NOTES for Job 3:2-3

Job's first words were words of curse. He curses the day of his birth (vv. 3-10). Of course, the first thing that could come to mind is that Job was simply tired, worn out by the sufferings that had been coming down on him with terrifying regularity in recent days. That is why he dreams of Sheol, the world of shadows, where all are equal and all suffering ceases (vv. 11-19). For an adequate understanding of these complaints, it is important to remember that Jews in antiquity did not have a concept of postmortem recompense in the form that became so widespread in the Christian world beginning in the early Middle Ages, when what later became the traditional ideas of heaven and hell were taking shape.

Judaism of the postexilic era, when the Book of Job was written, knew only the teaching about the last Judgment, the universal resurrection on the day of Judgment, and the messianic Kingdom, which was to come on the day of the Messiah's arrival, a day that in the minds of believing Jews of that era was already inseparable from the day of Judgment and the universal resurrection. The afterlife, as it was believed, was the same for everyone: after death a person turned into a shadow and went down to Sheol, the dwelling place of shadows. Death made everyone equal, and recompense could come no earlier than the day of Judgment and the universal resurrection.

But Job had nothing to lose, and he was ready to go into the world of shadows. Yet the matter was not so simple. For Job, what was most terrible, as it appears, was not that he was suffering, but the hopelessness of these sufferings, their complete lack of motive, and the dead end caused by that lack of motive (vv. 20-23). The righteous man did not deserve suffering, and Job had every reason to be bewildered. But the most terrible thing was that, not knowing what he was guilty of, Job could do nothing to change the situation. His religion connected suffering with sinfulness and ungodliness, with what for Job was more terrible than any suffering. It seemed to him that God was punishing him as the wicked are punished for their sins, that he himself had become wicked in God's eyes, and nothing could be worse than such a turn of events (vv. 24-26). But most terrible of all was that Job's religiosity could not help him in any way. He offered purification sacrifices even when he could suppose sin where it may well not have existed at all; but now he did not understand what he was supposed to repent of or be cleansed from.

Again—but why? We so want to open the Bible and read something... life-affirming... Yet the Church offers us nothing less than words of despair. Why? Perhaps this will be clearer to someone who has been at the bottom of the abyss of despair—and nevertheless emerged into the light. When you are there, you think that you are the only person in the world who is so unhappy, and that absolutely no one can even imagine how much pain and fear you feel... When you have never been there, you do not think about it... But the Church offers us the opportunity to live through the situation of despair—together. Perhaps alone together with God. Perhaps together with one of our brothers.

Today’s reading tells us that the “valley of death” is sometimes a necessary stage. We must not close our eyes and pretend that it does not exist. We must not encourage someone walking through this valley with falsely cheerful slogans. We need to understand that it exists and that God leads us by the hand even through this valley, even when we do not feel His presence.