Job 3:24

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

For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters. My sighing cometh before I eat - i:e., prevents my eating.

Before I eat, Heb. before the face of my bread, i.e. either when I am going to eat, or rather, all the time whilst I am eating, (for so this phrase is used , before the face of the sun, &c.; that is, as we translate it, as long as the sun endureth,) I fall into bitter passions of sighing and weeping; partly because my necessity and duty obligeth me to eat, and so to support this wretched life, which I long to lose; and principally because of my uninterrupted pains of body, and horrors of my mind, which mix themselves with my very meat, and do not afford me one quiet moment. Compare . My roarings, i.e. my loud outcries, more befitting a lion than a man, which yet extremity of grief forceth from me. Compare 32:3. Like the waters, i.e. with great abundance, and irresistible violence, and incessant continuance, as waters flow in a river, or when they break the banks, and overflow the ground.

Job 3:24 For my sighing cometh before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.Ver. 24. For my sighing cometh before I eat] It cometh unsent for, as evil weather useth to do, and most unseasonably surpriseth me at my repast. I mingle my meat with my tears, with every bit of bread I have a morsel of sorrows; and I mingle my drink with weeping, Psalms 102:9, though indeed Job’ s was not so much a shower of tears as a storm of sighs, and a volley of roarings, betokening extremity of grief, such as was beyond tears, and vented itself as the noise of many waters; for my roarings, saith he, are poured out like water. I am as hungry as a lion roaring on his prey, and as violent as the torrents ranging the fields; and yet I neither have leisure nor list to eat my bread; as loth to prolong such a troublesome life, but that I must, or be guilty of self murder. Mr Fox reports of Mr John Glover, that not long after his conversion, upon a mistake of the sense of that text, Hebrews 6:5-6, he was strongly concerned that he had fallen into the unpardonable sin, and must necessarily therefore be damned; and in that intolerable grief of mind, although he neither had nor could have any joy of his meat, yet was he compelled to eat against his appetite, to the end to defer the time of his damnation so long as he might (Acts & Mon. 1 552). Now who can tell how near Job’ s case might come to this, since the devil was both author and actor in a great part of both these tragic comedies?

Verse 24. For my sighing cometh] Some think that this refers to the ulcerated state of Job's body, mouth, hands, c. He longed for food, but was not able to lift it to his mouth with his hands, nor masticate it when brought thither. This is the sense in which Origen has taken the words. But perhaps it is most natural to suppose that he means his sighing took away all appetite, and served him in place of meat. There is the same thought in Psalms 42:3: My tears have been my meat day and night which place is not an imitation of Job, but more likely Job an imitation of it, or, rather, both an imitation of nature. My roarings are poured out] My lamentations are like the noise of the murmuring stream, or the dashings of the overswollen torrent.

24. before I eat] lit. before my meat, as margin. The temporal meaning of before gives no sense here. In 1 Samuel 1:16 the same expression occurs, “Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial.” Therefore render, my sighing cometh for (instead of, or, like) my meat; it is his constant, daily food. like the waters] Rather, like water, i. e. a broad, unbroken stream. 25, 26, the thing which I feared] These two verses read thus, For let me fear an evil, and it cometh upon me, And whatsoever I dread, it overtakes me; I have no ease, neither quiet nor rest, But trouble cometh. The whole passage from Job 3:20 describes Job’s present condition. The speaker says, if he but imagines an evil, if he but “fears a fear,” it is immediately upon him. The words are put hypothetically in the past tense: Have I feared a fear, it cometh upon me; but the reference cannot be to the real past, as in the English Version, because it would be contrary to the idea of the poem to suppose that Job even in the days of his golden prime was haunted with indefinite fears of coming misfortune. On the contrary the picture he gives of himself, ch. 29, shews that his piety reflected itself in a full and trustful peace of mind; see his own words ch. Job 16:12, Job 29:18 seq. Job 3:26 means that Job has no pause between the waves of his affliction, no time to recover from one before another overwhelms him. “Trouble” here is the fit or paroxysm of trouble. Job’s three friends sat silent before him seven days. Then Job spake and cursed his day. His speech opened his friends’ mouths and probably also their eyes. Job’s language and demeanour were not what they would have looked for from one in his condition. His violent complaints and his indirect allusions to Heaven were not only unbecoming in themselves, but cast an unwelcome light upon his past life. Job speaks no doubt with the passion of despair and in the bitterness of his misery, and his indirect allusions to God betray impatience and are uttered with a tone of resentment, though there is as yet no direct charge of injustice against God, only an impatient demand why He continues life to one in such misery. His tone of mind is very different from that exhibited when his trials had newly befallen him or when he replied to the suggestions of his wife. And it is this tone, suggesting so much more than it expressed, that the three friends lay hold of and attach their exhortations to, and which is thus the point out of which the whole succeeding debate developes itself.

For my sighing cometh before I eat - Margin, “My meat.” Dr. Good renders this,” Behold! my sighing takes the place of my daily food, and refers to Psalms 42:3, as an illustration: My tears are my meat day and night.

24. Before I eat — Literally, In presence of my bread; that is, at the same time of my eating; or, “instead of my bread.” — Hitzig.