Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G MessageI would have been as if I had never been — brought from the womb directly to the tomb.
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.GI would have been as though I never existed — carried from the womb straight to the grave.
KJV
King James VersionI should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.
BSB
Berean Standard BibleIf only I had never come to be, but had been carried from the womb to the grave.
Footnotes
The phrase mibbeten laqqeber ('from the womb to the grave') strips life down to its two termini with nothing between. The Hebrew laqqeber uses the definite article — 'the grave' — as if it were the only destination. FOG's 'straight to the grave' captures the abruptness of transit and the waste of a life never lived. FOG Message's 'from the womb directly to the tomb' uses the near-rhyme available in English to give the desolation a liturgical memorability — an echo of what might be inscribed on a gravestone of a life that never was.