Job 3:24--Groans and Roars
Bill Long 4/24/05
Introduction
When Job returns from his pleasant mental journey that he took to Sheol in 3:11-23, he does so through the common language of bread and water, of groans and roars. Though the image in 3:24 is hard to translate literally, its significance is pretty clear. Either the groans and roars are as common or frequent as the bread and water OR they nourish him instead of bread and water OR they meet him prior to his bread and water. In this essay I will pay attention to the flow of the eight words in 3:24 but, even more, I will try to interpret this passage in the light of Psalm 38--which has not been done by the major commentators. My point is that Job's knowledge of Scripture not only allows him to turn a famous biblical utterance on its head ("let there be light"--Gen 1:3 in Job 3:4), but it gives him freedom to "play" with the Scripture so that he can take the phrases that fit his purpose and neglect others that do not.
Getting our Bearings on 3:24
Job escaped the unrelenting pounding of 3:1-10 by taking his pleasant mental journey in 3:11-23. He imagined a time when he could be at rest (3:13,17) and when he could join the rulers of the earth in the great democratic realm of the dead. But you can only escape for so long. Sooner or later the numbing and inescapable reality of life returns to you. You feel the pain of your body; you realize the immensity of your loss; you have to probe the inner recesses of the mind as you see if there is any life still worth living for you. It is in this context that 3:24 becomes understandable. Here is it:
"For my sighing comes like my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water."
The Hebrew is only eight words, five of which are in the first half of the verse and three in the second. The flow of the Hebrew poetry in the first five words is powerful--"ki liphney lahmi anahti tabo." Literally it reads, "for before (either spatially or temporally) my bread comes my troubles." But then, the second half changes the image. It likens the groanings to water, and not to a temporal or spatial flow of water. So, scholars have been bedeviled with the question of whether the language is supposed to be parallel in both halves of the verse. If groanings are poured out like water, it means they are freely flowing and they cannot easily be stanched. But does bread similiarly "flow?" No, I don't think so. I think that two interpretations satisfy me. The verse stresses either/both the extent of the groanings/sighings and/or the fact that they replace the normal alimentary means of life. Groanings and sighs are Job's reality.
Wandering Further
But I wanted to do some work on the two words translated "sighing" and "groanings." The former (from anah) occurs only 11 times in the Hebrew Bible. The latter (from shaag) appears only seven times as a noun but about 17 as a verb (i.e., "to groan" or "to roar"). In only one Scripture passage other than Job 3:24 do the words come together within two verses of each other, and that is in Ps.38. Before getting there I want to mention the appearance of anah and shaag in the Bible. The former really is scattered, and is not a "favorite" of any author. Its most similar usage to Job 3:24 is in a Psalm of lament (102). ""Because of my loud groaning [interesting that it is translated as 'groaning' here by the NRSV], my bones cling to my skin" (102:5). With respect to the latter word (shaag) both the verb and noun form appear in that most desperate (and Christological) Psalm--Psalm 22. The Psalmist wants to know why God is so far from "the words of my groaning (shaag)" (22:2). and then, in words reminiscent of the words from Job 3, he says:
"They open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring (shaag) lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death (22:13-15).
Arriving at Psalm 38
Even though the words just quoted from Ps. 22 provide a very suggestive background for interpreting Job 3:24, I think it is Ps.38 that gives the richest context. In that poem of lament, the Psalmist is overwhelmed by his own sin and asks God for deliverance. While neither of these two is Job's felt reality, he will feel right at home with the physical symptoms which the Psalmist describes about himself. He says:
"I am utterly spent and crushed; I groan (shaag) because of the tumult of my heart. Oh Lord, all my longing is known to you; my sighing (anah) is not hidden from you" (Ps.38:8-9 English; 38:9-10 Hebrew).
Though space does not permit a full exposition of the point, I think that the author of Job could easily have used a close reading of the anguish in Ps. 38 as the basis for some of his words not only in Job 3 but also in Job 6 and elsewhere. For wouldn't Job have agreed (cf 6:4) that "your arrows have sunk into me" (Ps. 38:2)? Doesn't the entire narrative of Job make sense when we realize that "your hand has come down on me" (Ps. 38:2)? Job's loins also are filled with burning. No soundness can be found in his flesh (38:7). Job would have said "Amen" to that.
Conclusion
This essay, then, as it evolved in my mind, tries to show that Job's words in 3:24 are to be understood most fully in the context of other biblical (usually psalmic) uses of terms appearing in Job 3:24. Even if Job will feel terribly alone because his friends have become "treacherous" to him (6:15), he will express this aloneness and pain through language common to and deeply appreciated in the tradition. Job is never so alone as when he is using language that resonates deeply with the tradition of Israel.
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