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Job 3 · a question people ask

Was Job wrong to say these things?

In the text

The chapter doesn't say, and this study won't decide it. After 3:2 the chapter is all Job's words, and the book adds nothing in its own voice. Before this it said, "In all this, Job didn’t sin, nor charge God with wrongdoing" (1:22), and "In all this Job didn’t sin with his lips" (2:10); neither verse speaks of chapter 3. Later the LORD asks, "Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" (38:2); Job answers, "therefore I have uttered that which I didn’t understand, things too wonderful for me, which I didn’t know" (42:3); and the LORD says to Eliphaz, "you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has" (42:7). The book doesn't say which of Job's words any of these has in view, and it doesn't explain how they fit together. This study quotes them as they stand.

The verses

“Job answered:”
Job 3:2 · World English Bible
“In all this, Job didn’t sin, nor charge God with wrongdoing.”
Job 1:22 · World English Bible
“But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job didn’t sin with his lips.”
Job 2:10 · World English Bible
“Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”
Job 38:1-2 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Job 3

Job 3: Let the day perish

Job's last line is made of the words of the rest he pictures in 3:13-17. In Hebrew, 3:26's quiet is 3:13's, its rest is 3:13's and 3:17's, and its trouble is the troubling that ceases in 3:17: "neither do I have rest; but trouble comes" (3:26).

In Favor, questions like this come up right where they arise as you read, with the Hebrew and Greek behind the words and how the chapter leads to Jesus.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions