Or as a hidden untimely birth I should not be, or as they that being conceived have not seen the light.

Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants that have not seen the light.

(Or as a hidden abortion I am not, As infants, they have not seen light.)

Or as a child dead at birth I might never have come into existence; like young children who have not seen the light.

or, like a hidden miscarriage, I should not have continued, just like those who, being conceived, have not seen the light.

Or as an hidden untimely birth - As an abortion which is hid, or concealed; that is, which is soon removed from the sight. So the Psalmist, Psalm 58:8 :
As a snail which melteth, let thom dissolve;
As the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.
Septuagint ἔκτρωμα ektrōma, the same word which is used by Paul in 1-Corinthians 15:8, with reference to himself; see the notes at that place.
I had not been - I should have perished; I should not have been a man, as I now am, subject to calamity. The meaning is, that he would have been taken away and concealed, as such an untimely birth is, and that he would never have been numbered among the living and the suffering.
As infants which never saw light - Job expresses here no opinion of their future condition, or on the question whether such infants had immortal souls. He is simply saying that his lot would have been as theirs was, and that he would have been saved from the sorrows which he now experienced.

Or as a hidden untimely birth - An early miscarriage, which was scarcely perceptible by the parent herself; and in this case he had not been - he had never had the distinguishable form of a human being, whether male or female.
As infants - Little ones; those farther advanced in maturity, but miscarried long before the time of birth.

Or as an hidden untimely birth,.... Or "hid, as one born out of time", as Mr. Broughton reads it; the Septuagint use the same word as the apostle does, when he says the like of himself, 1-Corinthians 15:8; the word has the signification of "falling" (s), and designs an abortive, which is like to fruit that falls from the tree before it is ripe; and this may be said to be "hidden", either in the belly, as the Targum, or however from the sight of man, it being not come to any proper shape, and much less perfection; now Job suggests, that if he had not lain with kings, counsellors, and princes, yet at least he should have been as an abortion, and that would have been as well to him: then
I had not been; or should have been nothing, not reckoned anything; should not have been numbered among beings, but accounted as a nonentity, and should have had no subsistence or standing in the world at all:
as infants which never saw light; and if not like an untimely birth, which is not come to any perfection, yet should have been like infants, which, though their mothers have gone their full time with them, and they have all their limbs in perfection and proportion, yet are dead, or stillborn, their eyes have never been opened to see any light; meaning not the light of the law, as the Targum, but the light of the sun, or the light of the world, see Ecclesiastes 6:3; infants used to be buried in the wells or caves of the mummies (t).
(s) "sicut abortivus qui ex utero excidit, aut in terram cadit", Michaelis. (t) Vansleb, ut supra, (Relation of a Voyage to Egypt,) p. 90.

untimely birth-- (Psalm 58:8); preferable to the life of the restless miser (Ecclesiastes 6:3-5).

Hidden - Undiscerned and unregarded. Born before the due time. Been - In the land of the living.