Job 3:10

because it ¹  did not shut the doors ²  of my mother’s womb on me, ³  nor did it hide trouble ⁴  from my eyes!

Ge 20:18; Ge 29:31; 1Sa 1:5; Job 6:2,3; Job 10:1; Job 10:18,19; Job 23:2; Ec 6:3-5; Ec 11:10; Jer 20:17

¹ tn The subject is still “that night.” Here, at the end of this first section, Job finally expresses the crime of that night – it did not hinder his birth.

² sn This use of doors for the womb forms an implied comparison; the night should have hindered conception (see Gen 20:18 and 1 Sam 1:5).

³ tn The Hebrew has simply “my belly [= womb].” The suffix on the noun must be objective – it was the womb of Job’s mother in which he lay before his birth. See however N. C. Habel, “The Dative Suffix in Job 33:13,” Bib 63 (1982): 258-59, who thinks it is deliberately ambiguous.

⁴ tn The word עָמָל (’amal) means “work, heavy labor, agonizing labor, struggle” with the idea of fatigue and pain.