Job 7:15

Good News Translation

until I would rather be strangled than live in this miserable body.

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
so that I prefer strangling—death rather than life in this body.

Hebrew Names Version
So that my soul chooses strangling, Death rather than my bones.

King James Version
So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life.

English Standard Version
so that I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones.

New Century Version
My throat prefers to be choked; my bones welcome death.

New English Translation
so that I would prefer strangling, and death more than life.

Amplified Bible
So that I would choose suffocation, Death rather than my pain.

New American Standard Bible
So that my soul would choose suffocation, Death rather than my pains.

World English Bible
So that my soul chooses strangling, Death rather than my bones.

Geneva Bible (1587)
Therefore my soule chuseth rather to be strangled and to die, then to be in my bones.

Legacy Standard Bible
So that my soul would choose suffocation,Death rather than my pains.

Berean Standard Bible
so that I would prefer strangling and death over my life in this body.

Contemporary English Version
I'd rather choke to death than live in this body.

Complete Jewish Bible
I would rather be strangled; death would be better than these bones of mine.

Darby Translation
So that my soul chooseth strangling, death, rather than my bones.

Easy-to-Read Version
So I would rather be choked to death than to live like this.

George Lamsa Translation
Thou hast drawn my life out of destruction, and my bones out of death.

Lexham English Bible
So my inner self will choose strangling— death more than my existence.

Literal Translation
so that my soul chooses strangling and death rather than my bones.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
that my soule wyssheth rather to be hanged, and my bones to be deed.

American Standard Version
So that my soul chooseth strangling, And death rather than these my bones.

Bible in Basic English
So that a hard death seems better to my soul than my pains.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
That my soule wisheth rather to perishe and die, then my bones to remayne.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than these my bones.

King James Version (1611)
So that my soule chooseth strangling: and death rather then my life.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Thou wilt separate life from my spirit; and yet keep my bones from death.

English Revised Version
So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than these my bones.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Wherfor my soule `chees hangyng, and my boonys cheesiden deth.

Update Bible Version
So that my soul chooses strangling, And death rather than my bones.

Webster's Bible Translation
So that my soul chooseth strangling, [and] death rather than my life.

New King James Version
So that my soul chooses stranglingAnd death rather than my body. [fn]

New Living Translation
I would rather be strangled— rather die than suffer like this.

New Life Bible
So a quick death by having my breath stopped would be better to me than my pains.

New Revised Standard
so that I would choose strangling and death rather than this body.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
So that my soul chooseth strangling, Death, rather than these my bones!

Douay-Rheims Bible
So that my soul rather chooseth hanging, and my bones death.

Revised Standard Version
so that I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones.

Young's Literal Translation
And my soul chooseth strangling, Death rather than my bones.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
So that my soul would choose suffocation, Death rather than my pains.

Contextual Overview

⁷ Remember, O God, my life is only a breath; my happiness has already ended. ⁸ You see me now, but never again. If you look for me, I'll be gone. ⁹Like a cloud that fades and is gone, we humans die and never return; we are forgotten by all who knew us. < ¹¹ No! I can't be quiet! I am angry and bitter. I have to speak. ¹² Why do you keep me under guard? Do you think I am a sea monster? ¹³ I lie down and try to rest; I look for relief from my pain. ¹⁴ But you—you terrify me with dreams; you send me visions and nightmares ¹⁵ until I would rather be strangled than live in this miserable body. ¹⁶ I give up; I am tired of living. Leave me alone. My life makes no sense.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

chooseth: 2 Samuel 17:23, Matthew 27:5

life: Heb. bones

Reciprocal: Numbers 11:15 - kill me Numbers 14:2 - Would Job 3:20 - Wherefore Job 6:9 - that it would Job 9:21 - I would Job 13:13 - and let come Job 36:20 - Desire Proverbs 18:14 - but Ecclesiastes 2:17 - I hated Isaiah 2:22 - for wherein Isaiah 15:4 - his Jeremiah 8:3 - death Jonah 4:3 - for Luke 14:26 - hate Revelation 9:6 - shall men

Cross-References

Genesis 7:19
It became so deep that it covered the highest mountains;

Genesis 7:20
it went on rising until it was about twenty-five feet above the tops of the mountains.

Isaiah 11:6
Wolves and sheep will live together in peace, and leopards will lie down with young goats. Calves and lion cubs will feed together, and little children will take care of them.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

So that my soul chooseth strangling,.... Not to strangle himself, as Ahithophel did, or to be strangled by others, this being a kind of death inflicted on capital offenders; but rather, as Mr. Broughton renders it, "to be choked to death" by any distemper and disease, as some are of a suffocating nature, as a catarrh, quinsy, c. and kill in that way and indeed death in whatsoever way is the stopping of a man's breath; and it was death that Job chose, let it be in what way it would, whether natural or violent; so weary was he of life through his sore and heavy afflictions:

[and] death rather than my life; or, "than my bones" i; which are the more solid parts of the body, and the support of it, and are put for the whole and the life thereof; or than these bones of his, which were full of strong pain, and which had nothing but skin upon them, and that was broken and covered with worms, rottenness, and dust; the Vulgate Latin version renders it, "and my bones death"; that is, desired and chose death, being so full of pain, see Psalms 35:10.

i מעצמותי "prae ossibus meis", Montanus, Tigurine version, Bolducius, Cocceius, Schmidt, Schultens; so Mercerus, Piscator, Michaelis.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

So that my soul - So that I; the soul being put for himself.

Chooseth strangling - Dr. Good renders it “suffocation,” and supposes that Job alludes to the oppression of breathing, produced by what is commonly called the night-mare, and that he means that he would prefer the sense of suffocation excited at such a time to the terrible images before his mind. Herder renders it, death. Jerome, suspendium. The Septuagint, “Thou separatest (ἀπαλλάξεις apallaceis) my life from my spirit, and my bones from death;” but what idea they attached to it, it is impossible now to tell. The Syriac renders it, “Thou choosest my soul from perdition, and my bones from death.” The word rendered strangling (מחנק machănaq) is from חנק chânaq, to be narrow, strait, close; and then means to strangle, to throttle, Nah 2:12; 2 Samuel 17:23. Here it means death; and Job designs to say that he would prefer even the most violent kind of death to the life that he was then leading. I see no evidence that the idea suggested by Dr. Good is to be found in the passage.

And death rather than my life - Margin, as in Hebrew, bones. There has been great variety in the exposition of this part of the verse. Herder renders it, “death rather than this frail body.” Rosenmuller and Noyes, “death rather than my bones;” that is, he preferred death to such an emaciated body as he then had, to the wasted skeleton which was then all that he had left to him. This is probably the true sense. Job was a sufferer in body and in soul. His flesh was wasting away, his body was covered with ulcers, and his mind was harassed with apprehensions. By day he had no peace, and at night he was terrified by alarming visions and spectres; and he preferred death in any form to such a condition.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 7:15. Chooseth strangling — It is very likely that he felt, in those interrupted and dismal slumbers, an oppression and difficulty of breathing something like the incubus or nightmare; and, distressing as this was, he would prefer death by this means to any longer life in such miseries.