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Job_10:18 Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me!
Ver. 18. Wherefore hast thou brought me forth out of the womb?] Why? but was not that a mercy? David esteemed it so, and gives God the glory, Psa_22:9. But discontent is an utter enemy to thankfulness. The bird sings not till she have taken up her stand to her mind. Some men’s eyes are so bleared and glazed with tears for what they want, that they cannot see what good they have, cannot see mercies for blessings. Job here, in a distemper, wisheth himself (as he had done before, Job_3:1-26. "Who can understand his errors?" Psa_19:12) either unborn, or presently dead, without the distance of one day between his birth and his burial. In quo errorem erravit non levem, vir alioqui pientissimus; this was a worse wish than if he had desired that his life might be presently taken away from him, for herein he showeth himseff unthankful to God for all his former benefits; and not so only, but angry with God for the good he had done him: thus we have seen dogs in a chase fly at their masters, and children in a pelt strike at their parents. But these were the voices of the flesh lusting against the spirit, which afterwards (being justly reprehended for them, first by Elihu, and then also by God himself) he repressed and repented of in dust and ashes, Job_42:6.
Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me!] sc. With delight: for what pleasure is there in seeing a dead corpse, especially a stillborn child? See Gen_23:4, with the note. This text teacheth us, saith an interpreter, what sad effects extreme grief and pain worketh in the very best: it distempereth their spirits, and so disturbeth them, that their complaints look like the blasphemies of the wicked, and they sometimes wish absurd things, dishonourable to God, and prejudicial to themselves.