The Poetry of Job's Lament

In Job 3, after responding with simple expressions of faith in God, Job exquisitely expresses his agony, his suffering, his turmoil with language and imagery that pierces to the heart of the matter. It is important to recognize that poetry is not merely window dressing on propositional statements. While Job’s curse-lament is, properly speaking, a “parody of a curse,”[1] Job’s adoption of the curse-lament form deepens the meaning of his existential turmoil. There is meaning not only in what is said but how it is said. We cannot simply boil down Job 3 to the basic idea that Job so hated his present circumstances that he wished he were dead. Such a bare statement doesn’t capture the fullness of human life; it can’t express the depth of the loss and confusion that Job is experiencing. Therefore, it is worthwhile to engage with the rhetoric and poetry of Job’s curse. Specifically, three poetic contrasts enhance our understanding of the situation.

First, Job expresses the impact of his suffering with a light/dark motif. Anyone who experiences seasonal affective disorder understands the power of light and dark over one’s mood and outlook on life. Anyone who has spent time thinking about where our food comes from knows that light is essential to productive life. Farms slow down significantly in the winter because of the balance between the light of day and the darkness of night. At the same time, a flood of light in the darkness can wake us up at night. Endless scrolling in front of a screen can throw our circadian rhythm into crisis mode. Light and dark are both appropriate in their proportion and place. But as Job raises his lament, he turns our natural understanding of how light and dark are essential to life upside down. He wishes that the morning light of the day of his birth had failed to dawn (v4). He wishes that darkness had “laid claim to” that day (v5) so that light would never dawn. Even more disturbing, Job wishes that darkness had even seized the night of his conception. In this case, we may be verging on the numinous, tangible darkness of the ninth plague against Egypt in Exodus. That darkness which was felt (Exod 10:21). Poetically, the point is that light is of no use to Job, so he wishes that darkness would have reigned over his whole life so that it would have been stopped before it even started.

Second, Job adopts a fruitful/barren motif to give voice to his desires. Not only does Job speak of the day of his birth but also of the night of his conception. Job wishes that that night had been barren or sterile or unfruitful. Because all of his own joy has been sucked out of him by his suffering, he wishes that all joy related to him would be wiped away. Let the reader understand that Job has no joy at this point for the simple pleasures of life, and this means of expressing his suffering breaks us free from merely theoretical contemplation of it.

Third, Job employs a peace/turmoil motif to characterize his experience. Importantly, Job ascribes peace to death in vv11-22 and turmoil to life in v24 especially. Consistent with the reversals of what is normal in the light/dark and fruitful/barren motifs, Job turns things upside down in his expression that death brings the peace and quiet for which he can only wish. Incredibly, even the skeptically inclined Preacher in the book of Ecclesiastes expresses a more balanced view when he writes, “But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. ⁵ For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten” (Eccl 9:4-5 ESV). Job would likely have a tart reply to the Preacher as he pronounced these words in his relative peace and quiet, but the point for us is to appreciate just how unsettling Job’s suffering was for him. To be clear, Job’s expression does not accurately reflect the truth of the situation. While the slave may be free from his master in Sheol (Job 3:19), there is still a greater Master with whom the slave relates and to whom he must give account, even for every careless word. Job’s poetic expression of his desire to be free from suffering forces us to reflect on what’s really valuable in a way that propositional statements cannot match.

May we, then, read Job better as we pay as close attention to the way he speaks as to what he says.

[1] Richard P. Belcher, Finding Favour in the Sight of God: A Theology of Wisdom Literature, NSBT 46 (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2018), 83.