Job 3:24

24 For sighing has become my daily food; my groans pour out like water.

Job 3:24 in Other Translations

24 For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.

24 For my sighing comes instead of my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water.

24 I cannot eat for sighing; my groans pour out like water.

24 "Instead of bread I get groans for my supper, then leave the table and vomit my anguish.

24 I sigh when food is [put] before me, and my groans pour out like water.

Job 3:24 Meaning and Commentary

Job 3:24

For my sighing cometh before I eat
Or, "before my bread", or "food" ^F7; before he sat down to eat, or had tasted of his food, there were nothing but sighing and sobbing, so that he had no appetite for his food, and could take no delight in it; and, while he was eating, his tears mingled with it, so that these were his meat and his drink continually, and he was fed with the bread and water of affliction; and therefore what were light and life to such a person, who could not have the pleasure of one comfortable meal?

and my roarings are poured out like the waters;
he not only wept privately and in secret, and cried more publicly both to God and in the presence of men, but such was the force and weight of his affliction, that he even roared out, and that like a lion; and his afflictions, which were the cause of these roarings, are compared to waters and the pouring of them out; for the noise these waterspouts made, and for the great abundance of them, and for their quick and frequent returns, and long continuance, one wave and billow rolling upon another.

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FOOTNOTES:

F7 (ymxl ynpl) "ante cibum meum", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "ante panem meum", Cocceius, Schmidt, Michaelis.

Job 3:24 In-Context

22 who are filled with gladness and rejoice when they reach the grave?

23 Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?

24 For sighing has become my daily food; my groans pour out like water.

25 What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.

26 I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.”

Cross References

• 1. Psalms 5:1; Psalms 38:9; Isaiah 35:10
• 2. Job 6:7; Job 33:20; Psalms 107:18
• 3. Psalms 22:1; Psalms 32:3; Psalms 38:8
• 4. 1 Samuel 1:15; Job 30:16; Psalms 6:6; Psalms 22:14; Psalms 42:3,4; Psalms 80:5; Isaiah 53:12; Lamentations 2:12