Old Testament · Wisdom

Job 3

Let the Day Perish

Job finally opens his mouth — not to curse God, but to curse the day he was born. The silence is over.

King James Version BSB KJV

1After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.

2And Job spake, and said,

3Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.

4Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.

5Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.

6As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.

7Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.

8Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.

9Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day:

10Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.

11Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?

12Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?

13For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,

14With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves;

15Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver:

16Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.

17There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.

18There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.

19The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.

20Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;

21Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures;

22Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?

23Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?

24For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.

25For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

26I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

Understand This

Job 3, explained

What Job 3 is saying

Job breaks his seven-day silence with a searing lament, cursing the day of his birth and longing for death. In poetry of devastating beauty, he wishes his birthday could be un-created—reversed into primordial darkness. He questions why life is given to those who suffer, preferring the stillness of Sheol to his present agony.

The background behind it

Job's lament shares literary kinship with Jeremiah 20:14-18 and employs creation-reversal imagery that inverts Genesis 1. The Hebrew tohu (formlessness) and darkness deliberately echo the pre-creation chaos, as Job wishes for cosmic un-making. The poem's structure moves from cursing his birth, to questioning existence, to longing for death.

Themes running underneath

The lament legitimizes raw anguish as a form of faithful speech—Job does not curse God (fulfilling the narrator's expectation) but does curse his own existence. The distinction between questioning God's purposes and rejecting God is theologically crucial. The 'why' questions will dominate the dialogues that follow.

Why it still matters

Job validates that faith and anguish coexist. Those in extreme suffering need space to voice their pain without being immediately corrected. The psalms of lament share this conviction that honest grief is itself a form of prayer.

This is one chapter. BibleKey does all 1,189.

Tap any verse for its meaning, any word for its Hebrew or Greek root, and follow every cross-reference without losing your place.

Get BibleKey

All 42 chapters of Job · Every book of the Bible · Browse by topic

Scripture text: King James Version — public domain.