Birthday

In the UPDV the birthday appears in two opposite registers. On one side it is the day a king celebrates with a banquet — a court occasion at which favor is dispensed and judgment is publicly executed. On the other side it is the day a sufferer curses, wishing the night of his conception had never come into the calendar at all. The narrative scene is royal and Egyptian; the laments are private and come from Job and from Jeremiah.

A Royal Court Occasion

The first birthday in scripture is Pharaoh's. Joseph, in prison with the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, has interpreted their dreams; the third day proves him out. "And it came to pass the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, that he made a feast to all his slaves: and he lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his slaves" (Gen 40:20). The day of the king's birth is the day on which judgment is publicly executed. The cupbearer is restored; the baker is hanged (Gen 40:22).

The Day Cursed: Job

The opposite register is Job's. After his losses, "after this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day" (Job 3:1). The day cursed is the day he was born. "Let the day perish in which I was born, And the night which said, A [noble] man was conceived" (Job 3:3). What follows is a sustained anti-blessing in which every property a birthday should have is reversed. "Let that day be darkness; Don't let God from above seek for it, Neither let the light shine on it" (Job 3:4). "As for that night, let thick darkness seize on it: Don't let it rejoice among the days of the year; Don't let it come into the number of the months" (Job 3:6). "Look, let that night be barren; Let no joyful voice come in it" (Job 3:7).

The cursing widens into a wish that birth had failed. "Why didn't I die from the womb? Why didn't I give up the ghost when my mother bore me?" (Job 3:11). On that account light itself is the wrong gift: "Why is light given to him who is in misery, And life to the bitter in soul? Who long for death, but it does not come, And dig for it more than for hid treasures" (Job 3:20-21).

The Day Cursed: Jeremiah

Jeremiah's lament parallels Job's, in nearly the same vocabulary. "Cursed be the day in which I was born: don't let the day in which my mother bore me be blessed" (Jer 20:14). The very announcement that should have made the birthday a celebration is reversed: "Cursed be the man who brought good news to my father, saying, A man-child is born to you; making him very glad" (Jer 20:15). The lament closes, "Why did I come forth out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?" (Jer 20:18).

What Job and Jeremiah share is a precise inversion of the birthday motif of Genesis 40. Pharaoh's banquet is loud, public, and ruinous to another. The prophets' laments are private, addressed to God, and ruinous only in wish — the day itself is asked to be unmade. The UPDV records both, side by side, without resolving them.