behind. All that ever obscures a day is to overtake and render terrible that day.[1]
Verses 6-9
Job 3:6-9 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. Kal from חדה (Exo 18:9), with Dagesh lene retained, and a helping Pathach (vid., Ges. §75, rem. 3, d); the reverse of the passage Gen 49:6, where יחד, from יחד, uniat se, is found. It is to become barren, גּלמוּד, so that no human being shall ever be conceived and born, and greeted joyfully in it.[2] “Those who curse days” are magicians who know how to change days into dies infausti by their incantations. According to vulgar superstition, from which the imagery of Job 3:8 is borrowed, there was a special art of exciting the dragon, which is the enemy of sun and moon, against them both, so that, by its devouring them, total darkness prevails. The dragon is called in Hindu râhu; the Chinese, and also the
- ↑ We may compare here, and further, on, Constance's outburst of despair in King John (3:1 and 3:4). Shakespeare, like Goethe, enriches himself from the book of Job.
- ↑ Fries understands רננה, song of the spheres (concentum coeli, Job 38:37, Vulg.); but this Hellenic conception is without support in holy Scripture.
