Job 3:12

the knees prevent me Rather, receive, or meet me. The reference may be to the father's knees, on which the new born child was laid, or more general. As to the expression, see Genesis 50:23; Isaiah 66:12. The sufferer's eye runs over all the chances of death which he had miserably lost, when he came from the womb, was laid upon the knees, and pressed to the breasts. The sorrow of his later years transmutes (as it does still with others) the tender affections and solicitudes lavished on his infancy, and makes them seem bitter cruelties.