31 After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. 2 And Job answered and said: 3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, And the night which said, There is a man-child conceived. 4 Let that day be darkness; Let not God from above seek for it, Neither let the light shine upon it. 5 Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own; Let a cloud dwell upon it; Let all that maketh black the day terrify it. 6 As for that night, let thick darkness seize upon it: Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; Let it not come into the number of the months. 7 Lo, let that night be barren; Let no joyful voice come therein. 8 Let them curse it that curse the day, Who are ready to rouse up leviathan. 9 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark: Let it look for light, but have none; Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning: 10 Because it shut not up the doors of my [mother's] womb, Nor hid trouble from mine eyes.
11 Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when my mother bare me? 12 Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should suck? 13 For now should I have lain down and been quiet; I should have slept; then had I been at rest, 14 With kings and counsellors of the earth, Who built up waste places for themselves; 15 Or with princes that had gold, Who filled their houses with silver: 16 Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, As infants that never saw light. 17 There the wicked cease from troubling; And there the weary are at rest. 18 There the prisoners are at ease together; They hear not the voice of the taskmaster. 19 The small and the great are there: And the servant is free from his master.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Job 3:1-19
Commentary on Job 3:1-10
(Read Job 3:1-10)
For seven days Job's friends sat by him in silence, without offering consolidation: at the same time Satan assaulted his mind to shake his confidence, and to fill him with hard thoughts of God. The permission seems to have extended to this, as well as to torturing the body. Job was an especial type of Christ, whose inward sufferings, both in the garden and on the cross, were the most dreadful; and arose in a great degree from the assaults of Satan in that hour of darkness. These inward trials show the reason of the change that took place in Job's conduct, from entire submission to the will of God, to the impatience which appears here, and in other parts of the book. The believer, who knows that a few drops of this bitter cup are more dreadful than the sharpest outward afflictions, while he is favoured with a sweet sense of the love and presence of God, will not be surprised to find that Job proved a man of like passions with others; but will rejoice that Satan was disappointed, and could not prove him a hypocrite; for though he cursed the day of his birth, he did not curse his God. Job doubtless was afterwards ashamed of these wishes, and we may suppose what must be his judgment of them now he is in everlasting happiness.
Commentary on Job 3:11-19
(Read Job 3:11-19)
Job complained of those present at his birth, for their tender attention to him. No creature comes into the world so helpless as man. God's power and providence upheld our frail lives, and his pity and patience spared our forfeited lives. Natural affection is put into parents' hearts by God. To desire to die that we may be with Christ, that we may be free from sin, is the effect and evidence of grace; but to desire to die, only that we may be delivered from the troubles of this life, savours of corruption. It is our wisdom and duty to make the best of that which is, be it living or dying; and so to live to the Lord, and die to the Lord, as in both to be his, Romans 14:8. Observe how Job describes the repose of the grave; There the wicked cease from troubling. When persecutors die, they can no longer persecute. There the weary are at rest: in the grave they rest from all their labours. And a rest from sin, temptation, conflict, sorrows, and labours, remains in the presence and enjoyment of God. There believers rest in Jesus, nay, as far as we trust in the Lord Jesus and obey him, we here find rest to our souls, though in the world we have tribulation.