Albert Barnes Commentary Job 3:8

"Let them curse it that curse the day, Who are ready to rouse up leviathan." — Job 3:8 (ASV)

Let them curse it who curse the day - This entire verse is exceedingly difficult, and many different expositions have been given of it. It seems evident that it refers to some well-known class of people who were accustomed to utter imprecations and were supposed to have the power to make a day auspicious or inauspicious—people who had the power of divination or enchantment.

A belief in such a power existed early in the world and has prevailed in all early and less developed nations, and even in nations considerably advanced in civilization. The origin of this was a desire to look into the future; and to accomplish this, a league was supposedly made with the spirits of the dead, who were acquainted with the events of the invisible world and who could be persuaded to impart their knowledge to favored mortals. It was also supposed that by such a union, a power could be exerted that would appear miraculous.

Such people also claimed to be the favorites of heaven, endowed with control over the elements and over the destiny of men, having the power to bless and to curse, to make things favorable or disastrous. Balaam was believed to be endowed with this power, and therefore, he was sent for by Balak, king of Moab, to curse the Israelites (Numbers 22:5–6); see the notes at (Isaiah 8:19).

The practice of cursing the day, or cursing the sun, is said by Herodotus to have prevailed among a people of Africa whom he calls the Atlantes, living near Mount Atlas. “Of all mankind,” he says, “of whom we have any knowledge, the Atlantes alone have no distinction of names; the body of the people are called Atlantes, but their individuals have no appropriate name.”

When the sun is at its zenith, they heap reproaches and curses on it, because their country and they themselves are parched by its rays (Herodotus, Book 4, 184). The same account of them is found in Pliny, Nat. His. 5.8: Solem orientem occidentemque dira imprecatione contuentur, ut exitialem ipsis agrisque. See also Strabo, Lib. 17, p. 780.

Some have also supposed that there may be an allusion here to a custom that seems to have prevailed early on, of hiring people to mourn for the dead, who probably in their official lamentation bewailed or cursed the day of their calamity; compare Jeremiah 9:17; (2 Chronicles 35:25). But the correct interpretation is undoubtedly that which refers it to pretended prophets, priests, or diviners—those who were supposed to have power to make a day one of ill omen.

Job wished such a power to be exerted over that unhappy night when he was born. He desired that the curses of those who had power to make a day unfavorable or unlucky should rest upon it.

Who are ready to raise up their mourning - This is not very intelligible, and it is evident that our translators were embarrassed by the passage. They seem to have supposed that there was an allusion here to the practice of employing professional mourners, and that the idea is that Job wished they might be employed to howl over the day as inauspicious, or as a day of ill omen. The margin is, as in the Hebrew, “a leviathan.” The word rendered “ready,” עתידים ‛âthı̂ydı̂ym, properly means ready, prepared, and then practiced or skillful.

This is the idea here: that they were practiced or skillful in calling up the “leviathan” (see Schultens, in loc.). The word rendered in the text “mourning,” and in the margin “leviathan,” לויתן lı̂vyâthân—in all other parts of the sacred Scriptures denotes an animal; see it explained in the notes at (Isaiah 27:1), and more fully in the notes at (Job 41:1). It usually denotes the crocodile or some huge sea monster.

Here it is evidently used to represent the most fierce, powerful, and frightening of all known animals. The allusion is to some power claimed by necromancers to call forth the most terrifying monsters at their will from distant places—from the “vasty deep,” from morasses and impenetrable forests. The general claim was that they had control over all nature: that they could curse the day and make it of ill omen, and that the mightiest and most terrible of land or sea monsters were entirely under their control. If they had such a power, Job wished that they would exercise it to curse the night in which he was born.

On what basis they founded this claim is unknown. The power of taming serpents, however, is practiced in India even today; and jugglers carry around with them the most deadly of the serpent species, having extracted their fangs, and creating among the credulous the belief that they have control over the most harmful animals.

Probably some such art was claimed by the ancients, and Job alludes to some such pretension here.