Job 3:12

Why did the knees prevent me?.... Not of the mother, as Jarchi, but of the midwife, who received him into her lap, and nourished and cherished him, washed him with water, salted, and swaddled him; or

Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? Why did the knees prevent me? - old English for anticipate my wants.

Why did the knees prevent me? why did the midwife or nurse receive me, and lay me upon her knees, and did not suffer me to fall upon the bare ground, and there to lie, in a neglected and forlorn condition, till merciful death had taken me out of this miserable world, into which the cruel kindness of my mother and midwife hath betrayed me? Why the breasts that I should suck? Why did the breasts prevent me, (which may be fitly understood out of the former member,) to wit, from perishing through hunger, or supply me, that I should have what to suck? Seeing my mother had not a miscarrying womb, but did unhappily bring me forth why had she not dry breasts? or why were there any breasts for me which I might suck? Thus Job most unthankfully and unworthily despiseth and traduceth these wonderful and singular mercies of God towards poor helpless infants, because of the present inconveniencies which he had by means of them.

Job 3:12 Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?Ver. 12. Why did the knees prevent me?] Why did the too officious midwife lay me on her lap, and not let me alone to perish by my fatal helplessness? Man is a poor shiftless creature; and Pliny rails at nature for producing him so forlorn, naked, and unable to help himself; but he knew not that this was a fruit of sin. Cicero indeed could say (whether he believed himself therein I know not), Cum primum nascimur, in omni continuo pravitate versamur, as soon as we are born we are head and ears all over in wickedness; but Pliny was not so persuaded, as I have elsewhere showed. Or why the breasts that I should suck?] Why did not my mother turn tigress, and cast me out when newly born? Why was she not cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness, that refuse to give suck to their young ones? Rather we may ask, Why doth not Job, out of his deepest discontent, think much of such a mercy; and rather bless God, first, for filling two such bottles with milk for him, ready against he came into the world? and then, for giving his mother a heart to suckle him, which some nice or unnatural women will not, being therein worse than those sea monsters, Lamentations 4:3, that help their young? The heathens called their Ceres (queen of plenty) Mammosam, as the nurse of all living creatures; and there are that derive God’ s name Shaddai from shad, a dug; because, as he openeth the hand, so he draws out the breast to every living thing. And for his saints, they may suck and be satisfied with the full strutting breasts of his consolations, the two Testaments, Isaiah 66:11. And whatever Job now (under a heavy temptation, which, like lead, sunk downward, and carried his soul with. it) may misjudge, they may sit and sing thankfully with David, Lord, thou (and not the midwife) art he that took me out of the womb; thou (and not my mother) keptest me in safety when I hung upon the breasts; neither then only, but afterwards, for puerilitas est periculorum pelagus, and the preserver of men keepeth us still from a thousand deaths and dangers. And is this matter of complaint, and not rather of thankfulness?

(12) Prevent—i.e., “Why was I nursed with care instead of being allowed to fall to the ground and be killed?”

Verse 12. Why did the knees prevent me?] Why was I dandled on the knees? Why was I nourished by the breasts? In either of the above cases I had neither been received into a mother's lap, nor hung upon a mother's breasts.

12. the knees prevent me] Rather, receive, or meet me. The reference may be to the father’s knees, on which the new born child was laid, or more general. As to the expression, see Genesis 50:23; Isaiah 66:12. The sufferer’s eye runs over all the chances of death which he had miserably lost, when he came from the womb, was laid upon the knees, and pressed to the breasts. The sorrow of his later years transmutes (as it does still with others) the tender affections and solicitudes lavished on his infancy, and makes them seem bitter cruelties.

Why did the knees prevent me? - That is, the lap of the nurse or of the mother, probably the latter. The sense is, that if he had not been delicately and tenderly nursed, he would have died at once.

12. Knees — Metaphorically for lap. Prevent — An old English word, meaning anticipate.