presence of death, that great leveller of mankind.
These are Job's words, not God's.
Is there no difference between the condition of the wicked and of the righteous after death? … The righteous and the wicked stand in constant contrast, and they are morally unlike. That points clearly to very different futures: "The wicked is overthrown through his evildoing, but the righteous finds refuge in his death" (Prov. 14:32). By blurring the future like this, Job shows how far his soul had drifted from the truth of God. In plain language he is longing for annihilation. Materialists, and those who say the soul is not immortal, have used these and similar words to support their unscriptural views.
Another writer names what Job is doing here, and weighs it by the New Testament.
We see from these words that his mind turned to death as the great emancipator. Moses and Elijah show the same drift of thought and weakness. So did the disappointed Jonah, who said, "it is better for me to die." … The New Testament weighs all these words and finds them wanting. Death is not a friend whose visit you should want. It is an enemy. In the light of the gospel, God's people in affliction and sorrow do not hope for relief by death. Their hope is the coming of the Lord.
Job's "why go on living?" is a real question. One writer finds its answer where Job could not yet see it.
The last verses (20-26) ask the question, first in general, and then about Job himself: why should he live, when he is this miserable? … The full answer could only come in a dead and risen Christ. If it were not so, the most miserable of all men would be the Christian. But now He is risen, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Fear of evil is gone for ever for the one who now walks by faith.
Job's picture runs from the prisoner to the slave. One writer weighs a runaway slave's escape against what his death would have meant.
If this slave had died suddenly in his master's house, instead of running away, it might have been called "a happy release." By his death his master would have lost the power to control him, and the freed slave would never again dread his master's approach.
That release is exactly what no prisoner can arrange for himself.
Romans 6 views sin as a "master." The whole of Adam's race is in bondage to him, and his rule reaches to the ends of the earth. Prisoners have slipped out of dungeons quietly and suddenly, have climbed prison walls, and have got away. But where is the person who ever escaped the captivity of sin by his own efforts? … Christ died to take them out of the service of sin, so that they might live in association with Him, and bear fruit for God.
- Lament, not doctrine. A man in agony asks why he was ever born. This is a sufferer's wish, not God's teaching about the dead.
- Death levels. Kings, princes, infants, prisoners and slaves all share one condition. Wealth and rank make no difference once death takes them.
- Rest, but a false one. The peace Job pictures is a dreamless blank. Scripture marks out very different futures for the righteous and the wicked.
- Not a friend. The New Testament corrects the hope that death sets you free. Death is an enemy. The Christian's hope is the coming of the Lord.
- Real release. No captive escapes sin's mastery by his own effort. Freedom from that master comes through the death and resurrection of Christ. That is the answer Job's question was waiting for.
The small and great are there, and the bondman freed from his master.
Job is in the depth of his suffering, and he curses the day of his birth. Verse 19 closes his picture of the grave as a place of rest where rank counts for nothing — but is that the truth about death, or only the truth about his despair?
Job lists who lies together in death: kings, princes, prisoners, stillborn infants. One writer shows how far the distinctions of life collapse.
Death is described here as a rest (vv. 13-19) in which all have an equal share — the old and the young, even the unborn baby. The great and the small are alike at rest. Kings whose palaces have crumbled into ruins are here at last. So are princes who left all their vast wealth behind. All lie in deep and equal repose. The wicked cannot trouble them, and no master can demand service from his slave. Death is the great leveller of mankind. In its presence prisoners and their captors are no different.
These are not calm reflections on death. They come from a man at the worst point of his trial.
No child of Adam or believer had ever been so afflicted as Job. And he did not yet know the end — that the Lord is very compassionate and full of tender mercy. He was in the depth of his trial, made worse by the silence of his friends. Soon they would add to it with the drawn swords of their growing suspicion. And so he asks, in the anguish of his soul, why, if this was to be his lot while living, did he not die at birth?
One writer pictures the same slave dying in his master's house instead of running away.
If the slave we are speaking of had died suddenly in his master's house instead of running away, it might have been called "a happy release." By his death his master would have lost all power to control him, and the freed slave would never again have dreaded his master's approach.
Job is not the only person in Scripture who wanted to die.
We see from these expressions that his mind turned to death as the great emancipator. Moses and Elijah show the same trend of thought and weakness. So did the disappointed Jonah, when he said, "It is better for me to die."
One writer measures this wish against faith:
If only he had died, he says, he would be at rest (v. 13). In death at least, he claims, the wicked stop troubling and the weary are at rest. The prisoners are released and the slave is free from his master (vv. 17-19). But wishing is not facing facts as they are. Faith faces facts and gives God credit for doing what He knows is best. But Job's faith had become very weak.
Job's picture of the grave flattens something Scripture keeps apart.
Is there no difference between the condition of the wicked and of the righteous after death? … Scripture constantly contrasts the righteous and the wicked, and shows how unlike they are morally. That points clearly to very different futures: "The wicked is overthrown through his evildoing, but the righteous finds refuge in his death" (Proverbs 14:32). By blurring the future like this, Job shows how far his soul had drifted from the truth of God. … Job's own words refute his unbelief here: "I know that my Redeemer lives" (Job 19:25).
Job asks why he should go on living. The answer came later, and it was a Person.
The full answer could only come in a dead and risen Christ. If it were not so, the Christian would be the most miserable of all men. But now He is risen, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Fear of evil is gone forever for the one who now walks by faith.
That changes what a believer may hope for in trouble:
Death is not a friend whose visit is to be wished for, but an enemy. In the light of the gospel, the hope of God's people in affliction and sorrow is not relief through death. It is the coming of the Lord.
- Level. Death levels everyone. Kings, princes, prisoners and infants lie down in equal rest, and no master can demand service.
- Longing. Job's mind turns to death as the great emancipator — the same weakness seen in Moses, Elijah and Jonah.
- Lament. Wishing is not faith; faith faces facts and credits God with doing what He knows is best.
- Lack. Job puts everyone into one unconscious sleep. Scripture keeps the difference: the wicked and the righteous do not share one future.
- Light. The full answer comes only in a dead and risen Christ. So the believer's hope in sorrow is not death, but the coming of the Lord.
Wherefore is light given to him that is in trouble, and life to those bitter of soul,
Seven days of silence from his three friends break Job open. What comes out is not a curse on God but a question about his own life: why keep a man in agony alive at all? Commentators read this first "why" both as an honest cry and as a complaint that needed an answer.
One writer traces the question back to that silence, and notes how many have asked it since:
When his three friends arrived, their seven days' silence showed only that they had no words of comfort for him. In their hearts they thought instead that Job was getting what his deeds deserved. Then he began to despair of everything, and in the bitterness of his heart he spoke his first presumptuous "why?" ... "Why, yes why?" Many millions have asked the same question since. Why do I live at all? Would it not be better if I had never been born?
"Light" here means simply being alive and in this world — being born and seeing the day. One writer points out that the verse has a hidden subject: someone is giving that light, and Job knows who, even while he will not say the name.
The last verses (20-26) put the question, first generally, and then with pointed application to himself: why should he live, being thus miserable? There is no need to give verse 20 the impersonal turn found in the English Bible and many others, though there is still the avoidance of uttering the name of God.
Job longs for death, yet one line he never crosses. A commentator sees restraint here, and a reason for it that Job did not know:
He was in misery and bitterness of soul. He asks why life should be given to one in such a state, though he longs for death and it does not come. It is good, however, that he does not even consider suicide, as many would do today who are in such a condition. God had told Satan to spare Job's life, while allowing him to make Job suffer so badly. And God knew Job's sufferings were needed to bring about results of great blessing.
Sympathy for Job does not make the question a good one. Read as an argument, it puts the sufferer in the place of correcting God:
The first question of Job, "Why has God given me life only to send me such suffering now?" is the language of the natural man in rebellion against his Maker. Contending with the Almighty, man wants to instruct Him. He curses the past and attacks the present, and all his future hope is gone. He is like Jeremiah, who mourns not only his torments but his very existence.
Commentators differ on how much blame to place on Job. One treats the very wish for death as part of what God is working out, though the discontent in it is wrong:
While I learn how wretched man is on earth, I may give way to rebellion and discontent. But I have to feel this if self is to be given up completely. I ought not to blame God for it, but I need to realize it as man's true place... He does not know that God is seeking to make him a witness of dependence on Himself against Satan. But this is God's way. Discipline may have the effect of making us feel that death is preferable to life, but it is working out God's purpose.
The question has an answer, but not one Job could reach. Kelly finds it outside the book:
The full answer could only come in a dead and risen Christ. If it were not so, the Christian would be the most miserable of all men. But now He is risen, and has become the firstfruits of those who sleep... So the Christian can glory in troubles, and die daily. Job can only say that if he even had a fear, it at once overtook him.
Another writer sets this lament beside what faith says elsewhere — including what Job himself would later say:
Job's own words are a refutation of his unbelief here: "For I know that my Redeemer lives" (Job 19:25). David also said, "when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness" (Ps. 17:15)... And take the full Christian statements of the letters. Do words like "away from the body and at home with the Lord," or "my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better," echo Job's unbelieving laments?
- Silence started it. Friends sat wordless for a week, sure Job deserved his losses. Their silence drove him to his first "why" — a question millions have asked since.
- Light has a Giver. The verse should not be read impersonally; Job will not say God's name, but he knows who gives the light he no longer wants.
- Death wished, never seized. Job longs for death, yet never turns to suicide — and God had already forbidden Satan to take his life.
- The wish served a purpose. Feeling that death is better than life can be discipline at work. It teaches a man his true place — though blaming God for it is wrong.
- The answer came later. The full reply to "why go on living in misery" is a risen Christ; without that, the Christian would be the most miserable of all.
Who long for death, and it [cometh] not, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures;
Job has broken a week of silence by cursing the day he was born. Now he asks why God keeps giving life to people who hunt for death like treasure-seekers digging for gold — and never find it.
Job's wish is plain, and so is the fact that it went unanswered.
Here Job comes closer to facing facts as they actually were. He was in misery and bitterness of soul. He questions why life should be given to someone in such a state, when he longs for death and it does not come. It is good, however, that he does not even consider suicide, as many would do today who are in such a condition. God had told Satan to spare Job's life, while allowing him to make Job suffer terribly. God knew Job's sufferings were needed to bring about great blessing. So Job's wish for death was not according to the will of God. Job would not die until God ordained it so.
Job wants out. He is not the only man in Scripture who has wanted it.
We see from these expressions that his mind turned to death as the great emancipator. Moses and Elijah show the same trend of thought and weakness; so did disappointed Jonah when he said, "It is better for me to die."
Job cannot reach death, so he begins to blame the One he thinks is blocking the way. A later sufferer used almost the same words and drew a very different conclusion.
He asks why one so wretched as he should be shut out from the rest he seeks. He adds to this the first of his charges against God, calling himself "the man whom God has hedged in." Jeremiah uses similar language in Lamentations: "He has driven and brought me into darkness without any light… He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; He has made my chains heavy" (Lamentations 3:2-7). But he goes on: "The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end… It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD" (verses 22 and 26). We fail to find anything like this in Job's words.
Both men sit in the same darkness. The difference is whether the sufferer waits for God inside it.
Just before this, Job described the grave as a place where everyone rests alike. Pressed to its end, that picture becomes something worse than rest.
By blurring the future this way, Job shows how far his soul had drifted from the truth of God. Put plainly, he is longing for annihilation. We know how materialists and believers in conditional immortality have turned to words like these to support their unscriptural views.
Job would later say the opposite. Jesus also corrected people in His own day who held this same view of the dead.
Job's own words are a refutation of his unbelief here: "For I know that my Redeemer lives" (Job 19:25). David also said, "When I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness" (Psalm 17:15). Our Lord answers the Sadducees, whom Job unknowingly sides with here, about what the Old Testament teaches on the state of the dead: "He is not God of the dead, but of the living" (Matthew 22:32). He also points out the fearful contrast between the careless rich man and the believing beggar, Lazarus (Luke 16).
Job's question — why give life to a man who only wants to lose it — has an answer he could not yet see.
The full answer could only come in a dead and risen Christ: if it were not so, the most miserable of all men would be the Christian. But now He is risen, and has become the first-fruits of those who sleep. Fear of evil is gone for ever for the one who now walks by faith… So the Christian can glory in troubles, and die daily. Job, by contrast, can only say that the moment he imagined a fear, it overtook him.
The problem was never that Job wanted relief. The only relief he could imagine was the grave.
Weighed in the light of the New Testament, all these expressions fall short. Death is not a friend whose visit we should want; it is an enemy. The hope of God's people in affliction and sorrow, in the light of the gospel, is not relief by death, but the coming of the Lord. The promise of the New Testament, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" (1 Corinthians 15:52), is unknown in the Old Testament.
- Digging — Job hunts for death like a man digging for buried treasure. Yet he never reaches for suicide: God had set a limit on what could touch his life.
- Drifting — The grave he digs for is a blank one. Longing for rest slides into longing for nothing at all, which is how far grief had carried him from the truth.
- Blaming — Death will not come, so Job makes his first charge against God: God has fenced him in. Jeremiah knew the same darkness, but Jeremiah waited quietly for God.
- Dawning — Job's later cry, that his Redeemer lives, overturns these words. Despair is not his teaching; it is his lowest point.
- Delivered — The full answer to "why go on living?" arrives in a Christ who died and rose. Death is an enemy, not a rescuer, and the Christian's hope is the Lord's coming, not the grave.
Who rejoice even exultingly and are glad when they find the grave? --
Job has lost his children, his wealth and his health. In this verse he pictures people who dance for joy when they find a grave, and he asks why God keeps giving life to anyone who wants it to end.
This verse sits inside a question that runs from verse 20 to verse 23. Here is that whole question, translated from the Hebrew by one writer.
Why does He give light to the wretched one, and life to the bitter in soul? Why to those who long for death, and it does not come, and who dig for it more than for hidden treasure — who rejoice so much that they dance, and shout for joy when they find the grave? Why to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has hedged in?
Job is not only describing other sufferers. He is asking why God keeps him from the one thing he wants, and in the same breath he makes his first accusation.
He longs for death (vv. 20-23). Having pictured death as a state of dreamless sleep, Job gives vent to his longing for this rest. He asks why one so wretched as he should be kept from the repose he seeks. He adds to this the first of his charges against God, calling himself "the man whom God has hedged in."
Job digs for death, yet he never lifts a hand against himself. That restraint matters, and so does the reason death never came.
In these verses Job comes closer to facing facts as they actually were. He was in misery and bitterness of soul, and he questions why life should be given to one in such a state, though he longs for death and it does not come. It is good, however, that he does not even consider suicide, as many would do today who are in such a condition. Satan had been told to spare Job's life, though he was allowed to make him suffer terribly. God knew Job's sufferings were needed to bring about great blessing. So Job's wish for death was not according to the will of God. Job would not die until God ordained it so.
The longing in this verse is not unique to Job. Other faithful men wanted the same release.
We see from these expressions that his mind turned to death as the great rescuer. Moses and Elijah show the same trend of thought and weakness; so did disappointed Jonah when he said, "It is better for me to die."
If a grave is the best thing a sufferer can hope to find, then hope itself ends at a hole in the ground. One writer weighs Job's words against the New Testament, and finds them short.
Weighed in the light of the New Testament all these expressions are found wanting. Death is not a friend whose visit we should want, but an enemy. In the light of the gospel, the hope of God's people in affliction and sorrow is not relief by death, but the coming of the Lord. The promise of the New Testament, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" (1 Cor. 15:51-52), is unknown in the Old Testament, for it is one of the mysteries hidden in former ages. Job's language is that of a man in despair; he seems to have quite forgotten the bright and blessed days of the past and fears a hopeless future.
Job's question never got an answer on his own terms. One writer points forward to where the answer lies.
The last verses (20-26) put the question, first in general, and then aimed straight at himself: why should he live, when he is this miserable? … The full answer could only come in a dead and risen Christ. If it were not so, the most miserable of all men would be the Christian. But now He is risen, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For the one who now walks by faith, fear of evil is gone for ever… So the Christian can glory in tribulations, and die daily. But Job can only say that, if he so much as felt a fear, it came upon him at once.
- Rest wanted. Job pictures people hunting death like buried treasure and dancing when they find the grave. To him, the grave looks like the only rest left.
- Rest refused. He asks why God keeps that rest from him. The question becomes his first complaint against God: he is the man God has hedged in.
- Rest denied on purpose. Death never came, because Satan had orders to spare Job's life. God knew the suffering was working toward blessing. Job would not die until God ordained it.
- Rest misjudged. Moses, Elijah and Jonah wanted the same release. But death is an enemy, not a friend, and the believer's hope is not relief by dying but the coming of the Lord.
- Rest found. Only a dead and risen Christ fully answers Job's "why." That is why a Christian can glory in trouble, while Job could only dread the next blow.
To the man whose way is hidden, and whom +God hath hedged in?
Job's lament reaches its sharpest point here. He asks why God keeps giving life to a man who can see no road ahead. For the first time he lays a charge against God Himself.
He wants to know why God keeps giving breath to a man who would rather be dead. Yet he never reaches for the way out that many take today.
Here Job comes closer to facing the facts as they really were. He was in misery and bitterness of soul. He asks why God should give life to a man in such a state, when he longs for death and it does not come. It is good, however, that he does not even consider suicide, as many would do today who are in such a condition. God had told Satan to spare Job's life, while allowing him to make Job suffer terribly. And God knew Job's sufferings were needed to bring great blessing. So Job's wish for death was not according to the will of God. Job would not die until God ordained it.
The phrase describes a man who can no longer trace where God is taking him. The explanation did come to him, but only after a long wait.
Notice, God will explain His ways with you in good time, but not today. Isn't most of your difficulty the wish to have that explanation now? Most likely. Must God explain to us the reasons for His discipline? Is that needed for us? Must we give our children the reason why we see fit to correct them?... Job went through many a long chapter of trial before God let him know the reason for his losses, bereavements and trials. But the reason came at last, and he understood it and valued it.
Job now blames God for fencing him in. Scripture records the same complaint from another sufferer, but it ends very differently.
He longs for death (vv. 20-23)... He asks why one as wretched as he should be shut out from the rest he seeks. He adds to this the first of his charges against God, calling himself "the man whom God has hedged in." Jeremiah uses similar language in Lamentations: "he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light... he has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy" (Lam. 3:2-7) [older translations read "he has hedged me about"]. But that writer goes on: "The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end... It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD" (vv. 22, 26). We fail to find anything like this in Job's words.
The same hedge Job now complains of was once Satan's own complaint against him.
He had long wanted to crush Job, but he had to admit that God had "put a hedge around him... on every side." He could not get at him until God made a breach in the hedge and gave him permission to go so far. He went as far as God allowed, and brought almost unspeakable suffering on Job, but he had a limit. "And the LORD said to Satan, 'Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life'" (Job 2:6). God did not allow him to go the full length of his malice, and turned his evil into great good for Job.
Job asks a real question. The full answer would only come much later.
As yet Job did not know the end, that the Lord is full of pity and tender mercy... The last verses (20-26) put the question, first in general terms and then about himself: why should he live, when he is so miserable? ... The full answer could only come in a dead and risen Christ. If it were not so, the Christian would be the most miserable of all men. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Fear of evil is gone for ever for the one who now walks by faith... So the Christian can rejoice in troubles and die daily. Job could only say that if he so much as imagined a fear, it overtook him at once.
His own future was better than the small mercy he was asking for.
Little did he realise that God would give him more than a little comfort in this present world. In the end he would go to a land of pure light and unspeakable joy. For he did not have the great revelation that believers have today. That revelation shows the matchless grace of the Lord Jesus for every present need, and the eternal glory of His presence, which every believer will enter in the future.
- Light given — Job asks why life goes on for a man in bitterness of soul. God kept him alive because his suffering would bring great blessing.
- Light withheld — his way was hidden because God had not yet told him the reason. The explanation came at last, and he valued it.
- Light misread — the hedge he calls a prison was protection Satan could not break. God opened it only so far, and limited the harm.
- Light contrasted — the same complaint in Lamentations ends by waiting quietly for the LORD to save. Job does not reach that note here.
- Light arrived — the full answer to Job's question came only in a dead and risen Christ. Ahead of Job lay a land of pure light and unspeakable joy.
For my sighing cometh before my bread, and my groanings are poured out like the waters.
Job's grief has broken into speech, and it fills a whole chapter that curses the day of his birth. Verse 24 turns from the birth he wishes away to the misery he cannot escape, where sighing has taken the place of food.
One commentator reads the picture plainly: pain has crowded out appetite, and behind the pain lies a fear about God Himself.
His anguish comes before his hunger. He could say with the psalmist, "My tears have been my food." Perhaps that same psalm explains something of Job's misery: "while they say to me all the day long, 'Where is your God?'" (Ps. 42:3). Job had lost the sense of God's favour. His sighs gush out like a torrent because he fears God has forsaken him.
Job could carry this alone. Company changed that.
Two things may have upset Job's mind. One is the sympathy of his friends, for we can bear alone, in God's presence, what we cannot bear when we have the chance to make our complaint in front of people. The other is the pride that lies quiet while we are alone but is wounded when others see our misery. Perhaps the two worked together. And he curses the day of his birth. The depths of his heart are displayed. It was this that he needed.
The chapter is bitter from start to end. The question is whether bitterness ever turns into rebellion.
Notice this: Job gives way to his feelings in this passionate outburst, yet he did not renounce God. There is not a word of rebellion against Him. All through his answer to his friends' arguments he does not lose sight of God. Again and again he expresses confidence in the unseen One, as in that matchless saying: "Though He slay me, I will hope in Him" (13:15).
Yet the outcry does expose something. Set beside Christ, the difference is not in the feeling but in the accepting:
The great point is his mourning over this terrible lot of his. Why was he ever allowed to come into the world to bear such awful suffering? Where do you find that in Christ? "I was sent for this very purpose." The Lord accepts it; He felt it, deeply felt it; He was troubled in spirit. He felt it, but He also accepted it. This was why He had come. But not so Job.
Job wants out. Notice what he does not do — and why God does not grant his wish.
It is good that he does not even consider suicide, as many would today who are in such a condition. God had told Satan to spare Job's life, while letting him make Job suffer so terribly. God knew Job's sufferings were needed to bring about great blessing. So Job's wish for death was not according to the will of God. Job would not die until God ordained it.
One writer says such despair can go two ways. The difference is whether the sufferer knows God.
The first thought, and the most bitter one, after waking up to a full sense of your own misery, is to curse your day. It is a terrible impression, and the one that leads to suicide when God is not known. But when God is known, as with Job, it is the beginning of healthy action. The good is not in the discontent and wretchedness it reveals. It is that the sense of death — of being completely cut off from everything — is known and felt.
Job's cry gets no answer in this chapter. One writer says the full answer came much later.
The full answer could only come in a dead and risen Christ: if it were not so, the most miserable of all men would be the Christian. But now He is risen, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. The one who now walks by faith has lost the fear of evil forever. To faith, evil is already put away before God. Nothing but good remains and triumphs in Him whom we know on the throne of God, now appearing in His presence for us. So the Christian can glory in tribulations, and die daily.
- Sighing. Pain has taken the place of Job's meals — and the deepest cause is not the pain but his fear that God has abandoned him.
- Exposed. Company, not solitude, drew the depths of Job's heart into the open — and that was what he needed.
- Limit. The complaint curses his birthday, never his God; even here Job keeps hold of the One he cannot understand.
- Held. He begs for death, but God will not grant it; God spared his life on purpose, and the suffering was working toward blessing.
- Answered. Only a risen Christ gives what Job's cry was reaching for. Fear of evil is gone, and the Christian can glory even in trouble.
For I feared a fear, and it hath come upon me, and that which I dreaded hath come to me.
Job breaks a long silence by cursing the day of his birth. Then he admits what he never said while he was rich: the disaster that struck him was the one he had always dreaded.
The verse looks backward. Long before the raiders came and the house fell on his children, Job had been living with a dread of exactly this.
Among people almost everywhere, a birthday is an occasion for remembering and rejoicing. To poor Job it seemed a moment to be lamented and cursed. In his days of prosperity he had feared that some kind of adversity might come. Now it had come upon him with unequalled force.
That dread cost him his peace while everything was still intact.
Clearly, in the days of his prosperity he feared that just such disasters might overtake him. He knew testing times would come, and he had no quietness. But now that they have come, and the three evils he expected have overwhelmed him, he would be glad to find the grave.
Fear of losing a gift shows how tightly we hold it. One writer reads Job's words as proof of where his heart had settled. He reads the disaster itself as an act of love, not abandonment.
The floods of sorrow that broke in on Job were proofs of God's love to him, and of the jealousy of that love too. For Job had enjoyed the gifts more than the Giver. While he was enjoying them, he said that calamity would surely come. I think it was a bad state that made the gifts loved more than the Giver. Job did look up, but his own mind was at work within. Instead of waiting for God to come in and explain everything, Job showed himself and prolonged the furnace and the trial. But God did come in, and Job learned.
One writer sets the two ends of Job's story side by side. At the start Job owned everything and held it in fear. At the close nothing shadows him: no enemy outside, no fear inside.
At the beginning, Job held all his blessings with reserve and suspicion. He was not in safety, nor at rest, nor in quiet; yet trouble came... It had to be so. Turning away from God has made every possession and every gain here unstable, and that is what makes it necessary. But at the end there are no "fears within." There are no Chaldeans, and no "fightings without." No shadow crosses the settled sunshine that rests on everything around him. No shadow crosses the calm light that fills everything within.
This did not happen to Job alone. One writer asks why God lets the feared thing arrive.
Sometimes people are terrified they might catch a certain disease. Then that disease overtakes them. Why? Is it not because God is showing them that His grace is enough for them even in the most dreaded circumstances? So Job was not at ease, not quiet; he had no rest, yet trouble came. He needed to learn the heart of God as he did not know it.
What hurt Job most was not the loss of property or the pain in his body. He feared God had abandoned him.
Job had lost the sense of God's favour; his sighs pour out like a torrent because he fears God has forsaken him. He had no conscious sense of being God's son. That was normal in that earlier age, though he was truly born of God. So he could not withstand the tormenting doubt that God had given him over to hopeless misery. This fear had apparently been lurking in his heart — possibly even in his bright days — and now it has come upon him!
God invites us to hand our fears to Him. One writer asks why we hold on to them.
If He invites us to cast all our cares on Him, because He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7), why then can't we turn our fears over to Him? Is it because we are afraid He will let us down? Is it because we are not willing to submit our wills to Him?
- Fear came first. Job dreaded disaster while he was still rich; the anxiety stole his rest years before the raiders did.
- Fear revealed the grip. Holding blessings with suspicion showed the gifts had come to mean more than the Giver.
- Fear met love. The blow was not God turning away but a jealous love reaching for what Job had not yet learned of God's heart.
- Fear prolonged the fire. Job argued instead of waiting for God to explain, and that stretched out the furnace. Yet God did come in, and Job learned.
- Fear ended. At the close there are no fears inside and no enemies outside. Settled sunshine rests on everything Job has, and calm light fills everything he is.
I was not in safety, neither had I quietness, neither was I at rest, and trouble came.
Job's long opening lament ends with a confession: three things he did not have, and one thing that came anyway. The verse raises two questions. Is Job describing his past prosperity or his present torment? And why does a man of real piety find no rest at all?
Samuel Ridout reads the verse as fresh blows landing before the old bruises have healed. He also notes that another reading is possible. (The version Ridout used puts the whole verse in the past tense, which is where the question begins.)
In verse 26 he speaks of a fresh avalanche of trouble before real relief from the former anguish had been given. Our version seems to refer this to Job's condition of former prosperity: that he was not living in worldly ease, but walking in the fear of God, when trouble came. This does fit Job's state of soul as it comes out later. Even so, it seems a little too early to find him defending himself here. It seems more likely to be his grief at the repeated attacks of misery he is now suffering.
The verse before this one admits that what Job feared had happened. Leslie Grant asks why God lets a dreaded thing arrive.
In verse 25 Job records that the thing he feared so much had come upon him. Such a thing often happens. He had not been feeling secure and confident of continuing in constant prosperity... Sometimes people are terrified that they might catch a certain disease, and that disease overtakes them. Why? Is it not because God is showing them that His grace is enough for them even in the most dreaded circumstances? So Job was not at ease, not quiet; he had no rest, yet trouble came. He needed to learn the heart of God as he did not know it.
G. V. Wigram traces the missing rest to Job's own heart, and then names where rest is found.
The inbreaks of Job's sorrows on him were proofs of God's love to him, and of the jealousy of that love too; for Job had enjoyed the gifts more than the Giver... Job did look up. But his own mind was at work within. Instead of waiting for God to come in and explain everything, Job showed what Job was, and so prolonged the furnace and the trial. But God did come in, and Job learned... I judge that the great thing is to acknowledge God, and be still: "I am mute... for it is you who have done it," said David... There is rest in this — giving to God His own place.
J. N. Darby argues that God had a deeper aim than anything Satan intended. It explains why a man of long piety can still lack settled peace.
But the depths of Job's heart were not yet reached, and to do this was the purpose of God, whatever Satan's thoughts may have been. Job did not know himself, and up to this time, with all his piety, he had never been in the presence of God. How often it is the case that even throughout a long life of piety the conscience has never been really set before God! So peace, such peace as cannot be shaken, and real liberty, are not known as yet.
Another writer adds that even the wish to be dead serves God's purpose.
Discipline may have the effect of making us feel that death is preferable to life, but it is working out God's purpose.
Charles Stanley moves from Job's sores to what every believer must find out about himself.
Job could not put a finger on a spot that was not a running sore. And the believer, sooner or later, must find that there is not a spot in his old self in which he can rest. It is one thing to talk about it. It is another thing to find that all I am of the first Adam is withered and dead before God. When this is learned, it is a great blessing to learn also the bright resurrection side of sorrowing Job.
- Fear. Job's dread was already at work in his prosperous days. The disaster did not create his unrest. It exposed it.
- Arrival. The dreaded thing came. Grant reads this as God proving His grace is enough in the very circumstance most feared.
- Cause. Job loved the gifts more than the Giver. Rest returns when we give God His own place.
- Purpose. Job had never yet stood in God's presence, so unshaken peace stayed unknown. God aimed the trial at that depth.
- Rest. Commentators differ over whether the verse looks back at Job's past or at his present. Either way the lesson holds: no spot in the old self can carry a person's rest.