I sigh when food is put before me, and my groans pour out like water.
Parallel translations
- WEB For my sighing comes before I eat. My groanings are poured out like water.
- KJV For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.
- NKJV For my sighing comes before I eat, And my groanings pour out like water.
- NASB “For my groaning comes at the sight of my food, And my cries pour out like water.
- NLT I cannot eat for sighing; my groans pour out like water.
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's sighing and groaning have become his daily bread. His suffering is constant and overwhelming.
Overview
Job describes grief so pervasive that sighs come before he can even eat and his groans pour out like water. The imagery conveys ceaseless, all-consuming sorrow. His honest expression of physical and emotional pain shows that lament has a rightful place in the life of faith.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Ps 102:9For I have eaten ashes like bread and mixed my drink with tears
- Ps 80:5You fed them with the bread of tears and made them drink the full measure of their tears.
- Ps 42:3–4My tears have been my food both day and night, while men ask me all day long, “Where is your God?”
- Ps 38:8I am numb and badly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart.
- Ps 22:1–2For the choirmaster. To the tune of “The Doe of the Dawn.” A Psalm of David. My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from saving me, so far from my words of groaning?
- Isa 59:11We all growl like bears and moan like doves. We hope for justice, but find none, for salvation, but it is far from us.
- Ps 32:3When I kept silent, my bones became brittle from my groaning all day long.
- Job 6:7My soul refuses to touch them; they are loathsome food to me.
- Job 33:20so that he detests his bread, and his soul loathes his favorite food.
- Job 7:19Will You never look away from me, or leave me alone to swallow my spittle?
- Lam 3:8Even when I cry out and plead for help, He shuts out my prayer.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 3:24 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.