1After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth. 2Job answered:
3“Let the day perish in which I was born,
the night which said, ‘There is a boy conceived.’
4Let that day be darkness.
Don’t let God from above seek for it,
neither let the light shine on it.
5Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own.
Let a cloud dwell on it.
Let all that makes the day black terrify it.
6As for that night, let thick darkness seize on it.
Let it not rejoice among the days of the year.
Let it not come into the number of the months.
7Behold, let that night be barren.
Let no joyful voice come therein.
8Let them curse it who curse the day,
who are ready to rouse up leviathan.
9Let the stars of its twilight be dark.
Let it look for light, but have none,
neither let it see the eyelids of the morning,
10because it didn’t shut up the doors of my mother’s womb,
nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.
11“Why didn’t I die from the womb?
Why didn’t I give up the spirit when my mother bore me?
12Why did the knees receive me?
Or why the breast, that I should nurse?
13For now I should have lain down and been quiet.
I should have slept, then I would have been at rest,
14with kings and counselors of the earth,
who built up waste places for themselves;
15or with princes who had gold,
who filled their houses with silver;
16or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been,
as infants who never saw light.
17There the wicked cease from troubling.
There the weary are at rest.
18There the prisoners are at ease together.
They don’t hear the voice of the taskmaster.
19The small and the great are there.
The servant is free from his master.
20“Why is light given to him who is in misery,
life to the bitter in soul,
21who long for death, but it doesn’t come;
and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,
22who rejoice exceedingly,
and are glad, when they can find the grave?
23Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,
whom God has hedged in?
24For my sighing comes before I eat.
My groanings are poured out like water.
25For the thing which I fear comes on me,
that which I am afraid of comes to me.
26I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither do I have rest;
but trouble comes.”
Chapter 1 of the book of Job presents a person who encountered several tragedies in loss of wealth, then his children, and in Job 2:13, we see that his efforts to maintain his spiritual state before God begin to falter. The manner in which he speaks in Job 3 reveals that he has broken down and become despondent and troubled, so that a case of PTSD may have started in his life. Norse Pagan argues that Job is an example of a biblical figure who developed PTSD from physical and emotional tragedies in his life:
"In looking to the Bible for possible examples of PTSD, Job could be seen as the "poster boy" of trauma victims.
In catastrophe after catastrophe, Job lost everything in a day or two—his family, property, livestock, money, and health—all gone, through no fault of his own.
Satan's attacks on Job were relentless, and Job could do nothing to help himself. None of the crises were Job's fault."1
The author continues to support Job's case of PTSD trauma by quoting the words of Job in Job 3:25, 26, several days after the tragedies that befell him:
"Sighing has become my daily food; / my groans pour out like water. / What I feared has come upon me; / what I dreaded has happened to me. / I have no peace, no quietness; / I have no rest, but only turmoil."2
Norse Pagan, "Did anyone in the Bible have PTSD?," r/Christianity, https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/2vemc0/did_anyone_in_the_bible_have_ptsd/?rdt=42811 (last referenced 5-26-2024) ↩︎
Ibid. ↩︎