King James Bible
"For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,"
Job imagines an alternate reality where he died at birth, expressing his wish for the stillness and silence of death over his current suffering. The phrase captures his deep anguish through the contrast between his hypothetical peaceful non-existence and his actual tormented life. Sleep and rest serve as euphemisms for death, reflecting the ancient Near Eastern view of death as a peaceful slumber. Job's longing for this eternal rest reveals the intensity of his pain—he sees death as preferable to his unbearable circumstances of loss, disease, and spiritual turmoil.