(8) Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning. (9) Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day: (10) Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes. (11) В¶ 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 counsellors 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.
I saw no reason to interrupt the progress of those verses, but wished them, as they are not divided in the Bible, not to be considered separately in the Commentary. The language is most pathetically chosen to convey the sorrows of an afflicted mind: but the fineness of the imagery cannot veil the anguish of the spirit with which they are delivered. What Job saith of the grave, if dying in Jesus, is true indeed, and most blessed. But, out of Christ, an untimely birth, as infants which never saw the light, must be preferable.