After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.
Parallel translations
- WEB After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth.
- KJV After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.
- BSB 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 is the day in which I was born. Don’t let the day in which my mother bore me be blessed.
- Ps 106:33because they were rebellious against his spirit, he spoke rashly with his lips.
- Ps 39:2–3I was mute with silence. I held my peace, even from good. My sorrow was stirred.
- Job 2:5But stretch out your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce you to your face.”
- Job 35:16Therefore Job opens his mouth with empty talk, and he multiplies words without knowledge.”
- Job 3:3“Let the day perish in which I was born, the night which said, ‘There is a boy conceived.’
- Job 1:22In all this, Job did not sin, nor charge God with wrongdoing.
- Job 2:9–10Then his wife said to him, “Do you still maintain your integrity? Renounce God, and die.”
- Job 1:11But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will renounce you to your face.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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.