This verse appears to interrupt the continuity of verses 15-17. Consequently New English Bible inserts it after verse 12, while New American Bible puts it after verse 11. Most modern translations, however, do not transpose this verse from its traditional place. It seems best to retain the order of verses as in Revised Standard Version. Good News Translation avoids transposing verse 16 by repeating “sleeping” in verses 14, 15, 16. In this way the condition “if I had died” in verse 13 is followed by three result clauses, all beginning with “sleeping.” The two lines of the Hebrew of this verse are contracted into one in Good News Translation, for which a better translation may be “I would be buried and hidden like a stillborn child.”

Or why was I not as a hidden untimely birth: if Job had been an aborted fetus, he would have been buried and hidden among the dead. The second line, as infants that never see the light, is parallel to the first line, and Good News Translation reduces the two to one line with “or sleeping like a stillborn child.” By keeping the “Why” question the two lines may be rendered, for example, “Why was I not gotten rid of like an abortion, or buried like a baby that never lives to see the light of day?” In Hebrew only the first line contains the verb “hide.” The second line omits the verb in order to have more room for the expanded noun clause. In the form of a wish, the two lines may be rendered, for example, “I wish I had been put out of sight while still a fetus, or even gotten rid of like a dead baby which never opens its eyes.”

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 .