This is the start of the second part of the chapter (verses 11-26), in which Job complains against his suffering. He begins by asking the first of five “Why” questions, which are repeated to emphasize Job’s wish that he could have died. This kind of question is typical of a lament or complaint. Since Job obviously could not prevent his birth, he now wishes he had died at birth; for similar laments asking “Why,” see Psalm 10.1; 22.1; Jeremiah 20.18; Lamentations 5.20.

Why did I not die at birth, come forth from the womb and expire?: the first line translates “Why did I not die from the womb?” The Septuagint has “in the womb.” Good News Translation also takes it to mean “in my mother’s womb,” as do Biblia Dios Habla Hoy, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, New Jerusalem Bible. Good News Translation expresses the question as a wish. The “Why” question is not repeated in the second line, since it serves for both lines. In line a the poet uses the usual word for “die,” but in line b the term in Hebrew is more literary, meaning to “breathe out a last breath” or “expire.” The two lines say the same thing twice but with a difference in that the figurative expression in line b steps up the poetic pitch. If the verse is translated as a wish, it may be rendered, for example, “I wish I had died when I was born, in fact, I wish I had never even taken one breath when I came from my mother’s womb.” The distinction is not in wishing to die in the womb or outside the womb as in Good News Translation, but rather in the step up of intensity between “die” and “breathe my last breath.”

Translators may find the repetitious use of the “Why” questions fails to emphasize Job’s desire to die, and that expressing these rhetorical questions as wishes likewise does not make his wish stronger, but only more monotonous. In such cases the translator must use devices in the receptor language that will lend such emphases. For example, it may be necessary to alternate between “Why” questions and wishes.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, Wiliam. A Handbook on Job. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .