The silence of Job's suffering is broken by a great cry of despair which reminds us of Jeremiah 20: 14-18. Job curses the day when he was given life by God, the day of his birth. All that he wants now is to die. The Israelite understanding of death as a sleep, a shadowy existence in which there are no distinctions between anybody, is shown in 3: 13-19.

Those in Sheol had a negative, shadowy existence but at least it was not a terrible torment.

As we try to understand Job's very violent protest, we must not lose sight of the fact that it is with God that he remonstrates. He has not denied that God is whatever he does not understand about him. To Job, God has become unknowable, unpredictable, absolutely mysterious in the way he gives life to men and yet allows them to suffer until they ask to die. Job no longer understands God at all in the way that he had thought he did, but he does not deny the existence of God and the power of God over his life. This reminds us of the experience of Jeremiah who tried to deny God's claim on him when his sufferings seemed intolerable, but found that in the end he could not deny God. 'But when I say, "I will forget the LORD and no longer speak in his name," then your message is like fire burning deep within me. I try my best to hold it in but can no longer keep it back' (Jeremiah 20: 9).