JOB 3
JOB SPEAKS
Let that night be childless. Let it have no joy.
Let those who curse days condemn it,
those who are ready to rouse Leviathan.
—Job 3:7-8
The man read aloud:
When three of Job’s friends heard of the tragedy he had suffered, they got together and traveled from their homes to comfort and console him. Their names were Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite.16
When they looked from a distance, they could barely recognize him. They wept aloud and each man tore his robe and threw dust into the air and on his head.17 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and nights. No one said a word to Job, for they saw that his suffering was too great for words.18
“So, they just sat there watching him scrape boils for a week?” said the boy. “Did they eat anything?”
“Let’s not ruin the moment,” said the man, “shall we?”
The boy smiled.
“So much compassion and delicacy can be felt from the author’s brief account here. These men traveled from afar to share his sorrow with a ceremony of tearing robes and tossing ashes in the air. A week of silence may have been the normal time for mourning in their culture. But as we see a hint of in the text, condolences are reserved for ordinary grief, while extraordinary grief is too much for words. But then again, perhaps their silence was due to shock at the appearance of their dear old friend Job, whom they hardly recognized with his shaved head and disturbing skin. The man they once knew to be righteous, upright, and whole was now broken in body and spirit.
“The unfolding of these events is noteworthy in itself because there’s no telling how much time had already gone by where Job sat alone. It may have been weeks before the news of Job reached their respective lands. Months might’ve passed before they exchanged words, agreeing where to meet beforehand, as it appears all three arrived at once. In all that time, Job sat there in his own bubble of silence, pondering, praying for some answer from the Lord. But from what we see, or perhaps from what we don’t see, is that a response never came.”
“I thought you said God speaks up at some point?”
“He will,” said the man. “He will. But for now, the lesson we can derive from Job’s waiting in sorrow is that sometimes the silence of God’s voice will make you wonder if He’s even there, the absence of any sign if He even cares. But He is, my boy, and He does. Much of the Bible shows us that those who walk closely with God are often those who go through the greatest trials. And there are even times when the heavenly silence is more trying than what’s happening on Earth, but our trials don’t often come with an immediate and obvious reason.
“Sometimes it appears as though prayer cures our illness and afflictions, and sometimes those things will run their course despite our prayers. There may be no explanation in these times, no comfort, but nothing that touches our lives has not first passed through the hands of the Lord. He is in full control, and He will often put us through tests we may not deserve. We may never explain the mystery of God’s unfathomable will, and it can be futile to grasp at each thread of His divine plan, but know that there’s a reason and value to everything God allows into our lives.”
The boy drew in a deep breath as he stroked his chin. “So they didn’t eat anything at all?”
The man looked skyward and said, “Lord help me.” Then he looked back to the boy and said, “I’m sure they weren’t sitting in this posture for a week’s time without sleep and water. My guess is they sat with Job for as much of the seven days and nights as they could while taking turns to bring Job means for survival. Perhaps they even excused themselves to use the bathroom from time to time. Satisfied?”
“Alright, alright,” said the boy with a smile. “I was just worried about their bladders, that’s all. I heard it’s not good to hold it for too long.”
The man grumbled something under his breath as he looked down and scanned the text to find where he left off.
“I’m just joking around,” said the boy. “I heard everything you said. But you’re going so deep here that sometimes it’s good to come up for air.”
The man looked up with a neutral expression. “I’m going to continue now if that’s alright with you. But don’t hold your breath for this part. Job lets out a very long lament, cursing the day he was born.”
“Please do,” said the boy aloud. But under his breath, he whispered, “Mr. Crabby Pants.”
“I heard that,” said the man, his nose already in the pages:
Let the day of my birth be erased,
and the night I was conceived.19
Let that day be darkness.
May God above not seek it,
nor light shine upon it.
Let gloom and darkness claim it.
Let clouds dwell upon it.
Let the blackness of the day terrify it.20
Let that night be blotted off the calendar,
never again to be counted among the days of the year,
never again to appear among the months.
Let that night be childless. Let it have no joy.21
Let those who curse days condemn it,
those who are ready to rouse Leviathan.22
May its morning stars grow dark.
May it wait for daylight but have none.
May it not see the breaking of dawn.23
Curse that day for failing to shut my mother’s womb,
for letting me be born to see all this trouble.24
Why did I not perish at birth,
and die as I came from the womb?25
Why was I laid on my mother’s lap?
Why did she nurse me at her breasts?26
For then I would have lain down and been quiet.
I would have slept, then I would have been at rest,27
with kings and rulers of the earth,
who built for themselves places now lying in ruins,28
or with princes who had gold,
who filled their houses with silver.29
Or like a miscarriage which is hidden,
I would not exist, as infants that never saw light.30
There the wicked cease from troubling,
and there the weary are at rest.
There the prisoners are at ease together,
they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.
The small and the great are there,
and the slave is free from his master.
Why is light given to him who is in misery,
and life to the bitter in soul,
who long for death, but it comes not,
and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,
who rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they find the grave?31
Why is life given to a man whose path is hidden,
whom God has hedged in?32
For my groaning comes at the sight of food,
and my cries pour out like water.33
What I always feared has happened to me.
What I dreaded has come true.
I have no peace, no quietness.
I have no rest, only trouble comes.34
When the man finally looked up, the boy was staring at him wide-eyed with concern.
“Breathe,” said the man. “But yes, it’s somewhat of a pity they let Job speak first. Perhaps they were unsure what to say, but saying something might’ve prevented the seed his wife planted from germinating into this long speech that unfolds here.”
“For real,” said the boy. “That was depressing.”
The man gave an agreeing nod. “I know. This might be one of the most depressing chapters in the Bible. I’ve certainly never heard anyone call it their favorite, and seldom do you hear anyone quoting from Job three. But the danger of focusing on chapters one and two alone when deriving lessons from the book of Job is that it only paints a two-dimensional snapshot of our hero. It’s all too easy to create a sermon saying, ‘Look at Job and his steadfast faith. Learn from him.’ But that’s hardly a complete picture of Job, and far from the end of our story.
“Of course, we don’t want to think the man from chapters one and two is the same man we see in chapter three, but that hedge of protection God put around Job has now become a prison fence. He breaks his week-long silence to unleash his pain and frustration. He loses the ability to look forward with hope, and in desperation, he can only reflect on the past. We don’t want to hear our hero talk that way. He no longer sounds like a man of God, and we’re certainly rooting for someone who once walked so closely with the Creator to live happily ever after. But we can’t just shake our heads in despair here and look quickly to the next scene. There’s too much to examine here.”
“Right,” said the boy. “Like what was all that Leviathan business? I thought Christians don’t believe in mythology.”
“Well, first of all,” said the man, “Job lived before the time of Christ, so he knew nothing of the religion we do today. The book of Job wasn’t even a Jewish text, per se. Job is never named as part of any lineage, which means he was an everyman, a representation of all humanity’s experience of suffering in a way. His story was adopted into the Jewish canon later on for that very reason.”
“That’s great and all,” said the boy, “but what about Leviathan? I thought that was some kind of sea monster or something. Is the Bible claiming this thing actually existed?”
“Well, there are a few references in the Bible regarding this creature. We’ll dive into it in more detail later because God brings it up in a speech at the end. But for now, just understand that the Leviathan referred to here was a kind of mythical dragon that existed in folklore surrounding Job.”
“A dragon?” said the boy. “So, is the Bible claiming dragons were real?”
“Like I said, this was folklore Job was referencing,” said the man. “Let’s put it this way. The biblical writers weren’t using this kind of language to suggest these old myths were true, but rather confirming they’re an attempt to embody great ideas in pictorial language that contains truth.
“In this particular case, I’m thinking there was a tale where some kind of dark sorcerers had the power to call forth terrific monsters at their will, so they’d also have the power to set a curse on the day of Job’s birth. Or maybe it was a reference to some Captain Ahab-like tale of a fisherman trying to catch the Moby Dick of the ancient world, where his sailor’s cursing would be unleashed as the monster overcame his ship. He could say something like, ‘This day is as cursed as Job’s birthday!’ It could be neither, honestly. I truly don’t know. The point is that Job wished his day to be cursed.
“We’ve gotten a bit sidetracked, but to circle back to the point of our divine wager, Satan told God that all that a man has, he’ll give for his life. But here is Job, willing to curse his own life, yet unwilling to curse God.”
“Well, sort of,” said the boy.
The man furrowed his brow.
“What was the line after Leviathan? Something about stars going dark?”
The man looked down and read aloud again:
May its morning stars grow dark.
May it wait for daylight but have none.
May it not see the breaking of dawn.
“Yeah, what’s up with that? There was some other stuff in there about utter gloom and darkness too.”
The man let out a heavy sigh. “Well, back to Leviathan, again, I believe this myth offered some kind of explanation for an eclipse. We have to keep in mind that this sort of thinking was still embedded in the culture of the early world. Before we discovered an eclipse is a natural phenomenon, they were often considered ill omens delivered from the great beyond, perhaps as a curse or punishment descending upon mankind. Tying into this mythology, it was believed that Leviathan would rise up out of the sea and swallow the sun whole to cast darkness upon the earth.”
The boy blinked dramatically. “Well, that seems pretty important. You just told me Job didn’t have the modern understanding of eclipses like we do, right? But he lived in a time when mythology was king. So a sun-swallowing dragon was the explanation of darkness. There wouldn’t have been any difference between ‘myth’ and ‘reality’ for Job. Myths were his reality.”
“Mhm,” said the man. “So what are you getting at?”
“Well, it’s relevant because it offers context into when you said Job never cursed God.”
“And he didn’t.”
“Not directly,” said the boy, “but now we can see that he wished for some dark sorcerer to control nature the way only God should and instruct a monster that God is supposed to be mightier than to devour His sun, the very thing that fuels all life on Earth, leaving everything else in cold darkness. Basically, Job’s rooting for God to lose a battle that would curse and destroy all of His creation. He’s also wishing that he himself, another one of God’s creations, was never born in the first place, which seems like a slap in God’s face.
“It’d be one thing to go to your boss and say, ‘You know. I respect this company you’ve built, but I don’t think this job is for me. I’m gonna have to resign.’ But do you think if your boss found out that you wished his business went under because of a competitor, that you wish you’d never been hired in the first place, and that now you’re trashing his company name in front of other employees, he’d say, ‘Well, at least he never cursed me directly. He truly was a faithful servant of mine’? No, he’d be pissed, and maybe even chase you down with a lawsuit.”
The man took a moment to look skyward and mull it over. “While I can see your point, I might counter by saying Job’s curse of creation confirms that if he cannot live in God’s favor as he once had, he sees no point in ever having lived at all. In fact, without God smiling down on us, he can’t think of a reason for anything in creation to exist whatsoever. This is still an expression of holding our Lord in the highest esteem, although it’s something like a photographic negative of the view he held before. Job would never curse so gravely if he hadn’t valued God so deeply.”
The boy paused to mull it over this time. “Alright, that’s fair. But just out of curiosity, if this wasn’t meant to be taken literally, where do you draw the line with everything else in the Bib—”
“You know,” said the man, “we’ve gone further down the Leviathan rabbit hole than I intended. If you’ve got any more questions, you’ll have another chance later on.”
“Are you dodging the question?” said the boy.
“No, I’m not dodging the question. I’ve actually looked into this quite extensively because I wanted to know for myself. But there’s a whole chapter on Leviathan coming up later, so I’d prefer to keep the conversation on track until we can address all your Leviathan questions at once.”
“Mmm, okay,” said the boy. “But don’t think I’ll forget.”
“There’s no way you can,” said the man. “Understanding Leviathan is the key to the whole story. But for now, let’s just take comfort in the fact that even men as faithful as Job experience times of doubt. We all have unguarded moments when we’ve reached the end of our rope, and sometimes, we let our emotions spill out on the floor. To me, this makes Job more relatable, more human compared to the unwavering servant we saw before. Job three is an important chapter for contemporary study when much of the preaching I hear today is often shallow, delivered through a happy little filter where God answers prayers on demand. But Job’s period of silence among the ashes is a good reminder that there are times when our faith may begin to slip from our grasp in silence, and questions like the ones Job asks arise in our own hearts.
“Job knew nothing of what transpired in the heavenly realm, only that one day things were delightful and the next they were, well, not so delightful. There was no rhyme or reason, and not knowing why was maddening. He wondered how long God might have him endure this pain, as I’m sure many of us have in the midst of our trials. We want answers, and we want them now. And when there is nothing to pinpoint the cause of our hardship, no source of pain, no sin to confess, no one else to blame, the random suffering becomes corrosive to our soul. But my belief is that these trials are an important step in a person’s journey toward true faith because who doesn’t ask these questions in some form or another in their lifetime? Job certainly had to.”
“Mmm,” said the boy with a gentle nod. “Well said.”
“Much of Job’s agony comes from how he thinks God has turned hostile, asking, ‘Why is life given to those with no future?’ when really there is another enemy of the cosmic realm that is trying to destroy him.”
“Let’s not go there again,” said the boy. “But it sure seems like Job would’ve preferred if Satan was cut loose from his last restriction.”
“Very good,” said the man. “But as much as Job may have wished for death, Satan is smart enough to know that if he killed Job without hearing him curse God, then he’d lose the wager. Perhaps there’s a lesson for us all there, that even if times become so dark that we’d prefer to be dead, we mustn’t allow Satan to become victorious. We have to keep fighting.”
Again, the boy gave an agreeing nod.
“When there was no end in sight for Job,” said the man, “he questions and complains about life itself. He asks why light is given to those in misery, life to the bitter. He reflects on mankind and sees many in a condition like his own. He questions God’s preservation of those who’d rejoice in death. It’s no longer the language of humble submission we saw in the face of his wife’s foolish words but rather a foolish slip of the tongue himself. We see Job begin to crack under time and pressure with not only a loss of confidence in God but a charge of cruelty and injustice against Him as well. Then we’re given a glimpse into his view of death, where he believes the weary are at rest. He views the afterlife as a period of solitude and quiet after the trouble of being alive, the only relief from whatever he’s feeling now.”
“Is he thinking about killing himself?” said the boy.
“I don’t think so,” said the man. “I don’t believe there’d be any reason not just to come out and say it at this point, if that’s what he really meant. Perhaps the idea was foreign to someone so faithful. He does, however, wish the clock was turned back to a time when he’d never been born. Or, even more despairing, that he was stillborn or left to perish at birth. While this proves ungrateful to the Giver of life, Job claims he’d be at rest with kings and rulers of the earth.”
“Okay, yeah, that was something I wanted to bring up. What was that all about?”
“What? The kings and rulers? Well, the next line goes on to say, ‘whose great buildings now lie in ruins.’ And then, ‘I would rest with princes, rich in gold, whose palaces were filled with silver.’ I believe Job is pointing out that no matter what wealth and riches you amass in life, death makes no exception to who it claims.”
The boy furrowed his brow. “That’s not what I took away from it.”
“Oh?” said the man. “And what conclusion have you drawn?”
“I mean it’s a similar angle, but with a slight twist.”
“Ah. How unlike you.”
“Well, he said something about the rich and poor both dying, and I took that as, ‘Why bother living at all if wealth can’t spare you from death and suffering?’ To me, this kinda shows Satan was right.”
“What do you mean by that?” said the man, now wearing a look of surprise.
“I’m starting to think Satan was right. God looked down and saw His ‘righteous’ subject doing all the right things on the surface, but underneath it all, Job was really just in it for the blessings. Now that the chips are down, the first thing out of Job’s mouth is about money.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” said the man. “There are many important topics covered here.”
“Oh really? Point to where he mentions his wife and children.”
“Huh?” said the man, looking down to skim the pages.
“Don’t bother,” said the boy. “It’s not there. It’s all ‘woe is me’ and ‘I wish I’d never been born.’ Then, if he couldn’t have that, ‘I wish I died at birth so I could be with kings and princes.’ He doesn’t say anything about wishing to rest with his children. He doesn’t say anything about how his poor wife is suffering with him. All he talks about is wanting to be with rich people. That’s why I’m starting to think Satan was right, and we’re finally seeing Job’s true colors.”
The man stared at the boy with a loss for words.
“Cat got your tongue?”
The man peered down into the Bible again, more desperately this time.
“Yeah, I don’t think your boy Job was as righteous as you made him out to seem.”
There was a hesitation before the man said, “Well, I’ll be perfectly frank. I never looked at it that way. But now that you mention it, I’m not even sure the children come up again throughout the rest of the dialogue. And I’m certain Mrs. Job isn’t mentioned again until the end.”
“I mean, he was the richest guy in the land,” said the boy. “That’s what rich people do. They try to get richer and richer while they hang out with other rich people to compare how rich they are. It’s a tale as old as time, apparently.”
“I’d like to think these are merely the groanings of a wounded spirit,” said the man, “struggling to trust in God when his life is crumbling around him.”
“Yeah, and that’s cute and all, but Job’s more like, ‘What’s the point of going on if all my money is gone?’ He even says something about slaves being freed from their masters. I think he’s come to realize that all those servants he collected over the years are gonna be lying right there next to him, so what was the point of having all that wealth in the first place?”
“I don’t think—”
“‘The bitter search for death more eagerly than hidden treasure’? Come on, dude. The guy was obsessed with money. That’s all there is to it. You compared him to Rockefeller, but really, he’s more like Scrooge McDuck.”
Looking more troubled than ever, the man said, “I’m really having a hard time buying into this theory.”
“‘What I always feared has happened to me. What I dreaded has come true.’ It’s all right there, man. He doesn’t say that after, ‘Why, oh why did God take my children away?’ He drops that line after mentioning treasure. Fear of loss was Job’s motivation for worship, not love. All that shit about Job being a great father? You painted that image. All the book said was that he made sacrifices in case they were doing bad things at parties. But it wasn’t out of love. It was insurance in case they tried to drag him down with their sins.”
“No, no. I’m quite certai—”
“You know how rich kids are,” said the boy. “They get neglected by their father because he’s working all the time, so they start doing coke to numb their daddy issues. If these were really the richest kids around, they never had to work a day in their life. In fact, the only thing we know about them is how hard they partied. Shit, half of them were probably in and out of rehab, and Job was thinking, ‘I gotta do something in case God starts to think I raised them this way and He runs my business into the ground.’ It was self-preservation, that’s all.
“And now that I think about it, we don’t even know how Job got all his wealth. Maybe he comes from a long line of trust fund babies like his snobby little kids. He knows exactly what went on at those parties because of his own dirty past. He was saying, ‘Look, God, whatever’s going on in there with those drugs and hookers has nothing to do with me. I’m just out here making the economy turn like a good little boy. Don’t associate me with those boozehounds.’ That’s what he dreaded most, man. His reputation was at stake. He figured if he made a sacrifice here or there then that would be enough to cover it up. And it was, for a while. Until Satan pointed this all out and the whole charade fell apart.
“Now, Job’s dealing with the embarrassment of living like some peasant at the dump, spewing envy for the days when he was rich and famous like before. At least if he died at birth, he would have been draped in gold and buried honorably with his wealthy ancestors. Now he’s poor, gag, and none of his rich buddies want anything to do with him.
“Heck, even Mrs. Job recognizes it. Sure, maybe she was in it for the money at first too. A gold digger’s gotta live, doesn’t she? But at least she had a genuine love for her kids. Her reaction when they got squashed showed that. But even then, Job kept up the facade. That’s why she was upset. She finally saw the bottomless depth of her husband’s greed. His reaction was that of some money-crazed psychopath who was just into poppin’ out kids for the thrill. He knew he had enough servants to excuse himself from any fatherly responsiblit—”
“That’s enough!” said the man with a stern wave of the hand. There was a shocked look of horror on his face. “I don’t want to hear any more of this hogwash.”
“Look, man, the truth is hard to swallow, I get it. But that picture you painted of a big happy family? You made all that up in your head, and then you roped me into it with you. But most of that never really happened at all. Go back and read the story for what it is. Job never digs all those fresh graves or whatever. For all we know, Job’s kids are still buried under the rubble because he was busy sacrificing in hopes that God would bring back his camels.”
Tension hung in the air when the boy stopped speaking.
The man stared blankly for a long, cold second before saying, “Are you done?”
“No, I’m not done,” said the boy. “Admit you embellished the story, and then I’ll be done.”
With a heavy sigh, the man said, “I’ll admit I added a few details here and there regarding their family life, but that is how the story is understood, my boy. It builds empathy for the reader. These things you come up with, though, good Lord. Sometimes, I wonder why I even read this to you.”
The boy put his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest. “Because I offer a perspective the likes of which you’ve never seen.”
The man rolled his eyes. “That’s for sure. Can we move on now?”