Job 3:11
Why did I not perish at birth; why did I not die as I came from the womb?
BSB
ASV
Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when my mother bare me?
KJV
Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?
MORAL INTERPRETATION. Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? Be the thought far from us, that blessed Job, who was endued with such high spiritual knowledge, and who had such a witness of praise from the Judge within, should wish that he had perished in abortive birth!
To desire to die that we may be with Christ, that we may be free from sin, and that we may be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven, is the effect and evidence of grace; but to desire to die only that we may be quiet in the grave, and delivered from the troubles of this life, savours of corruption.
Why died I not from the womb? - Why did I not die as soon as I was born? Why were any pains taken to keep me alive? The suggestion of this question leads Job in the following verses into the beautiful description, of what he would have been if he had then died. He complains, therefore, that any pains were taken by his friends to keep him alive, and that he was not suffered peacefully to expire.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Psalms 71:6I have leaned on You since birth; You pulled me from my mother’s womb. My praise is always for You.
leads to
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Yet You brought me forth from the womb; You made me secure at my mother’s breast.
My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by His grace, was pleased
Listen to Me, O islands; pay attention, O distant peoples: The LORD called Me from the womb; from the body of My mother He named Me.
Through
Isaiah 46:3“Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been sustained from the womb, carried along since birth.
leads to
and in the wilderness, where the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way by which you traveled until you reached this place.”
Listen to Me, you who know what is right, you people with My law in your hearts: Do not fear the scorn of men; do not be broken by their insults.
I have leaned on You since birth; You pulled me from my mother’s womb. My praise is always for You.