The Bible Says
Job 3:20-26 Meaning

In Job 3:20-26, Job pivots to asking a fundamental question of why God allows suffering, in particular applying it to his own dreadful circumstance. (The reader can access our Tough Topics Explained articles on “Why Does God Allow Evil?” and “Why Did God Create Humanity?” for more on this.)

Job is still speaking from an ash heap, in the region of Uz, which may have been southeast of the Dead Sea (see map). It is important to remember that Job does not know what we know—that his trial is part of a cosmic conflict in which God has authorized Satan to test him, while still taking responsibility for what He allows (Job 2:3).

And Job apparently does not know that heavenly beings watch human faith with intense interest in order to learn of God and His wisdom (1 Peter 1:12; Ephesians 3:10). Job has a sense that God is far off, when the opposite is true—God is watching carefully and is fully engaged. We get no sense that Job realizes his story will end up in scripture and his name will be honored as great among those who lived as faithful witnesses (Ezekiel 14:14).

Job asks a question that is natural for anyone in great suffering: Why is light given to him who suffers, And life to the bitter of soul (v.20).

Job uses light as a symbol for continued consciousness, the ongoing awareness of being alive when being alive hurts. He used the same metaphor in Job 3:16, referring to miscarried children as being “infants that never saw light.” He echoes a question of why the light of life is given to him who suffers by asking why the bitter of soul continues to have life.

We can infer that Job is asking why God allows people to suffer. What is the purpose? Why isn’t there a better way?

In the New Testament, Jesus identifies Himself as the true Light (John 8:12), meaning that light is not merely the persistence of physical life. Physical life is a precursor to something much greater. Given that this story of Job occurred centuries prior to Moses, when Job only had the revelation of oral tradition, this question indicates that this was at that time an unanswered question.

It is interesting then to reflect that this first book of scripture committed to writing focuses on answering this age-old question: “Why does God allow suffering?” What we are given to see through Job are a number of truths confirmed elsewhere in scripture:

1. Persevering in trials strengthens faith, which greatly pleases God, and which He will greatly reward (James 1:2-3, 12)
      - God desires to greatly bless His servants who are faithful witnesses through intense trials in this life on earth (Revelation 1:3, 3:21, 21:7).
2.  There is a great heavenly conflict in which humans play a role in silencing Satan through faithfulness in living righteously (Psalm 8:2, Hebrews 2:5-10).
      - The heavenly beings learn of God through watching God’s people live in faith (Ephesians 3:10).

We will observe that through his trials, Job comes to know God in a new, deeper way (Job 42:5-6). We know that the greatest possible experience of life comes from knowing God (John 17:3). And this life is our only opportunity to know Him by faith. And knowing God by faith is a privilege angels will not have, which leads them to watch us in order to understand God’s wisdom (Ephesians 3:10).

But that does not mean it is easy. Suffering is real. Jesus endured great suffering, and did not like it. He sought to avoid it. But ultimately, He submitted to God’s will (Matthew 26:38-39). It was through this “suffering of death” that Jesus was “crowned” with the “glory and honor” originally intended for humans, which is to reign over the earth (Hebrews 2:9).

In his despair, where he longs for death, Job describes a strange reversal, where death is pictured as treasure and life as poverty: he speaks of those, Who long for death, but there is none, And dig for it more than for hidden treasures (v.21).

The image is vivid: a miner clawing through earth, not for gold, but for an end to pain. The line but there is none captures the trapped feeling of despair. Job desires escape, he prefers death, but he continues to live. In this, Job submits to God as the author of life; he does not consider taking his own life. Rather, he asks “Why?” Given all this misery, “Why am I still alive?”

The context for this is the grand drama we saw in the prior chapters. The story has already shown us that Job’s life is not random; it has become the focal point of a heavenly contest, and Job is not aware he is on stage. He is not aware of heaven’s focus, and that the eyes of history will see all he has done. God has allowed the trial, even while Satan is the one inflicting the ruin (Job 2:3).

That does not diminish Job’s pain. Rather, it makes his pain meaningful in a way he cannot yet see. Perhaps this is similar to the way a soldier in a nighttime battle may not see the larger strategy. Heaven watches human choices, learning the manifold wisdom of God through what humans do by faith (Ephesians 3:10).

Job goes further and describes an unsettling emotional truth: some sufferers would celebrate the grave as relief. He speaks of those who long for death (v. 21), as those also Who rejoice greatly, And exult when they find the grave? (v.22).

The question mark at the end of verse 22 links back to the original question in verse 20, Why is light (life) given to him who suffers? The description of one who would exult when they find the grave describes the one who is relieved to die because it ends their great suffering. The words rejoice and exult are normally reserved for worship or victory. Job uses them for himself, and others, whose primary desire is for an end to suffering through death.

What should be joyful (life) begins to look like punishment when circumstances become unbearable. But God’s mercy is not limited to removing pain, God’s deeper mercy is to grow faith into maturity. God is moving Job from seeking closure to receiving care, by giving him a larger view of an all-wise, all-caring Creator. At this point, Job does not see; but he will (Job 42:5-6).

In that larger view, the grave is not the first place to look for hope. The New Testament reveals a better find: resurrection life in Christ (1 Corinthians 15:54-57). We might consider that Jesus’s command to His disciples to “deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me” is to die to and reject the pleasures of sin and the desires of the world and embrace a life of obedience gained through that death.

Job’s lament now turns personal again: he asks, Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, And whom God has hedged in? (v.23).

He feels lost (way is hidden) and confined (hedged in). He cannot see a path out, and he feels God Himself has fenced him into suffering. This is an early clue to the incorrect perspective Job has of God that will eventually be resolved.

Job thinks he needs to see a way he can navigate. He will later argue that if he could present his case to God, God would change His mind (Job 23:7). Job’s perspective of God’s sovereignty is accurate (Job 1:20-22). But Job believes he needs to determine his way, not realizing God’s intimate involvement with him, and care for his life.

That phrase hedged in is especially poignant because earlier Job’s life was described as protected by a hedge; Satan noted to God that He had placed a hedge of protection around Job (Job 1:10), saying that Job only served God because of the transactional benefits he received. God later lowered that hedge of protection to permit the test (Job 1:12).

At this moment, Job does not know any of that. From his perspective, the only hedge he can feel is a hedge of circumstantial confinement, as though God moved the fence from protection to prison.

Satan is the one bringing the ruin, but God authorizes what is allowed and therefore takes responsibility for permitting it (Job 2:3). God is governing a reality with more layers than Job can perceive. Job’s struggle is not that God lacks information. The issue is that Job lacks perspective. God will address that in Chapters 38-42.

Job then describes how suffering invades the most basic act of living, eating: For my groaning comes at the sight of my food, And my cries pour out like water (v.24). The body is so overwhelmed that even the prospect of nourishment triggers pain. He wishes to eat, but that just causes further agony. We can presume from this that Job had lost an immense amount of weight, which fits with Job 2:12, which says Eliphaz and his two friends did not ever recognize Job when they saw him.

Even when Job’s complaint borders on rebellion or bitterness, he is still speaking toward God, not away from Him. That honest outpouring anticipates the later Biblical invitation: to “draw near with confidence to the throne of grace…to find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

Job has been longing for death, but now expresses a fear: For what I fear comes upon me, And what I dread befalls me (v.25). The literal Hebrew twice repeats the word “pahad” which is “fear.” So it would transliterate as “For a fear I feared comes upon me.” Young’s Literal Translation renders the verse as “For a fear I feared and it meeteth me, And what I was afraid of doth come to me.”

The grammar then indicates that Job is saying that something he had previously dreaded has now occurred. In the context he is speaking of groaning at the sight of his food. He is so sick he cannot eat. He also just said my cries pour out like water. So it would seem that Job is saying that he had feared coming down with a prolonging, painful sickness, and now it has happened.

We saw in Job 2:7 that Satan “smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.” Job is in complete misery, which was Satan’s design. In the context of longing for death, which he began speaking of in verse 20, Job would be saying “I want that which I feared to end, and the way for it to end is for me to pass to a better place.”

Job repeats his angst in his suffering: I am not at ease, nor am I quiet, And I am not at rest, but turmoil comes” (v.26). The boils from head to foot spoil his eating. They spoil his sleep. He cannot rest. He is in constant turmoil.

The Hebrew word translated turmoil can also be rendered as “trouble” or “trembling.” Job is in a constant state of pain and discomfort, which explains why Job 3:17 introduced the grave as a place of “rest” for the “weary.” The repeated negatives, not at ease…nor…quiet…not at rest, show that Job’s suffering is encompassing his whole existence. His external suffering has also greatly affected his internal world.

Job has no rest. He longs for rest. In this passage, his thought is that his best option for rest is death. We will later see Job rally and long for another option: to present his “case” before the Almighty. Then, he expresses confidence that he, as one who is “upright,” would be listened to and “delivered forever from my judge” (Job 23:6-7).

It might be that this rally comes from the stimulation he will gain from discourse with Eliphaz and his two friends. Although this trio will not speak rightly of God (Job 42:7), it seems they do prepare Job for his requested encounter with the Almighty, which will come beginning in Job 38.

In New Testament terms, the rest Job longs for is offered through Jesus Christ. He says:

"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
(Matthew 11:28)

As a New Testament believer, our tendency will be to read this verse and think, “Good, I can ask for Jesus and be relieved of suffering” which is the same basic longing Job expresses here in Chapter 3. However, Jesus follows this promise of “rest” with the next verse which speaks of walking in obedience to His ways:

"Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.”
(Matthew 11:29)

The promise is not for physical deliverance, but for spiritual peace. This comes through following God’s ways. Which explains why later in the Book of Job, God’s answer to his request is to chastise Job for being presumptuous in thinking God lacks his perspective. The point will be that Job needs God’s perspective. The true source of rest for his soul is to see and believe God and to adopt His perspective of reality through the eyes of faith.

The phrase “YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS” in Matthew 11:29 is capitalized in NASV 95 to indicate this is an Old Testament quote. The quote is from Jeremiah 6:16, which further emphasizes the point that spiritual peace comes through a walk of obedience:

“Thus says the LORD, ‘Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, Where the good way is, and walk in it; And you will find rest for your souls. But they said, “We will not walk in it.”'”
(Jeremiah 6:16)

Next we will hear from Eliphaz, who will counter Job’s argument, and although he speaks wrongly of God, will apparently rouse Job sufficiently to prepare him to hear from God, repent of his ignorance, and be fully restored (Job 42:5-6, 10).