Woes of Self Pity

Job 3:1-26 

    1 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 went from suffering in silence to moaning woes of self pity after his friends arrived, probably moved to complain now that an audience had arrived.  His suffering was great, his losses immense, and yet his absolute trust in God’s providence and sovereign grace seemed to have weakened somewhat.  He began by cursing the day he was born.  He wished that day could have been obliterated or at least covered from sight by darkness, that God Himself would not even look for that day, but that darkness would keep out the  light and death’s cloud settle over the day, not to mention the night, so that the entire day would never have happened!  This was extreme self pity and loathing because of his suffering.  He wished there was no joy on that day, but rather that there were no stars and no dawning of the next morning.  This was all to wish for Job’s mother never to have birthed him so that he never would see such sorrow now.  He seems to have forgotten the words he told his wife when she told him to curse God and just die to get it over with.  Then he had accepted God’s sovereign will and did not curse Him, but now the suffering seemed to have worn down that faith to the depths of pity and giving up on life even.  Now he wished he had died at birth or stillborn as dead when entering this world.  He had just about given up on life due to the extreme adversity.  If he had died at birth, he would have rest instead of turmoil; if he had been stillborn, Job would have been without trouble or oppression, free as a slave from his master or a prisoner from his jail keeper.  He felt enslaved and imprisoned in the sufferings.  He longed now for death which refused to come, and wanted to find the grave because God seemed to hedge him in with no escape.  He sighed in suffering continuously, and groaned in pain each moment, as a running stream of water which does not cease.  His greatest fear had come true, and Job had no rest in the trouble coming his way.  It had only begun, and he wanted it to end already.  This example teaches us to look further as James 5:11 reveals the compassion and mercy of God in the trials and suffering through which he persevered.  We can do likewise if we keep our eyes on the Lord Christ and our Father in heaven, trusting as the prophets who endured so much before us.  Our births were predetermined by God for His glorious purposes and our joy in that grace, albeit though adversity of life and of our adversary’s ill will to those who have faith in the testimony of Jesus Christ our Lord and God’s Son, the one who suffered so much more for those He calls, for He deserved none of what He endured.  In the story of Job, we will see that he did deserve correction, and did need repentance because of his sin, no matter how righteous he appeared at first.  We also are not blameless, and have received mercy in saving grace.  Why then give in to self pity and wish we were never born?  God has made us in His image for His purposes and glory.  May we likewise endure in longsuffering patience, learning how to avoid the loss of entitlement and missteps of Job in the midst of extreme suffering which we feel we don’t deserve.