“Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.”
Job laments that he was not hidden in the ground like a stillborn child, comparing his fate unfavorably to the infants who die unborn or shortly after birth and escape the burden of conscious existence. The image of the hidden grave represents a merciful obscurity granted to those spared the full weight of life's suffering. His comparison reveals the tragic paradox that non-existence appears preferable to existence burdened with pain.
Church Fathers on Job 3:16
Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light. An abortive child, because it is born before the full period, being dead is forthwith put out of sight. Whom then does the holy man term ‘abortives,’ with whom he might ‘have been at rest,’ he reflects, saving all the Elect, who from the beginning of the world lived before the time of the Redemption, and yet studied to mortify themselves to this world. Those who had not the tables of the Law,…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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