to wake (literally or figuratively) · verb, piel infinitive construct
mourning
לִוְיָתָֽןliv.ya.Tan
H3882
a wreathed animal · noun, masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Job 41:1 Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?
Job 41:10 None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me?
2 Chronicles 35:25 And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made…
Job 41:25 When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason of breakings they purify themselves.
Jeremiah 9:17-18 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning women, that they may co…
Amos 5:16 Therefore the LORD, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! a…
Matthew 11:17 And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.
Mark 5:38 And he cometh to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and seeth the tumult, and them that wept and wailed greatly.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 3:1-10
Long was Job's heart hot within him; and, while he was musing, the fire burned, and the more for being stifled and suppressed. At length he spoke with his tongue, but not such a good word as David spoke after a long pause: Lord, make me to know my end, Psa 39:3, Psa 39:4. Seven days the prophet Ezekiel sat down astonished with the captives, and then (probably on the sabbath day) the word of the Lord came to him, Eze 3:15, Eze 3:16. So long Job and his friends sat thinking, but said nothing; they were afraid of speaking what they thought, lest they should grieve him, and he durst not give vent to his thoughts, lest he should offend them. They came to comfort him, but, finding his afflictions…
them . . . curse the day--If "mourning" be the right rendering in the latter clause of this verse, these words refer to the hired mourners of the dead (Jer 9:17). But the Hebrew for "mourning" elsewhere always denotes an animal, whether it be the crocodile or some huge serpent (Isa 27:1), such as is meant by "leviathan." Therefore, the expression, "cursers of day," refers to magicians, who were believed to be able by charms to make a day one of evil omen. (So Balaam, Num 22:5). This accords with UMBREIT'S view (Job 3:7); or to the Ethiopians and Atlantes, who "used to curse the sun at his rising for burning up them and their country" [HERODOTUS]. Necromancers claimed power to control or rous…
Let them curse it that curse the day,.... Their own day, either their birthday, or any day on which evil befalls them; and now such as are used to this, Job would have them, while they were cursing their own day, to throw some curses upon his; or that curse the daylight in general, as adulterers and murderers, who are said to rebel against the light, see Job 24:13; and as some Ethiopians, who lived near Arabia, and so known to Job, who supposed there was no God, and used to curse the sun when it rose and set, as various writers relate (g), called by others (h) Atlantes; or it may design such persons who were hired at funerals, to mourn for the dead, and who, in their doleful ditties and dirg…
The Church Fathers
May this one curse her, who will curse the day. That is to say, the Lord, who curses lovers of carnal pleasures.
May this night or day of detestation become what the horrible and cruel dragon that is led from the sea to the earth deserves. Indeed the Hebrew and Syrian tradition interpret Leviathan to be the one about which David says, "There is that dragon that you have made to delude him." Even though the dragon seems to represent, above all, a figure of spiritual iniquity, it nonetheless, after getting out and being cast onto earth, is said to possess the ability to cause many massacres of people and animals. Thus, with good reason, the curses of all must be gathered against it.
MORAL INTERPRETATION. Let them curse it that curse the day. As if he said in plain words; 'Let them strike the darkness of this night by truly repenting, who henceforth despise and tread upon the light of worldly prosperity.' For if we take 'the day,' for the gladness of delight, of this 'night' it is rightly said, Let them curse it that curse the day. In that, indeed, they do truly chastise the misdeeds committed with the visitations of penance, who are henceforth carried away by no sense of delight after deceitful goods. For of those whom other mischievous practices still delight, it is all false whereinsoever they are seen to bewail one set they have been guilty of. But if, as we have said above, we understand thereby the crafty suggestion of our old enemy, those are to be understood to curse the 'night,' that curse the 'day,' in that surely they all really punish their past sins, who in the mere flattering suggestion itself detect the snares of the malicious deceiver. Who are ready to rouse up Leviathan. For all they that with the spirit tread under foot the things which are of the world, and with a perfect bent of the mind desire the things that belong to God, rouse up Leviathan against themselves, in that they inflame his malice, by the incitements of their life and conduct. For those that are subject to his will, are as it were held in possession by him with an undisturbed light, and their tyrannizing king, as it were, enjoys a kind of security, while he rules their hearts with a power unshaken, but when the spirit of each man is quickened again to the longing after his Creator; when he gives over the sloth of negligence, and kindles the frost of former insensibility with the fire of holy love; when he calls to mind his innate freedom, and blushes that his enemy should keep him as his slave; because that enemy marks that he is himself contemned, and sees that the ways of God are laid hold of, he is stung that his captive struggles against him, and is at once fired with jealousy, at once pressed to the conflict, at once raises himself to urge countless temptations against the soul that withstands him, and stimulates himself in all the arts of mangling, that launching the darts of temptation he may pierce the heart, which he has long held with an undisputed title. For he slept, as it were, whilst he reposed at rest in the corrupt heart. But he is…
Dictionary and topics
Leviathan — A transliterated Hebrew word (livyathan), meaning “twisted,” “coiled.” In Job 3:8, Revised Version, and marg. of Authorized Version, it denotes the dragon which, according to Eastern tradition, is an…
Poetry — Has been well defined as “the measured language of emotion.” Hebrew poetry deals almost exclusively with the great question of man’s relation to God. “Guilt, condemnation, punishment, pardon,…
Despondency · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Murmuring · Exemplified: Job — Exemplified: Job
Perfection · UNCLASSIFIED SCRIPTURES RELATING TO — UNCLASSIFIED SCRIPTURES RELATING TO
Power · . — .
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
6 That night! let darkness seize upon it;
Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;
Let it not come into the number of the month.
7 Lo! let that night become barren;
Let no sound of gladness come to it.
8 Let those who curse the day curse it,
Who are skilled in stirring up leviathan.
9 Let the stars of its early twilight be darkened;
Let it long for light and there be none;
And let it not refresh itself with eyelids of the dawn.
Darkness is so to seize it, and so completely swallow it up, that it shall not be possible for it to pass into the light of day. It is not to become a day, to be reckoned as belonging to the days of the year and rejoice in the light thereof. יחדּ, for יחדּ, fut.…
The expression experts at cursing refers to professional cursers such as Balaam (Num 22–24).
Rashi on Job 3:8
curse it Heb. יקבהו, curse it, as in (Num. 22:17), “curse (קבה) for me.”
those who curse the day Those who curse their days, since they intend to pronounce a curse because of their anguish.
those destined to be childless in their union Heb. ערר לויתן, to be childless (ערירים) in their union; to join their mate in the union of man and wife, without children. And I saw in the Jerusalem Talmud (Moed Katan 1:5) that עֹרֵר means, to lament their mate when he dies, as in (Moed Katan 1:6): A person may not inspire lamentations (יערער) for his dead relative.