Job 10:19

I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:14-22 Job did not deny that as a sinner he deserved his sufferings; but he thought that justice was executed upon him with peculiar rigour. His gloom, unbelief, and hard thoughts of God, were as much to be ascribed to Satan's inward temptations, and his anguish of soul, under the sense of God's displeasure, as to his outward trials, and remaining depravity. Our Creator, become in Christ our Redeemer also, will not destroy the work of his hands in any humble believer; but will renew him unto holiness, that he may enjoy eternal life. If anguish on earth renders the grave a desirable refuge, what will be their condition who are condemned to the blackness of darkness for ever? Let every sinner seek deliverance from that dreadful state, and every believer be thankful to Jesus, who delivereth from the wrath to come.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I should have been carried from the womb to the grave - See the notes at Job 3:16.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

17. witnesses—His accumulated trials were like a succession of witnesses brought up in proof of his guilt, to wear out the accused.

changes and war—rather, "(thou settest in array) against me host after host" (literally, "changes and a host," that is, a succession of hosts); namely, his afflictions, and then reproach upon reproach from his friends.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I should have been, or, Oh that I had been! and so in the following branch,

Oh that I had been carried! For why should not these verbs of the future tense be so rendered here, as that Job 10:18 is, the reason being wholly the same?

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I should have been as though I had not been,.... For though it cannot be said absolutely of such an one, an abortive or untimely birth, that it is a nonentity, or never existed; yet comparatively it is as if it never had a being; it being seen by none or very few, it having had no name, nor any conversation among men; but at once buried, and buried in forgetfulness, as if no such one had ever been; see Ecclesiastes 6:3. This Job wished for, for so some render it, "oh, that I had been as though I had never been" (f); and then he would have never been involved in such troubles he was, he would have been free from all his afflictions and distresses, and never have had any experience of the sorrows that now surrounded him:

I should have been carried from the womb to the grave; if he had not been brought out of it, the womb had been his grave, as in Jeremiah 20:17; or if he had died in it, and had been stillborn, he would quickly have been carried to his grave; he would have seen and known nothing of life and of the world, and the things in it; and particularly of the troubles that attend mortals here: his passage in it and through it would have been very short, or none at all, no longer than from the womb to the grave; and so should never have known what sorrow was, or such afflictions he now endured; such an one being in his esteem happier than he; see Ecclesiastes 4:3.

(f) So Vatablus, Piscator, and some in Mercerus.

Geneva Study Bible

I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 19. - I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave. So short an existence would have been the next thing to no existence at all, and would have equally satisfied my wishes. Job 10:19

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

18 And wherefore hast Thou brought me forth out of the womb?

I should have expired, that no eye had seen me,

19 I should have been as though I had never been,

Carried from the womb to the grave.

20 Are not my days few? then cease

And turn from me, that I may become a little cheerful,

21 Before I go to return no more

Into the land of darkness and of the shadow of death,

22 The land of deep darkness like to midnight,

Of the shadow of death and of confusion,

And which is bright like midnight.

The question Wherefore? Job 10:18, is followed by futt. as modi conditionales (Ges. 127, 5) of that which would and should have happened, if God had not permitted him to be born alive: I should have expired, prop. I ought to have expired, being put back to the time of birth (comp. Job 3:13, where the praet. more objectively expressed what would then have happened). These modi condit. are continued in Job 10:19 : I should have been (sc. in the womb) as though I had not been (comp. the short elliptical

(Note: כלא is there equals לא כאשׁר, like ללא, Isaiah 65:1 equals לא לאשׁר [vid. Ges. 123, 3], and כּ is used as a conjunction as little as ל (vid., on Psalm 38:14).)

expression, Obadiah 1:16), i.e., as one who had scarcely entered upon existence, and that only of the earliest (as at conception); I should have been carried (הוּבל, as Job 21:32) from the womb (without seeing the light as one born alive) to the grave. This detestation of his existence passes into the wish, Job 10:20, that God would be pleased at least somewhat to relieve him ere he is swallowed up by the night of Hades. We must neither with the Targ. translate: are not my days few, and vanishing away? nor with Oetinger: will not my fewness of days cease? Both are contrary to the correct accentuation. Olshausen thinks it remarkable that there is not a weaker pausal accent to ימי; but such a one is really indirectly there, for Munach is here equivalent to Dech, from which it is formed (vid., the rule in Comm. ber den Psalter, ii. 504). Accordingly, Seb. Schmid correctly translates: nonne parum dies mei? ideo cessa. The Keri substitutes the precative form of expression for the optative: cease then, turn away from me then (imper. consec. with waw of the result, Ewald, 235, a); comp. the precative conclusion to the speech, Job 7:16., but there is no real reason for changing the optative form of the text. ישׁית (voluntative for ישׁת, Job 9:33) may be supplemented by ידו, פניו, עיניו ,פ, or לבו (Job 7:17) (not, however, with Hirz., שׁבטו, after Job 9:34, which is too far-fetched for the usage of the language, or with Bttch., מחנהו, copias suas); שׁית can however, like שׂים, Job 4:20, signify to turn one's self to, se disponere equals to attend to, consequently מן שׁית, to turn the attention from, as מן שׁעה, Job 7:19, Psalm 39:14 (where, as here, ואבליגה follows).

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