Giobbe 3:11 Commento

"You have heard of the patience of Job," says the apostle, Jam 5:11. So we have, and of his impatience too. We wondered that a man should be so patient as he was (ch. 1 and Job 2:1-13), but we wonder also that a good man should be so impatient as he is in this chapter, where we find him cursing his day, and, in passion, I. Complaining that he was born (Job 3:1-10). II. Complaining that he did not die as soon as he was born (Job 3:11-19). III. Complaining that his life was now continued when he was in misery (Job 3:20-26). In this it must be owned that Job sinned with his lips, and it is written, not for our imitation, but our admonition, that he who things he stands may take heed lest he fall.

Job, perhaps reflecting upon himself for his folly in wishing he had never been born, follows it, and thinks to mend it, with another, little better, that he had died as soon as he was born, which he enlarges upon in these verses. When our Saviour would set forth a very calamitous state of things he seems to allow such a saying as this, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the paps which never gave suck (Luk 23:29); but blessing the barren womb is one thing and cursing the fruitful womb is another! It is good to make the best of afflictions, but it is not good to make the worst of mercies. Our rule is, Bless, and curse not. Life is often put for all good, and death for all evil; yet Job here very absurdly complains of life and its supports as a curse and plague to him, and covets death and the grave as the greatest and most desirable bliss. Surely Satan was deceived in Job when he applied that maxim to him, All that a man hath will he give for his life; for never any man valued life at a lower rate than he did. I. He ungratefully quarrels with life, and is angry that it was not taken from him as soon as it was given him (Job 3:11, Job 3:12): Why died not I from the womb? See here, 1. What a weak and helpless creature man is when he comes into the world, and how slender the thread of life is when it is first drawn. We are ready to die from the womb, and to breathe our last as soon as we begin to breathe at all. We can do nothing for ourselves, as other creatures can, but should drop into the grave if the knees did not prevent us; and the lamp of life, when first lighted, would go out of itself if the breasts given us, that we should suck, did not supply it with fresh oil. 2. What a merciful and tender care divine Providence took of us at our entrance into the world. It was owing to this that we died not from the womb and did not give up the ghost when we came out of the belly. Why were we not cut off as soon as we were born? Not because we did not deserve it. Justly might such weeds have been plucked up as soon as they appeared; justly might such cockatrices have been crushed in the egg. Nor was it because we did, or could, take any care of ourselves and our own safety: no creature comes into the world so shiftless as man. It was not our might, or the power of our hand, that preserved us these beings, but God's power and providence upheld our frail lives, and his pity and patience spared our forfeited lives. It was owing to this that the knees prevented us. Natural affection is put into parents' hearts by the hand of the God of nature: and hence it was that the blessings of the breast attended those of the womb. 3. What a great deal of vanity and vexation of spirit attends human life. If we had not a God to serve in this world, and better things to hope for in another world, considering the faculties we are endued with and the troubles we are surrounded with, we should be strongly tempted to wish that we had died from the womb, which would have prevented a great deal both of sin and misery. He that is born today, and dies tomorrow, Loses some hours of joy, but months of sorrow. 4. The evil of impatience, fretfulness, and discontent. When they thus prevail they are unreasonable and absurd, impious and ungrateful. To indulge them is a slighting and undervaluing of God's favour. How much soever life is embittered, we must say, "It was of the Lord's mercies that we died not from the womb, that we were not consumed." Hatred of life is a contradiction to the common sense and sentiments of mankind, and to our own at any other time. Let discontented people declaim ever so much against life, they will be loth to part with it when it comes to the point. When the old man in the fable, being tired with his burden, threw it down with discontent and called for Death, and Death came to him and asked him what he would have with him, he then answered, "Nothing, but to help me up with my burden." II. He passionately applauds death and the grave, and seems quite in love with them. To desire to die that we may be with Christ, that we may be free from sin, and that we may be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven, is the effect and evidence of grace; but to desire to die only that we may be quiet in the grave, and delivered from the troubles of this life, savours of corruption. Job's considerations here may be of good use to reconcile us to death when it comes, and to make us easy under the arrest of it; but they ought not to be made use of as a pretence to quarrel with life while it is continued, or to make us uneasy under the burdens of it. It is our wisdom and duty to make the best of that which is, be it living or dying, and so to live to the Lord and die to the Lord, and to be his in both, Rom 14:8. Job here frets himself with thinking that if he had but died as soon as he was born, and been carried from the womb to the grave, 1. His condition would have been as good as that of the best: I would have been (says he, Job 3:14) with kings and counsellors of the earth, whose pomp, power, and policy, cannot set them out of the reach of death, nor secure them from the grave, nor distinguish theirs from common dust in the grave. Even princes, who had gold in abundance, could not with it bribe Death to overlook them when he came with commission; and, though they filled their houses with silver, yet they were forced to leave it all behind them, no more to return to it. Some, by the desolate places which the kings and counsellors are here said to build for themselves, understand the sepulchres or monuments they prepared for themselves in their life-time; as Shebna (Isa 22:16) hewed himself out a sepulchre; and by the gold which the princes had, and the silver with which they filled their houses, they understand the treasures which, they say, it was usual to deposit in the graves of great men. Such arts have been used to preserve their dignity, if possible, on the other side death, and to keep themselves from lying even with those of inferior rank; but it will not do: death is, and will be, an irresistible leveller. Mors sceptra ligonibus aequat - Death mingles sceptres with spades. Rich and poor meet together in the grave; and there a hidden untimely birth (Job 3:16), a child that either never saw light or but just opened its eyes and peeped into the world, and, not liking it, closed them again and hastened out of it, lies as soft and easy, lies as high and safe, as kings and counsellors, and princes, that had gold. "And therefore," says Job, "would I had lain there in the dust, rather than to lie here in the ashes!" 2. His condition would have been much better than now it was (Job 3:13): "Then should I have lain still, and been quiet, which now I cannot do, I cannot be, but am still tossing and unquiet; then I should have slept, whereas now sleep departeth from my eyes; then had I been at rest, whereas now I am restless." Now that life and immortality are brought to a much clearer light by the gospel than before they were placed in good Christians can give a better account than this of the gain of death: "Then should I have been present with the Lord; then should I have seen his glory face to face, and no longer through a glass darkly." But all that poor Job dreamed of was rest and quietness in the grave out of the fear of evil tidings and out of the feeling of sore boils. Then should I have been quiet; and had he kept his temper, his even easy temper still, which he was in as recorded in the two foregoing chapters, entirely resigned to the holy will of God and acquiescing in it, he might have been quiet now; his soul, at least, might have dwelt at ease, even when his body lay in pain, Psa 25:13. Observe how finely he describes the repose of the grave, which (provided the soul also be at rest in God) may much assist our triumphs over it. (1.) Those that now are troubled will there be out of the reach of trouble (Job 3:17): There the wicked cease from troubling. When persecutors die they can no longer persecute; their hatred and envy will then perish. Herod had vexed the church, but, when he became a prey for worms, he ceased from troubling. When the persecuted die they are out of the danger of being any further troubled. Had Job been at rest in his grave, he would have had no disturbance from the Sabeans and Chaldeans, none of all his enemies would have created him any trouble. (2.) Those that are now toiled will there see the period of their toils. There the weary are at rest. Heaven is more than a rest to the souls of the saints, but the grave is a rest to their bodies. Their pilgrimage is a weary pilgrimage; sin and the world they are weary of; their services, sufferings, and expectations, they are wearied with; but in the grave they rest from all their labours, Rev 14:13; Isa 57:2. They are easy there, and make no complaints; there believers sleep in Jesus. (3.) Those that were here enslaved are there at liberty. Death is the prisoner's discharge, the relief of the oppressed, and the servant's manumission (Job 3:18): There the prisoners, though they walk not at large, yet they rest together, and are not put to work, to grind in that prison-house. They are no more insulted and trampled upon, menaced and terrified, by their cruel task-masters: They hear not the voice of the oppressor. Those that were here doomed to perpetual servitude, that could call nothing their own, no, not their own bodies, are there no longer under command or control: There the servant is free from his master, which is a good reason why those that have power should use it moderately, and those that are in subjection should bear it patiently, yet a little while. (4.) Those that were at a vast distance from others are there upon a level (Job 3:19): The small and great are there, there the same, there all one, all alike free among the dead. The tedious pomp and state which attend the great are at an end there. All the inconveniences of a poor and low condition are likewise over; death and the grave know no difference. Levelled by death, the conqueror and the slave, The wise and foolish, cowards and the brave, Lie mixed and undistinguished in the grave. - Sir R. Blackmore

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 3 In this chapter we have an account of Job's cursing the day of his birth, and the night of his conception; Job 3:1; first the day, to which he wishes the most extreme darkness, Job 3:4; then the night, to which he wishes the same and that it might be destitute of all joy, and be cursed by others as well as by himself, Job 3:6; The reasons follow, because it did not prevent his coming into the world, and because he died not on it, Job 3:10; which would, as he judged, have been an happiness to him; and this he illustrates by the still and quiet state of the dead, the company they are with, and their freedom from all trouble, oppression, and bondage, Job 3:13; but however, since it was otherwise with him, he desires his life might not be prolonged, and expostulates about the continuance of it, Job 3:20; and this by reason of his present troubles, which were many and great, and came upon him as he feared they would, and which had made him uneasy in his prosperity, Job 3:24.

Why died I not from the womb?.... That is, as soon as he came out of it; or rather, as soon as he was in it, or from the time that he was in it; or however, while he was in it, that so he might not have come alive out of it; which sense seems best to agree both with what goes before and follows after; for since his conception in the womb was not hindered, he wishes he had died in it; and so some versions render it to this sense (n): why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? since he died not in the womb, which was desirable to him, he wishes that the moment he came out of it he had expired, and is displeased because it was not so, see Jer 20:17; thus what is the special favour of Providence, to be taken out of the womb alive, and preserved, he wishes not to have enjoyed, see Psa 22:9. (n) , Sept. "in vulva", V. L. "aut, in utero", Beza, Mercerus, Cocceius, Junius, Michaelis; so R. Abraham Peritzol, and Simeon Bar Tzemach.

Do not be amazed when I tell you that Job did not speak these words. I mistake him for another. These are words that I lend to Job and are contrary to his benevolence and profound goodness. In fact, Job had no desire to say anything of the sort. He suffered righteously what he was suffering, so that he reasonably and wisely said that “he was not born.” This is exactly what Christ himself said about Judas: “It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” And Job says much the same thing: “Why was I born? It would have been better if I had not been born.”

MORAL INTERPRETATION. 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? Be the thought far from us, that blessed Job, who was endued with such high spiritual knowledge, and who had such a witness of praise from the Judge within, should wish that he had perished in abortive birth! But seeing, what we also learn by the reward which he received, that he has within the witness of his fortitude, the weight of his words is to be reckoned within. Now sin is committed in the heart in four ways, and in four ways it is consummated in act. For in the heart it is committed by the suggestion, the pleasure, the consent, and the boldness to defend. For the suggestion comes of the enemy; the pleasure, of the flesh; the consent, of the spirit; and boldness to uphold, of pride. For the sin, which ought to fill the mind with apprehension, only exalts it, and in throwing down uplifts, while by uplifting it causes its more grievous overthrow; and hence that upright frame, wherein the first man was created, was by our old foe dashed down by these four strokes. For the serpent tempted, Eve was pleased, Adam yielded consent, and even when called in question he refused in effrontery to confess his sin. The serpent tempted, in that the secret enemy silently suggests evil to man's heart. Eve was pleased, because the sense of the flesh, at the voice of the serpent, presently gives itself up to pleasure. And Adam, who was set above the woman, yielded consent, in that whilst the flesh is carried away in enjoyment, the spirit also being deprived of its strength gives in from its uprightness. And Adam when called in question would not confess his sin, in that, in proportion as the spirit is by committing sin severed from the Truth, it becomes worse hardened in shamelessness at its downfall. Sin is likewise completed in act by the self-same four methods; for first the fault is done in secret, but afterwards it is done openly before men's eyes without the blush of guilt, and next it is formed into a habit, finally, whether by the cheats of false hope, or the stubbornness of reckless despair, it is brought to full growth. These four modes of sin then, which either go on secretly in the heart, or which are executed in act, blessed Job views, and bewails the many stages of sin wherein the human race was fallen, saying, 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? For 'the womb of conception' at the first was the tongue of the evil suggestion. Now the sinner would 'perish in the womb,' if only man knew in the very suggestion itself that he would bring death upon himself. Yet 'he came forth from the belly,' in that, as soon as the tongue had conceived him in sin by its suggestions, the pleasure likewise, immediately hurried him forth; and after his coming forth, 'the knees prevented him,' in that having issued forth in the carnal gratification, he then completed the sin by the consent of the spirit, all the senses being made subservient like knees underneath. And 'the knees preventing him, the breasts did also give him suck.' For whereas, in the spirit's consenting to the sin, the senses were drawn into the service, the many reasonings of vain confidence followed, which nourished the soul thus born, in sin with poisoned milk, and lulled it with soothing excuses, that it should not fear the bitter punishment of death. And hence the first man waxed bolder after his sin, saying, The women whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And truly, he had fled to hide himself out of fear, yet when he was called in question, he made it appear how swoln he was with pride while he feared; for when punishment is feared as the present consequence of sin, and the face of God being lost is not loved, the fear is one that proceeds from a high stomach, and not from a lowly spirit. For he is full of pride who does not give over his sin, if be may go unpunished. But, as we have said, sin is committed in these four ways, as in the heart, so also in the deed; for he saith, Why died I not in the womb? For the womb to the sinner is the secret fault in man, which conceives the sinner under cover, and as yet hides its guilt in the dark. Why did I not give up the ghost, when I came out of the belly? For there is 'a coming out of the womb from the belly,' when the sinner does not blush to do openly as well the things, which he has been guilty of in secret. Thus they had as it were come out of the womb of their hiding place, of whom the Prophet spake it; And they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Why did the knees prevent me? In that the sinner, when he is not confounded at his wickedness, is strengthened in the same by the further stays of most heinous custom. The sinner is as it were nursed on the knees, till he grow bigger, so long as the sin is confirmed by habitual acts, till it acquires strength. Or why the breasts that I should suck? For when the sin has once begun to issue into habit, then, alas! the sinner feeds himself either with the fallacious hope of God's mercy, or with the open recklessness of despair, that he never may return back to self-amendment, in so far as he either extravagantly colours to himself the pitifulness of his Maker, or is extravagantly terrified at the sin that he has done. Let the blessed man, then, take a view of man's fall, and mark down what precipice he has plunged himself into the pit of iniquity, saying, Why died I not in the womb? i.e. 'Why would I not, in the very secret act of sin in the heart, kill myself to the life of the flesh?' Why did I not give up the ghost, when I came out of the belly? i.e. 'Why, when I came forth in the overt act, died I not, was I not then at least instructed that I was undone?' For he would have 'given up the ghost' in his condemnation of himself, if he had known that he was lost. Why did the knees prevent me? i.e. 'Even after the open act of sin, why, yet further, did the custom too take me up in it, to make me stronger to commit sin, and to nurse and sustain me with habitual wicked acts?' Why the breasts, that I should suck? i.e. 'After I entered into the habit of sin, why did I rear myself to a more tremendous pitch of iniquity, either by reliance on false hope, or by the milk of a miserable despair?' For when the fault has been brought into a habit, the mind, even if it be inclined, by this time resists more feebly: for it becomes bound upon the mind by as many chains, as there are recurrences of the evil practice that clench it fast, Whence it happens that the mind, being sapped of strength, when it has no power to get free, turns to some resource or other of fallacious consolation, so as to flatter itself that the Judge, Who is to come, is of so great mercy, that even those, whom He shall find deserving of condemnation, He will never wholly destroy. Whereunto there is this worst addition, that the tongue of many like him abets him, since there are many who magnify with their praises these very misdeeds; whence it comes to pass that the fault is continually growing, nourished by applauses. Also then we neglect to heal the wound, which is counted worthy of the meed of praise, Hence Solomon says well, My son, if sinners give thee suck, consent thou not. For the wicked 'give suck,' whenever they either put wicked acts in our way to be done by their enticements, or applaud them with marks of favour when done. Does not he suck of whom the Psalmist says, For the wicked man is commended in his heart's desire; and he that doeth iniquity receives a blessing? We must also know, that those three modes of being sinners are more easily corrected as they come in their order downwards; but the fourth is not corrected but with difficulty. And hence our Saviour raises the damsel in the house, the young man without the gate, while Lazarus He raises in the grave; for he that sins in secret is as yet lying dead in the house, he is already being carried without the gate, whose iniquity is done openly, even to the shamelessness of commission in public; but he is pressed with the sepulchral mound, who, in the commission of sin, is over and above pressed and overlaid with the use of habit. But all these in mercy He restores to life; in that it is often the case that Divine grace enlighteneth with the light of its regard those that are dead not only in secret sins, but likewise in open evil practices, and that are overlaid with the weight of evil habit. But our Saviour knows indeed of a fourth being dead from the disciple's lips, yet never raises him to life; in that it is hard indeed for one, whom, after continuance in bad habit, the tongues of flatterers too get hold of, to be recovered from the death of the soul; and of such an one it is said with justice, Let the dead bury their dead. For 'the dead bury the dead,' as often as sinners load sinners with their approval. For what else is it to 'sin,' but to lie down in death? and to 'bury,' except it be to hide? But they that pursue the sinner with their applauses, bury the dead body under the mound of their words. Now Lazarus too was dead, yet he was never buried by the dead. For the believing women, who also gave tidings of his death to the Quickener, had laid him under the ground. And hence he forthwith returned back to the light; for when the soul is dead in sin, it is soon brought back, if anxious thoughts live over it. But sometimes, as we have likewise said above, it is not false hope that cuts off the mind, but a more deadly despair pierces it. And whereas this totally cuts off all hope of pardon, it supplies the soul with the milk of error in greater abundance. Let the holy man then consider, what wickedness man has been guilty of, yet for the worse, after the first sin, and, after he had lost paradise, to what broken steeps he descended in this place of exile, and let him say, Why died I not in the womb? i.e. 'When the suggestion of the serpent conceived me a sinner, O that I had then known the death that would come upon me; lest the suggestion should transport me to the length of delight, and should link me more closely to death.' Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? As though he said, 'O that when I came out to the external gratification, I had known that I was parting with the internal light; so that I had at least died at the point of this gratification only, that death might not inflict a sharper sting through the consent.' Why did the knees prevent me? As though he said, 'O that the consent had never caught me, my senses being made to bear up my frowardness, that my own consenting might not hurry me yet for the worse into shamelessness.' Or why the breasts that I should suck? As though he said, 'O that I had at least refused to flatter myself, after ill acts committed, that I might not attach myself thereby the more wickedly to my fault, the more softly I dealt with myself therein.' So then in these words of reproach, he charged himself with having sinned in our first parent. But had man never been brought down to the wretchedness of this place of banishment, by committing sin, let him say what peace he might have had.

After Job has cursed the days of his birth and the night of his conception to show that he detested from the beginning of his life, he now shows that he detests from the preservation of his life. With these remarks he shows more clearly that his life is burdensome to him. There are two states of life: one is hidden in which those conceived live in the womb; the other is open where one lives after birth outside the womb. As for the first state, he says, "Why did I not die in the womb?" As to the second, "Why did I not come forth from the womb and expire?" He treats first about the second state. One should know that the exterior life can be lost in two ways: sometimes, of course, from some harm coming on it, either intrinsic like sickness or extrinsic like a sword or something like that. So when he says, "Why did I not come forth from the womb and expire," it can be applied to this.

Every thing has its time and season, Ecc 3:1-8. Men are exercised with labor, Ecc 3:9, Ecc 3:10. Every thing is beautiful in its season, Ecc 3:11. Men should enjoy thankfully the gifts of God, Ecc 3:12, Ecc 3:13. What God does is for ever, Ecc 3:14. There is nothing new, Ecc 3:15. The corruption of judgment; but the judgments of God are right, Ecc 3:16, Ecc 3:17. Man is brutish, and men and brutes die in like manner, Ecc 3:18-21. Man may enjoy the fruit of his own labors, Ecc 3:22.

Why died I not from the womb - As the other circumstance did not take place, why was I not still-born, without the possibility of reviviscence? or, as this did not occur, why did I not die as soon as born? These three things appear to me to be clearly intended here: - 1. Dying in the womb, or never coming to maturity, as in the case of an abortion. 2. Being still-born, without ever being able to breathe. 3. Or, if born alive, dying within a short time after. And to these states he seems to refer in the following verses.

JOB CURSES THE DAY OF HIS BIRTH AND WISHES FOR DEATH. (Job 3:1-19) opened his mouth--The Orientals speak seldom, and then sententiously; hence this formula expressing deliberation and gravity (Psa 78:2). He formally began. cursed his day--the strict Hebrew word for "cursing:" not the same as in Job 1:5. Job cursed his birthday, but not his God.