Job 3:10

10 Because it did not shut the opening of my mother's womb, Or hide trouble from my eyes.

Job 3:10 Meaning and Commentary

Job 3:10

Because it shut not up the doors of my [mother's] womb
Or "of my belly" F13, or "womb"; which Aben Ezra interprets of the navel, by which the infant receives its food and nourishment before it is born, and which, if closed, he must have died in embryo; but rather it is to be understood of his mother's womb, called his, because he was conceived and bore in it, and was brought forth from it; and the sense is, that he complains of the night, either that it did not close his mother's womb, and hinder the conception of him, as Gersom, Sephorno, Bar Tzemach, and others, and is the usual sense of the phrase of closing the womb, and which is commonly ascribed to God, ( Genesis 20:17 Genesis 20:18 ) ( 1 Samuel 1:5 1 Samuel 1:6 ) ; which Job here attributes to the night, purposely avoiding to make mention of the name of God, that he might not seem to complain of him, or directly point at him; or else the blame laid on that night is, that it did not so shut up the doors of his mother's womb, that he might not have come out from thence into the world, wishing that had been his grave, and his mother always big with him, as Jarchi, and which sense is favoured by ( Jeremiah 20:17 ) ; a wish cruel to his mother, as well as unnatural to himself:

nor hid sorrow from mine eyes;
which it would have done, had it done that which is complained of it did not; had it he could not have perceived it experimentally, endured the sorrows and afflictions he did from the Chaldeans and Sabeans, from Satan, his wife, and friends; and had never known the trouble of loss of substance, children, and health, and felt those pains of body and anguish of mind he did; these are the reasons of his cursing the day of his birth, and the night of his conception.


FOOTNOTES:

F13 (ynjb) "ventris mei", Mercerus, Piscator, Schmidt, Schuitens, Michaelis; "uteri mei", Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius, Cocceius.

Job 3:10 In-Context

8 "Let those curse it who curse the day, Who are prepared to rouse Leviathan.
9 "Let the stars of its twilight be darkened; Let it wait for light but have none, And let it not see the breaking dawn;
10 Because it did not shut the opening of my mother's womb, Or hide trouble from my eyes.
11 "Why did I not die at birth, Come forth from the womb and expire?
12 "Why did the knees receive me, And why the breasts, that I should suck?
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