He does not let me catch my breath, but overwhelms me with bitterness.
Parallel translations
- WEB He will not allow me to catch my breath, but fills me with bitterness.
- KJV He will not suffer me to take my breath, but filleth me with bitterness.
- NKJV He will not allow me to catch my breath, But fills me with bitterness.
- NASB “He will not allow me to get my breath, But He saturates me with bitterness.
- NLT He will not let me catch my breath, but fills me instead with bitter sorrows.
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 says God will not even let him catch his breath but fills him with bitterness. His suffering is relentless and saturating.
Overview
Job feels granted no respite, his life flooded with bitterness at every turn. The relentlessness of his trial leaves no room to recover. This honest expression of overwhelming grief shows that faith does not require pretending all is well; Scripture makes space for the suffering to voice their pain to God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Job 7:19Will You never look away from me, or leave me alone to swallow my spittle?
- Lam 3:15He has filled me with bitterness; He has intoxicated me with wormwood.
- Job 27:2“As surely as God lives, who has deprived me of justice—the Almighty, who has embittered my soul—
- Heb 12:11No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who have been trained by it.
- Lam 3:18–19So I say, “My strength has perished, along with my hope from the LORD.”
- Ps 39:13Turn Your gaze away from me, that I may again be cheered before I depart and am no more.”
- Ps 88:7Your wrath weighs heavily upon me; all Your waves have submerged me. Selah
- Ps 88:15–18From my youth I was afflicted and near death. I have borne Your terrors; I am in despair.
- Job 3:20Why is light given to the miserable, and life to the bitter of soul,
- Lam 3:3Indeed, He keeps turning His hand against me all day long.
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 9:18 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.