The Muddied Infant and Job's Longing for the Womb in Tazria

(Job 29:4:) "When I was in the days of my youth (chorfi) [in the secret counsel of God upon my tent (ibid.)] — this speaks of the infant." Just as the rain toils in the soil and it becomes muddied, so the infant is muddied within its mother's womb. ("In the secret counsel of God upon my tent" (ibid.) — this speaks of the infant.) And just as the infant remains muddied, [so a person is muddied] by sins, and troubles come upon him. At that hour he said (Job 29:2), "O that I were as in the months of old" — and would that I had the days that I had when I was in my mother's belly! What does he say at the last? (Job 29:4) "When I was in the days of my youth." Rabbi Abbahu said: The infant comes out of its mother's belly full of slime and full of blood, and all praise it and cherish it — and all the more when it is a male. Hence (Lev. 12:2), "When a woman emits seed and bears a male."