Job 3:8

3:1-10 For seven days Job's friends sat by him in silence, without offering consolidation: at the same time Satan assaulted his mind to shake his confidence, and to fill him with hard thoughts of God. The permission seems to have extended to this, as well as to torturing the body. Job was an especial type of Christ, whose inward sufferings, both in the garden and on the cross, were the most dreadful; and arose in a great degree from the assaults of Satan in that hour of darkness. These inward trials show the reason of the change that took place in Job's conduct, from entire submission to the will of God, to the impatience which appears here, and in other parts of the book. The believer, who knows that a few drops of this bitter cup are more dreadful than the sharpest outward afflictions, while he is favoured with a sweet sense of the love and presence of God, will not be surprised to find that Job proved a man of like passions with others; but will rejoice that Satan was disappointed, and could not prove him a hypocrite; for though he cursed the day of his birth, he did not curse his God. Job doubtless was afterwards ashamed of these wishes, and we may suppose what must be his judgment of them now he is in everlasting happiness.

(8) That curse the day —i.e., Let those who proclaim days unlucky or accursed curse that day as pre-eminently so; or let them recollect that day as a standard or sample of cursing. “Let it be as cursed as Job’s birth day.” These people are further described as being ready to arouse leviathan (Authorised Version, “raise up their mourning”), or the crocodile—persons as mad and desperate as that. Let the most hopeless and reckless of mankind select that day as the one which they would choose to curse. This seems to be Job’s meaning.

Job 3:8 . Let them curse it that curse the day — That is, their birth-day: when their afflictions move them to curse their own birth-day, let them remember mine also, and bestow some curses upon it; who are ready to raise up their mourning — Who are full of sorrow, and always ready to pour out their cries, and tears, and complaints. A late writer paraphrases this verse as follows: “So little am I concerned to have my birth-night celebrated by any public demonstrations of joy, by any solemn blessing or giving of thanks, that I would rather choose to hire a set of those men, whose business it is to curse the days that are esteemed inauspicious, and who are always ready on such occasions. Let them be produced, and let them apply all their skill in raising their mournful voices to the highest pitch: and let them study to find out proper expressions to load it with the highest and heaviest imprecations.” If the reader will consult Poole and Dodd on the passage, he will find some reasons adduced which go to justify this exposition; but for which we have not room here.

8 . The most probable sense of this verse is, Let them that curse days curse it, Them that are skilled to rouse up the Dragon. They that curse days or the day are enchanters and magicians, who were believed to have power to cast their spells upon a day and overwhelm it with darkness and misfortune. Perhaps, however, the first half of the verse is explained by the second, and only one species of enchantment referred to, namely, rousing up the Dragon. The Heb. word is leviathan . This name is given in ch. 41 to a sea or river monster, probably, the crocodile, but it is difficult to find any logical connexion between rousing up the crocodile and cursing days. The word leviathan means twisted or having folds, and is an epithet for a serpent. In Isaiah 27:1 we read: In that day Jehovah with his sore and great and strong sword shall visit leviathan the fleeing serpent, and leviathan the serpent with coils. The key to the meaning of the verse, however, is found in Job 26:13 , which rightly rendered means, By His breath the heavens become bright, His hand pierceth the fleeing serpent. Here piercing the fleeing serpent and making the heavens clear are parallel acts. The fleeing serpent, therefore, was the cause of the darkness. In both passages in Job there is an allusion to the popular mythology, according to which the darkening or eclipse of the sun and moon was caused by the serpent throwing its folds around them, or swallowing them up.

In its origin this mythology is probably nothing more than a stroke of the poetic imagination, which turned the dark cloud or eclipsing shadow into a huge Dragon. Enchanters were supposed to have power to set this Dragon in motion, and cause the lights of day or night to be swallowed up.

Verse 8. - Let them curse it that curse the day . Very different explanations are given of this passage. Some suppose it to mean, "Let those desperate men curse it who are in the habit of cursing their day," like Job himself ( Job 3:1 ) and Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 20:14 ). Others suggest a reference to such as claimed power to curse days, and to divide them into the lucky and the unlucky. In this case Job would mean, "Let the sorcerers who curse days curse especially this day," and would thus seem, if not to sanction the practice, at any rate to express a certain amount of belief in the sorcerers' power. The second clause has also a double interpretation, which adapts it to either of these two suggested meanings ( vide infra ) . Who are ready to raise up their mourning . This is an impossible rendering. Translate (with the Revised Version), who are ready to rouse up leviathan. "Rousing leviathan" may be understood in two ways. It may be regarded as spoken in the literal sense of those who are rash enough and desperate enough to stir up the fury of the crocodile (see the comment on Job 41:1), or in a metaphorical sense of such as stir up to action by their sorceries the great power of evil, symbolized in Oriental mythologies by a huge serpent, or dragon, or crocodile. On the whole, the second and deeper sense seems preferable; and we may conceive of Job as believing in the power of sorcery, and wishing it used against the night which he so much dislikes. Job 3:8

8. them … curse the day—If "mourning" be the right rendering in the latter clause of this verse, these words refer to the hired mourners of the dead (Jer 9:17). But the Hebrew for "mourning" elsewhere always denotes an animal, whether it be the crocodile or some huge serpent (Isa 27:1), such as is meant by "leviathan." Therefore, the expression, "cursers of day," refers to magicians, who were believed to be able by charms to make a day one of evil omen. (So Balaam, Nu 22:5). This accords with Umbreit's view (Job 3:7); or to the Ethiopians and Atlantes, who "used to curse the sun at his rising for burning up them and their country" [Herodotus]. Necromancers claimed power to control or rouse wild beasts at will, as do the Indian serpent-charmers of our day (Ps 58:5). Job does not say they had the power they claimed; but, supposing they had, may they curse the day. Schuttens renders it by supplying words as follows:—Let those that are ready for anything, call it (the day) the raiser up of leviathan, that is, of a host of evils.

That curse the day, i.e. their day, to wit, their birthday; for the pronoun is here omitted for the metre’s sake; for this and the following chapters are written in verse, as all grant. So the sense is, when their afflictions move them to curse their own birthday, let them remember mine also, and bestow some curses upon it. Or the day of their distress and trouble, which sometimes is called simply the day, as Obadiah 1:12 . Or the day of the birth or death of that person, whose funerals are celebrated by the hired mourners, who in their solemn lamentations used to curse the day that gave them such a person, whom they should so suddenly lose; and therefore it had been better never to have enjoyed him, and to curse the day in which he died as an unlucky and execrable day. Or, the day , i.e. the daylight; which to some persons is a hateful thing, and the object of their curses, namely, to lewd persons and thieves, to whom the morning light is even as the shadow of death , Job 24:17 ; as also to persons oppressed with deep melancholy, as it is here implied, Job 3:20 . So the sense is this, They who use to curse the day only, but generally love and bless the night, yet let this night be as abominable and execrable to them as the day-time generally is.

Who are ready to raise up their mourning; who are brimful of sorrow, and always ready to pour out their cries, and tears, and complaints, and with them curses, as men in great passions frequently do; or, such mourning men, or mourning women, whose common employment it was, and who were hired to mourn, and therefore were always ready to do so upon funeral occasions; of which see 2 Chronicles 35:25 Jeremiah 9:17,18,20 Eze 30:2 Joel 1:15 Amos 5:16 Matthew 9:23 . And this sense suits with the use of the last word in Hebrew writers, of which a plain and pertinent instance is given by the learned Mercer. But because that word is commonly used in another sense for the leviathan, both in this book and elsewhere in Scripture, as Psalm 74:14 104:26 Isaiah 27:1 , and because this very phrase of raising the leviathan is used afterward, Job 41:25 , others render the words thus, who are prepared or ready to raise the leviathan . It is evident that the leviathan was a great and dreadful fish, or sea monster, though there be some disagreement about its kind or quality, and that the raising of or endeavouring to catch the leviathan was a dangerous and terrible work, as is plain from Job 41 .

Let them curse it who curse the day - This entire verse is exceedingly difficult, and many different expositions have been given of it. It seems evident that it refers to some well-known class of persons, who were accustomed to utter imprecations, and were supposed to have the power to render a day propitious or unpropitious - persons who had the power of divination or enchantment. A belief in such a power existed early in the world, and has prevailed in all savage and semi-barbarous nations, and even in nations considerably advanced in civilization. The origin of this was a desire to look into futurity; and in order to accomplish this, a league was supposed to be made with the spirits of the dead, who were acquainted with the events of the invisible world, and who could be prevailed on to impart their knowledge to favored mortals. It was supposed, also, that by such union there might be a power exerted which would appear to be miraculous. Such persons also claimed to be the favorites of heaven, and to be endowed with control over the elements, and over the destiny of men; to have the power to bless and to curse, to render propitious or calamitous. Balsaam was believed to be endowed with this power, and hence, he was sent for by Balak, king of Moab, to curse the Israelites; Numbers 22:5-6; see the notes at Isaiah 8:19.