Or as an hidden untimely birth
Or "hid, as one born out of time", as Mr. Broughton reads it; the
Septuagint use the same word as the apostle does, when he says
the like of himself, ( 1
Corinthians 15:8 ) ; the word has the signification of
"falling" F19, and designs an abortive, which is
like to fruit that falls from the tree before it is ripe; and
this may be said to be "hidden", either in the belly, as the
Targum, or however from the sight of man, it being not come to
any proper shape, and much less perfection; now Job suggests,
that if he had not lain with kings, counsellors, and princes, yet
at least he should have been as an abortion, and that would have
been as well to him: then
I had not been;
or should have been nothing, not reckoned anything; should not
have been numbered among beings, but accounted as a nonentity,
and should have had no subsistence or standing in the world at
all:
as infants [which] never saw light;
and if not like an untimely birth, which is not come to any
perfection, yet should have been like infants, which, though
their mothers have gone their full time with them, and they have
all their limbs in perfection and proportion, yet are dead, or
stillborn, their eyes have never been opened to see any light;
meaning not the light of the law, as the Targum, but the light of
the sun, or the light of the world, see ( Ecclesiastes
6:3-5 ) ; infants used to be buried in the wells or caves of
the mummies F20.