Now we start to get to the heart of the book. Let's just review quickly what we have had so far. Job has responded in an exemplary religious way, refusing to accuse God of wrongdoing. God has acted in a most ungodly way! He has given Satan permission to afflict a godly man. Now Job is going to start acting in a less than exemplary manner. Have you ever found yourself acting like this? Something bad happens, initially you react with "faith" and stoicism, "trusting" God. Then as the consequences of what has happened start to sink in your "faith" starts to shake and fall apart. Our God deals with real people. Satan thought that all this was a test of whether Job truly was as good as God seemed to think he was. What was really happening was that God was doing a deep work in Job. We may sometimes think that some event is a test of our faith, and up to a point it may well be, but may also be a time when God is doing something deeper in our lives.
Job starts by cursing the day he was born, Jeremiah did the same thing (Jer 20:14).
Life has become so grim for Job that he just wishes he had never been born.
In verse 8 he mentions Leviathan, who also gets a mention later on in the books as well, as well as elsewhere in the Bible (Is 27:1). Leviathan was a mythical sea monster from Canaanite mythology.
And if he had to be born, why was he not just allowed to die? Why did there have to have been someone to take care of him up to this point if this present torment was to be his destiny?
Life is so terrible that he wishes he was dead and life just seems a recipe for more suffering and pain. At the time of writing this there is a debate about "assisted dying", to feel that death is the only release is natural, but thank goodness that God did not answer this prayer. God is the only one with the right to decide when a person should die, it would be a terrible mistake for us to take that responsibility upon ourselves.
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