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Job Answers Eliphaz

Then Job answered [L and said]:

“·I wish [or If only] my ·suffering [anguish; irritation] could be weighed
    and my misery put on scales.
·My sadness [L It] would be heavier than the sand of the seas.
    No wonder my words ·seem careless [blurt out; are wild/rash].
[L For] The arrows of ·the Almighty [L Shaddai] are in me;
    my spirit drinks in their poison;
    God’s terrors ·are gathered [are ranged; enter into battle] against me.
·A wild donkey does not bray when it has grass to eat [L Does not a wild donkey bray for grass?],
    ·and an ox is quiet when it has feed [L Does not an ox bellow for fodder?; C Job’s complaints are as natural as the sounds animals make when hungry].
·Tasteless food is not [L Would tasteless food be…?] eaten without salt,
    and ·there is no [L is there…?] flavor in the ·white of an egg [or juice of a weed; C Job’s “food” (his lot in life) is inedible].
I refuse to touch it;
    such food makes me sick [C a word connected to menstruation and therefore ritual uncleanness; Lev. 15:19–30].

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Job’s Friends Are No Help

Then Job answered and said,


“Oh, that my grief could actually be weighed
And placed in the balances together with my tragedy [to see if my grief is the grief of a coward]!

“For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea;
Therefore my words have been incoherent,

Because the arrows of the Almighty are within me,
My spirit drinks their poison;
The terrors of God are arrayed against me.

“Does the wild donkey bray when he has grass?
Or does the ox low over his fodder?

“Can something that has no taste to it be eaten without salt?
Or is there any flavor in the white of an egg?

“My soul refuses to touch them;
Such things are like loathsome food to me [sickening and repugnant].

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