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Tuesday, July 22nd, 2025
the Week of Proper 11 / Ordinary 16
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Read the Bible

Good News Translation

Job 19:17

My wife can't stand the smell of my breath, and my own brothers won't come near me.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Afflictions and Adversities;   Friendship;   Women;   Thompson Chain Reference - Job;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Job;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Spirit;   Charles Buck Theological Dictionary - Greatness of God;   Hypocrisy;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Breath;   Job, the Book of;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Medicine;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Leper;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Body;   Boil (1);   Intreat;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
My breath is offensive to my wife,and my own family finds me repulsive.
Hebrew Names Version
My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.
King James Version
My breath is strange to my wife, though I intreated for the children's sake of mine own body.
English Standard Version
My breath is strange to my wife, and I am a stench to the children of my own mother.
New Century Version
My wife can't stand my breath, and my own family dislikes me.
New English Translation
My breath is repulsive to my wife; I am loathsome to my brothers.
Amplified Bible
"My breath is repulsive to my wife, And I am loathsome to my own brothers.
New American Standard Bible
"My breath is offensive to my wife, And I am loathsome to my own brothers.
World English Bible
My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.
Geneva Bible (1587)
My breath was strange vnto my wife, though I prayed her for the childrens sake of mine owne body.
Legacy Standard Bible
My breath is offensive to my wife,And I am loathsome to my own brothers.
Berean Standard Bible
My breath is repulsive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own family.
Contemporary English Version
My breath disgusts my wife; everyone in my family turns away.
Complete Jewish Bible
"My wife can't stand my breath, I am loathsome to my own family.
Darby Translation
My breath is strange to my wife, and my entreaties to the children of my [mother's] womb.
Easy-to-Read Version
My wife hates the smell of my breath. My own brothers hate me.
George Lamsa Translation
I have become a stranger to my wife, and have implored the children of my own body.
Lexham English Bible
My breath is repulsive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own family.
Literal Translation
My breath is strange to my wife, and I must beg to the sons of my mother's womb.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Myne owne wyfe maye not abyde my breth, I am fayne to speake fayre vnto the children of myne owne body.
American Standard Version
My breath is strange to my wife, And my supplication to the children of mine own mother.
Bible in Basic English
My breath is strange to my wife, and I am disgusting to the offspring of my mother's body.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
My breath is abhorred of my wife, and I am loathsome to the children of my tribe.
King James Version (1611)
My breath is strange to my wife, though I entreated for the childrens sake of mine owne body.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Myne owne wyfe might not abyde my breath, though I prayed her for the children sake of myne owne body.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
And I besought my wife, and earnestly intreated the sons of my concubines.
English Revised Version
My breath is strange to my wife, and my supplication to the children of my mother's womb.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
My wijf wlatide my breeth; and Y preiede the sones of my wombe.
Update Bible Version
My breath is strange to my wife, And my supplication to the sons of my own mother.
Webster's Bible Translation
My breath is strange to my wife, though I entreated for the children's [sake] of my own body.
New King James Version
My breath is offensive to my wife, And I am repulsive to the children of my own body.
New Living Translation
My breath is repulsive to my wife. I am rejected by my own family.
New Life Bible
My breath smells bad to my wife, and I am hated by my own brothers.
New Revised Standard
My breath is repulsive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own family.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
My breath, is strange to my wife, and I am loathsome to the sons of my own mother;
Douay-Rheims Bible
My wife hath abhorred my breath, and I entreated the children of my womb.
Revised Standard Version
I am repulsive to my wife, loathsome to the sons of my own mother.
Young's Literal Translation
My spirit is strange to my wife, And my favours to the sons of my [mother's] womb.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"My breath is offensive to my wife, And I am loathsome to my own brothers.

Contextual Overview

8 God has blocked the way, and I can't get through; he has hidden my path in darkness. 9 He has taken away all my wealth and destroyed my reputation. 10 He batters me from every side. He uproots my hope and leaves me to wither and die. 11 God is angry and rages against me; he treats me like his worst enemy. 12 He sends his army to attack me; they dig trenches and lay siege to my tent. 13 God has made my own family forsake me; I am a stranger to those who knew me; 14 my relatives and friends are gone. 15 Those who were guests in my house have forgotten me; my servant women treat me like a stranger and a foreigner. 16 When I call a servant, he doesn't answer— even when I beg him to help me. 17 My wife can't stand the smell of my breath, and my own brothers won't come near me.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

breath: Job 2:9, Job 2:10, Job 17:1

body: Heb. belly

Reciprocal: Deuteronomy 28:11 - body 2 Samuel 19:29 - Why speakest Job 19:3 - make yourselves strange to me

Cross-References

Genesis 13:10
Lot looked around and saw that the whole Jordan Valley, all the way to Zoar, had plenty of water, like the Garden of the Lord or like the land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord had destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.)
Genesis 18:22
Then the two men left and went on toward Sodom, but the Lord remained with Abraham.
Genesis 19:13
because we are going to destroy this place. The Lord has heard the terrible accusations against these people and has sent us to destroy Sodom."
Genesis 19:14
Then Lot went to the men that his daughters were going to marry, and said, "Hurry up and get out of here; the Lord is going to destroy this place." But they thought he was joking.
Genesis 19:15
At dawn the angels tried to make Lot hurry. "Quick!" they said. "Take your wife and your two daughters and get out, so that you will not lose your lives when the city is destroyed."
Genesis 19:16
Lot hesitated. The Lord , however, had pity on him; so the men took him, his wife, and his two daughters by the hand and led them out of the city.
Genesis 19:18
But Lot answered, "No, please don't make us do that, sir.
Genesis 19:22
Hurry! Run! I can't do anything until you get there." Because Lot called it small, the town was named Zoar.
Genesis 19:26
But Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt.
Genesis 19:31
The older daughter said to her sister, "Our father is getting old, and there are no men in the whole world to marry us so that we can have children.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

My breath is strange to my wife,.... Being corrupt and unsavoury, through some internal disorder; see Job 17:1; so that she could not bear to come nigh him, to do any kind deed for him; but if this was his case, and his natural breath was so foul, his friends would not have been able to have been so long in the same room with him, and carry on so long a conversation with him; rather therefore it may signify the words of his mouth, his speech along with his breath, which were very disagreeable to his wife; when upon her soliciting him to curse God and die, he told her she talked like one of the foolish women; and when he taught her to expect evil as well as good at the hand of God, and to bear afflictions patiently, or else the sense may be, "my spirit" f, his vital spirit, his life, was wearisome and loathsome to his wife; she was tired out with him, with hearing his continual groans and complaints, and wished to be rid of him, and that God would take away his life: or else, as some render it, "my spirit is strange [to me], because of my wife" g; and then the meaning is, that Job was weary of his own life, he loathed it, and could have been glad to have it taken from him, because of the scoffs and jeers of his wife at him, her brawls and quarrels with him, and solicitations of him to curse God and renounce religion:

though I entreated her for the children's [sake] of mine own body; this clause creates a difficulty with interpreters, since it is generally thought all Job's children were dead. Some think that only his elder children were destroyed at once, and that he had younger ones at home with him, which he here refers to; but this does not appear: others suppose these were children of his concubines; but this wants proof that he had any concubine; and besides an entreaty for the sake of such children could have no influence upon his proper wife: others take them for grandchildren, and who, indeed, are sometimes called children; but then they could not with strict propriety be called the children of his body; and for the same reason it cannot be meant of such that were brought up in his house, as if they were his children; nor such as were his disciples, or attended on him for instruction: but this may respect not any children then living, but those he had had; and the sense is, that Job entreated his wife, not for the use of the marriage bed, as some suggest h; for it can hardly be thought, that, in such circumstances in which he was, there should be any desire of this kind; but to do some kind deed for him, as the dressing of his ulcers, c. or such things which none but a wife could do well for him and this he entreated for the sake of the children he had had by her, those pledges of their conjugal affection; or rather, since the word has the signification of deploring, lamenting, and bemoaning, the clause may be thus rendered, "and I lamented the children of my body" i; he had none of those indeed to afflict him; and his affliction was, that they were taken away from him at once in such a violent manner; and therefore he puts in this among his family trials; or this may be an aggravation of his wife's want of tenderness and respect unto him; that his breath should be unsavoury, his talk disagreeable, and his sighs and moans be wearisome to her, when the burden of his song, the subject of his sorrowful complaints, was the loss of his children; in which it might have been thought she would have joined with him, being equally concerned therein.

f רוחי "spiritus meus", Junius Tremellius, Vatablus, Schmidt, Schultens "anima mea", Cocceius. g לאשתי "propter uxorem meam", Schmidt. h R. Levi Ben Gersom; so some in Vatablus. i וחנותי "deploro", Cocceius; "et miserans lugeo", Schmidt; "et miseret me", Michaelis; "comploro", Schultens.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

My breath is strange to my wife - Schultens renders this, “my breath is loathsome to my wife,” and so also Noyes. Wemyss translates it, “my own wife turns aside from my breath.” Dr Good, “my breath is scattered away by my wife.” The literal meaning is, “my breath is “strange” (זרה zârâh) to my wife;” and the idea is, that there had been such a change in him from his disease, that his breath was not that which she had been accustomed to breathe without offence, and that she now turned away from it as if it were the breath of a stranger. Jerome renders it, “Halitum meum exhorruit uxor mea - my wife abhors my breath.” It may be worthy of remark here, that but “one” wife of Job is mentioned - a remarkable fact, as he probably lived in an age when polygamy was common.

I entreated her - I appealed to her by all that was tender in the domestic relation, but in vain. From this it would seem that even his wife had regarded him as an object of divine displeasure and had also left him to suffer alone.

For the children’s sake of mine own body - Margin, “my belly.” There is consideralbe variety in the interpretation of this passage. The word rendered “my own body” (בטני beṭenı̂y) means literally, “my belly or womb;” and Noyes, Gesenius, and some others, suppose it means the children of his own mother! But assuredly this was scarcely an appeal that Job would be likely to make to his wife in such circumstances. There can be no impropriety in supposing that Job referred to himself, and that the word is used somewhat in the same sense as the word “loins” is in Genesis 35:11; Genesis 46:26; Exodus 1:5; 1 Kings 8:19. Thus, understood, it would refer to his own children, and the appeal to his wife was founded on the relation which they had sustainded to them. Though they were now dead, he referred to their former united attachment to them, to the common affliction which they had experienced in their loss; and in view of all their former love to them, and all the sorrow which they had experienced in their death, he made an appeal to his wife to show him kindness, but in vain. Jerome renders this, “Orabam filios uteri mei.” The Septuagint, not understanding it, and trying to “make” sense of it, introduced a statement which is undoubtedly false, though Rosenmuller accords with it. “I called affectionately (κολακεύων kolakeuōn) the sons of my concubines” - υἵους παλλακίδων μου huious pallakidōn mou. But the whole meaning is evidently that he made a solemn and tender appeal to his wife, in view of all the joys and sorrows which they had experience as the united head of a family of now no more. What would reach the heart of an estranged wife, if such an appeal would not?

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 19:17. Though I entreated for the children's sake of mine own body. — This may imply no more than adjuring her by the tenderest ties, by their affectionate intercourse, and consequently by the children which had been the seals of their mutual affection, though these children were no more.

But the mention of his children in this place may intimate that he had still some remaining; that there might have been young ones, who, not being of a proper age to attend the festival of their elder brothers and sisters, escaped that sad catastrophe. The Septuagint have, Προσεκαλουμην δε κολακευων υἰους παλλακιδων μου, "I affectionately entreated the children of my concubines." But there is no ground in the Hebrew text for such a strange exceptionable rendering. Coverdale has, I am fayne to speake fayre to the children of myne own body.


 
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