Job 3 Job curseth the day and services of his birth, Job 3:1–12. The ease and honours of death, Job 3:13–19. Life in anguish matter of complaint, Job 3:20–24. What he feared is now come upon him, Job 3:25–26.

He spake freely and boldly, as this phrase is used, Prov. 31:8–9, Eph. 6:19, and elsewhere, and cursed his day, to wit, his birthday, as is evident from Job 3:3, which is called simply a man’s day, Hos.

Let the remembrance of that day be utterly lost; yea, I heartily wish that it had never been. Such wishes are apparently foolish and impatient, and yet have been sometimes forced from wise and good men in grievous distresses, not as if they expected any effect of them, but only to show their…

I wish the sun had never risen upon that day to make it day, or, which is all one, that it had never been; and whensoever that day returns, I wish it may be black, and gloomy, and uncomfortable, and therefore execrable and odious to all men. From above, i.e. from heaven; either, 1.

Darkness and the shadow of death, i.e. a black and dark shadow, like that of the place of the dead, which is a land of darkness, and where the light is darkness, as Job explains this very phrase, Job 10:21–22; or so gross and palpable darkness, that by its horrors and damps may take away men’s…

Let darkness seize upon it, i. e. constant and extraordinary darkness, without the least glimmering of light from the moon or stars. Joined unto the days of the year, i.e. reckoned as one, or a part of one, of them.

Solitary, i.e. destitute of all society of men meeting and feasting together, which commonly was done at night, suppers being the most solemn meals among divers ancient nations. See Mark 6:21, Luke 14:16, John 12:2, Rev. 19:9, Rev. 19:17.

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.

Let the stars, which are the glory and beauty of the night, to render it amiable and delightful to men, be covered with thick darkness, nd that both in the evening twilight, as is here expressed, when the stars begin to arise and shine forth; and also in the further progress of the night, even till…

Because it shut not up, to wit, the night or the day; to which those things are ascribed which were done by others in them, as is frequent in poetical writings, such as this is. Or, he, i.e. God; whom in modesty and reverence he forbears to name.

From the womb, i.e. as soon as ever I was born, or come out of the womb. And the same thing is expressed in other words, which is an elegancy usual both in the Hebrew and in other languages.

Why did the knees prevent me? why did the midwife or nurse receive me, and lay me upon her knees, and did not suffer me to fall upon the bare ground, and there to lie, in a neglected and forlorn condition, till merciful death had taken me out of this miserable world, into which the cruel kindness…

Quiet; free from all those torments of my body and mind which now oppress me.

With kings; I had then been as happy as the proudest monarchs, who after all their great achievements and enjoyments go down into their graves, where I also should have been sweetly reposed.

Hidden; undiscerned and unregarded. Untimely birth; born before the due time, and therefore extinct. I had not been, to wit, in the land of the living, of which he here speaketh. As infants which never saw light; being stifled and dead before they were born.

There, i.e. in the grave, which though not expressed, yet is clearly implied in the foregoing verses. The wicked cease from troubling; the great oppressors and troublers of the world cease from all those vexations, rapines, and murders which here they procured.

The prisoners rest together, i.e. one as well as another; they who were kept in the strongest chains and closest prisons, and condemned to the most hard and miserable slavery, rest as well as those who were captives in much better circumstances.

The small and great, i.e. persons of all qualifies and conditions, whether higher or lower. Are there, in the same place and state, all those kinds of distinctions and differences being for ever abolished.

Heb. Wherefore (for what cause, or use, or good) doth he (i.e. God, though he forbear to name him, out of that holy fear and reverence which still he retained towards him) give light? either the light of the sun, which the living only behold, Eccles. 6:5, Eccles.

i.e. Desire and pray for it with as much earnestness as men dig for treasure. But it is observable that Job durst not lay violent hands upon himself, nor do any thing to hasten or procure his death; but notwithstanding all his miseries and complaints, he was contented to wait all the days of his…

Why is light given? these words are conveniently supplied out of Job 1:20, where they are, all the following words hitherto being joined in construction and sense with them. Whose way is hid, to wit, from him who knows not his way, i.e.

Before I eat, Heb. before the face of my bread, i.e. either when I am going to eat, or rather, all the time whilst I am eating, (for so this phrase is used Ps. 72:5, before the face of the sun, &c.

This is another reason why he is weary of his life, and why he repents that ever he was born, because he never enjoyed any solid and secure comfort. The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me. Heb. I feared a fear, (i.e.

The three expressions note the same thing, which also was signified in the next foregoing verse, to wit, that even in his prosperous days he never was secure or at rest from the torment of fear and anxiety.