Job 3:10-20

10 because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.

11 "Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?

12 Why did the knees precede me, or why the breasts that I should suck?

13 For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept; then would I have been at rest

14 with kings and counselors of the earth, who built desolate places for themselves,

15 or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver;

16 or as a hidden untimely birth I would not have been, as infants who never saw light.

17 There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest.

18 There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.

19 The small and great are there, and the servant is free from his master.

20 "Why is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul,

Job 3:10-20 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 3

In this chapter we have an account of Job's cursing the day of his birth, and the night of his conception; Job 3:1-3; first the day, to which he wishes the most extreme darkness, Job 3:4,5; then the night, to which he wishes the same and that it might be destitute of all joy, and be cursed by others as well as by himself, Job 3:6-9; The reasons follow, because it did not prevent his coming into the world, and because he died not on it, Job 3:10-12; which would, as he judged, have been an happiness to him; and this he illustrates by the still and quiet state of the dead, the company they are with, and their freedom from all trouble, oppression, and bondage, Job 3:13-19; but however, since it was otherwise with him, he desires his life might not be prolonged, and expostulates about the continuance of it, Job 3:20-23; and this by reason of his present troubles, which were many and great, and came upon him as he feared they would, and which had made him uneasy in his prosperity, Job 3:24-26.