Job 3:10

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

Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes. No JFB commentary on this verse.

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 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 . 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.

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? Genesis 20:18; Genesis 29:31. And was it not he that took David thence? Psalms 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, Ecclesiastes 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, Psalms 34:12 Jeremiah 17:6 Isaiah 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, Psalms 51:5. If he live to see the light, he comes crying into the world, and an untimely birth may be better than he, Ecclesiastes 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.

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.

10. the doors of my mother’s womb] to hinder conception or fruitfulness, Genesis 20:18; 1 Samuel 1:5. The crime of the night is deferred to the last, and the curse closes with the mention of it.

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.