Suicide in the Bible?
Dying men sometimes pray for death. Maybe you haven't because you have always been healthy! Mortally ill people who teeter on the brink of death for a prolonged period of time sometimes give in to these desires. Even a secular world can empathize. However, it is important to note, even believers can be driven to this dark place through spiritual illness. Many occasions of this can be observed in Biblical Church History. The holiest men on earth are no exception to this weakness.
At a time of faltering, Moses, Elijah, and Jonah all prayed to die (Num. 11:15, 1 Kings 19:4, Jonah 4:3). Why? They all found themselves in the same unpleasant circumstances. They were backslidden! The sting of sin eats away at the spiritual sanity of the soul (1 Cor. 15:56). Moses was murmuring in distress, Elijah was fleeing like a coward, and Jonah was angry with God. Similarly, Job and Jeremiah were so confused over their current circumstances, they cursed their own birth and wished to die (Job 3:1-26, 7:15, 10:18-19; Jer. 15:10, 20:14-18); and let’s not forget Solomon’s erroneous glorification of death in the Book of Ecclesiastes (Eccl. 4:2). Of course, the same thing was happening to Job in Job 6:8-10.
"Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant me the thing that I long for! Even that it would please God to destroy me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off! Then should I yet have comfort; yea, I would harden myself in sorrow: let him not spare; for I have not concealed the words of the Holy One." - Job 6:8-10
Job was utterly persuaded that he was dying, but with each passing day he continued to live. As he teetered on the edge of the grave, he mourned the thought of life altogether. Then in an outburst of sheer depravity, Job requested that God would “destroy” him – that the divine “hand” of God would be loosed to “cut [Job] off!” (Job 6:9). Suffice it to say, to be “cut off” by God is never a good thing in Scripture. Eliphaz already made this point in Job 4:7. Everyone knows this.
Cut Off: Job 4:7, 6:9, 11:10, 18:16, 21:21, 24:24, 36:20 (Cut Off: Ex. 31:14, Lev. 7:20-21, 25, 27, 17:4, 9-10, 18:29, 19:8, 20:3, 5-6, 17-18, 23:29, Num. 9:13, 15:30, 19:20, Ps. 12:3, 34:16, 37:9, 22, 28, 34, 38, 54:5, 75:10, 76:12, 90:10, 94:23, 101:5, 8, 109:13, 15, 143:12, Prov. 2:22, 23:18, 24:14; Put Away: Deut. 13:5, 17:7, 12, 19:19, 21:21, 22:22, 24, Judges 20:13, Lev. 20:14)
Eliphaz was doctrinally correct when he said to Job, “…who ever perished, being innocent? Or where were the righteous cut off?” (Job 4:7). Again, every credible witness in biblical times acknowledges this fact! Nevertheless, upon Job verbalizing his desire to be cut off, he had the audacity to say that he would then find “comfort” (Job 6:9-10). Why? This is an enlargement of one of the primary themes of the Book of Job, the Doctrine of Mortality, as the discourse moves into Job 6-7.
In looking upon death, Job was speaking from the same vantage point as when he first broke the silence in Job 3:1-26. As a figure of speech, the “comfort” of Job 6:10 is the same as the stillness, quietness, sleep, and rest of Job 3:13-19 – such that comes to the human body physically when it loses animation upon death, giving the appearance that one is now at rest or asleep. Do you disagree? If Job was speaking about the exclusive experience of the righteous in the afterlife in Job 6:10, when he used the word “comfort”, then one could argue that Job believes that “the wicked” of Job 3:13-19 are also going to paradise in the afterlife.
On the contrary, Job and his friends were absolutely certain that the wicked were, are, and will be utterly condemned (Job 8:22, 10:15, 11:20, 18:5, 21, 20:29, 21:17, 30). Furthermore, given the circumstances, it is not possible that Job would be speaking about going to paradise in the afterlife. Job knew that he was under the wrath of God because of unforgiven sin in the present circumstances, and no one in this condition would sanely desire the stroke of death from the mighty hand of God.
