Job 3:10

Job 3:10 Because it shut not up the doors of my [mother’s] womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.

Ver. 10. Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb] Lest this curse should seem causeless, and he mad without reason, he telleth you here why he thus poureth out his passion; and complaineth so heavily against the day of his birth and night of his conception, which yet were harmless, and had not deserved to be thus charged, cursed. "Because it shut not up," &c. But how could the night do that? Is it not of God alone to shut or open the womb? Gen 20:18; Gen 29:31. And was it not he that took David thence? Psa 18:23. This Job could tell well enough at another time, but now he is quite out of all reason; beating himself with his passions, as the lion doth with his own tail; yea, like some sullen bird in a cage, he could almost find in his heart to beat himself to death. We use to say, - Res est ingeniosa dolor, Grief is an ingenious thing; yet it maketh a man foolish (the excess of it), as it did Job here; yea, it maketh a wise man mad, as Solomon saith of oppression, Ecc 7:7, and we see it exemplified in Job, especially if the words be thus read, as they may, Because he (that is, God) shut not up the doors, &c.

Nor hid sorrow from mine eyes] In Scripture, to see good or evil is to feel it, Psa 34:12 Jer 17:6 Isa 65:16 Job 33:17. He meaneth, that he had missed those evils which now he met with since his coming into the world, if those doors, being shut, had shut him out of the world. Man is no sooner born than born to trouble, Job 5:7, yea, man that is born (or conceived) of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble, Job 14:1. Miserable he is even as soon as he is warm in the womb, as David phraseth it, Psa 51:5. If he live to see the light, he comes crying into the world, and an untimely birth may be better than he, Ecc 5:3. The Hebrews call him Enosh, that is, sorry man; or doleful, miserable, and desperately diseased man, whose living is but to lie a dying. The Greeks, when they would set forth one extremely wretched, they call him πρισανθρωπον, thrice a man, that is, thrice miserable. And, What is man? saith Seneca (Ad Mar. cap. 11). He answereth, Morbidum, putre, cassum, a fletu vitam auspicatum; a diseased, rotten, empty thing, beginning his life with tears, as if he wept to think upon what a shore of trouble he is landed; or rather, into what a sea of sorrows he is launching; not unlike the Straits of Magellan, a sea of that nature, say geographers, that which way soever a man bend his course, he shall be sure to have the wind against him.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Job 3:10. Because it shut not up my mother’s womb — Because it did not confine me to the dark prison of the womb, but suffered me to escape from thence; nor hid sorrow from mine eyes — Because it did not keep me from entering into this miserable life, and seeing or experiencing those bitter sorrows under which I now groan.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3:10 shut my mother’s womb: Closing or opening the womb sometimes refers to conception (Gen 16:2; 20:18; 29:31; 30:22; 1 Sam 1:5-6), but here it refers to birth (see also Job 38:8).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 10. Because it shut not up the doors] Here is the reason why he curses the day and the night in which he was conceived and born; because, had he never been brought into existence, he would never have seen trouble. It seems, however, very harsh that he should have wished the destruction of his mother, in order that his birth might have been prevented; and I rather think Job's execration did not extend thus far. The Targum understands the passage as speaking of the umbilical cord, by which the foetus is nourished in its mother's womb: had this been shut up, there must have been a miscarriage, or he must have been dead born; and thus sorrow would have been hidden from his eyes. This seeming gloss is much nearer the letter and spirit of the Hebrew than is generally imagined. I shall quote the words: כי לא סגר דלתי בטני ki lo sagar dalthey bitni, because it did not shut up the doors of my belly. This is much more consistent with the feelings of humanity, than to wish his mother's womb to have been his grave.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

10. the doors of my mother’s womb] to hinder conception or fruitfulness, Gen_20:18; 1Sa_1:5. The crime of the night is deferred to the last, and the curse closes with the mention of it.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb,.... Or "of my belly" (m), 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, Gen 20:17 Sa1 1:5; 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 Jer 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.

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

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Because it shut not up ... - That is, because the accursed day and night did not do it. Aben Ezra supposes that God is meant here, and that the complaint of Job is that he did not close his mother’s womb. But the more natural interpretation is to refer it to the Νυχθήμεροι Nuchthēmeroi - the night and the day which he had been cursing, on which he was born. Throughout the description the day and the night are personified, and are spoken of as active in introducing him into the world. He here curses them because they did not wholly prevent his birth.

Nor hid sorrow from mine eyes - By preventing my being born. The meaning is, that he would not have known sorrow if he had then died.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Nor took. Septuagint, "for it would then have freed my eyes from labour."

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Because it shut not up, to wit, the night or the day; to which those things are ascribed which were done by others in them, as is frequent in poetical writings, such as this is. Or, he, i.e. God; whom in modesty and reverence he forbears to name. Yet he doth not curse God for his birth, as the devil presaged, but only wisheth that the day of his birth might have manifest characters of a curse impressed upon it. Shut not up the doors; that it might either never have conceived me, or at least never have brought me forth.

Mother’s; which word is here fitly supplied, both out of Job 1:21; 31:18, where it is expressed; and by comparing other places where it is necessarily to be understood, though the womb only be mentioned, as Job 10:19; Psa 58:3; Isa 48:8; Jer 1:5.

Nor hid sorrow from mine eyes, because it did not keep me from entering into this miserable life, and seeing, i.e. feeling, or experiencing, (as that word is oft used,) those bitter sorrows under which I now groan.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Because it shut not up the doors of my mother"s womb; literally, of my womb; i.e. "of the womb which bare me." By a stretch of imagination, the night is supposed to have power to open or shut wombs, and is blamed for not having shut up the womb in which Job was conceived. Nor hid sorrow from mine eyes; i.e. "and did not so prevent all the sorrows that have befallen me."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

It - The night or the day: to which those things are ascribed which were done by others in them, as is frequent in poetical writings. Womb - That it might never have brought me forth. Nor hid - Because it did not keep me from entering into this miserable life, and seeing, or experiencing, these bitter sorrows.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

10 Because it did not close the doors of my mother's womb,

Nor hid sorrow from my eyes.

11 Why did I not die from the womb,

Come forth from the womb and expire?

12 Why have the knees welcomed me?

And why the breasts, that I should suck?

The whole strophe contains strong reason for his cursing the night of his conception or birth. It should rather have closed (i.e., make the womb barren, to be explained according to Sa1 1:5; Gen 16:2) the doors of his womb (i.e., the womb that conceived concepit him), and so have withdrawn the sorrow he now experiences from his unborn eyes (on the extended force of the negative, vid., Ges. 152, 3). Then why, i.e., to what purpose worth the labour, is he then conceived and born? The four questions, Job 3:11., form a climax: he follows the course of his life from its commencement in embryo (מרהם, to be explained according to Jer 20:17, and Job 10:18, where, however, it is מן local, not as here, temporal) to the birth, and from the joy of his father who took the new-born child upon his knees (comp. Gen 50:23) to the first development of the infant, and he curses this growing life in its four phases (Arnh., Schlottm.). Observe the consecutio temp. The fut. אמוּת has the signification moriebar, because taken from the thought of the first period of his conception and birth; so also ואגוע, governed by the preceding perf., the signification et exspirabam (Ges. 127, 4, c). Just so אינק, but modal, ut sugerem ea.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

For He did not shut He Who was able to shut. This too is one of the verses that resemble “the night when one said” (verse 2).

the doors of my womb from which I emerged, for had He done so, He would have hidden trouble from my eyes.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.