Lectionary Calendar
Wednesday, May 14th, 2025
the Fourth Week after Easter
Attention!
For 10¢ a day you can enjoy StudyLight.org ads
free while helping to build churches and support pastors in Uganda.
Click here to learn more!

Read the Bible

King James Version

Job 3:24

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

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Afflictions and Adversities;   Despondency;   Thompson Chain Reference - Sighing;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Murmuring;  

Dictionaries:

- Charles Buck Theological Dictionary - Greatness of God;   Heart;   Independency of God;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Job, the Book of;   Poetry;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Boil (1);   Waters;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Strophic Forms in the Old Testament;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
I sigh when food is put before me,and my groans pour out like water.
Hebrew Names Version
For my sighing comes before I eat, My groanings are poured out like water.
English Standard Version
For my sighing comes instead of my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water.
New Century Version
I make sad sounds as I eat; my groans pour out like water.
New English Translation
For my sighing comes in place of my food, and my groanings flow forth like water.
Amplified Bible
"For my groaning comes at the sight of my food, And my cries [of despair] are poured out like water.
New American Standard Bible
"For my groaning comes at the sight of my food, And my cries pour out like water.
World English Bible
For my sighing comes before I eat, My groanings are poured out like water.
Geneva Bible (1587)
For my sighing commeth before I eate, and my roarings are powred out like the water.
Legacy Standard Bible
For my groaning comes at the sight of my food,And my roaring pours out like water.
Berean Standard Bible
I sigh when food is put before me, and my groans pour out like water.
Contemporary English Version
Moaning and groaning are my food and drink,
Complete Jewish Bible
for the thing I feared has overwhelmed me, what I dreaded has happened to me.
Darby Translation
For my sighing cometh before my bread, and my groanings are poured out like the waters.
Easy-to-Read Version
When it is time to eat, all I can do is sigh with sadness, not joy. My groans pour out like water.
George Lamsa Translation
For my sighing comes before I eat, and my moanings are poured out like water.
Good News Translation
Instead of eating, I mourn, and I can never stop groaning.
Lexham English Bible
For my sighing comes before my bread, and my groanings gush forth like water
Literal Translation
For my sighing comes before my food; and my groanings are poured out like the waters.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
This is the cause, that I syghe before I eate, and my roaringes fall out like a water floude.
American Standard Version
For my sighing cometh before I eat, And my groanings are poured out like water.
Bible in Basic English
In place of my food I have grief, and cries of sorrow come from me like water.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
For my sighes come before I eate, and my roringes are powred out like the water:
JPS Old Testament (1917)
For my sighing cometh instead of my food, and my roarings are poured out like water.
King James Version (1611)
For my sighing commeth before I eate, and my roarings are powred out like the waters.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
For my groaning comes before my food, and I weep being beset with terror.
English Revised Version
For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like water.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Bifore that Y ete, Y siyhe; and as of watir flowynge, so is my roryng.
Update Bible Version
For my sighing comes before I eat, And my groanings are poured out like water.
Webster's Bible Translation
For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.
New King James Version
For my sighing comes before I eat, [fn] And my groanings pour out like water.
New Living Translation
I cannot eat for sighing; my groans pour out like water.
New Life Bible
For I cry inside myself in front of my food. My cries pour out like water.
New Revised Standard
For my sighing comes like my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
For, in the face of my food, my sighing, cometh in, and, poured out like the water, are my groans:
Douay-Rheims Bible
Before I eat I sigh: and as overflowing waters, so is my roaring:
Revised Standard Version
For my sighing comes as my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water.
Young's Literal Translation
For before my food, my sighing cometh, And poured out as waters [are] my roarings.
THE MESSAGE
"Instead of bread I get groans for my supper, then leave the table and vomit my anguish. The worst of my fears has come true, what I've dreaded most has happened. My repose is shattered, my peace destroyed. No rest for me, ever—death has invaded life."
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"For my groaning comes at the sight of my food, And my cries pour out like water.

Contextual Overview

20 Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul; 21 Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures; 22 Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave? 23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in? 24 For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters. 25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. 26 I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

my sighing: Job 7:19, Psalms 80:5, Psalms 102:9

I eat: Heb. my meat

my roarings: Psalms 22:1, Psalms 22:2, Psalms 32:3, Psalms 38:8, Isaiah 59:11, Lamentations 3:8

Reciprocal: Job 7:20 - I am Psalms 31:10 - my life Lamentations 2:19 - pour Ezekiel 12:18 - General

Cross-References

Genesis 3:2
And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
Genesis 3:8
And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.
Genesis 3:9
And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
Genesis 3:16
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
Genesis 3:17
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Genesis 3:18
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
Genesis 3:22
And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Exodus 25:2
Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering: of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering.
Numbers 22:23
And the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and the ass turned aside out of the way, and went into the field: and Balaam smote the ass, to turn her into the way.
Joshua 5:13
And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For my sighing cometh before I eat,.... Or, "before my bread", or "food" g; 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.

g לפני לחמי "ante cibum meum", Junius Tremellius, Piscator "ante panem meum", Cocceius, Schmidt, Michaelis.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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 Psalms 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.””

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 3:24. For my sighing cometh — Some think that this refers to the ulcerated state of Job's body, mouth, hands, c. 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. There is the same thought in Psalms 42:3: My tears have been my meat day and night which place is not an imitation of Job, but more likely Job an imitation of it, or, rather, both an imitation of nature.

My roarings are poured out — My lamentations are like the noise of the murmuring stream, or the dashings of the overswollen torrent.


 
adsfree-icon
Ads FreeProfile