Chapter 3

1 After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day he was born.⁠ 2 Job spoke up and said: 3 “Let the day on which I was born perish, and the night that said, ‘A man has been conceived!’⁠ 4 That day—let it be darkness; let not God on high regard it, nor let light shine on it!⁠ 5 Let darkness and the deepest shadow claim it; let a cloud settle on it; let whatever blackens the day terrify it. 6 That night—let darkness seize it; let it not be included among the days of the year; let it not enter among the number of the months! 7 Indeed, let that night be barren; let no shout of joy penetrate it! 8 Let those who curse the day curse it—those who are prepared to rouse Leviathan.⁠ 9 Let its morning stars be darkened; let it wait for daylight but find none, nor let it see the first rays of dawn, 10 because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb on me, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes. 11 “Why did I not die at birth, and why did I not expire as I came out of the womb? 12 Why did the knees welcome me, and why were there two breasts that I might nurse at them? 13 For now I would be lying down and would be quiet, I would be asleep and then at peace 14 with kings and counselors of the earth who built for themselves places now desolate, 15 or with princes who possessed gold, who filled their palaces with silver. 16 Or why was I not buried like a stillborn infant, like infants who have never seen the light?⁠ 17 There the wicked cease from turmoil, and there the weary are at rest. 18 There the prisoners relax together; they do not hear the voice of the oppressor. 19 Small and great are there, and the slave is free from his master. 20 “Why does God give light to one who is in misery, and life to those whose soul is bitter, 21 to those who wait for death that does not come, and search for it more than for hidden treasures,⁠ 22 who rejoice even to jubilation, and are exultant when they 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 in place of my food, and my groanings flow forth like water. 25 For the very thing I dreaded has happened to me, and what I feared has come upon me. 26 I have no ease; I have no quietness; I cannot rest; turmoil has come upon me.”

Texts in conversation

Compare Job 3:16 and Ecclesiastes 6:3

Hebrew Bible

Summary

Job laments his birth by wishing he had been like a stillborn who never saw the light. Ecclesiastes echoes this language when describing a man with many children but no satisfaction, declaring a stillborn better off for never seeing the sun.

Passages

Job 3:16

Hebrew Bible

14 with kings and counselors of the earth who built for themselves places now desolate, 15 or with princes who possessed gold, who filled their palaces with silver. 16 Or why was I not buried like a stillborn infant, like infants who have never seen the light? 17 There the wicked cease from turmoil, and there the weary are at rest. 18 There the prisoners relax together; they do not hear the voice of the oppressor.

500–401 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Job

Ecclesiastes 6:3

Hebrew Bible

1 Here is another misfortune that I have seen on earth, and it weighs heavily on people: 2 God gives a man riches, property, and wealth so that he lacks nothing that his heart desires, yet God does not enable him to enjoy the fruit of his labor—instead, someone else enjoys it! This is fruitless and a grave misfortune. 3 Even if a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, even if he lives a long, long time, but cannot enjoy his prosperity—even if he were to live forever—I would say, “A stillborn child is better off than he is.” 4 Though the stillborn child came into the world for no reason and departed into darkness, though its name is shrouded in darkness, 5 though it never saw the light of day nor knew anything, yet it has more rest than that man—

300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Ecclesiastes

References

"... Qoheleth describes the acquisition, loss, and (non-)enjoyment of wealth as directly dependent on God (see 5:17–6:2). Although not using the language of blessing, Ecclesiastes 5:18 does call wealth, possessions, and their enjoyment “the gift of God”. Thus, despite the apparent divergence there is actually a striking agreement between Job and Ecclesiastes with regard to this topic, as presented in these two texts, and the close verbal correspondence between Job 1:21 and 5:14 invites the reader to consider them together ... A second verbal parallel cited by Dhorme also refers to birth but, in this case, to a stillborn child (Job 3:16; Ecclesiastes 6:3-5) ... The most significant verbal link between these two texts is the use of the rare word for “stillborn,” which occurs elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible only in Psalm 58:9. Psalm 58:9 is an isolated clause - “like the untimely birth that never sees the sun”, the only other text in the Hebrew Bible which uses the verb to express “seeing the sun / light.” The expression “to see [the] sun” using the Hebrew verb, as in Ecclesiastes 6:5, occurs in Deuteronomy 4:19 and elsewhere in Ecclesiastes 7:11 and 11:7. The expression “to see light” is more common in BH, occurring eight times (Genesis 1:4; Job 3:16; 31:26; 33:28; 37:21; Psalm 36:9; 49:20; Isaiah 9:1). It is interesting to note that the one expression is favored in Ecclesiastes (which also reminds one of its repeated use of “under the sun,” 27×) while the other is preferred by Job ..."

Richard L. Schultz, “Job and Ecclesiastes: Intertextuality and a Protesting Pair,” in Reading Job Intertextually, ed. Katharine Dell and Will Kynes (New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 190–203.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Job42 chapters

Compare Job 3:16 and Ecclesiastes 6:3

Summary

Passages

Job 3:16

Ecclesiastes 6:3

References

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