19 I should have been as though I had not been. I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
I should have been carried from the womb to the grave - See the notes at Job 3:16.
I should have been as though - Had I given up the ghost as soon as born, as I could not then have been conscious of existence, it would have been, as it respects myself, as though I had never been; being immediately transported from my mother's womb to the grave.
I should have been as though I had not been,.... For though it cannot be said absolutely of such an one, an abortive or untimely birth, that it is a nonentity, or never existed; yet comparatively it is as if it never had a being; it being seen by none or very few, it having had no name, nor any conversation among men; but at once buried, and buried in forgetfulness, as if no such one had ever been; see Ecclesiastes 6:3. This Job wished for, for so some render it, "oh, that I had been as though I had never been" (f); and then he would have never been involved in such troubles he was, he would have been free from all his afflictions and distresses, and never have had any experience of the sorrows that now surrounded him:
I should have been carried from the womb to the grave; if he had not been brought out of it, the womb had been his grave, as in Jeremiah 20:17; or if he had died in it, and had been stillborn, he would quickly have been carried to his grave; he would have seen and known nothing of life and of the world, and the things in it; and particularly of the troubles that attend mortals here: his passage in it and through it would have been very short, or none at all, no longer than from the womb to the grave; and so should never have known what sorrow was, or such afflictions he now endured; such an one being in his esteem happier than he; see Ecclesiastes 4:3.
(f) So Vatablus, Piscator, and some in Mercerus.
*More commentary available at chapter level.