Job 3:8 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning— Houbigant renders it, May those curse it, who dread the day, who are ready to rouze the Leviathan. The word כבה kabah rendered curse, says Heath, hath in the Arabic the signification of conceiving or exciting terror; and, being translated dread the day, makes better sense than the common rendering. The verse may be thus paraphrased: "Let even those who reckon the night as their protector, who dread the appearance of the day, curse this night; who are ready to awake, or arouse the Leviathan;" i.e. are weary of their lives, and are ready for the most desperate undertaking; as for waking the Leviathan, see ch. 41. Houbigant, however, is by no means satisfied with this interpretation. He thinks, that, to justify it, it should be shewn that they who rouse such monsters as the Leviathan, or crocodile, detest or dread either the coming or departing day; which by no means appears to be the case. He therefore renders it, Who prepare themselves to raise up the dragon, or serpent, meaning the old serpent which seduced our first parents, whom they are accustomed to raise up, who use magic arts, and with whom it is common to curse the approaching day, as preventive of those arts: so that Job seems to say, that that night in which he was conceived, is more to be detested than that day which they detest who exercise magic arts. For my own part, I should be apt to prefer to either of these interpretations the common version; which may certainly be justified, bears a sense much less forced than either of the foregoing, and seems well to correspond with the preceding verse.