#638 Happy Birthday

After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2 And Job spoke, and said:

3 “May the day perish on which I was born,

And the night in which it was said,

‘A male child is conceived.’

4 May that day be darkness;

May God above not seek it,

Nor the light shine upon it.

5 May darkness and the shadow of death claim it;

May a cloud settle on it;

May the blackness of the day terrify it.

6 As for that night, may darkness seize it;

May it not rejoice among the days of the year,

May it not come into the number of the months.

7 Oh, may that night be barren!

May no joyful shout come into it!

8 May those curse it who curse the day,

Those who are ready to arouse Leviathan.

9 May the stars of its morning be dark;

May it look for light, but have none,

And not see the dawning of the day;

10 Because it did not shut up the doors of my mother’s womb,

Nor hide sorrow from my eyes.

11 “Why did I not die at birth?

Why did I not perish when I came from the womb?

12 Why did the knees receive me?

Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?

13 For now I would have lain still and been quiet,

I would have been asleep;

Then I would have been at rest

14 With kings and counselors of the earth,

Who built ruins for themselves,

15 Or with princes who had gold,

Who filled their houses with silver;

16 Or why was I not hidden like a stillborn child,

Like infants who never saw light?

17 There the wicked cease from troubling,

And there the weary are at rest.

18 There the prisoners rest together;

They do not hear the voice of the oppressor.

19 The small and great are there,

And the servant is free from his master.

20 “Why is light given to him who is in misery,

And life to the bitter of soul,

21 Who long for death, but it does not come,

And search for it more than hidden treasures;

22 Who rejoice exceedingly,

And are glad when they can find the grave?

23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,

And whom God has hedged in?

24 For my sighing comes before I eat,

And my groanings pour out like water.

25 For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me,

And what I dreaded has happened to me.

26 I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;

I have no rest, for trouble comes.” Job 3 NKJV

"After this" - well you need to read what happened in the chapters before. After losing his children, his servants, his herds, his health, and his wife telling him to curse God and die, after sitting here for seven days, covered in boils, silent in the ashes, he now waxes poetic. He is not a cigar store Indian, he did not lose his voice, but only held it in. He is confused and shaken for sure, and though he has been quiet for seven days, he is not without thought or emotion. His whole existence is upside down, nothing makes sense anymore. This is not the whining of some emo song about a girl and unrequited love. This is not the loss of a promotion, the family pet, a spot on the basketball team, or any of the other things that would shatter us and cause men to curse God in our day. He is going to air what he thinks about what he believes to be true, from the dark that he is in, the despair of his soul.

Through verse 10 he agonizingly curses his own birth; he wishes that he was never born. After this, all this, and pondering it for seven days, he says it a dozen ways, and it is poetry, lines repeating themes, begging the reader acknowledge, "what else, what could be better than not knowing this, even if that meant knowing nothing else?" He has been born though, and he is here in this moment also telling us something of the state of his beliefs, the early traditions. Remember, his candle is a small one, he is not you, reading the story about Job, and he is ignorant of the conversations that occurred between God and Satan. He may not know of Enoch not seeing death, he is before the time of Elijah's fiery chariot, and looking at the dead all he sees is quiet and peace, the dead don't complain as far as he can tell. It looks to him a state of nothingness, no pain, no anguish. When we read down further, in verse 13, he holds his birthday candle out for us to see as well, look, I would be asleep, at peace and rest. But then look back to verse 8, let it be a curse, who would ever wish this on anyone. Don't stir up a hornet's nest, don't poke the bear, but this is far worse, a dragon, maybe a dinosaur, why would you release the Kraken, wake a disaster you cannot tame? He didn't understand to be absent from the body is to be present from the Lord. He didn't know that there was something worse than all of this, that for a believer, what he knew now was the only hell he would ever know. The worse part of his time here would evaporate in the light of eternity, oh how silly I sounded back then. 

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 2 Corinthians 5:6-8

And he will answer, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers.’ 28 There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves are thrown out. 29 People will come from east and west and north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God.…Luke 13: 27-29

And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. 4 Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, [a]let us make here three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Matthew 17:3-4

We speak of what we do not know, from our feelings we think we produce an argument that is better than the facts. In our silence we told the most truth, and how many times do I wish I would have held my tongue, reigned in my emotions. Who knows more or better than God? I have assumed so much but here it is, a little more light, and we shall see what else Job thought he knew, or me or you. He cursed his life, his birth, his conception. God knew you in your mother's womb, this is not a surprise to Him. For all that Job will say, in ignorance, in pain and grieving, he will not curse God. 

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. 46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”Matthew 27: 45-46