Job asks why light is given to someone in misery and life to the bitter in soul (Job 3:20). He describes people who long for death but it does not come (Job 3:21).
In Job 3:20–23 Job asks why God keeps giving “light” and “life” to people whose experience is misery. He pictures sufferers as so worn down that they actively crave death like a buried treasure, and would even celebrate reaching the grave. These lines belong to Job’s first long speech after seven days of silence with his friends. Job has already cursed the day of his birth (3:1–19), not God directly, and he has imagined nonexistence or the grave as rest.
Job 3:20–23 is a set of “why” questions spoken from deep misery. Job describes people who receive “light” and “life” while their actual experience is pain, bitterness, and a blocked future. The text presents death and the grave as desired relief for some sufferers, not because death is celebrated in itself, but because continuing life feels unbearable.
A careful answer keeps the immediate passage, the book's argument, and the whole-Bible storyline together, so the question is answered in context instead of as a detached idea.
Start with Job 3:20, then read the surrounding section so the answer stays connected to the passage's flow.
20"Why is light given to him who is in misery, Life to the bitter in soul,