Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.
Parallel translations
- WEB because it didn’t shut up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.
- BSB For that night did not shut the doors of the womb to hide the sorrow from my eyes.
- NKJV Because it did not shut up the doors of my mother’s womb, Nor hide sorrow from my eyes.
- NASB Because it did not shut the opening of my mother’s womb, Or hide trouble from my eyes.
- NLT Curse that day for failing to shut my mother’s womb, for letting me be born to see all this trouble.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Job blames that day for letting him be born into trouble. He sees his very birth as the gateway to his misery.
Overview
Job's reason for cursing the day is that it did not prevent his birth and so exposed him to the sorrow he now endures. His lament traces present suffering back to his origin. While honest, this perspective is limited, and the book will reveal a God whose purposes extend beyond what the sufferer can presently see.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Gen 20:18For the LORD had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham’s wife.
- Jer 20:17Because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me.
- Eccl 6:3–5If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.
- 1 Sam 1:5But unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion; for he loved Hannah: but the LORD had shut up her womb.
- Gen 29:31And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren.
- Eccl 11:10Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity.
- Job 6:2–3Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!
- Job 10:1My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
- Job 23:2Even to day is my complaint bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning.
- Job 10:18–19Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me!
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 3:10 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.