Job 3:3 kjv
Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.
Job 3:3 nkjv
"May the day perish on which I was born, And the night in which it was said, 'A male child is conceived.'
Job 3:3 niv
"May the day of my birth perish, and the night that said, 'A boy is conceived!'
Job 3:3 esv
"Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, 'A man is conceived.'
Job 3:3 nlt
"Let the day of my birth be erased,
and the night I was conceived.
Job 3 3 Cross References
| Verse | Text | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Jer 20:14-18 | Cursed be the day wherein I was born... Why came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow...? | Jeremiah's similar curse of birth due to suffering. |
| Psa 58:8 | As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun. | Desire for non-existence or fading away. |
| Ecc 4:2-3 | Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living... Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun. | Declares non-existence preferable to life's evils. |
| Psa 143:3 | For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead. | Describes a desire for death/darkness. |
| Lam 3:1-9 | I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath... He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old. | Intense suffering leading to a wish for darkness/death. |
| Jon 4:3 | Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. | Jonah's request for death due to his despair. |
| 1 Ki 19:4 | But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers. | Elijah's plea for death due to overwhelming distress. |
| Psa 139:13-16 | For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made... | God's sovereign hand in conception and birth. |
| Gen 1:3-4 | And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good... | Divine creation bringing light and goodness, contrasting Job's wish for darkness. |
| Gen 1:28 | And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply... | God's command to procreate and fill the earth, blessing life. |
| Psa 22:9-10 | But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly. | God's faithfulness from conception onwards. |
| Ecc 6:3-5 | If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years... and also that he have no burial... I say, that an untimely birth is better than he. For he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness. | Untimely birth preferable to a life without meaning. |
| Job 10:18-19 | Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me! I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave. | Job reiterates desire for non-existence or immediate death. |
| Isa 55:8-9 | For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. | God's sovereign plan often incomprehensible to man's suffering. |
| Rom 8:28 | And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. | The hope and ultimate purpose amidst suffering. |
| Job 2:9-10 | Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die. But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? | Job's initial refusal to curse God, setting context for his later lament. |
| Job 3:1 | After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. | Immediate context, Job finally speaks. |
| Job 3:11-12 | Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? | Job extends his wish for death at or near birth. |
| Mk 14:21 (par. Mt 26:24) | The Son of Man indeed goes, just as it is written of Him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born. | A severe condemnation implying non-existence is preferable for one. |
| 1 Cor 15:19 | If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. | Human suffering without an eternal hope can lead to profound despair. |
| Rev 6:15-16 | And the kings of the earth, and the great men...hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne... | Desire for physical destruction/non-existence to escape judgment. |
Job 3 verses
Job 3 3 Meaning
Job 3:3 expresses Job's profound despair and utter wish that he had never been born. Overwhelmed by intense suffering, he curses the very day of his birth and the moment of his conception, desiring to cease to exist before life truly began. This lament marks his transition from silent endurance to vocal anguish, reflecting the depth of his pain.
Job 3 3 Context
Job 3:3 is the pivotal opening of Job's first discourse, marking the end of his seven days and nights of silent mourning with his three friends. Until this point, Job had endured catastrophic losses – his wealth, his children, and his health – with remarkable steadfastness, famously declaring, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21) and refusing to curse God despite his wife's urging (Job 2:9-10).
However, his prolonged, intense physical suffering (skin disease, ulcers) and profound emotional agony push him to an unbearable limit. His initial patient faith gives way to a lament filled with despair. He does not curse God directly, as his wife suggested, but instead curses the day of his birth and the night of his conception. This reflects an indirect grappling with his existence and the source of his suffering without blaspheming God. It is a deeply personal, existential cry. Historically and culturally, the birth of a male child was a cause for great rejoicing and a sign of blessing, continuing the family line and securing its future. Job's curse is a radical inversion of this cultural value, portraying life itself as a curse due to the magnitude of his pain.
Job 3 3 Word analysis
- Let the day: Job does not simply wish the day to pass, but pronounces a solemn curse upon it, almost as if he possesses the power to revoke time. This phrasing reflects the intensity of his anguish, desiring to nullify the very beginning of his life.
- perish: Hebrew: אבַד (avad). This word signifies complete destruction, ruin, to be lost, or to vanish. It carries the weight of total non-existence. Job desires for that specific day, his birth-day, to be eradicated from memory and reality, as if it never existed. The use of this verb is a direct counter to the goodness affirmed in God's creation, where life is inherently good.
- wherein I was born: This directly targets his individual existence. It is not a general lament about human suffering but a deeply personal, retrospective wish for his own non-occurrence. This reflects the specific circumstances of his unbearable pain.
- and the night: Hebrew: לַיְלָה (laylah). Parallelism is a hallmark of Hebrew poetry. This mirrors "the day" and expands the curse beyond the moment of physical emergence into the world. It emphasizes that both the time of appearance and the preceding period leading to it are tainted by his suffering. Night often symbolizes darkness, mystery, and beginnings in biblical contexts (e.g., the night of the Exodus).
- in which it was said: This refers to the moment a "man child is conceived," but more specifically to the announcement or joyful pronouncement associated with the expectation of a male heir. It implies that the proclamation of his impending birth, likely to family or neighbors, was a moment he now wishes never occurred, thus amplifying his lament against the joy typically associated with new life.
- A man child is conceived: Hebrew: גֶּבֶר הֹרָה (gever horah). Gever emphasizes "a strong man," or "male." Horah signifies "conceived" or "begotten." This precision indicates Job's desire to erase his very beginning, before conscious life, before being a known entity. The emphasis on "man child" underlines the cultural importance of male heirs in ancient society, further underscoring how Job's suffering negates even such a profound cultural blessing for him. This implies a radical polemic against the natural joy and cultural significance of conceiving a male heir.
Job 3 3 Bonus section
The intense darkness imagery implied by cursing "the day" and "the night" further illustrates the extent of Job's despair. Light in scripture is often synonymous with life, knowledge, and God's presence, while darkness represents chaos, death, and separation. Job's wish for the obliteration of his birth means wishing for the triumph of non-light, or chaotic darkness, over his personal existence. This verse sets the stage for the dramatic dialogues that follow, where Job's friends attempt to impose traditional theology upon his inexplicable suffering, while Job desperately seeks to understand the "why" of his pain in the face of a just God. His lament here is not a reasoned argument, but a raw, unedited cry of a human soul in extremis, providing a window into the permissible scope of human questioning and grief within a faith journey.
Job 3 3 Commentary
Job 3:3 initiates Job's shift from steadfast patience to intense, almost chaotic, lament. His suffering has surpassed his capacity for stoic endurance, leading him to verbalize a profound death wish that extends to the eradication of his very genesis. It is crucial to understand that Job does not curse God directly (as his wife had urged him to do in Job 2:9), nor does he deny God's sovereignty. Instead, he curses the day and night of his being, an almost mystical act of wishing his personal history could be undone. This distinguishes Job's lament from a blasphemous outburst; it is an honest, albeit desperate, expression of a soul grappling with unbearable, undeserved pain.
The lament's poetic nature employs parallelism ("the day... and the night") and specifies both birth and conception, indicating a wish to utterly annul his existence. This is not a trivial complaint but the profound anguish of a man whose present existence has become a burden so immense that non-existence seems preferable. Job's words foreshadow a central tension in the book: human understanding of suffering versus God's sovereign purposes. This honest outpouring validates that profound spiritual and physical distress can lead to deeply felt, even shocking, expressions of despair within a framework of ongoing, albeit wounded, faith. Such expressions in the biblical narrative demonstrate the spectrum of human emotion permitted before God in times of extreme trial.