Job 3:24
in Job 3I sigh when food is put before me, and my groans pour out like water.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
For my sighing cometh before I eat, And my groanings are poured out like water.
KJV
For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.
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This verse in Job 3
Commentary
11 notes on this verseFor my sighing cometh - Some think that this refers to the ulcerated state of Job’s body, mouth, hands, etc. He longed for food, but was not able to lift it to his mouth with his hands, nor masticate it when brought thither. This is the sense in which Origen has taken the words. But perhaps it is most natural to suppose that he means his sighing took away all appetite, and served him in place of meat.
This site's exposition
I sigh when food is put before me
on Job 3:24-26
The chapter closes on grief, sighing in place of appetite and groans. His "I have no rest, for trouble has come" answers the security the hedge of 1:10 had given him. The words "what I dreaded has befallen me" show a dread his God-fearing life carried before the trouble came.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
A commentator
Philoxenus of Mabbug13 Ascetic Discourses, Discourse 11 -- On Abstinence · Written before 523.
proposed
And besides this righteous king, listen also unto the words of the spiritual athlete Job, whom the healing of the spirit taught what manner of thing he should set upon his table before his food, "For my sighing entereth in before I eat, and my …
The Medieval Church2 voices
For my sighing cometh before I eat. For the soul's 'eating' is its being fed with the contemplations of the light above, and thus it sighs before it eats, in that it first travails with the groanings of sorrow, and afterwards is replenished with the cheer of contemplation. For except it sigh, it eats not, in that he that refuses to humble himself, in this exile we are in, by the groanings of heavenly desires, never tastes the delights of the eternal inheritance.
After he shows that the life of man is difficult because of the unhappiness and bitterness of men, he applies to himself what he said about men in general. In this he expresses his own bitterness when he says, "Before I eat, I sigh," for …
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
It was Job's folly and weakness to curse his day. We must say of it, This was his infirmity; but good men have sometimes failed in the exercise of those graces which they have been most eminent for, that we may understand that when they are said to be perfect it is meant that they were upright, not that they were sinless.
His griefs returned as duly as his meals, and affliction was his daily bread. Nay, so great was the extremity of his pain and anguish that he did not only sigh, but roar, and his roarings were poured out like the waters in a full and constant stream. Our Master was acquainted with grief, and we must expect to be so too.
4 more voices on this verse
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
Before, &c. - Hebrew. before the face of my bread, all the time I am eating, I fall into sighing and weeping, because I am obliged to eat, and to support this wretched life, and because of my uninterrupted pains of body and of mind, which do not afford me one quiet moment.
For my sighing cometh before I eat,....
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
proposed
my sighing cometh before I eat--that is, prevents my eating [UMBREIT]; or, conscious that the effort to eat brought on the disease, Job must sigh before eating [ROSENMULLER]; or, sighing takes the place of good (Ps 42:3) [GOOD].
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — starts-lowercase
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
For my sighing cometh before I eat - Margin, “My meat.” Dr. Good renders this,” Behold! my sighing takes the place of my daily food, and refers to Psa 42:3, as an illustration: My tears are my meat day and night. So substantially Schultens renders it, and explains it as meaning, “My sighing comes in the manner of my food,” “Suspirium ad modum panis veniens” - and supposes it to mean that his sighs and groans were like his daily food; or were constant and unceasing. Dr. Noyes explains it as meaning, “My sighing comes on when I begin to eat, and prevents my taking my daily nourishment;” and appeals to a similar expression in Juvenal. Sat. xiii. 211: Perpetua anxietas, nec mensae tempore cessat. Rosenmuller gives substantially the same explanation, and remarks, also, that some suppose that the mouth, hands, and tongue of Job were so affected with disease, that the effort to eat increased his sufferings, and brought on a renewal of his sorrows. The same view is given by Origen; and this is probably the correct sense. And my roarings - My deep and heavy groans. Are poured out like the waters - That is, (1) “in number” - they were like rolling billows, or like the heaving deep. (2) Perhaps also in “sound” like them. His groans were like the troubled ocean, that can be heard afar. Perhaps, also, (3.) he means to say that his groans were attended with “a flood of tears,” or that his tears were like the waves of the sea. There is some hyperbole in the figure, in whichever way it is understood; but we are to remember that his feelings were deeply excited, and that the Orientals were in the habit of expressing themselves in a mode, which to us, of more phlegmatic temperament, may seem extravagant in the extreme. We have, however, a similar expression when we say of one that “he burst into a “flood of tears.””
The words behind it
8 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| כִּֽי־ | ki- | if | H3588 → | 4482 times |
| לִפְנֵ֣י | lifnei | <to> before | H6440 → | 2123 times |
| לַ֭חְמִי | lachmi | food my | H3899 → | 298 times |
| אַנְחָתִ֣י | ʾanchati | groaning my | H585 → | |
| תָבֹ֑א | tavo' | it comes | H935 → | 2568 times |
| וַֽיִּתְּכ֥וּ | vaiyitekhu | and they poured forth | H5413 → | |
| כַ֝מַּ֗יִם | khamayim | like <the> water | H4325 → | 581 times |
| שַׁאֲגֹתָֽי׃ | shaagotai | cries of distress my | H7581 → |
כִּֽי־if
ki-H3588 →4482 times
לִפְנֵ֣י<to> before
lifneiH6440 →2123 times
לַ֭חְמִיfood my
lachmiH3899 →298 times
אַנְחָתִ֣יgroaning my
ʾanchatiH585 →
תָבֹ֑אit comes
tavo'H935 →2568 times
וַֽיִּתְּכ֥וּand they poured forth
vaiyitekhuH5413 →
כַ֝מַּ֗יִםlike <the> water
khamayimH4325 →581 times
שַׁאֲגֹתָֽי׃cries of distress my
shaagotaiH7581 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Psalms 32:3When I kept silent, my bones became brittle from my groaning all day long.
it leads to
- Proverbs 28:13
He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.
- Psalms 38:3
There is no soundness in my body because of Your anger; there is no rest in my bones because of my sin.
- Psalms 38:8
I am numb and badly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart.
- Psalms 22:1
My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from saving me, so far from my words of groaning?
- Lamentations 3:8
Even when I cry out and plead for help, He shuts out my prayer.
- Proverbs 28:13
Through
Psalms 80:5You fed them with the bread of tears and made them drink the full measure of their tears.
it leads to
- Psalms 42:3
My tears have been my food both day and night, while men ask me all day long, “Where is your God?”
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Isaiah 30:20
The Lord will give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, but your Teacher will no longer hide Himself—with your own eyes you will see Him.
- Psalms 42:3
Through
Psalms 38:8I am numb and badly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart.
it leads to
- Psalms 32:3
When I kept silent, my bones became brittle from my groaning all day long.
- Psalms 32:3
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies1
About Job
This page draws on 10 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book V; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible; Philoxenus of Mabbug, 13 Ascetic Discourses, Discourse 11 -- On Abstinence and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job.