Job 3:6

b. Job curses the night of his conception, Job 3:6-10.

6. Darkness אפל , darkness exceedingly dense. A poetical word, expressive of intenser gloom than חשׁךְ . Compare Exodus 10:21. Let it not be joined The marginal reading is more correct: “Let it not rejoice among the days of the year.” The night is here personified, and conceived of as rejoicing in her course as well as the day. Compare the similar personification of the sun, Psalms 19:5. “The night is not considered so much to rejoice on account of its own beauty… as to form one of the joyous and triumphant choral troop of nights that come in, in harmonious and glittering procession.” This view of Davidson is not sufficiently comprehensive, as appears from the following verse. The night that saw the beginning of his existence (his conception) should take upon itself the character of a mourner; it should be clad in darkness; it should still its notes of rejoicing, and forever maintain silence among its joyous kindred. The reader may compare the beautiful passage of Euripides: “Thee I invoke, thou self-created Being, who gavest birth to nature, and whom light and darkness, and the whole train of globes and planets, encircle with eternal music.”