Job 3:16
“or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, as infants who never saw light.”
What does Job 3:16 mean?
Job is in such deep pain that he's wishing he'd never existed at all. He's not just saying he wants to die, but expressing that it would have been better never to have been born, or to have died as an infant before gaining consciousness of suffering. This is the cry of someone for whom life itself has become unbearable, and he's reaching for the most absolute form of despair he can express. What makes this particularly human is that Job isn't being poetic for effect, he's genuinely broken. If you've ever felt that life was too hard to carry on, you might recognize this kind of thinking, even if it frightens you. The book of Job validates that people in extreme suffering can feel this way, and it doesn't punish Job for saying it. What follows is a long conversation where his friends struggle to help him, and eventually God shows up to be present with him in his pain, without dismissing his anguish or offering easy answers.