Job 19:17

Job 19:17 Meaning and Explanation

My breath is strange to my wife, though I intreated for the children’s sake of mine own body.

King James Version (KJV)

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Job's very breath has become repulsive to his wife, and his pleas for his children's sake go unheeded.

What Does Job 19:17 Mean?

Job's disease has made him physically loathsome; even his breath is strange, offensive, to his own wife. He pleads with her by the memory of their children, the children of his own body, yet the intimacy of marriage has grown cold under the weight of his affliction. The closest human tie has frayed.

Few losses cut as deep as estrangement within marriage and the silence that follows shared grief, for Job's children were already gone. His sorrow here is layered and raw. Scripture does not hurry past such pain; it holds it up honestly. And it points to a love that never grows cold, the love of God in Christ, from which neither suffering nor distress nor death itself can separate us.

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What does Job 19:17 mean?

Job's very breath has become repulsive to his wife, and his pleas for his children's sake go unheeded.

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