Language Studies

Difficult Sayings

When blessing is cursing
Job 1:5,11; 2:5,9

"Then his wife said to him, 'Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!'" (Job 2:9) although in 3:1 Job does "curse the day of his birth" [see next week's column]. It is understandable that cursing God would be sinning but if you read the Hebrew text or a typical Bible's footnote such as the NKJV it is stranger as the Hebrew reads "bless God and die". The NKJV translators' note reads "Lit. bless, but in an evil sense" and refer one to Job 1:5 "…It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts".

In fact, whilst most Bibles do render as "curse", a few stick with the literal "bless" (Youngs, Douay, Latin Vulgate) and a number translate as "blaspheme" (Jubilee Bible, JPS) or "renounce" (ASV).

Even Satan uses the same language, "…stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh and he will surely curse you to your face" (2:5, cf. 1:11). We can understand the words of Satan, but of righteous Job? Can one bless "…in an evil sense"?

The Hebrew word used in Job 1-2 is בּרך bârakh (Strong's #1288) [see my Hebrew Word Study] and comes from the idea of breaking or bending, for example the knees, to drink water or bowing to pray or to greet someone. It was particular associated with life and birth, which in Hebrew was said to take place upon, from or between the knees (Genesis 30:3; 50:23; Job 3:12). So perhaps Job's wife is suggesting to him that he get on his knees, pray, bless God and prepare for heaven to receive his soul.

Another suggestion is that as bârakh came to be used as a general blessing upon arrival, like shâlôm, or more specifically upon departure (e.g., Genesis 47:10 of Jacob taking his leave of Pharaoh), it was meant as a kind of goodbye. Indeed, 'goodbye' in English originally meant "God be with you" on your journey, just as adieu in French and adios in Spanish meant "go with God" or "in God's hands". Again, as above, this would mean Job's wife suggesting that he say "adieu" to this world and die. This would work for Job 2:9, but not 1:5,11 or 2:5.

In Job 1:21 after his first round of loss and personal rather than physical suffering Job exclaims "Blessed be the name of the LORD" using the same verb, so are we entitled to use it differently in 1:5 or 2:9? Maybe Job's wife was referring back to this and sarcastically suggesting he "go on blessing God's name till he runs out of breath and dies". In fact, "to bless" was sometimes a verbal shortcut to using the phrase, "bless the name of God", in the sense of invoking praise or blessing. So, "to bless" could mean to invoke or to make an oath, just as we casually invoke God's name in all manner of mild to coarse swearing. For example, the Cockney cor blimey is a contraction of the oath "God/Gawd blind me". To praise God whilst sinning was both hypocrisy and virtual blasphemy and perhaps this was the fear that Job had concerning his sons' partying behaviour.

It may be that, even from an early stage, Jewish writers did not like to use the word curse in connection with the divine name and thus replaced the verb 'to curse' with that of 'to bless' with the intention that it come to be used euphemistically as a kind of circumlocution. Indeed, the rabbis spent ages discussing why the first verse of the Torah began with the letter beth and not aleph, the first letter of the alphabet. One response was that since aleph began the word 'arârâh 'curse' it was not good that Scripture should begin with a curse but rather a blessing, hence beth is used which begins the word bârakh 'to bless' (Midrash Rabbah Genesis 1:10). The prevention of associating a curse with God was avoided at all costs.

The Aramaic Targum to Job 1:11 and 2:5, however, uses another verb r^egaz "to provoke, make angry" (Strong's #7265, cf. the Hebrew #7264) rather than the 'bless' used elsewhere in Job 1-2. This is used in the Aramaic of Ezra 5:12 of provoking God to wrath. This would almost be akin to a modern idiom of causing someone to "lose it", to break their self-control and "flip out". The original sense of bârakh is "to break" or "bend" and so could be used negatively of God's mercy and patience cracking under a torrent of abuse or in Job's sons' case of possible constant sinning. Satan argued that if you threw enough at Job, Job himself would break and decry the name of God. Job's wife was perhaps suggesting that Job provoke God to "take him out", by "blessing" him in a negative sense, something that Terrien has appropriately called a kind of theological euthanasia.

It is significant that we mainly only meet this apparent double meaning of blessing and cursing in Job, but we do find hints of it elsewhere. It is possible that Psalm 62:4[Heb.5] is similar, "…they bless with their mouth, But they curse inwardly" which could be translated "they bless-curse with their mouth and they curse with their midst", two phrases used in parallel similar meaning rather than the "but" implying contrast. In Hebrew, "and" and "but" are the same word. The second part of the phrase "Let them curse, but-and You bless" (Psalm 109:28) could equally be taken two ways.

Proverbs 30:11 says of the generation or "youth of today" that they do not bless their parents. It is clear that "to not bless" one's mother was to be equated with the parallel cursing of one's father. So, not much changed there, then, Solomon's contemporaries and modern "youf". This is not dissimilar to the humorous statement:

"If a man loudly blesses his neighbour early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse." (Proverbs 27:14)

In 1 Kings 21:10,13 Jezebel conspires to bring false charges against Naboth, to get his vineyard, by planting witnesses who would say that Naboth had "blessed God and the king". Naboth was stoned for this made up offence and thus "blessing" cannot have meant "speaking highly" of God and king but something sufficient to merit the death penalty for blasphemy, "taking God's name in vain". Perhaps here we hit upon a truth, since blessing could be a shortened oath for "bless God's name" and cursing in Hebrew could mean "to take or treat something lightly". So, taken negatively, blessing God might mean "to treat his name lightly" or to invoke it positively but in a wrong context, implying light treatment of it.

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KJ Went has taught biblical Hebrew, hermeneutics and Jewish background to early Christianity. The "Biblical Hebrew made easy" course can be found at www.biblicalhebrew.com.

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