Job Chapter 3
Please read: Job 3 –
Human pain and suffering are difficult to bear, but it is even harder to try to make sense of it in our mind and soul. The mind can be where the most torment lies. And as Job starts to speak out loud to his friends who have come to console him, we find that this is where Job is. In his mind he is trying to make sense of it all, but yet he does not curse God. Satan was sure that these physical attacks on Job’s body would cause him to curse God, but he didn’t. Job, however, did curse the day he was born. It seemed to him that it would have been better if he had never been born on this earth.
The pain and degradation would continue in Job’s body, but the real warfare would be in his mind. What would he think about his situation? What would he think about other people’s opinions about his situation? And most importantly what would he think about God in all of this?
Let's Reflect
1. Job begins by cursing not only the day he was born but the day he was conceived. We could put it in terms of “he strongly wished” he had never been conceived. He is upset that the seed in the darkness of his mother’s womb was found by light. Who does he attribute the light to that allowed the seed to find the egg in the womb?
2. In verse 6 as he continues to say it would have been better for him not to have been conceived in the womb; he says that his conception should not have been a joyful event. What periods of time are mentioned that refer to the birth of a baby that he wishes never had occurred for him?
3. He compares his conception as an act that should have been lost in the darkness and washed away as a [fisherman] would be washed away in the night by a giant sea monster called what? This animal is believed to possibly be an ancient reference to a dinosaur creature.
4. What question does Job express in verse 11?
5. What did Job believe would have happened had he been a stillborn? This was a common belief of ancient people. This is what they thought death brought.
6. What are some of the examples that Job gave of people who had found rest upon their death?
7. Verse 21 is where the real battle is, the honest thinking of someone who is battling with pain and disease. Job is expressing the quiet part out loud. What did he say?
8. He feels that he is caught between the living and the dead, that God has him “hedged
in” in this place. It is ironic that he expressed it this way, because Satan used that term earlier when referring to Job’s wealth and protected life. Satan said that God had Job “hedged in.” What does Job think would be a better place for him to be? See verse 22.
It is true that Job was asking a lot of questions and expressing his pain, but in it all he did not curse God. He might have been complaining, but he did not sin and curse God. What Job didn’t know about was the spiritual warfare that was happening that he could not see. And while he did not understand the purpose for his living, God did. Job might not have understood why, but God did. God was asking of Job to have great faith and trust in Him.
