Lectionary Calendar
Sunday, August 3rd, 2025
the Week of Proper 13 / Ordinary 18
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Read the Bible

JPS Old Testament

Job 6:7

My soul refuseth to touch them; they are as the sickness of my flesh.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Afflictions and Adversities;  

Dictionaries:

- Charles Buck Theological Dictionary - Contrite;   Greatness of God;   Sanctification;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Job, the Book of;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Job, Book of;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
I refuse to touch them;they are like contaminated food.
Hebrew Names Version
My soul refuses to touch them; They are as loathsome food to me.
King James Version
The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat.
English Standard Version
My appetite refuses to touch them; they are as food that is loathsome to me.
New Century Version
I refuse to touch it; such food makes me sick.
New English Translation
I have refused to touch such things; they are like loathsome food to me.
Amplified Bible
"My soul refuses to touch them; Such things are like loathsome food to me [sickening and repugnant].
New American Standard Bible
"My soul refuses to touch them; They are like loathsome food to me.
World English Bible
My soul refuses to touch them; They are as loathsome food to me.
Geneva Bible (1587)
Such things as my soule refused to touch, as were sorowes, are my meate.
Legacy Standard Bible
My soul refuses to touch them;They are like loathsome food to me.
Berean Standard Bible
My soul refuses to touch them; they are loathsome food to me.
Contemporary English Version
That's how my food tastes, and my appetite is gone.
Complete Jewish Bible
I refuse to touch them; such food makes me sick.
Darby Translation
What my soul refuseth to touch, that is as my loathsome food.
Easy-to-Read Version
I refuse to touch that kind of food; it makes me sick!
George Lamsa Translation
My soul is weary of its troubles, I lament like a drunken man in my affliction.
Good News Translation
I have no appetite for food like that, and everything I eat makes me sick.
Lexham English Bible
I refused to touch them; they are like food that will make me ill.
Literal Translation
My soul refuses to touch them; they are sickening food to me.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
The thinges that sometyme I might not awaye withall, are now my meate for very sorow.
American Standard Version
My soul refuseth to touch them; They are as loathsome food to me.
Bible in Basic English
My soul has no desire for such things, they are as disease in my food.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
The thinges that sometime I might not away withel, are nowe my meate for very sorowe.
King James Version (1611)
The things that my soule refused to touch, are as my sorrowfull meat.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
For my wrath cannot cease; for I perceive my food as the smell of a lion to be loathsome.
English Revised Version
My soul refuseth to touch them; they are as loathsome meat to me.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
tho thingis whiche my soule nolde touche bifore, ben now my meetis for angwisch.
Update Bible Version
My soul refuses to touch [them]; They are as loathsome food to me.
Webster's Bible Translation
The things [that] my soul refused to touch [are] as my sorrowful food.
New King James Version
My soul refuses to touch them; They are as loathsome food to me.
New Living Translation
My appetite disappears when I look at it; I gag at the thought of eating it!
New Life Bible
My soul will not touch them. They are like hated food to me.
New Revised Standard
My appetite refuses to touch them; they are like food that is loathsome to me.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
My soul hath refused to touch, Those things, are like disease in my food.
Douay-Rheims Bible
The things which before my soul would not touch, now, through anguish, are my meats.
Revised Standard Version
My appetite refuses to touch them; they are as food that is loathsome to me.
Young's Literal Translation
My soul is refusing to touch! They [are] as my sickening food.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"My soul refuses to touch them; They are like loathsome food to me.

Contextual Overview

1 Then Job answered and said: 2 Oh that my vexation were but weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances altogether! 3 For now it would be heavier than the sand of the seas; therefore are my words broken. 4 For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof my spirit drinketh up; the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me. 5 Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? or loweth the ox over his fodder? 6 Can that which hath no savour be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the juice of mallows? 7 My soul refuseth to touch them; they are as the sickness of my flesh.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

as my sorrowful meat: 1 Kings 17:12, 1 Kings 22:27, Psalms 102:9, Ezekiel 4:14, Ezekiel 4:16, Ezekiel 12:18, Ezekiel 12:19, Daniel 10:3

Reciprocal: Job 12:3 - I am not inferior to you Psalms 80:5 - General Proverbs 27:7 - to

Cross-References

Genesis 6:1
And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
Genesis 6:2
that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives, whomsoever they chose.
Genesis 6:3
And the LORD said: 'My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for that he also is flesh; therefore shall his days be a hundred and twenty years.'
Genesis 6:4
The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.
Genesis 6:20
Of the fowl after their kind, and of the cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.
Genesis 6:22
Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.
Psalms 37:20
For the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the LORD shall be as the fat of lambs--they shall pass away in smoke, they shall pass away.
Proverbs 10:27
The fear of the LORD prolongeth days; but the years of the wicked shall be shortened.
Proverbs 16:4
The LORD hath made every things for His own purpose, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.
Hosea 4:3
Therefore doth the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein doth languish, with the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also are taken away.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

The things [that] my soul refused to touch [are] as my sorrowful meat. Meaning either the above things, that which is unsavoury, and the white of an egg, of any other food, which in the time of his prosperity he would not touch with his fingers, much less eat, but now was glad of, and were his constant food in his present sorrowful circumstances; the sense given by some Jewish writers i is, that what he disdained to touch or wipe his hands with formerly, he was glad to make use of as a tablecloth to eat his bread of sorrow upon; but it rather intends the insipid and disagreeable words of his friends, their doctrines, instructions, and exhortations they gave him, but were refused and rejected by him; and which he before compares to unsavoury food, the white of an egg, or the spittle of a dreaming man, or the dribble of a fool; and which were as much loathed and nauseated by him, as his food that was "loathed" by him k, either because of his want of appetite, or because of the badness of it, such as were corrupt and "rotten", and even as the "excrements" of food l; those he refused to receive with as much indignation as he could such sort of food offered him; and therefore we find, that notwithstanding all that had been said to him, he continued in the same sentiment and disposition of mind, to desire death rather than life, as follows.

i Jarchi & R. Mesallem in ib. k כדוי לחמי "ut fastidia pannis mei", Cocceius. l "Velut excrement um panis", Neuman. apud Michael.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The things that my soul refused to touch - That I refused to touch - the word “soul” here being used to denote himself. The idea here is, that those things which formerly were objects of loathing to him, had become his painful and distressing food. The idea may be either that he was reduced to the greatest pain and distress in partaking of his food, since he loathed that which he was obliged to eat (compare notes, Job 3:24), or more probably his calamity is described under the image of loathsome food in accordance with the Oriental usage, by which one is said to eat or taste anything; that is, to experience it. His sorrows were as sickening to him as the articles of food which he had mentioned were to the stomach. The Septuagint renders it strangely, “For my wrath - μοῦ ἡ ὀργή mou hē orgē - cannot cease. For I see my food offensive as the smell of a lion’ - ὥσπερ ὀσμὴν λέοντος hōsper osmēn leontos.


 
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