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Dhammapada · narration sample

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The Bible · 439 of 1189

Job 3

1.After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day. 2. And Job spake, and said, 3. Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived. 4. Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. 5. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. 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. 7. Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein. 8. Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning. 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: 10. Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.

11.Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? 12. Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? 13. For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest, 14. With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; 15. Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver: 16. Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light. 17. There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest. 18. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. 19. The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.

20.Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul; 21. Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures; 22. Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave? 23. Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in? 24. For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters. 25. For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. 26. I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

Asked of Guide

Why does Job curse the day he was born instead of blaming God directly?

Job curses the day he was born because his speech focuses on the raw experience of unbearable suffering and the wish that his life had never begun: he prays “Let the day perish wherein I was born” and imagines rest with “the weary” and “the prisoners” who “hear not the voice of the oppressor.” His language targets the occasion of his existence, because his immediate feeling is that existence itself is the source of unending pain.

This chapter frames complaint as existential protest rather than theological accusation; Job describes being “hedged in,” his “sighing” and “roarings,” and the longing for death that “cometh not.” If you want a parallel that treats lament as frank, public speech, read the Psalms of Lament (for example Psalm 88), which also give sorrow words without resolving the theological puzzle.

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