September 24
Reading: Job 3
1 After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2 And Job said:
3 “Let the day perish on which I was born,
and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’
4 Let that day be darkness!
May God above not seek it,
nor light shine upon it.
5 Let gloom and deep darkness claim it.
Let clouds dwell upon it;
let the blackness of the day terrify it.
6 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.
7 Behold, let that night be barren;
let no joyful cry enter it.
8 Let those curse it who curse the day,
who are ready to rouse up Leviathan.
9 Let the stars of its dawn be dark;
let it hope for light, but have none,
nor see the eyelids of the morning,
10 because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb,
nor hide trouble from my eyes.
11 “Why did I not die at birth,
come out from the womb and expire?
12 Why did the knees receive me?
Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?
13 For then I would have lain down and been quiet;
I would have slept; then I would have been at rest,
14 with kings and counselors of the earth
who rebuilt ruins for themselves,
15 or with princes who had gold,
who filled their houses with silver.
16 Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child,
as infants who never see the light?
17 There the wicked cease from troubling,
and there the weary are at rest.
18 There the prisoners are at ease together;
they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.
19 The small and the great are there,
and the slave is free from his master.
20 “Why is light given to him who is in misery,
and life to the bitter in soul,
21 who long for death, but it comes not,
and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,
22 who rejoice exceedingly
and are glad when they find the grave?
23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,
whom God has hedged in?
24 For my sighing comes instead of my bread,
and my groanings are poured out like water.
25 For the thing that I fear comes upon me,
and what I dread befalls me.
26 I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;
I have no rest, but trouble comes.”
Beginning in Job 3, the rest of Job, until midway through the final chapter, is written in poetic verse. It will be a conversation between Job and his friends and eventually God. Chapter 3 is Job’s opening lament.
Notice that, beginning with this chapter, Satan no longer has a place in the book. He does not matter. Job’s issue is with God and only God. Job rightly knows that Satan is just a pawn in God’s plans. The devil has no ultimate answers nor power. He gets to say nothing more.
We might say that Job is depressed. But that is to use modern psychological language to describe what is a spiritual condition expressed in words. What is lament? Lament is a prayer amid pain that will not let go of God. Remember that. Lament is honest. Lament is a complaint to God. Lament has at its basis the conviction that God can do something if He would choose to do so. For all these reasons lament is an expression of trust in God.
Job’s lament and struggle is going to last twenty-nine chapters. It is going to be a long slog. All the way he will be pouring out his trust, complaint, and agony to God. His friends are going to argue with him about all this. They talk about God, but Job talks to God. This makes him the only real theologian of the book.
You might think that Job could get his point across in just a few paragraphs. But this book offers no stale trite answers to our struggles. Part of the message of Job is just this: Lament takes a long time. Anyone who has experienced deep grief and tragedy knows this. It can take years, decades, to work through such pain and lament. But it is worth it. The long journey of lament has a blessing at the end.
So, embrace the pain. Feel it. Speak it. Tell it to God because He is there, and He hears. He will listen all the way along even if you do not listen to Him. But do not let go of Him, ever. Otherwise, there is only depression and darkness.
Job trusts God and yet he says in this chapter that it was a dark day when he was born. Why? Because of what has resulted from that day. Job is asking, “What purpose is there to life any longer?” He is filled with fear. He cannot sleep. He sees nothing good. This is the nature of spiritual mourning and darkness. You cannot see the future. You can only see the past that has led up to the present.
So, this book is going to lead us along Job’s journey of lament. Get ready for a long hard road with a great blessing at the end. This is how it is.