Bible Commentary - Job 3

In this chapter, Job curses the day of his birth, with deep emotions.

This chapter basically ends the “introduction” to Job and drastically changes the narrative.  Up until this point, most of the book has been a back-and-forth between God and Satan.  From this point onward, Satan does not appear in the story again even once.  It’s like the first two chapters are giving us a peek behind the heavenly curtains, to see what is happening in God’s kingdom, but now we are back on earth with Job struggling to understand why this happened to him, without the benefit of seeing the earlier exchange between God and his angels.

I think we can tell a lot about the story by looking at who’s involved in the three stages of the book: first, it is God and Satan debating with each other about Job.  This presents Job as the object of a heavenly argument.  Job is not really a participant in the conversation so he is much is the object of it.  Job is represented as the passive recipient of good or bad things without the power to choose his own destiny.  Job lives with righteousness and fears God but ultimately his fate (both good and bad) is largely determined by forces outside of his control.  Job is similarly fatalistic when he asserts that “the LORD gave and he has taken away”, presenting both blessings and tragedy as the product of God’s inscrutable will.

In this second phase, we see Job and his three friends debating with each other.  At this point Satan, and even God, are no longer represented in the conversation.  This is the human part of the story, with both Job and his friends struggling to comprehend events outside of their understanding and outside of their control.  While there may be a heavenly debate or heavenly battle happening behind the scenes, Job and his friends reframe the conversation significantly; rather than view tragedy as the result of “fate” or God’s will, they view tragedy as the result of human sin, which renders suffering both explanable and preventable (if you suffer, it’s because you sinned; you can avoid suffering by not sinning).  We will study this in more detail later.  Importantly, Satan’s role as the “accuser” of Job disappears entirely; from now on, suffering exists purely within the context of God punishing mankind, whether justly or unjustly.

The third and last phase is towards the end of the book when God speaks to Job.  Job’s three friends fall silent and it is only God and Job left to speak to each other (mostly God speaking and Job listening).  Job and his three friends spend most of the book discussing whether God is punishing Job fairly, i.e. whether Job is innocent or a sinner.  While they spend a lot of time talking about God, the end of the book is the only time when Job is talking to God.  This is the most important part of the book because it turns out that suffering was never really about a battle between God and Satan; God doesn’t need to prove anything to Satan and I’m doubtful that God really cares what Satan thinks.  Ultimately this is a story about Job and the LORD, how they relate to each other and what is the LORD’s role in Job’s life.  What I find interesting about this is how Job’s role shifts from being the object of the conversation to being a participant in the conversation.

Beginning in this chapter, we are now in the second phase when the narrative shifts from the ethereal, heavenly debate to a much more earthly debate about why Job is suffering.

Job opens the discussion indirectly.  Consistent with what he said previously, Job does not blame God.  Instead, if I could summarize this chapter in a single sentence, Job wishes that he was never born (or died at birth) so that he would be at peace and have never seen the troubles that have now come upon him.  To him it is better to be dead than to live in suffering and pain.

Again, I think this is basically consistent with what he said before.  Job is not trying to blame God or anyone in particular for what happened, this strikes me as a simply emotional response to what has happened, and I think it is both deeply human and understandable.  Job is expressing his feelings about what happened and I don’t think anyone could really criticize him about it.

In the next chapter, we’ll see that criticizing Job for his feelings is exactly what his friends want to do.