Bible Strands
Job 3:8
May it be cursed by those who curse the day—those prepared to rouse Leviathan.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job speaks these words to himself in the immediate aftermath of his catastrophic losses, directing the curse specifically at the night of his birth. He addresses no human audience, functioning instead as a self-lamenting speaker in a soliloquy.
The words — The text highlights אֹרְרֵי־יֹם (ʾōr-rê-yōm), meaning "cursers of a day," and עֹרֵר לִוְיָתָן (ʿō-rêr lî-ya-tān), meaning "to rouse Leviathan." These phrases identify ritual practitioners who invoke chaos entities to blot out time.
The thread — The Leviathan imagery reappears in Job 41:1 and Job 41:10, where God questions whether any human can tame or provoke the creature. The lament tradition echoes the mourning practices recorded in 2 Chronicles 35:25.
Why it lands — The verse demands acknowledgment that Job’s despair seeks to unmake creation through ancient chaos symbolism. It requires the reader to confront the extremity of his grief without softening its theological or emotional weight.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.
Cross-references
- Job 41:1 “Can you pull in Leviathan with a hook or tie down his tongue with a rope?
- Job 41:10 No one is so fierce as to rouse Leviathan. Then who is able to stand against Me?
- 2 Chronicles 35:25 Then Jeremiah lamented over Josiah, and to this day all the male and female singers recite laments over Josiah. They established them as a statute for Israel, and indeed they are written in the Book of Laments.
- Job 41:25 When Leviathan rises up, the mighty are terrified; they withdraw before his thrashing.
- Jeremiah 9:17 This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Take note, and summon the wailing women; send for the most skillful among them.
- Amos 5:16 Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Hosts, the Lord, says: “There will be wailing in all the public squares and cries of ‘Alas! Alas!’ in all the streets. The farmer will be summoned to mourn, and the mourners to wail.
- Matthew 11:17 ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’
- Mark 5:38 When they arrived at the house of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw the commotion and the people weeping and wailing loudly.