After seven days in which Job has heard no words of comfort from his friends, he bursts out cursing. He does not curse God, however. He curses the day of his birth, thereby wishing that he had never existed.

The prophet Jeremiah would give vent to his despair in a similar way: Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed! Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, 'A son is born to you,' making him very glad (Jeremiah 20:14–15). Even the most God-fearing men can be pushed to these extremes by intense suffering.