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Commentary on Job 3 verses 20–26
Job, finding it to no purpose to wish either that he had not been born or had died as soon as he was born, here complains that his life was now continued and not cut off. When men are set on quarrelling there is no end of it; the corrupt heart will carry on the humour. Having cursed the day of his birth, here he courts the day of his death. The beginning of this strife and impatience is as the letting forth of water.
I. He thinks it hard, in general, that miserable lives should be prolonged (Job 3:20-22): Wherefore is light in life given to those that are bitter in soul? Bitterness of soul, through spiritual grievances, makes life itself bitter. Why doth he give light? (so it is in the original): he means God, yet does not name him, though the devil had said, "He will curse thee to thy face;" but he tacitly reflects on the divine Providence as unjust and unkind in continuing life when the comforts of life are removed. Life is called light, because pleasant and serviceable for walking and working. It is candle-light; the longer it burns the shorter it is, and the nearer to the socket. This light is said to be given us; for, if it were not daily renewed to us by a fresh gift, it would be lost. But Job reckons that to those who are in misery it is dōron adōron - gift and no gift, a gift that they had better be without, while the light only serves them to see their own misery by. Such is the vanity of human life that it sometimes becomes a vexation of spirit; and so alterable is the property of death that, though dreadful to nature, it may become desirable even to nature itself. He here speaks of those, 1. Who long for death, when they have out-lived their comforts and usefulness, are burdened with age and infirmities, with pain or sickness, poverty or disgrace, and yet it comes not; while, at the same time, it comes to many who dread it and would put it far from them. The continuance and period of life must be according to God's will, not according to ours. It is not fit that we should be consulted how long we would live and when we would die; our times are in a better hand than our own. 2. Who dig for it as for hidden treasures, that is, would give any thing for a fair dismission out of this world, which supposes that then the thought of men's being their own executioners was not so much as entertained or suggested, else those who longed for it needed not take much pains for it, they might soon come at it (as Seneca tells them) if they are pleased. 3. Who bid it welcome, and are glad when they can find the grave and see themselves stepping into it. If the miseries of this life can prevail, contrary to nature, to make death itself desirable, shall not much more the hopes and prospects of a better life, to which death is our passage, make it so, and set us quite above the fear of it? It may be a sin to long for death, but I am sure it is no sin to long for heaven.
II. He thinks himself, in particular, hardly dealt with, that he might not be eased of his pain and misery by death when he could not get ease in any other way. To be thus impatient of life for the sake of the troubles we meet with is not only unnatural in itself, but ungrateful to the giver of life, and argues a sinful indulgence of our own passion and a sinful inconsideration of our future state. Let it be our great and constant care to get ready for another world, and then let us leave it to God to order the circumstances of our removal thither as he thinks fit: "Lord, when and how thou pleasest;" and this with such an indifference that, if he should refer it to us, we would refer it to him again. Grace teaches us, in the midst of life's greatest comforts, to be willing to die, and, in the midst of its greatest crosses, to be willing to live. Job, to excuse himself in this earnest desire which he had to die, pleads the little comfort and satisfaction he had in life.
1.In his present afflicted state troubles were continually felt, and were likely to be so. He thought he had cause enough to be weary of living, for, (1.) He had no comfort of his life: My sighing comes before I eat, Job 3:24. The sorrows of life prevented and anticipated the supports of life; nay, they took away his appetite for his necessary food. His griefs returned as duly as his meals, and affliction was his daily bread. Nay, so great was the extremity of his pain and anguish that he did not only sigh, but roar, and his roarings were poured out like the waters in a full and constant stream. Our Master was acquainted with grief, and we must expect to be so too. (2.) He had no prospect of bettering his condition: His way was hidden, and God had hedged him in, Job 3:23. He saw no way open of deliverance, nor knew he what course to take; his way was hedged up with thorns, that he could not find his path. See Job 23:8; Lam 3:7.
2.Even in his former prosperous state troubles were continually feared; so that then he was never easy, Job 3:25, Job 3:26. He knew so much of the vanity of the world, and the troubles to which, of course, he was born, that he was not in safety, neither had he rest then. That which made his grief now the more grievous was that he was not conscious to himself of any great degree either of negligence or security in the day of his prosperity, which might provoke God thus to chastise him. (1.) He had not been negligent and unmindful of his affairs, but kept up such a fear of trouble as was necessary to the maintaining of his guard. He was afraid for his children when they were feasting, lest they should offend God (Job 1:5), afraid for his servants lest they should offend his neighbours; he took all the care he could of his own health, and managed himself and his affairs with all possible precaution; yet all would not do. (2.) He had not been secure, nor indulged himself in ease and softness, had not trusted in his wealth, nor flattered himself with the hopes of the perpetuity of his mirth; yet trouble came, to convince and remind him of the vanity of the world, which yet he had not forgotten when he lived at ease. Thus his way was hidden, for he knew not wherefore God contended with him. Now this consideration, instead of aggravating his grief, might rather serve to alleviate it. Nothing will make trouble easy so much as the testimony of our consciences for us, that, in some measure, we did our duty in a day of prosperity; and an expectation of trouble will make it sit the lighter when it comes. The less it is a surprise the less it is a terror.
“Why is light given,” Job asks, “to those whose soul dwells in bitterness, and life to those souls who are in pain?” Again this is not the language—God forbid!—of someone who makes rebukes, but of someone who searches and suffers. In fact, when words are spoken with a different spirit, they must not be interpreted in the same manner. Therefore, when a philosopher asserts, “Why does a senseless person have riches at his disposal?” he only shows that he is unworthy of riches. From this we learn that not only life but also death is useful, when it is more desired than evil. In this way Job speaks of “those who long for death,” but, he says, “it does not come.” That is why the Preacher in Ecclesiastes says, “For everything there is a season” and, in another passage, “O death, how your memory is sweet.” When you hear Job’s wife suggesting to him, “Curse God, and die,” you should not suppose that he did not answer because of his love of life but because of his piety. Indeed he who considered death to be very desirable and saw it as a real goodness when he was allowed to obtain it did not dare speak against God. “Death is rest for man.” This is what Job declares. Now if death brings rest, why don’t the majority of people rush to it? Because God has made life desirable in order to prevent us from running to death. “Its way is hidden.” In my opinion Job is speaking about death, but by pretending that his words are about the way of humankind. This indicates that Job’s words concerning death are what has been said before, especially in the expression, “they dig for it more than for hidden treasures,” things that are evidently hidden. Our future is unknown, Job says. We do not uncover it. Please do not speak to me about those who hang themselves, because Job speaks about what conforms to nature and the commandments of God. “God has surrounded it,” he says, “with a wall.” As the gospel states, “The day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night.” To avoid the response, “Why do you not choose death?” Job answers, “The Lord has surrounded it with a wall.” Its doors are closed.
11. For ‘man's way is hid to him,’ in that though he already takes cognizance of the kind [qualitate] of life that he is leading, he does not yet know to what issue it tends. Though his affections are now fixed on things above, though he seeks them with all his longings, he is yet ignorant whether he shall persevere in the same longings. For forsaking our sins we strive after righteousness, and we know whence we are come, but we know nothing whereunto we may arrive. We know what we were yesterday, but we cannot tell what we may chance to be to-morrow. ‘Man's way then is hid to him,’ in that he so sets the foot of his labour, that, this notwithstanding, he can never foresee the issue of the accomplishment thereof.
12. Now there is also another ‘hiding of our way.’ For there are times when we are ignorant, whether the very things which we believe we do aright, are rightly done in the strict Judge's eye. For, as we have also said a long way above, it often happens that an action of ours, which is cause for our condemnation, passes with us for the aggrandizement of virtue. Often by the same act, whereby we think to appease the Judge, He is urged to anger, when favourable. As Solomon bears witness, saying, There is a way which seemeth right unto a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death. [Prov. 14, 12] Hence, whilst holy men are getting the mastery over their evil habits, their very good practices even become an object of dread to them, lest, when they desire to do a good action, they be decoyed by a semblance of the thing, lest the baleful canker of corruption lurk under the fair appearance of a goodly colour. For they know that they are still charged with the burthen of corruption, and cannot exactly discern the things that be good. And when they bring before their eyes the standard of the final Judgment, there are times when they fear the very things which they approve in themselves; and indeed they are in mind wholly intent on the concerns of the interior, yet alarmed from uncertainty about their doings, they know not whither they are going. Hence after he had said, Wherefore is light given to one that is in misery? it is with propriety added, to a man whose way is hid? As though the words were, ‘Why has that man this life's success for his portion, who knows not of his course of conduct, in what esteem it is held by his Judge. And it is rightly subjoined, And whom God hath encompassed with darkness. For man is ‘encompassed with darkness,’ since howsoever he may burn with heavenly longings, he is ignorant how it goes with him in the interior. And he is in great fear lest aught concerning himself should meet him in the Judgment, which is now hidden from himself in the aspirations of holy fervour. ‘Man is encompassed with darkness,’ in that he is closed in by the clouds of his own ignorance. Is not that man ‘encompassed with darkness,’ who most often neither remembers the past, nor finds out the future, and scarce knows the present? That wise man had seen himself to be encompassed with darkness, when he said, And with labour do we find the things that are before us; but the things that are in heaven who shall search out? [Wisd. 9, 16]
The Prophet beheld himself ‘encompassed with’ such ‘darkness,’ when he was unable to discover the interior springs of His inmost economy, saying, He made darkness His secret place. [Ps. 18, 11] For the Author of our being, in that, when we were cast out into this place of exile, He took from us the light of His vision, buried Himself from our eyes as it were ‘in the secret place of darkness.’
13. Now as often as we attentively regard this same darkness of our blind estate, we stir up the mind to lamentation. For it weeps for the state of blindness, which it is under without, if it remember in humility that it is bereft of light in the interior, and when it looks to the darkness which surrounds it, it is wrung with ardent longing for the inward brightness, and rent with thought's whole effort, and that light above, which as soon as created it relinquished, now debarred, it makes the object of its search. Whence it very often happens that that radiance of inward joy bursts out amidst those very tears of piety; and that the mind, which had lain torpid in a state of blindness, being fed with sighs, receives strength to gaze at the interior brightness.
A person’s actions are veiled and hidden by his death. God covers his way. The word covers means that God spares some afflictions through death, because the action of covering on God’s part is an aid.
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SUMMARY
Job 3:23 profoundly articulates Job's intense despair and existential crisis, as he questions the very purpose of his continued existence amidst overwhelming suffering. This verse, embedded within his initial lament, reveals a man who feels utterly lost, his future obscured, and his life paradoxically confined by the very God who once protected him. It captures the agonizing tension between his desire for death and the relentless continuation of a life devoid of meaning or understanding in his current state.
CONTEXT
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
Job 3:23 employs several potent literary devices to convey Job's anguish. The verse opens with a rhetorical question ("Why is light given...?") which, rather than seeking an answer, emphasizes Job's profound bewilderment and the perceived absurdity of his continued existence in suffering. "Light" functions as a powerful metaphor for life, joy, understanding, or even hope, making Job's questioning of its presence in his dark circumstances all the more poignant. Furthermore, there is profound irony in Job's perception of God's "hedge." What was initially presented as a divine protective barrier in Job 1:10 is now experienced by Job as a suffocating enclosure, a prison constructed by God himself. This reversal of meaning underscores the depth of Job's despair and his distorted, yet understandable, perception of God's actions under the immense weight of inexplicable pain.
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
Job 3:23 plunges into the heart of the problem of suffering, particularly when it appears to be inexplicable and divinely ordained. It confronts the theological tension between God's sovereignty and human experience, showcasing how even a righteous man can feel utterly abandoned and confined by the very God he serves. The verse challenges simplistic notions of divine justice and highlights the mystery inherent in God's ways, which often remain hidden from human understanding. It validates the honest, raw expression of lament before God, even when that lament questions God's actions or purposes. The "hidden way" and the "hedged in" feeling speak to the universal human experience of disorientation and confinement in times of crisis, where the path forward is unclear and external circumstances feel overwhelming, forcing a re-evaluation of one's understanding of God's character and providence.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
Job 3:23 offers a profound validation for those experiencing deep, inexplicable suffering. It reminds us that it is not only permissible but often necessary to bring our rawest emotions, our deepest questions, and our most profound despair before God. Job's lament is a testament to the fact that faith does not always mean understanding or immediate relief, but rather the courage to wrestle with God in the midst of the darkness. When our "way is hid" and we feel "hedged in" by circumstances beyond our control, this verse encourages us to articulate our pain honestly, trusting that God is big enough to handle our questions and our anger. It cultivates compassion for those who feel lost and trapped, urging us to listen to their laments without offering simplistic answers or premature theological platitudes. Ultimately, it underscores the mystery of divine providence, teaching us to hold onto God even when His purposes are inscrutable and His hand feels heavy, finding solace in His enduring presence rather than immediate comprehension.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
Does Job's lament in Job 3:23 mean he has lost his faith in God?
Answer: Job's lament in Job 3, including verse 23, is an expression of profound despair and confusion, not necessarily a loss of faith. Throughout the book, Job maintains his integrity and, despite his questioning, never ultimately curses God (as Satan predicted in Job 1:11). His lament is a wrestling with God, a desperate plea for understanding from the one he still believes is sovereign. It represents a crisis of understanding and meaning, not an abandonment of belief in God's existence or power. His questions are directed to God, indicating an ongoing, albeit deeply strained, relationship of faith that is being tested to its limits.
How can God "hedge in" someone He loves, as Job claims?
Answer: The phrase "whom God hath hedged in" reflects Job's perception of his suffering, not necessarily a direct theological statement about God's character. In Job 1:10, God's "hedge" was a symbol of protection and favor. However, under the weight of his inexplicable suffering, Job reinterprets this divine boundary as a suffocating enclosure, a prison from which he cannot escape. This highlights how intense pain and disorientation can distort our perception of God's actions and intentions. While God is sovereign and permits suffering, His intention is not to maliciously trap His children. Rather, Job's lament reveals the human tendency to interpret divine sovereignty through the lens of profound pain, seeing God's hand as oppressive when His purposes are hidden and His ways seem inscrutable.
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
Job 3:23, with its cry of a "way... hid" and feeling "hedged in" by divine action, finds its ultimate answer and transformation in the person of Jesus Christ. Job's desperate longing for an explanation and an escape from his suffering foreshadows humanity's universal need for a revealed path and true freedom. In Christ, the "way" is no longer hidden; Jesus declares, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," offering clarity and direction where there was only confusion and despair. Furthermore, the feeling of being "hedged in" by God's judgment or the consequences of sin is overcome by Christ's sacrificial work. On the cross, Jesus himself experienced the ultimate "hedging in" – the divine wrath and abandonment for our sake, crying out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Yet, through His death and resurrection, He broke the bonds of sin and death, offering true liberation to all who believe (Romans 8:1-2). Thus, Job's lament, while deeply human, points to the divine solution in Christ, who not only understands our suffering but has conquered it, opening a clear path to God and eternal life (Hebrews 4:15-16).