Albert Barnes Commentary Job 31:15

"Did not he that made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb?" — Job 31:15 (ASV)

Did not He who made me in the womb make him? (Job 31:15a) — Had we not one and the same Creator, and do we not consequently have the same nature? We may observe the following in regard to this sentiment:

1. It indicates a very advanced perspective regarding humanity. The attempt has always been made by those who wish to tyrannize over others, or who aim to enslave others, to show that they are of a different race and that, in the design for which they were made, they are wholly inferior.

   Arguments have been derived from their complexion, from their supposed inferiority of intellect, and the deep degradation of their condition (often little above that of brutes) to prove that they were originally inferior to the rest of humankind. On this basis, the plea has often been urged, and even more often felt than urged, that it is right to reduce them to slavery. Since this feeling existed so early, and since there is so much that may be plausibly said in its defense, it shows that Job had derived his views from something more than human speculations and the desire for power, when he says that he regarded all human beings as originally equal and as having the same Creator. It is, in fact, a sentiment that people have been practically very reluctant to believe, and which makes its way very slowly even now on the earth .

2. This sentiment, if fairly embraced and carried out, would soon destroy slavery everywhere. If people felt that they were reducing to bondage those who were originally on a level with themselves—made by the same God, with the same faculties, and for the same end; if they felt that in their very origin, in their nature, there was that which could not be made mere property—it would soon abolish the whole system.

   It is maintained only where people endeavor to convince themselves that there is some original inferiority in the slave which makes it proper that he should be reduced to servitude and be held as property. But as soon as the sentiment of Paul, that God hath made of one blood all nations of men (Acts 17:26), or the sentiment of the patriarch Job, that the same God made us and them in the womb, can be spread abroad, that moment the shackles of the slave will fall, and he will be free.

Therefore, it is apparent how Christianity, which carries this lesson at its forefront, is the great remedy for the evils of slavery, and needs only to be universally spread to bring the system to an end.

And did not one fashion us in the womb? (Job 31:15c) — A marginal note offers an alternative reading: Or, did He not fashion us in one womb? The Hebrew text can support either construction, but the parallelism tends to require the one given in the main text, and most commentators agree with this interpretation. The sentiment is, whichever interpretation is adopted, that they had a common origin, that God would watch over them alike as His children, and that, therefore, they had equal rights.