the Sunday after Christmas
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THE MESSAGE
Job 19:17
Bible Study Resources
Concordances:
- Nave'sDictionaries:
- AmericanEncyclopedias:
- InternationalParallel Translations
My breath is offensive to my wife,and my own family finds me repulsive.
My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.
My breath is strange to my wife, though I intreated for the children's sake of mine own body.
My breath is strange to my wife, and I am a stench to the children of my own mother.
My wife can't stand my breath, and my own family dislikes me.
My breath is repulsive to my wife; I am loathsome to my brothers.
"My breath is repulsive to my wife, And I am loathsome to my own brothers.
"My breath is offensive to my wife, And I am loathsome to my own brothers.
My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.
My breath was strange vnto my wife, though I prayed her for the childrens sake of mine owne body.
My breath is offensive to my wife,And I am loathsome to my own brothers.
My breath is repulsive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own family.
My breath disgusts my wife; everyone in my family turns away.
"My wife can't stand my breath, I am loathsome to my own family.
My breath is strange to my wife, and my entreaties to the children of my [mother's] womb.
My wife hates the smell of my breath. My own brothers hate me.
I have become a stranger to my wife, and have implored the children of my own body.
My wife can't stand the smell of my breath, and my own brothers won't come near me.
My breath is repulsive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own family.
My breath is strange to my wife, and I must beg to the sons of my mother's womb.
Myne owne wyfe maye not abyde my breth, I am fayne to speake fayre vnto the children of myne owne body.
My breath is strange to my wife, And my supplication to the children of mine own mother.
My breath is strange to my wife, and I am disgusting to the offspring of my mother's body.
My breath is abhorred of my wife, and I am loathsome to the children of my tribe.
My breath is strange to my wife, though I entreated for the childrens sake of mine owne body.
Myne owne wyfe might not abyde my breath, though I prayed her for the children sake of myne owne body.
And I besought my wife, and earnestly intreated the sons of my concubines.
My breath is strange to my wife, and my supplication to the children of my mother's womb.
My wijf wlatide my breeth; and Y preiede the sones of my wombe.
My breath is strange to my wife, And my supplication to the sons of my own mother.
My breath is strange to my wife, though I entreated for the children's [sake] of my own body.
My breath is offensive to my wife, And I am repulsive to the children of my own body.
My breath is repulsive to my wife. I am rejected by my own family.
My breath smells bad to my wife, and I am hated by my own brothers.
My breath is repulsive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own family.
My breath, is strange to my wife, and I am loathsome to the sons of my own mother;
My wife hath abhorred my breath, and I entreated the children of my womb.
I am repulsive to my wife, loathsome to the sons of my own mother.
My spirit is strange to my wife, And my favours to the sons of my [mother's] womb.
"My breath is offensive to my wife, And I am loathsome to my own brothers.
Contextual Overview
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
Lot looked. He saw the whole plain of the Jordan spread out, well watered (this was before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah), like God 's garden, like Egypt, and stretching all the way to Zoar. Lot took the whole plain of the Jordan. Lot set out to the east. That's how they came to part company, uncle and nephew. Abram settled in Canaan; Lot settled in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent near Sodom. The people of Sodom were evil—flagrant sinners against God . After Lot separated from him, God said to Abram, "Open your eyes, look around. Look north, south, east, and west. Everything you see, the whole land spread out before you, I will give to you and your children forever. I'll make your descendants like dust—counting your descendants will be as impossible as counting the dust of the Earth. So—on your feet, get moving! Walk through the country, its length and breadth; I'm giving it all to you." Abram moved his tent. He went and settled by the Oaks of Mamre in Hebron. There he built an altar to God .
The men set out for Sodom, but Abraham stood in God 's path, blocking his way.
Lot went out and warned the fiancés of his daughters, "Evacuate this place; God is about to destroy this city!" But his daughters' would-be husbands treated it as a joke.
At break of day, the angels pushed Lot to get going, "Hurry. Get your wife and two daughters out of here before it's too late and you're caught in the punishment of the city."
Lot was dragging his feet. The men grabbed Lot's arm, and the arms of his wife and daughters— God was so merciful to them!—and dragged them to safety outside the city. When they had them outside, Lot was told, "Now run for your life! Don't look back! Don't stop anywhere on the plain—run for the hills or you'll be swept away."
But Lot protested, "No, masters, you can't mean it! I know that you've taken a liking to me and have done me an immense favor in saving my life, but I can't run for the mountains—who knows what terrible thing might happen to me in the mountains and leave me for dead. Look over there—that town is close enough to get to. It's a small town, hardly anything to it. Let me escape there and save my life—it's a mere wide place in the road."
But Lot's wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.
One day the older daughter said to the younger, "Our father is getting old and there's not a man left in the country by whom we can get pregnant. Let's get our father drunk with wine and lie with him. We'll get children through our father—it's our only chance to keep our family alive."
Saul sent men to David's house to stake it out and then, first thing in the morning, to kill him. But Michal, David's wife, told him what was going on. "Quickly now—make your escape tonight. If not, you'll be dead by morning!" She let him out of a window, and he made his escape. Then Michal took a dummy god and put it in the bed, placed a wig of goat's hair on its head, and threw a quilt over it. When Saul's men arrived to get David, she said, "He's sick in bed."
When Elijah saw how things were, he ran for dear life to Beersheba, far in the south of Judah. He left his young servant there and then went on into the desert another day's journey. He came to a lone broom bush and collapsed in its shade, wanting in the worst way to be done with it all—to just die: "Enough of this, God ! Take my life—I'm ready to join my ancestors in the grave!" Exhausted, he fell asleep under the lone broom bush. Suddenly an angel shook him awake and said, "Get up and eat!"
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.
