King James Bible
"Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?"
Job questions why he didn't die before birth, expressing his wish to have never experienced life at all. This marks the beginning of his lament after seven days of silence, revealing the depth of his suffering that makes non-existence seem preferable to his current agony. The parallel question intensifies his death wish, specifically asking why he didn't die at the moment of birth. The phrase 'give up the ghost' is a Hebrew idiom for expiring, and this repetition emphasizes Job's view that any moment of death before consciousness would have been a mercy.