Job 3:10

Because she did not shut the breast of my mother; From the earthly city Babylon is. It would be closed if one did not praise the sinner in the desires of his soul (Ps. 10:3). Why am I not dead in the womb? Before pointing out to me in your presence by some action, for the conception is but a hope. "What did I perish coming out of her bosom?” See in these words the figure of a man who had aged in concupiscence.

MORAL INTERPRETATION. Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor took away sorrow from mine eyes. As has been likewise remarked above, the words, it shut not up, are 'it opened,' and it took not away, 'it brought upon me.' So that this night, i.e. sin, opened the door of the womb, in that to man, conceived unto sin, it unsealed the lust of concupiscence, whereof the Prophet says, Enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors. For we 'enter our chambers,' when we go into the recesses of our own hearts. And we 'shut the doors,' when we restrain forbidden lusts; and so whereas our consent set open these doors of carnal concupiscence, it forced us to the countless evils of our corrupt state. And so now we henceforth groan under the weight of mortality, though we came thereunto by our own free will, in that the justice of the sentence against us requires thus much, that what we have done willingly, we should bear with against our will.

ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes. What the womb of his mother is to each individual man, that the primary abode in Paradise became to the whole human race. For from it came forth the family of man as it were from the womb, and tending to the increase of the race, as if to the growth of the body, it issued forth without. There our conception was cemented, where the Man, the origin of mankind, had his abode, but the serpent opened the mouth of this womb, in that by his cunning persuading he broke asunder the decree of heaven in man's heart. The serpent opened the mouth of this womb, in that he burst the barriers of the mind which were fortified with admonitions from above. Let the holy man then in the punishment which he suffers, cast the eyes of his mind far back to the sin. Let him mourn for this, which the neglect of darkness, that is, the dark suggestions of our old enemy lodged in man's mind; for this, that man's mind consented to his cunning suggestions to his own betrayal, and let him say, Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes. Nor let this disturb us, that he complains that he only did not shut up, whom he abhors for having opened the gate of Paradise. For 'he opened,' he calls shut not up; and 'he entailed it,' nor hid sorrow from me. For he would as it were have 'hid sorrow,' if he had kept quiet, and have 'shut up,' if he had forborne from bursting in. For he is weighing well who it is he speaks of, and he reckons that it would have been as if the evil spirit had bestowed gains upon us if he had only not entailed losses upon our heads. Thus we say of robbers that they give their prisoners their lives, if they do not take them.