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16 Or why[a] was[b] I not buried[c]
like a stillborn infant,[d]
like infants[e] who have never seen the light?[f]

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Footnotes

  1. Job 3:16 tn The verb is governed by the interrogative of v. 12 that introduces this series of rhetorical questions.
  2. Job 3:16 tn The verb is again the prefix conjugation, but the narrative requires a past tense, or preterite.
  3. Job 3:16 tn Heb “hidden.” The LXX paraphrases: “an untimely birth, proceeding from his mother’s womb.”
  4. Job 3:16 tn The noun נֵפֶל (nefel, “miscarriage”) is the abortive thing that falls (hence the verb) from the womb before the time is ripe (Ps 58:9). The idiom using the verb “to fall” from the womb means to come into the world (Isa 26:18). The epithet טָמוּן (tamun, “hidden”) is appropriate to the verse. The child comes in vain, and disappears into the darkness—it is hidden forever.
  5. Job 3:16 tn The word עֹלְלִים (ʿolelim) normally refers to “nurslings.” Here it must refer to infants in general since it refers to a stillborn child.
  6. Job 3:16 tn The relative clause does not have the relative pronoun; the simple juxtaposition of words indicates that it is modifying the infants.

16 Or why was I not hidden away in the ground like a stillborn child,(A)
    like an infant who never saw the light of day?(B)

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