After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of
his birth.
Job 3:1 Modern English Version (MEV)
We all have our breaking point. Some are able to
withstand more than others, which doesn’t mean they are better or worse in any
way. We are all different. And when we do reach our breaking points, our
reactions, and how we deal with it, are different as well. I dare say that few
of us would be able to endure as much as Job endured before finally breaking
down. As Adam Clarke explains in his Commentary on the Bible:
After
this opened Job his mouth - After the seven days’ mourning was over, there being no prospect of
relief, Job is represented as thus cursing the day of his birth. Here the
poetic part of the book begins; for most certainly there is nothing in the
preceding chapters either in the form or spirit of Hebrew poetry. It is easy
indeed to break the sentences into hemistichs; but this does not constitute
them poetry: for, although Hebrew poetry is in general in hemistichs, yet it
does not follow that the division of narrative into hemistichs must necessarily
constitute it poetry.
In
many cases the Asiatic poets introduce their compositions with prose narrative;
and having in this way prepared the reader for what he is to expect, begin
their deevans, cassidehs, gazels, etc. This appears to be the plan followed by
the author of this book. Those who still think, after examining the structure
of those chapters, and comparing them with the undoubted poetic parts of the
book, that they also, and the ten concluding verses, are poetry, have my
consent, while I take the liberty to believe most decidedly the opposite.
Cursed
his day - That
is, the day of his birth; and thus he gave vent to the agonies of his soul, and
the distractions of his mind. His execrations have something in them awfully
solemn, tremendously deep, and strikingly sublime. But let us not excuse all
the things which he said in his haste, and in the bitterness of his soul,
because of his former well established character of patience. He bore all his
privations with becoming resignation to the Divine will and providence: but
now, feeling himself the subject of continual sufferings, being in heaviness
through manifold temptation, and probably having the light of God withdrawn
from his mind, as his consolations most undoubtedly were, he regrets that ever
he was born; and in a very high strain of impassioned poetry curses his day. We
find a similar execration to this in Jeremiah, Jer_20:14-18, and in
other places; which, by the way, are no proofs that the one borrowed from the
other; but that this was the common mode of Asiatic thinking, speaking, and
feeling, on such occasions.
Job 3:1 Modern English Version (MEV)
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