What Does Job 3:1 Mean in the King James?
After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “cursed” also carries the sense of making light, so Job’s grief treats the day of his birth as having no worth.
THE MEANING
When pain has outlasted silence, it can make even the day life began feel unbearable. Here grief speaks without being softened: the day itself becomes the object of the curse.
THE ROOT
וַיְקַלֵּל
vayqallel
GROWS FROM
ק־ל־ל
q-l-l
To be light or slight, to make light of something, and by extension to curse or hold in contempt.
The verb translated “cursed” carries a sense of making light as well as cursing. Job’s words treat the day of his birth as something stripped of worth; the Hebrew holds that contempt inside the curse.
ALSO GROWS
qal: Light, slight.
קַל
This branch reveals the root’s sense of lightness beneath the curse: the day is treated as having little or no worth.
qelalah: A curse, a spoken imprecation.
קְלָלָה
This noun names the curse as speech, matching the moment Job opens his mouth.
THE PATTERN
In anguish, speech can reach beyond present suffering and condemn the day life began.
Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.Cursed be the day wherein I was born: let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed.The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born.THE THREAD
And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.Genesis 8:21 uses the same root, קָלַל (qalal, “curse” or “make light”), for the ground. Its reuse opens the scale of Job’s words: the curse reaches beyond a single misfortune to the day that marks the beginning of his life.
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