Verse Lens · Concise explanation
Job 6:7 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 7. 7The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
Job 6:7 closes the thought unit with the words “The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat.” Job states “The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat” as one poetic claim in Job Says His Grief Explains the Weight of His Words.
Read It With
- Job 6:1–6:7
Read Job 6:7 with 6:1–6:7. Read alone, “The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat” could lose its speaker, the question or claim it develops, and the unit's outcome. The complete movement establishes: Job asks that grief and calamity be weighed, describes divine arrows, and uses hunger images to explain why anguish has made speech difficult.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Job answers Eliphaz by explaining that the weight of grief accounts for the intensity of his words, shifting the dispute from abstract correction back to lived calamity. Within that relationship, Job 6:7 closes the thought unit through “The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat.”
Read Job 6:1–7 together
Why these verses belong together: Job 6:1–6:7 follows the pinned KJV paragraphing and holds together one sustained speech movement: “Job Says His Grief Explains the Weight of His Words.” The next unit begins with a new stanza, question sequence, scene, speaker response, or rhetorical turn.
Verse 1. 1 But Job answered and said,
Verse 2. 2 Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!
Verse 3. 3 For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up.
Verse 4. 4 For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.
Verse 5. 5 Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? or loweth the ox over his fodder?
Verse 6. 6 Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?
Verse 7. 7 The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat.
What Remains True
Job asks that grief and calamity be weighed, describes divine arrows, and uses hunger images to explain why anguish has made speech difficult. Honest lament, grief, protest, and need can remain inside sustained relationship without being silenced by a demand for quick explanations. Job 6:7 carries that bounded truth through “The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat.”
How It Can Shape Life
- Make room for the speech and emotion preserved in Job 6:1–6:7; listen before explaining, do not coerce closure or silence protest, and pair companionship with the practical care the situation requires. Preserve this unit-specific boundary in the action: Job's metaphors communicate overwhelming pain and perceived divine hostility; they should not be corrected as mere ingratitude or converted into a clinical diagnosis. The verse-specific evidence to retain is “The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat.”
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Job 6:1–6:7 — Job Says His Grief Explains the Weight of His WordsSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? strong
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, verse order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete thought-unit coverage.
Exact location: Job 6:1–6:7, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Job
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology checked at the exact unit without treating morphology as a complete apparatus or interpretation.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Job.xml, OSIS 6:1–6:7
Open the fixed Hebrew Job file ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible First Edition Notes: Job
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006; current official PDF
Supports: Verse-level controls for Job's difficult Hebrew, syntax, older KJV language, textual issues, speech boundaries, and alternatives in Job 6:1–6:7.
Exact location: Official NET Job PDF, exact translator, study, and textual notes attached to Job 6:1–6:7
Open the official NET Job PDF ↗