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Job 3:11-19

King James Version (KJV)

“In our prayers we talk to God, in our Bible study God talks to us, and we had better let God do most of the talking.”
— D.L. Moody

Scripture focus

11. Why died I not from the womb? [why] did I [not] give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? 12. Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? 13. For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest, 14. With kings and counsellers of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; 15. Or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver: 16. Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants [which] never saw light. 17. There the wicked cease [from] troubling; and there the weary be at rest. 18. [There] the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. 19. The small and great are there; and the servant [is] free from his master.

Job 3:11-19 — KJV

Commentary

Commentary on Job 3:11

Theological / Devotional

Why? A repeated question of Job as it is of all sufferers throughout the ages. But in this case, Job is not asking why he was caused to suffer; he asks, rather, why he did not die in infancy. He is not so much seeking an answer as he is expressing his deep despair.

Give up the ghost. Literally, “die,” or “expire.” The expression “to give up the ghost” is an interpretative translation reflecting the theology of the translators regarding the nature of man. In most instances the expression translates a Hebrew or Greek word meaning simply “to expire” (see Genesis 25:8, 17; 49:33; Mark 15:37; Acts 5:5, 10). On the other hand “to give up the ghost [spirit]” is a literal translation of the Greek in Matthew 27:50.

By SdaBc