Matthew Poole and continuators on Job 3

1. AFter this [opened Job his Mouth, ] and [cursed his day. ]

He spake freely and boldly, as this Phrase is used Prov. 31. 8, 9. Eph. 6. 19. and elsewhere.

To wit, his Birth-day, as is evident from v. 3. which is called simply a Mans day, Hos. 7. 5. which also some others, through the same Infirmity, and in the same Circumstances, have cursed, as we see Ier. 20. 14. In vain do some men endeavour to excuse this and the following Speeches of Iob, who afterwards is reproved by God, and severely accuseth himself for them, Ch. 38. 2. and 40. 4. and 42. 3, 6. And yet he doth not proceed so far as to curse or blaspheme God, but makes the Devil a Lyar in his Prognosticks: But although he doth not break forth into direct and down right Reproaches of God, yet he makes secret and indirect Reflections upon Gods Providence. His Curse was sinful, both because it was vain, being applied to an unreasonable thing, which was not capable of blessing and cursing, and to a day that was past, and so out of the reach of all Curses; and because it was applied to one of Gods Creatures, all which were and are in themselves very good, and pronounced blessed by God, and so they are, if we do not turn them into Curses; and because it casts a blame upon God for bringing that day, and for giving him that Life which that day brought into the World. He pronounceth that day an unhappy, woful, and cursed day, not in it self, but with respect to himself.

3. [ Let the day perish wherein I was born, ] and the night in which [it was said, ] There is a Man-Child [conceived ]

Let the remembrance of that day be utterly lost. Yea, I heartily wish that it had never been. Such Wishes are apparently foolish and impatient, and yet have been somtimes forced from wise and good men in grievous Distresses, not as if they expected any effect of them, but only to shew their abhorrency of Life, and to express the intolerableness of their grief, and to give some vent to their passions.

With Joy and Triumph, as happy tidings. Compare Ier. 20. 15.

Or rather, brought forth, as this word is used, 1 Chron. 4. 17. For the time of conception is unknown commonly to Women themselves, and doth not use to be reported among men, as this day is supposed to be.

Marginal references: Ch. 10. 1[illegible: 1+ letters] ▪ 19 I[illegible: 1+ letters]. 20. 1[illegible: 1+ letters] ▪

4 [Let that day be Darkness, ] [let not God regard it from above, ] neither let the Light shine upon it.

I wish the Sun had never risen upon that day to make it day, or, which is all one, that it had never been, and whensoever that day returns, I wish it may be black, and gloomy, and uncomfortable, and therefore execrable and odious to all men.

i. e. From Heaven, either, 1. By causing the Light of the Sun which is in Heaven to shine upon it. So it agrees both with the foregoing and following Branches of this Verse. Or, 2. By blessing and favouring it, or by giving his Blessings to men upon it. Let it be esteemed by all an unlucky, and comfortless day. Oh Let not God require it, i. e. bring it again in its course, as other days return. in this sense God is said to require that which is past, Eccles. 3. 15. Compare v. 3. 6.

5. Let Darkness and [the shadow of death ] [ stain it, ] let a Cloud dwell upon it, [ let the blackness of the day terrifie it. ]

i. e. A black and dark shadow like that of the place of the dead, which is a Land of Darkness, and where the Light is Darkness, as Iob explains this very Phrase, Ch. 10. 21. 22. Or, so gross and palpable Darkness that by its horrours and damps may take away mens Spirits and Lives.

i. e. Take away its beauty and Glory, and make it abominable as a filthy thing. Or, challenge it, i. e. take and keep the entire possession of it, so as the Light may not have the least share in it.

To wit, the day, i. e. Men in it. Let it be always observed as a frightful and dismal day.

Marginal references: Or, [illegible: 1 word]; Or, [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] it as [illegible: 1 word] who have [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1+ letters]. [illegible: 1+ letters].

6. As for that Night, let [darkness ] seize upon it, [ let it not be joined unto the days of the year, ] [let it not come into the number of the Months▪ ]

i. e. Constant and extraordinary Darkness, without the least glimmering of Light from the Moon or Stars.

i. e. Reckoned as one or a part of one of them. The night is distinguished from the artificial day, but it is a part of the natural day, which consists of 24 hours. Or rather, let it not rejoice among the days, &c. Joy here, and terrour v. 5. are poetically and figuratively ascribed to the day or night, with respect to men, who either rejoice or are affrighted in it. Let it be a sad, and as it were a funeral day▪

i. e. To be one of those Nights which go to the making up of the Months.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word]. [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word]

7. Lo, [let that night be solitary, ] let [no joyful voice ] come therein:

i. e. Destitute of all society of Men meeting and feasting together, which commonly was done at night, Suppers being the most solemn Meals among divers antient Nations. See Mark 6. 21. Luk. 14. 16. Iohn 12. 2. Rev. 19. 9, 17.

Neither of the Bride and Bridegroom, nor any that celebrate their Nuptials, or any other merry Solemnity.

8. Let them curse it [that curse the day, ] [who are ready to raise up their mourning. ]

i. e. Their day, to wit, their Birth-day: for the Pronoun is here omitted for the meeters sake: For this and the following Chapters are written in verse, as all grant. So the Sense is, when their Afflictions move them to curse their own Birth-day, let them remember mine also, and bestow some Curses upon it. Or, the day of their distress and trouble, which sometimes is called simply the day, as Obad. 12. Or, the day of the Birth or death of that person whose Funerals are celebrated by the hired Mourners, who in their solemn Lamentations used to curse the day that gave them such a Person, whom they should so suddenly lose, and therefore it had been better never to have enjoyed him, and to curse the day in which he died as an unlucky, and execrable day. Or the day, i. e. the Day-light: which to some persons is an hateful thing and the Object of their Curses, namely to leud Persons and Thieves, to whom the morning Light is even as the Shadow of death, Ch. 24. 17. as also to persons oppressed with deep Melancholy, as it is here implied, v. 20. So the sense is this, They who use to curse the day only, but generally love and bless the night, yet let this night be as abominable and execrable to them as the day-time generally is.

Who are brim full of sorrow, and always ready to pour out their Cries, and Tears, and Complaints, and with them Curses, as men in great passions frequently do. Or, such Mourning-Men, or Mourning-Women, whose common Employment it was, and who were hired to mourn, and therefore were always ready to do so upon funeral occasions; of which see 2 Chron. 35. 25. Ier. 9. 17, 18, 20. Ezek. 30. 2. Ioel 1. 15. Amos [illegible: 1+ letters], 16. Matth. 9. 23. And this Sense suits with the use of the last word in Hebrew Writers, of which a plain and pertinent Instance is given by the learned Mercer. But because that word is commonly used in another sense for the Leviathan, both in this Book and elsewhere in Scripture, as Psal. 74. 14. and 104. 26. Isa. 27. 1. And because this very Phrase of raising the Leviathan is used afterward▪ Ch. 41. 25. others render the words thus▪ Who are prepared, or ready to raise the Leviathan. It is evident that the Leviathan was a great and dreadful Fish or Sea-Monster, though there be some disagreement about its kind or quality, and that the raising of or endeavouring to catch the Leviathan was a dangerous and terrible work, as is plain from Iob 41. And therefore those Sea-Men, who have been generally noted for great Swearers and cursers, especially when their Passions of Rage or Fear are raised, being now labouring to catch this Sea-monster, and finding themselves and their Vessel in great danger from him, they fall to their old trade of Swearing and Cursing, and curse the day wherein they were born, and the day in which they ventured upon this most hazardous and terrible work. Others understand this Leviathan mystically, as it is used Isa. 27. 1. for the great Enemy of Gods Church and People, called there also the Dragon, to wit, the Devil, whom the Magicians both now do, and formerly did use to raise with fearful Curses and Imprecations. Not as if Iob did justifie this practice, but only it is a rash and passionate wish, that they who pour sorth so many Curses undeservedly, would bestow their deserved Curses upon this day,

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word], A [illegible: 1 word].

9. [Let the Stars of the Twilight thereof be dark, ] [let it look for Light but have none, ] neither let it see [ the dawning of the day: ]

Let the Stars, which are the Glory and Beauty of the Night, to render it amiable and delightful to men, be covered with thick darkness, Chap. 41. 18. and that both in the Evening Twilight, as is here expressed, when the Stars begin to arise and shine forth, and also in the further progress of the Night, even till the Morning begins to dawn, as the following words imply.

Let its darkness be aggravated with the disappointment of its Hopes and Expectations of Light. He ascribes sense or reasoning to the Night by a Poetical fiction usual in all Writers.

Heb. The Eye-lids of the day, i. e. the Morning-Star which ushers in the day, and the beginning and consequently the progress of the Morning Light, and the Day following. Let this whole natural day consisting of Night and day be blotted out of the Catalogue of Days, as he wished before.

Marginal references: Chap. 41. 18.; Heb. the Eyelids of the morning.

10. Because [it ] [shut not up the doors ] of my [Mothers ] Womb, [nor hid sorrow from mine Eyes. ]

To wit, the night or the day: to which those things are ascribed which were done by others in them, as is frequent in Poetical Writings, such as this is. Or, he, i. e. God: whom in modesty and Reverence he forbears to name. Yet he doth not curse God for his Birth, as the Devil presaged, but only wisheth that the day of his Birth might have manifest Characters of a Curse impressed upon it.

That it might either never have conceived me, or at least never have brought me forth.

Which word is here fitly supplied both out of Ch. 1. 21. and 31. 18. where it is expressed; and by comparing other places where it is necessarily to be understood, though the Womb only be mentioned, as Iob 10. 19. Psal. 58. 3. Isa. 48. 8. Ier. 1. 5.

Because it did not keep me from entring into this miserable Life, and seeing, i. e. feeling, or experiencing, (as that word is oft used) those bitter sorrows under which I now groan.

11. [Why died I not from the Womb? ] [Why did I not give up the Ghost when I came out of the Belly? ]

i. e. As soon as ever I was born, or come out of the Womb.

The same thing expressed in other words, which is an Elegancy usual both in the Hebrew and in other Languages.

12. [Why did the Knees prevent me? ] or [why the Breasts that I should suck? ]

Why did the Midwife or Nurse receive me and lay me upon her Knees, and did not suffer me to fall upon the bare ground, and there to lie in a neglected and forlorn condition, till merciful Death had taken me out of this miserable World into which the cruel kindness of my Mother and Midwife hath betrayed me?

Why did the Breasts prevent me (which may be fitly understood out of the former Member) to wit, from perishing through hunger, or supply me that I should have what to suck? Seeing my Mother had not a miscarrying Womb, but did unhappily bring me forth, why had she not dry Breasts? Or why were there any Breasts for me which I might suck? Thus Iob most unthankfully and unworthily despiseth and traduceth these wonderful and singular Mercies of God towards poor helpless Infants because of the present Inconveniences, which he had by means of them.

13. For now should I have [lien still, and been quiet, ] I should have slept; then had I been at rest,

Free from all those torments of my Body and Mind which now oppress me.

14. [With Kings ] and Counsellors of the Earth, [which built desolate places for themselves: ]

I had then been as happy as the proudest Monarchs, who after all their great Archievments and Enjoyments go down into their Graves, where I also should have been sweetly reposed.

Which to shew their great Wealth and Power, or to leave behind him a glorious name rebuilt ruined Cities, or built new Cities and Palaces, and other Monuments in places where before there was meer solitude and Wasteness.

Marginal references: Ch. 15. 28.

16. Or as an [hidden ] [untimely Birth ] [I had not been; ] as Infants [which never saw light. ]

Undiscerned and unregarded.

Born before the due time and therefore extinct.

To wit, in the Land of the Living, of which he here speaketh.

Being stifled and dead before they were born.

Marginal references: Psal. 58. 8.

17. [There ] [the wicked cease from troubling: ] and [there the weary be at rest ]

i. e. In the Grave, which though not expressed, yet is clearly implied in the foregoing Verses.

The great oppressours and troublers of the World cease from all those Vexations, Rapines, and Murders, which here they procured.

Those who were here molested and tired out with their Tyrannies, now quietly sleep with them, or by them.

Marginal references: Heb. wearied in strength.

18. There the Prisoners rest [together, ] [they hear not the voice of the Oppressor. ]

i. e. One as well as another, they who were kept in the strongest Chains, and closest Prisons, and condemned to the most hard and miserable slavery, rest as well as those who were captives in much better circumstances. Or, in like manner, (as this word oft signifies) as those Oppressours and oppressed do.

Or, Exactour, or Ta[illegible: 1+ letters]kmaster, who urgeth and forceth them by cruel threatnings and stripes to greater diligence in the works to which they are condemned. See Exod. 3. 7. and 5. 6, 10, 13. Iob meddles not here with their eternal State after death or the Sentence and Judgment of God against wicked men, of which he speaks hereafter, but only speaks of their freedom from worldly troubles, which is the only matter of his Complaint, and present Discourse.

19. [The small and great ] [ are there, ] and the Servant is free from his Master.

i. e. Persons of all qualities and conditions, whether higher or lower.

In the same place and State, all those kinds of distinctions and differences being for ever abolished.

Marginal references: Or, is there the sam[illegible: 1+ letters]

20. [Wherefore is Light given ] to him that is in Misery, and Life [unto the bitter in Soul? ]

Heb. Wherefore (for what cause, or use, or good) doth he (i. e. God, though he forbear to name him, out of that holy Fear and Reverence which still he retained towards him) give Light, either the Light of the Sun, which the Living only behold, Eccles. 6. 5. and 7. 11. Or the Light of Life, as may seem both by the next words, and by comparing Psal. [illegible: 1+ letters]6. 13. and because death is oft set forth by the name of Darkness, as Life by the name of Light. These are strong Expostulations with God and quarrelling with his Providence, and with his Blessings; but we must consider, that Iob was but a man, and a man of like Passions and Infirmities with other men, and now in grievous Agonies, being not only under most violent and yet continual torments of Body, but also under great disquietments of Mind, and the deep sense of Gods Displeasure, and was also left to himself, that he might see what was in his Heart, and that all succeeding Ages might have in him an illustrious Example of Mans Infirmity, and the necessity of Gods Grace to help them in time of need. And therefore it is no Wonder if his passions boil up and break forth in some indecent and sinful Expressions.

Unto such to whom Life itself is very bitter and burdensom. Why doth he obtrude his favours upon those who abhor them?

21. Which long for death, but it cometh not, and [dig for it ] more than for hid Treasures.

i. e. Desire and pray for it with as much earnestness as men dig for Treasure: But it is observable, that Iob durst not lay violent Hands upon himself, nor do any thing to hasten or procure his Death, but notwithstanding all his Miseries and Complaints, he was contented to wait all the days of his appointed time, till his change came, Ch. 14. 14.

Marginal references: Heb. wait. Rev. 9. 6.

23. [Why is Light given ] to a man [whose way is hid, ] and [whom God hath hedged in? ]

These words are conveniently supplied out of v. 20. where they are, all the following words hitherto being joined in Construction and sense with them.

To wit, from him; who knows not his way, i. e. which way to turn himself, what course to take to comfort himself in his Miseries, or to get out of them, what method to use to please and reconcile that God who is so angry with him, seeing his sincere and exact Piety, to which God is witness, doth not satisfie him, or what the end of these Calamities will be.

Not with a Hedge of defence, like that Ch. 1. 10. but of Offence and Restraint; i. e. whom God hath put as it were in a Prison or Pound, or like Cattle in grounds inclosed with an high and strong Hedge, over or through which they cannot get, so that he can see no way nor possibility to escape, but all refuge fails him.

Marginal references: Chap. 19. 8. Lam. 3. 7.

24. For [my Sighing cometh before I eat, ] and [my Roarings ] [are poured out like the Waters. ]

Heb. Before the face of my Bread, i. e. either when I am going to eat: or rather, all the time whilst I am eating (for so this Phrase is used, Psal. 72. 5. before the face of the Sun, &c. that is, as we translate it, as long as the Sun endureth,) I fall into bitter Passions of sighing and weeping, partly because my necessity and duty obligeth me to eat, and so to support this wretched Life, which I long to lose: and principall▪ because of my uninterrupted pains of Body and horrours of my Mind which mix themselves with my very Meat, and do not afford me one quiet moment. Compare Psal. 10[illegible: 1+ letters]. 9.

i. e. My loud outcries, more befitting a Lyon than a Man, which yet extremity of grief forceth from me. Compare Psal. 22. 1. and 32. 3.

i. e. With great abundance, and irresistible violence, and incessant continuance, as Waters flow in a River, or when they break the Banks, and overflow the ground.

Marginal references: Heb. [illegible: 1 word] my [illegible: 1 word] ▪

25. [For ] [ the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, ] and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

This is another Reason why he is weary of his Life, and why he repents that ever he was born, because he never enjoyed any solid and secure Comfort.

Heb. I feared a fear, (i. e. a danger or mischief in one kind, or other, the Act being here put for the Object, as Ioy and Love are oft put for the things rejoiced in, or loved, and here Fear for the thing feared. Or, I feared with fear, i. e. I feared greatly) and it came. Even in the time of my Peace and Prosperity, I was full of Fears, considering the variety of Gods Providences, the course and changeableness of this vain World, the Infirmities and Contingencies of Humane Nature and Life, Gods Justice, and the sinfulness of all Mankind. And these Fears of mine were not in vain, but are justified by my present Calamities. So that I have never enjoied any sound Tranquillity since I was born; and therefore it hath not been worth my while to live, since all my days have been evil, and full of Vexation and Torment, either by the fear of Miseries, or by the sufferance of them.

Marginal references: Heb. [illegible: 1 word] a fear [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word]

26. [I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet: ] [yet trouble came. ]

Three Expressions noting the same thing, which also was signified in the next foregoing Verse, to wit, that even in his prosperous days he never was secure or at rest from the torment of Fear and Anxiety. Others, I did not misbehave my self in Prosperity, abusing it by Presumption, and Security, and Voluptuousness, whereby I might have provoked God thus to afflict me; but I lived soberly and circumspectly, walking humbly with God, and working out my Salvation with Fear and Trembling, little expecting that God would be so fierce an Enemy against me.

Heb. And trouble came, as I feared it would. So between Fear and Calamity my whole Life hath been miserable, and I had reason to repent of it.