Job 6:2
in Job 6“If only my grief could be weighed and placed with my calamity on the scales.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Oh that my vexation were but weighed, And all my calamity laid in the balances!
KJV
Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!
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This verse in Job 6
Commentary
9 notes on this verseO that my grief were thoroughly weighed - Job wished to be dealt with according to justice; as he was willing that his sins, if they could be proved, should be weighed against his sufferings; and if this could not be done, he wished that his sufferings and his complainings might be weighed together; and it would then be seen that, bitter as his complaint had been, it was little when compared with the distress which occasioned it.
This site's exposition
Then Job replied
on Job 6:1-3
Job answers Eliphaz by asking that "my grief could be weighed and placed with my calamity on the scales". He wants his suffering measured. He says "it would outweigh the sand of the seas," stating his case in words of weight and quantity that recur through the chapter.
This site's exposition
If only my grief could be weighed
Barnes gives the Hebrew for grief as ka'as, a word that can also mean vexation or anger, and the Septuagint rendered it anger. Job wants his complaint and his calamity weighed together. Clarke reads the wish as a plea for justice, sure the complaint would prove the lighter load.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
This is what Job means, you show wisdom in the misfortunes of other people. Since you are far away from my misfortunes, you admonish me while you experience a peaceful life. This remark is an answer to the words that were said earlier, "You have instructed many." "You have strengthened the feeble knees." "But now misfortune has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed." Why does he say, "You are dismayed"? I wanted my affliction to become evident, so you would understand that nobody has ever suffered such tribulations. But I perceive my bad luck. He who should have provided me with forgiveness makes me absolutely unforgivable. My misfortune's magnitude, he says, not only doesn't intercede for me, not only makes me seem unworthy of mercy, but condemns me. What should have obtained mercy for me instead makes me hateful and condemnable, and I cannot gain any mercy, in spite of what I say. And the proof is that Eliphaz imputed Job's misfortune to impiety.
The Medieval Church2 voices
Some men's minds are more tormented by scourges than reproaches, but some are more wounded by reproaches than by scourges. For oftentimes the tortures of speech assail us worse than any pains, and while they make us rise up in our vindication, they lay us low in impatience.
Eliphaz had clearly noted in earlier verses three things in the lament of Job: despair because he seemed to desire not to exist; impatience or immoderate sorrow because of the sighs and moans which he said he was enduring; and presumption because he asserted his …
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
He excuses the passionate expressions he had used when he cursed his day. Though he could not himself justify all he had said, yet he thought his friends should not thus violently condemn it, for really the case was extraordinary, and that might be connived at in such a man of sorrows as he now was which in any common grief would by no means be allowed.
Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed,....
1 more voice on this verse
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
O that my grief were thoroughly weighed - The word rendered “grief” here (כעשׂ ka‛aś) may mean either vexation, trouble, grief; Ecc 1:18; Ecc 2:23; or it may mean anger; Deu 32:19; Eze 20:28. It is rendered by the Septuagint here, ὀργή orgē - anger; by Jerome, peccata - sins. The sense of the whole passage may either be, that Job wished his anger or his complaints to be laid in the balance with his calamity, to see if one was more weighty than the other - meaning that he had not complained unreasonably or unjustly (Rosenmuller); or that he wished that his afflictions might be put into one scale and the sands of the sea into another, and the one weighed against the other (Noyes); or simply, that he desired that his sorrows should be accurately estimated. This latter is, I think, the true sense of the passage. He supposed his friends had not understood and appreciated his sufferings; that they were disposed to blame him without understanding the extent of his sorrows, and he desires that they would estimate them aright before they condemned him. In particular, he seems to have supposed that Eliphaz had not done justice to the depth of his sorrows in the remarks which he had just made. The figure of weighing actions or sorrows, is not uncommon or unnatural. It means to take an exact estimate of their amount. So we speak of heavy calamities, of afflictions that crush us by their weight. etc. Laid in the balances - Margin, “lifted up.” That is, raised up and put in the scales, or put in the scales and then raised up - as is common in weighing. Together - יחד yachad. At the same time; that all my sorrows, griefs, and woes, were piled on the scales, and then weighed. He supposed that only a partial estimate had been formed of the extent of his calamities.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ל֗וּ | lu | <if> | H3863 → | |
| שָׁק֣וֹל | shakol | certainly [if] <to weigh> | H8254 → | 22 times |
| יִשָּׁקֵ֣ל | yishakel | it will be weighed | H8254 → | 22 times |
| כַּעְשִׂ֑י | ka'si | grief my | H3708 → | 25 times |
| וְ֝הַוָּתִ֗י | vehaiyati | and destruction my | H1942 → | 16 times |
| בְּֽמֹאזְנַ֥יִם | bemozenayim | in [the] balances | H3976 → | |
| יִשְׂאוּ־ | yisu- | people will raise | H5375 → | 656 times |
| יָֽחַד׃ | yachad | together | H3162 → | 141 times |
ל֗וּ<if>
luH3863 →
שָׁק֣וֹלcertainly [if] <to weigh>
shakolH8254 →22 times
יִשָּׁקֵ֣לit will be weighed
yishakelH8254 →22 times
כַּעְשִׂ֑יgrief my
ka'siH3708 →25 times
וְ֝הַוָּתִ֗יand destruction my
vehaiyatiH1942 →16 times
בְּֽמֹאזְנַ֥יִםin [the] balances
bemozenayimH3976 →
יִשְׂאוּ־people will raise
yisu-H5375 →656 times
יָֽחַד׃together
yachadH3162 →141 times
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
Job 31:6let God weigh me with honest scales, that He may know my integrity.
it leads to
- Psalms 7:8–9
The LORD judges the peoples; vindicate me, O LORD, according to my righteousness and integrity.
- Daniel 5:27
TEKEL means that you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient.
- Matthew 7:23
Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!’
- 1 Samuel 2:3
Do not boast so proudly, or let arrogance come from your mouth, for the LORD is a God who knows, and by Him actions are weighed.
- Isaiah 26:7
The path of the righteous is level; You clear a straight path for the upright.
- Psalms 7:8–9
Through
Job 23:2“Even today my complaint is bitter. His hand is heavy despite my groaning.
it leads to
Through
Job 4:5But now trouble has come upon you, and you are weary. It strikes you, and you are dismayed.
it leads to
- Job 19:21
Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me.
- Job 19:21
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies1
About Job
This page draws on 9 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Job; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book VII; John Chrysostom, COMMENTARY ON JOB 6:2A-3A; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job.