Job 3:1-10 - "Through the Valley of Tears"

Job 3:1-10

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

Job chapter three brings us into the deepest valley of his suffering. The silence of the friends is broken, and the anguish of Job’s soul pours forth. This chapter does not describe rebellion against God, but honest misery before God. Job curses the day of his birth, not his God. In this, we must read carefully, for Job is both a type of Christ and, at points, an anti-type. He reflects Christ’s suffering, yet he also reveals the weakness of a fallen man under unbearable weight.

Job had been introduced as “perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil” (Job 1:1). As a type, this points us forward to Christ, Who alone fulfilled this perfectly. The LORD Jesus Christ was truly “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” (Hebrews 7:26). Yet where Job falters under the burden, Christ would not. Job curses the day of his birth; Christ never uttered complaint. “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).

Job cries, “Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived” (v.3). Those words echo with tragic irony. Scripture also speaks of another “man child,” conceived by the Spirit, born into this fallen world for redemption. “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given” (Isaiah 9:6). Job sees his birth only as an entrance into sorrow; Christ entered the world knowingly, willingly, to bear sorrow for others. He was truly “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).

Job longs for darkness: “Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above” (v.4). His anguish is so great that light itself feels cruel. Here we glimpse the Valley of Baca, the valley of weeping. Psalm 84 describes it: “Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools” (Psalm 84:6). This valley is not avoided by God’s people; it is passed through. Job is not abandoned in it, though he feels forsaken.

Christ Himself walked this valley in a far deeper way. He entered a world darkened by sin, not to escape it, but to bear it. When darkness fell at the cross, it was not the darkness Job desired, but the darkness Christ endured. “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour” (Matthew 27:45). Job wished God would turn His face away from his day; Christ endured the awful mystery of bearing sin under the full gaze of Divine Justice.

Job speaks of terror, silence, and joyless nights (v.6,7). His suffering strips life of all celebration. Yet Christ, walking toward the cross, endured sorrow “for the joy that was set before him” (Hebrews 12:2). The joy was not the suffering itself, but the salvation it would obtain for those sinners that the Father gave Him to save. Job sees only pain; Christ sees the eternal purpose of the Father in upholding Him through His suffering unto death (John 17:1, 2).

Importantly, Job’s lament is not unbelief but desperation. Scripture records it for our comfort. Many of the LORD’s people have known such hours. David cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1). Christ Himself took those words upon His lips. Yet in Christ’s case, it was not despair, but Substitution. Job’s valley of tears was designed to empty him of self-reliance and turn his hope forward. He did not yet see the Redeemer clearly, at this point, but he would later confess, “I know that my redeemer liveth” (Job 19:25). Christ is that Redeemer, the One Who passed through the deepest valley and came out victorious.

For the believer, the Valley of Baca is never the end. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil” (Psalm 23:4). Because Christ walked it first, sorrow is not final, darkness is not permanent, and tears are not wasted. Through Christ, the valley becomes a well of water springing up in refreshing, thirst-quenching grace as the Spirit draws us to Christ again and again to drink of Him in our time of need, which is always. The believer’s hope is not found in the length of life, the easing of pain, or the understanding of God's sovereign providence, but in the crucified and risen Savior to Whom Job was caused to look in his darkest hour (Job 19:25). When words fail and nights feel endless, Christ remains our Anchor, assuring us that sorrow is not the end, and that beyond the Valley of Baca lies the Joy of Salvation obtained by His suffering unto death for each of His own, and He cannot lose one for whom He paid the debt, (John 6:37-40).