“You have heard of the patience of Job,” says the apostle, James 5:11. So we have, and of his impatience too. We wondered that a man should be so patient as he was (Job 1:1—2:13), but we wonder also that a good man should be so impatient as he is in this chapter, where we find him cursing his day,…

Long was Job’s heart hot within him; and, while he was musing, the fire burned, and the more for being stifled and suppressed. At length he spoke with his tongue, but not such a good word as David spoke after a long pause: Lord, make me to know my end, Ps. 39:3–4.

Job, perhaps reflecting upon himself for his folly in wishing he had never been born, follows it, and thinks to mend it, with another, little better, that he had died as soon as he was born, which he enlarges upon in these verses.

Job, finding it to no purpose to wish either that he had not been born or had died as soon as he was born, here complains that his life was now continued and not cut off. When men are set on quarrelling there is no end of it; the corrupt heart will carry on the humour.