DAWN
Daily Arts Web Nucleus
Discover the Arts! Each day a different image from the Literary, Performing, or Visual Arts representing a portion of Scripture plus an explanation with links 2014 December 24
Job (1880)
Leon Joseph Florentin Bonnat (1833-1922)
Independent Style with Similarities to Realist and Academic Styles
Musee Bonnat, Bayonne, Aquitaine, France
Image Source: Bible Library
Explanation: In Job 3 a conversation in verse begins between Job and his friends. Job makes the opening statement by pouring out his anguish. The painting above focuses on Job's agony, as does the chapter below. [Traditional Patriarchal Timeline. Judges Period Chronology. Kings of Judah and Israel #1. Kings of Judah and Israel #2]. [Chronologically and Thematically Related Scriptures: Job 1, Job 2].
After a week of suffering in silence, as mentioned in the previous chapter, Job opened his mouth and cursed his day (1-2). He called repeatedly, and in different figures of speech, for the day in which he was born to perish (3-10). He then expressed his desire that he would have been stillborn and that he would never have had his mother's care and feeding. If so, he said, he would have been in the grave with kings, and counselors, and princes. There the wicked cease from troubling others; and there the weary rest, the prisoners rest, and no one hears the voice of the oppressor; the small and the great are there; and the servant is free from his master (11-19). So why, said Job, is light given to one who is miserable, and life to one who is bitter in soul and longs for death and rejoices when he finds it? Why is life given to one who path is hidden, whom God hedged in, who sighs and roars because the thing he greatly feared came upon him while he was unsafe, restless, and disquieted (20-26)?
Job 3
1 After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.
2 And Job spake, and said,
3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.
4 Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.
5 Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.
6 As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.
7 Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.
8 Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.
9 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day:
10 Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.
11 Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?
12 Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?
13 For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,
14 With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves;
15 Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver:
16 Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.
17 There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.
18 There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.
19 The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master.
20 Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;
21 Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures;
22 Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?
23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?
24 For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.
25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.
26 I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.
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