Coming from the same mouth, curses poison blessings until you can’t tell them apart (Jas 3:10-12).
Have you heard of an antiphrasis? It’s a rhetorical device where one says the opposite of what is actually meant in such a way that the true intention is obvious. People exclaim, “Oh, great!” when they mean anything but. “Don’t you just love having to wait like this?” is said in exasperation when it annoys the speaker. Or “He’s a real beaut!” when you find someone’s behavior unbearable. The Hebrew word bârak is just such an antiphrasis. At its most basic, it means to kneel. But it’s used to translate both the words “curse” and “bless.” Context dictates its meaning. Job offered sacrifices lest his sons “sinned and cursed [bârak] God in their hearts” (Job 1:5). Satan told God that, if Job were stripped of his goods and then his health, “he will surely curse [bârak] You to Your face!” (1:11; 2:5). If you wonder why the devil spared Job’s wife when he destroyed the rest of his family, the answer may be that he found in her an ally, for she sounded very like him. “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse [bârak] God and die!” (v 9). It’s a grim entente when “the accuser of our brethren” (Rev 12:10) has God’s people do his work for him. But her husband chose to worship instead, and concluded his short prayer, “Blessed [bârak] be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). Tell me, was Judas’ kiss a blessing or a curse? It was prophesied of him, “let his prayer become sin” (Ps 109:7). Are our difficulties curses or blessings? It all depends on whether you ascribe them to Satan’s sabotage or God’s refining process. Balaam aside, the greatest example when “our God turned the curse into a blessing” (Neh 13:2) is Calvary. The result of the devil’s curses on Job? “The Lord blessed [bârak] the latter days of Job more than his beginning” (42:12).