Job 10:18

Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me!

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth?—Here Job reverts to the strain of his original curse (Job 3:11, &c.).

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

Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth - See the notes at Job 3:11.

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

To wit, alive, i.e. that I had never been born alive.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb?.... Into this world; this act is rightly ascribed by Job to the Lord, as it is by David, Psalm 22:9; which kind act of God Job complains of, and wishes it had never been, seeing his life was now so miserable and uncomfortable; here he returns to his former complaints, wishes, and expostulations, expressed with so much vehemence and passion in Job 10:3; and for which his friends blamed him, and endeavoured to convince him of his error in so doing; but it does not appear that their arguments carried any force in them with him, or had any effect upon him; he still continues in the same mind, and by repeating justifies what he had said; and thought he had sufficient reason to wish he had never been born, that he had died in the womb, since his afflictions were so very great and increasing, and since God pursued him as a fierce lion; and, according to his sense of things, his indignation against him appeared more and more, and his life was a continued succession of trouble and distress:

and that I had given up the ghost; that is, in the womb, and had never been brought out of it, at least alive; or it may be rendered not as a wish, but as an affirmation, "I should have given up the ghost"; or, "so or then I should have expired" (e); if such care had not been taken of me, if God had not been so officious to me as to take me out of my mother's womb at the proper time, I should have died in it, and that would have been my grave; and which would have been more eligible than to come into the world, and live such a miserable life as I now live:

and no eye had seen me! no eye would have seen him, had he not been taken out of the womb; or however if he had died directly, would not have seen him alive; and an abortive or stillborn child few see, or care to see; and had he been such an one, he had never been seen in the circumstances he now was; and by this he suggests, that he was now such a shocking sight as was not fit to be seen by men, and which would have been prevented had he died in the womb.

(e) "expirabo", Montanus; "expirassem", Mercerus, Cocceius, Schmidt, Schultens.

Geneva Study Bible

Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me!

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18, 19. Perplexed even to despair by this idea of the purpose of God Job asks, Why God ever gave him existence at all? and as in ch. Job 3:11 seq. wishes he had never seen life.

hast thou brought] didst thou bring.

Oh that I had given] I should have given.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 18. - Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? A recurrence to his original complaint (Job 3:3-10); as if, after full consideration, he returned to the conviction that the root of the whole matter - the real thing of which he might justly complain - was that he had ever been born into the world alive! Oh that I had given up the ghost! Before birth, or in the act of birth (so Job 3:11). And no eye had seen me! "No eye," i.e., "had looked upon my living face." For then - Job 10:18

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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