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Read the Bible

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Job 3:12

Why were there knees to receive me, and breasts that I should be nursed?

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Afflictions and Adversities;   Despondency;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Murmuring;  

Dictionaries:

- Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Abortion;   Charles Buck Theological Dictionary - Greatness of God;   Heart;   Independency of God;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Birth;   Hell;   Job, the Book of;   Poetry;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Prevent;   Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary - Child Birth;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Knee;   Prevent;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Strophic Forms in the Old Testament;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Why did the knees receive me,and why were there breasts for me to nurse?
Hebrew Names Version
Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should suck?
King James Version
Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?
English Standard Version
Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?
New Century Version
Why did my mother's knees receive me, and my mother's breasts feed me?
New English Translation
Why did the knees welcome me, and why were there two breasts that I might nurse at them?
Amplified Bible
"Why did the knees receive me? And why the breasts, that I would nurse?
New American Standard Bible
"Why were the knees there in front of me, And why the breasts, that I would nurse?
World English Bible
Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should suck?
Geneva Bible (1587)
Why did the knees preuent me? and why did I sucke the breasts?
Legacy Standard Bible
Why did the knees receive me,And why the breasts, that I should suck?
Contemporary English Version
Why was I accepted and allowed to nurse at my mother's breast?
Complete Jewish Bible
Then I would be lying still and in peace, I would have slept and been at rest,
Darby Translation
Why did the knees meet me? and wherefore the breasts, that I should suck?
Easy-to-Read Version
Why did my mother hold me on her knees? Why did her breasts feed me?
George Lamsa Translation
Why was I reared at my mothers knee? Why did I suck the breasts?
Good News Translation
Why did my mother hold me on her knees? Why did she feed me at her breast?
Lexham English Bible
Why did the knees receive me and the breasts, that I could suck?
Literal Translation
Why did the knees go before me; or why the breasts, that I should suck?
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Why set they me vpo yeir knees? Why gaue they me suck with their brestes?
American Standard Version
Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should suck?
Bible in Basic English
Why did the knees take me, or why the breasts that they might give me milk?
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Why set they me vpon their knees? why gaue they me sucke with their brestes?
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Why did the knees receive me? And wherefore the breasts, that I should suck?
King James Version (1611)
Why did the knees preuent mee? or why the breasts, that I should sucke?
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
and why did the knees support me? and why did I suck the breasts?
English Revised Version
Why did the knees receive me? or why the breasts, that I should suck?
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Whi was Y takun on knees? whi was Y suclid with teetis?
Update Bible Version
Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should be nursed?
Webster's Bible Translation
Why did the knees receive me? or why the breasts that I should be nursed?
New King James Version
Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?
New Living Translation
Why was I laid on my mother's lap? Why did she nurse me at her breasts?
New Life Bible
Why did the knees receive me, or why the breasts, that I should have milk?
New Revised Standard
Why were there knees to receive me, or breasts for me to suck?
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
For what reason, were there prepared for me - knees? and why - breasts, that I might suck?
Douay-Rheims Bible
Why received upon the knees? why suckled at the breasts?
Revised Standard Version
Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should suck?
Young's Literal Translation
Wherefore have knees been before me? And what [are] breasts, that I suck?
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"Why did the knees receive me, And why the breasts, that I should suck?

Contextual Overview

11Why did I not perish at birth; why did I not die as I came from the womb? 12Why were there knees to receive me, and breasts that I should be nursed?13For now I would be lying down in peace; I would be asleep and at rest 14with kings and counselors of the earth, who built for themselves cities now in ruins, 15or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver. 16Or why was I not hidden like a stillborn child, like an infant who never sees daylight? 17There the wicked cease from raging, and there the weary find rest. 18The captives enjoy their ease; they do not hear the voice of the oppressor. 19Both small and great are there, and the slave is freed from his master.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

the knees: Genesis 30:3, Genesis 50:23, Isaiah 66:12, Ezekiel 16:4, Ezekiel 16:5

Reciprocal: Job 40:2 - he that reproveth

Cross-References

Genesis 2:18
The LORD God also said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make for him a suitable helper."
Genesis 2:20
The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.
Genesis 2:22
And from the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man, He made a woman and brought her to him.
Genesis 3:13
Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" "The serpent deceived me," she replied, "and I ate."
Genesis 3:15
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
Genesis 3:20
And Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
Genesis 3:21
And the LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
Genesis 3:24
So He drove out the man and stationed cherubim on the east side of the Garden of Eden, along with a whirling sword of flame to guard the way to the tree of life.
Job 31:33
if I have covered my transgressions like Adam by hiding my guilt in my heart,
Proverbs 19:3
A man's own folly subverts his way, yet his heart rages against the LORD.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Why did the knees prevent me?.... Not of the mother, as Jarchi, but of the midwife, who received him into her lap, and nourished and cherished him, washed him with water, salted, and swaddled him; or it may be of his father, with whom it was usual to take the child on his knees as soon as born, see Genesis 50:23; which custom obtained among the Greeks and Romans o; hence the goddess Levana p had her name, causing the father in this way to own his child; his concern is, that he did not fall to the ground as he came out of his mother's womb, and with that fall die; and that he was prevented from falling by the officious knees of the midwife; that he was not suffered to fall, and be left there, without having any of the usual things done to him for the comfort and preservation of life, which was sometimes the case, Ezekiel 16:4;

or why the breasts that I should suck? since a miscarrying womb was not given, and death did not seize him immediately upon birth, but all proper care was taken to prevent it, he asks, why was there milk in the breasts of his mother or nurse to suckle and nourish him? why were there not dry breasts, such as would afford no milk, that so he might have been starved? thus he wishes the kindest things in nature and Providence had been withheld from him.

o Homer. Iliad. 9. Vid. Barthii Animadv. ad Claudian. in Nupt. Honor. ver. 341. p Kipping. Antiqu. Roman. l. 1. c. 1. sect. 10.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Why did the knees prevent me? - That is, the lap of the nurse or of the mother, probably the latter. The sense is, that if he had not been delicately and tenderly nursed, he would have died at once. He came helpless into the world, and but for the attention of others he would have soon died. Jahn supposes (Archae section 161) that it was a common custom for the father, on the birth of a son, to clasp the new-born child to his bosom, while music was heard to sound, and by this ceremony to declare it as his own. That there was some such recognition of a child or expression of paternal regard, is apparent from Genesis 50:23. Probably, however, the whole sense of the passage is expressed by the tender care which is necessarily shown to the new-born infant to preserve it alive. The word rendered “prevent” here קדם qâdam, means properly to anticipate, to go before, as the English word “prevent” formerly did; and hence, it means to go to meet anyone in order to aid him in any way. There is much beauty in the word here. It refers to the provision which God has made in the tender affection of the parent to “anticipate” the needs of the child. The arrangement has been made beforehand. God has taken care when the feeble and helpless infant is born, that tender affection has been already created and prepared to meet it. It has not to be created then; it is not to be excited by the suffering of the child; it is already in existence as an active, powerful, and self-denying principle, to “anticipate” the needs of the newborn babe, and to save it from death.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 3:12. Why did the knees prevent me? — Why was I dandled on the knees? Why was I nourished by the breasts? In either of the above cases I had neither been received into a mother's lap, nor hung upon a mother's breasts.


 
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