Job 3:4

Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(4) Regard.—Literally, require, ask for, and so manifest care about. (Comp. Deuteronomy 11:12.)

Benson Commentary

Job 3:4. Let that day be darkness — I wish the sun had never risen on that day; or, which is the same thing, that it had never been: and whensoever that day returns, instead of the cheering and refreshing beams of light arising upon it, I wish it may be covered with gross, thick darkness, and rendered black, gloomy, and uncomfortable; let not God regard it from above — From heaven, by causing the light of heaven to visit it; or, let God make no more inquiry after it than if such a day had never been. Dr. Waterland renders it, Let not God take account of it.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:1-10 For seven days Job's friends sat by him in silence, without offering consolidation: at the same time Satan assaulted his mind to shake his confidence, and to fill him with hard thoughts of God. The permission seems to have extended to this, as well as to torturing the body. Job was an especial type of Christ, whose inward sufferings, both in the garden and on the cross, were the most dreadful; and arose in a great degree from the assaults of Satan in that hour of darkness. These inward trials show the reason of the change that took place in Job's conduct, from entire submission to the will of God, to the impatience which appears here, and in other parts of the book. The believer, who knows that a few drops of this bitter cup are more dreadful than the sharpest outward afflictions, while he is favoured with a sweet sense of the love and presence of God, will not be surprised to find that Job proved a man of like passions with others; but will rejoice that Satan was disappointed, and could not prove him a hypocrite; for though he cursed the day of his birth, he did not curse his God. Job doubtless was afterwards ashamed of these wishes, and we may suppose what must be his judgment of them now he is in everlasting happiness.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Let that day be darkness - Let it not be day; or, O, that it had not been day, that the sun had not risen, and that it had been night.

Let not God regard it from above - The word rendered here "regard" דרשׁ dârash means properly to seek or inquire after, to ask for or demand. Dr. Good renders it here, "Let not God inclose it," but this meaning is not found in the Hebrew. Noyes renders it literally, "Let not God seek it." Herder, "Let not God inquire after it." The sense may be, either that Job wished the day sunk beneath the horizon, or in the deep waters by which he conceived the earth to be surrounded, and prays that God would not seek it and bring it from its dark abode; or he desired that God would never inquire after it, that it might pass from his remembrance and be forgotten. What we value, we would wish God to remember and bless; what we dislike, we would wish him to forget. This seems to be the idea here. Job hated that day, and he wished all other beings to forget it. He wished it blotted out, so that even God would never inquire after it, but regard it as if it had never been.

Neither let the light shine upon it - Let it be utter darkness; let not a ray ever reveal it. It will be seen here that Job first curses "the day." The amplification of the curse with which he commenced in the first part of Job 3:3, continues through Job 3:4-5; and then he returns to the "night," which also (in the latter part of Job 3:3) he wished to be cursed. His desires in regard to that unhappy night, he expresses in Job 3:6-10.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

4. let not God regard it—rather, more poetically, "seek it out." "Let not God stoop from His bright throne to raise it up from its dark hiding-place." The curse on the day in Job 3:3, is amplified in Job 3:4, 5; that on the night, in Job 3:6-10.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

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.

From above, 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. Or, 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, Ecclesiastes 3:15. Compare Job 3:3,6.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Let that day be darkness,.... Not only dark, but darkness itself, extremely dark; and which is to be understood not figuratively of the darkness of affliction and calamity; this Job would not wish for, either for himself, who had enough of that, or for others; but literally of gross natural darkness, that was horrible and dreadful, as some (x) render it: this was the reverse of what God said at the creation, "let there be light", Genesis 1:3, and there was, and he called it day; but Job wishes his day might be darkness, as the night; either that it had been always dark, and never become day, or in its return be remarkably dark and gloomy:

let not God regard it, from above; that is, either God who is above, and on high, the High and Holy One, the Most High God, and who is higher than the highest, and so this is a descriptive character of him; or else this respects the place where he is, the highest heaven, where is his throne, and from whence he looks and takes notice of the sons of men, and of all things done below: and this wish must be understood consistent with his omniscience, who sees and knows all persons and things, even what are done in the dark, and in the darkest days; for the darkness and the light are alike to him; and as consistent with his providence, which is continually exercised about persons and things on earth without any intermission, even on every day in the year; and was it to cease one day, hour, or moment, all would be dissolved, and be thrown into the utmost confusion and disorder: but Job means the smiles of his providence, which he wishes might be restrained on this day; that he would not cause his sun in the heavens to shine out upon it, nor send down gentle and refreshing showers of rain on it; in which sense he is said to care for and regard the land of Canaan, Deuteronomy 11:11; where the same word is used as here; or the sense is, let it be so expunged from the days of the year, the when it is sought for, and if even it should be by God himself, let it not be found; or let him not "seek" (y) after it, to do any good upon it:

neither let the light shine upon it; the light of the sun, or the morning light, as the Targum, much less the light at noonday; even not the diurnal light, as Schmidt interprets it, in any part of the day: light is God's creature, and very delightful and desirable; the best things, and the most comfortable enjoyments, whether temporal, spiritual, or eternal, are expressed by it; and, on the other hand, a state of darkness is the most uncomfortable, and therefore the worst and most dismal things and states are signified by it.

(x) "horrens", Caligo, Schultens. (y) "ne requirat", Montanus, &c.

Geneva Study Bible

Let that day be darkness; let not God {d} regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.

(d) Let it be put out of the number of days, and let it not have the sight of the sun to separate it from the night.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

4. regard it] lit. seek after it, or care for it. Let it perish from His mind that He cause no sun to rise upon it.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 4. - Let that day be darkness; i.e. let a cloud rest upon it - let it be regarded as a day of ill omen, "carbone notandus." Job recognizes that his wish, that the day should perish utterly, is vain, and limits himself now to the possible. Let not God regard it from above; i.e. let not God, from the heaven where he dwells, extend to it his protection and superintending care. Neither let the light shine upon it. Pleonastic, but having the sort of force which belongs to reiteration. Job 3:4

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

3 Perish the day wherein I was born.

And the night which said, A man-child is conceived!

4 Let that day become darkness;

Let not Eloah ask after it from above,

And let not the light shine on it.

5 May darkness and the shadow of death purchase it back;

Let a cloud lie upon it;

May that which obscures the day terrify it.

The curse is against the day of his birth and the night of his conception as recurring yearly, not against the actual first day (Schlottm.), to which the imprecations which follow are not pertinent. Job wishes his birth-day may become dies ater, swallowed up by darkness as into nothing. The elliptical relative clauses, Job 3:3 (Ges. 123, 3; cf. 127, 4, c), become clear from the translation. Transl. the night (לילה with parag. He is masc.) which said, not: in which they said; the night alone was witness of this beginning of the development of a man-child, and made report of it to the High One, to whom it is subordinate. Day emerges from the darkness as Eloah from above (as Job 31:2, Job 31:28), i.e., He who reigns over the changes here below, asks after it; interests Himself in His own (דּרשׁ). Job wishes his birth-day may not rejoice in this. The relations of this his birth-day are darkness and the shadow of death. These are to redeem it, as, according to the right of kinsmen, family property is redeemed when it has got into a stranger's hands. This is the meaning of גּאל (lxx ἐκλάβοι), not equals גּעל, inquinent (Targ.). עננה is collective, as נהרה, mass of cloud. Instead of כּמרירי (the Caph of which seems pointed as praepos), we must read with Ewald (157, a), Olshausen, (187, b), and others, כּמרירי, after the form חכליל, darkness, dark flashing (vid., on Psalm 10:8), שׁפריר, tapestry, unless we are willing to accept a form of noun without example elsewhere. The word signifies an obscuring, from כּמר, to glow with heat, because the greater the glow the deeper the blackness it leaves behind. All that ever obscures a day is to overtake and render terrible that day.

(Note: We may compare here, and further, on, Constance's outburst of despair in King John (3:1 and 3:4). Shakespeare, like Goethe, enriches himself from the book of Job.)