My soul refuses to touch them. They are as loathsome food to me.
Parallel translations
- KJV The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat.
- BSB My soul refuses to touch them; they are loathsome food to me.
- NKJV My soul refuses to touch them; They are as loathsome food to me.
- NASB “My soul refuses to touch them; They are like loathsome food to me.
- NLT My appetite disappears when I look at it; I gag at the thought of eating it!
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
His soul refuses to touch such food, which has become loathsome to him. Job expresses revulsion at his suffering, or at the unsavory counsel he is given.
Overview
Job confesses that what is set before him, his afflictions or his friends' arguments, is as repugnant as food he cannot stomach. The verse captures the visceral recoil of a soul in deep distress. Such raw honesty before God is not faithlessness but a form of faith that brings real anguish to him, trusting that the God revealed in Christ welcomes the burdened rather than turning them away.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- 1 Kgs 22:27Say, ‘Thus says the king, “Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I come in peace.”’”
- Dan 10:3I ate no pleasant bread, neither came meat nor wine into my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, until three whole weeks were fulfilled.
- Ps 102:9For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mixed my drink with tears,
- Job 3:24For my sighing comes before I eat. My groanings are poured out like water.
- 1 Kgs 17:12She said, “As Yahweh your God lives, I don’t have a cake, but a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jar. Behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and bake it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”
- Ezek 4:14Then I said, “Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, my soul has not been polluted; for from my youth up even until now I have not eaten of that which dies of itself, or is torn of animals; neither came there abominable meat into my mouth!”
- Ezek 4:16Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem. They will eat bread by weight, and with fearfulness; and they shall drink water by measure, and in dismay;
- Ezek 12:18–19“Son of man, eat your bread with quaking, and drink your water with trembling and with fearfulness.
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 6:7 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.