Read & explore together
Job Laments His Birth
Job 3 records Job’s answer as a lament about his birth and his present trouble. In dark, forceful poetry, he curses the day he was born, wishes he had died, and asks why life continues in misery.
Understanding the passage
Listening in context
The chapter begins by saying Job cursed the day of his birth and then gives his answer. The passage moves from cursing that day and night, to wishing he had died at birth, to describing rest in death, and finally to naming his ongoing distress and lack of rest.
Job 3:1–26Main takeaway
Job 3 is a poetic lament in which Job speaks honestly about despair, rest, and unrelieved trouble.
Look closely at the words
Open a card to explore the full explanation and its Bible references.
01Job curses the day and night of his birthJob opens by cursing the day of his birth, not another person. He wishes that day and night would perish, become darkness, and lose light and joy.
Explanation
Job opens by cursing the day of his birth, not another person. He wishes that day and night would perish, become darkness, and lose light and joy. Verse 8 mentions those ready to rouse up leviathan, which belongs to the poem’s vivid language. The point is the intensity of his rejection of that day.
02He says why that night matters so muchJob explains that he curses that night because it did not shut his mother’s womb or hide trouble from his eyes.
Explanation
Job explains that he curses that night because it did not shut his mother’s womb or hide trouble from his eyes. He then asks why he did not die from the womb or at birth. The knees and nursing point to being received and sustained as a newborn, which he now wishes had not happened.
03He imagines death as a place of restJob says that if he had died, he would now be quiet and at rest. He includes kings, counsellors, and princes, and also infants who never saw light.
Explanation
Job says that if he had died, he would now be quiet and at rest. He includes kings, counsellors, and princes, and also infants who never saw light. In this description, the wicked cease troubling, the weary rest, prisoners are at ease, and servants are free from masters. These lines express how strongly he longs for relief.
04He asks why light remains for the miserableJob closes by asking why light and life are given to those in misery who long for death. Then he speaks personally.
Explanation
Job closes by asking why light and life are given to those in misery who long for death. Then he speaks personally. His way is hidden, God has hedged him in, his sighing and groaning continue, what he feared has come, and he has no ease, quiet, or rest. Trouble remains present.
Questions to explore
Pause, look back at the verses and talk together.
01What does Job curse at the start, and why does that matter for reading the chapter?
02What reason does Job give in verse 10 for cursing that night?
Look for the line about his mother’s womb and trouble from his eyes, because that sentence explains why he wishes that night had not led to his life.
Read the Bible passage
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
Job 3:1–26
1After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth.
2Job answered:
3“Let the day perish in which I was born, the night which said, ‘There is a boy conceived.’
4Let that day be darkness. Don’t let God from above seek for it, neither let the light shine on it.
5Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own. Let a cloud dwell on it. Let all that makes the day black terrify it.
6As for that night, let thick darkness seize on it. Let it not rejoice among the days of the year. Let it not come into the number of the months.
7Behold, let that night be barren. Let no joyful voice come therein.
8Let them curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up leviathan.
9Let the stars of its twilight be dark. Let it look for light, but have none, neither let it see the eyelids of the morning,
10because it didn’t shut up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.
11“Why didn’t I die from the womb? Why didn’t I give up the spirit when my mother bore me?
12Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should nurse?
13For now I should have lain down and been quiet. I should have slept, then I would have been at rest,
14with kings and counselors of the earth, who built up waste places for themselves;
15or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver;
16or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, as infants who never saw light.
17There the wicked cease from troubling. There the weary are at rest.
18There the prisoners are at ease together. They don’t hear the voice of the taskmaster.
19The small and the great are there. The servant is free from his master.
20“Why is light given to him who is in misery, life to the bitter in soul,
21who long for death, but it doesn’t come; and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,
22who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?
23Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?
24For my sighing comes before I eat. My groanings are poured out like water.
25For the thing which I fear comes on me, that which I am afraid of comes to me.
26I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither do I have rest; but trouble comes.”