Job 3:24
 Job 3:24 
New International Version (©2011)
For sighing has become my daily food; my groans pour out like water.

New Living Translation (©2007)
I cannot eat for sighing; my groans pour out like water.

English Standard Version (©2001)
For my sighing comes instead of my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water.

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
"For my groaning comes at the sight of my food, And my cries pour out like water.

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.

Holman Christian Standard Bible (©2009)
I sigh when food is put before me, and my groans pour out like water.

International Standard Version (©2012)
"As far as I'm concerned, my food comes to me in the form of sighs, and my cries of anguish pour out like water.

NET Bible (©2006)
For my sighing comes in place of my food, and my groanings flow forth like water.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
"When my food is in front of me, I sigh. I pour out my groaning like water.

King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
For my sighing comes before I eat, and my groanings are poured out like the waters.

American King James Version
For my sighing comes before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.

American Standard Version
For my sighing cometh before I eat, And my groanings are poured out like water.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Before I eat I sigh: and as overflowing waters, so is my roaring:

Darby Bible Translation
For my sighing cometh before my bread, and my groanings are poured out like the waters.

English Revised Version
For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings 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.

World English Bible
For my sighing comes before I eat. 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.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:20-26 Job was like a man who had lost his way, and had no prospect of escape, or hope of better times. But surely he was in an ill frame for death when so unwilling to live. Let it be our constant care to get ready for another world, and then leave it to God to order our removal thither as he thinks fit. Grace teaches us in the midst of life's greatest comforts, to be willing to die, and in the midst of its greatest crosses, to be willing to live. Job's way was hid; he knew not wherefore God contended with him. The afflicted and tempted Christian knows something of this heaviness; when he has been looking too much at the things that are seen, some chastisement of his heavenly Father will give him a taste of this disgust of life, and a glance at these dark regions of despair. Nor is there any help until God shall restore to him the joys of his salvation. Blessed be God, the earth is full of his goodness, though full of man's wickedness. This life may be made tolerable if we attend to our duty. We look for eternal mercy, if willing to receive Christ as our Saviour.


Pulpit Commentary

Verse 24. - For my sighing cometh before I eat literally, before my meat; i.e. "more early and more constantly than my food" (Professor Lee). And my roarings are poured out. The word translated "roaring" is used primarily of the roar of a lion (Zechariah 11:3; comp. Amos 3:8); secondarily, of the loud cries uttered by men who suffer pain (see Psalm 22:1; Psalm 32:4). (On the loud cries of Orientals when suffering from grief or pain, see the comment on Job 2:12.) Like the waters; i.e. freely and copiously, without let or stint. Perhaps the loud sound of rushing water is also alluded to.


Gill's Exposition of the Entire 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) "ante cibum meum", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "ante panem meum", Cocceius, Schmidt, Michaelis.


Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

24. my sighing cometh before I eat—that is, prevents my eating [Umbreit]; or, conscious that the effort to eat brought on the disease, Job must sigh before eating [Rosenmuller]; or, sighing takes the place of good (Ps 42:3) [Good]. But the first explanation accords best with the text.

my roarings are poured out like the waters—an image from the rushing sound of water streaming.


Job 3:24 Parallel Commentaries

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Bible Hub: Online Parallel Bible


Job Laments his Birth
23Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God has hedged in? 24For my sighing comes before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters. 25For the thing which I greatly feared is come on me, and that which I was afraid of is come to me.

Job 6:7 I refuse to touch it; such food makes me ill.
Job 30:16 "And now my life ebbs away; days of suffering grip me.
Job 33:20 so that their body finds food repulsive and their soul loathes the choicest meal.
Psalm 22:1 For the director of music. To the tune of "The Doe of the Morning." 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 cries of anguish?
Psalm 38:8 I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart.
Psalm 42:4 These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.