Job 3:1

At the end of the book we will be informed that Job will say some things during his suffering that are not true (Job 38:2; Job 42:3-6), that actually cloud the issue rather than throwing light upon it. Therefore, as we begin to examine the first of Job's speeches let us make sure that we keep this fact in mind. God is allowing Job to vent, but there is ignorance and error included in this venting.

Job 3:1 “Afterward Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth”: “The silence of Job and his friends was broken when Job bemoaned that he had ever been born and expressed his longing to die. Perhaps this week of agony impressed on him his sense of loss and reinforced the relentless pain of his disease. Perhaps too he reflected on the injustice of his condition. In his sad soliloquy of. death wish, Job did not curse God, as Satan had predicted (Job 1:11; Job 2:5), nor did Job contemplate suicide. But he did regret his birth (Job 3:1-10), wished he had been born dead (Job 3:11-19), and longed to die (Job 3:20-26)” (Bible Knowledge Comm. p. 722). Some have called what follows. “Niagara of anguish”. To curse the day means that he despised it, held it in contempt, and in effect wished he had never been born.

Note in all of this, Job never attempted to take his own life. “But why not? Only if there is. God to whom we will give account because neither suffering nor death is our ultimate concern” (Strauss p. 26).