Bible Commentary

Job 14:4

Job 14:4

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible · John Gill (1697–1771) · Public Domain

but rather, since the particular night or time of conception is not ordinarily, easily, and exactly known by women themselves, and much less by men; and more especially it could not be told what sex it was, whether male or female that was conceived, and the tidings of it could not be brought by any; it seems better with Aben Ezra to render the word , "there is a man child brought forth", which used to be an occasion of joy, ; and so the word is used to bear or bring forth, 1Ch 4:17; see ; and, according to him, it was a doubt whether Job was born in the day or in the night; but be it which it will, if he was born in the day, he desires it might perish; and if in the night, he wishes the same to that; though the words may be rendered in a beautiful and elegant manner nearer the original, "and the night [which] said, a man child is conceived" ; representing, by a prosopopoeia, the night as a person conscious of the conception, as an eyewitness of it, and exulting at it, as Schultens observes.

rbg hrh "in lucem editus est vir", Mercerus; "creatus, progenitus", Drusius, so the Targum; "conceptus et natus est vir, vel mas", Michaelis; so Ben Melech.

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