Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should nurse?
Parallel translations
- KJV Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?
- BSB Why were there knees to receive me, and breasts that I should be nursed?
- NKJV Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?
- NASB “Why were the knees there in front of me, And why the breasts, that I would nurse?
- NLT Why was I laid on my mother’s lap? Why did she nurse me at her breasts?
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 wonders why he was received and nursed as a newborn. He wishes he had not been kept alive.
Overview
Job questions the very care that preserved him at birth, the knees that received him and the breast that fed him. His grief recoils from the ordinary mercies that sustained his infancy. The verse shows how deep suffering can make even life itself feel like an unwanted gift.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 4
- Isa 66:12For Yahweh says, “Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you will nurse. You will be carried on her side, and will be dandled on her knees.
- Gen 30:3She said, “Behold, my maid Bilhah. Go in to her, that she may bear on my knees, and I also may obtain children by her.”
- Gen 50:23Joseph saw Ephraim’s children to the third generation. The children also of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were born on Joseph’s knees.
- Ezek 16:4–5As for your birth, in the day you were born your navel was not cut, neither were you washed in water to cleanse you. You weren’t salted at all, nor swaddled at all.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 3:12 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.