Job 3:10

“Because it shut not up the doors of my [mother’s] womb, etc.] Or “of my belly” f111, 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, (<012017>Genesis…”

“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. return…”

“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. Job 3:12”

“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).”

“it shut not: Job 10:18, Job 10:19; Gen 20:18, Gen 29:31; Sa1 1:5; Ecc 6:3-5; Jer 20:17 hid: Job 6:2, Job 6:3, Job 10:1, Job 23:2; Ecc 11:10 Job 3:11”

“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…”