After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.
Parallel translations
- WEB After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth.
- BSB After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.
- NKJV After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.
- NASB Afterward Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.
- NLT At last Job spoke, and he cursed the day of his birth.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Job breaks his silence and curses the day of his birth. His anguish finally pours out in lament.
Overview
After seven days, Job's grief erupts not in cursing God but in cursing the day he was born, wishing he had never lived. This honest lament shows that faith can voice deep despair without sinning against God. Scripture itself, including the Psalms and Christ's own cry of dereliction, gives suffering believers permission to bring raw anguish before God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Jer 20:14–15Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed.
- Ps 106:33Because they provoked his spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips.
- Ps 39:2–3I was dumb with silence, I held my peace, even from good; and my sorrow was stirred.
- Job 2:5But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.
- Job 35:16Therefore doth Job open his mouth in vain; he multiplieth words without knowledge.
- Job 3:3Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.
- Job 1:22In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.
- Job 2:9–10Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.
- Job 1:11But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 3:1 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.