“Melancholy”
Let the day perish wherein I was born. —Job 3:3
Read Job 3
By Job chapter 3, a change has taken place in Job’s life. As long as he believed that God was with him, Job remained strong, but he was no longer the hero who gloried in his suffering. To under-stand why he cursed the day of his birth, we should not forget the great misery he experienced. There was a time lapse between Satan’s attacks and what we read in this chapter. Job’s bottled up grief suddenly became an outburst. That which the Lord had said about his deceiver, Job now says about himself: It had been better that he had never been born.
Job no longer had an eye for the Lord’s blessings. Even worse, he longed for death in spite of the fact that the Lord had given him life. He thought that if he had died, he would have enjoyed the company of those who had lived happily on the earth and of those that never saw light (v.16). Is man given life just to suffer (v.20)? But even if Job did curse the day of his birth, he did not accuse God and commit the sin that Satan hoped for. He did not turn his back on God.
His cry from the depths was directed to God. Though believers may suffer great distress, there is something better prepared for those who seek the Lord as Job did. There is a rest prepared for the people of God. Christ was bound in order that His children would be set free. He was forsaken of God and mankind so that they would never be forsaken.
How are we to explain Job’s melancholic state?
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