Even to day is my complaint bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning.
Parallel translations
- WEB “Even today my complaint is rebellious. His hand is heavy in spite of my groaning.
- BSB “Even today my complaint is bitter. His hand is heavy despite my groaning.
- NKJV “Even today my complaint is bitter; My hand is listless because of my groaning.
- NASB “Even today my complaint is rebellion; His hand is heavy despite my groaning.
- NLT “My complaint today is still a bitter one, and I try hard not to groan aloud.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Job admits his complaint still feels rebellious, and God's hand lies heavy on him despite his groaning. He is honest about both his anguish and his struggle.
Overview
Job acknowledges that his lament may seem like defiance, yet his suffering remains crushing. The verse captures the tension of faithful lament: Job neither denies his pain nor abandons God. The textual sense is debated, with some renderings reading 'bitter' rather than 'rebellious,' but either way Job lays his honest distress before the Lord (cf. Ps 13:1-2).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Job 10:1My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
- Job 7:11Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
- Ps 32:4For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.
- Job 6:2–3Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!
- Lam 3:19–20Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.
- Ps 77:2–9In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted.
- Job 11:6And that he would shew thee the secrets of wisdom, that they are double to that which is! Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth.
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Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 23:2 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.