Job 6:2

Translations

King James Version (KJV)

Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!

American King James Version (AKJV)

Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!

American Standard Version (ASV)

Oh that my vexation were but weighed, And all my calamity laid in the balances!

Basic English Translation (BBE)

If only my passion might be measured, and put into the scales against my trouble!

Webster's Revision

Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!

World English Bible

"Oh that my anguish were weighed, and all my calamity laid in the balances!

English Revised Version (ERV)

Oh that my vexation were but weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!

Clarke's Job 6:2 Bible Commentary

O that my grief were thoroughly weighed - Job wished to be dealt with according to justice; as he was willing that his sins, if they could be proved, should be weighed against his sufferings; and if this could not be done, he wished that his sufferings and his complainings might be weighed together; and it would then be seen that, bitter as his complaint had been, it was little when compared with the distress which occasioned it.

Barnes's Job 6:2 Bible Commentary

O that my grief were thoroughly weighed - The word rendered "grief" here (כעשׂ ka‛aś) may mean either vexation, trouble, grief; Ecclesiastes 1:18; Ecclesiastes 2:23; or it may mean anger; Deuteronomy 32:19; Ezekiel 20:28. It is rendered by the Septuagint here, ὀργή orgē - anger; by Jerome, peccata - sins. The sense of the whole passage may either be, that Job wished his anger or his complaints to be laid in the balance with his calamity, to see if one was more weighty than the other - meaning that he had not complained unreasonably or unjustly (Rosenmuller); or that he wished that his afflictions might be put into one scale and the sands of the sea into another, and the one weighed against the other (Noyes); or simply, that he desired that his sorrows should be accurately estimated. This latter is, I think, the true sense of the passage. He supposed his friends had not understood and appreciated his sufferings; that they were disposed to blame him without understanding the extent of his sorrows, and he desires that they would estimate them aright before they condemned him. In particular, he seems to have supposed that Eliphaz had not done justice to the depth of his sorrows in the remarks which he had just made. The figure of weighing actions or sorrows, is not uncommon or unnatural. It means to take an exact estimate of their amount. So we speak of heavy calamities, of afflictions that crush us by their weight. etc.

Laid in the balances - Margin, "lifted up." That is, raised up and put in the scales, or put in the scales and then raised up - as is common in weighing.

Together - יחד yachad. At the same time; that all my sorrows, griefs, and woes, were piled on the scales, and then weighed. He supposed that only a partial estimate had been formed of the extent of his calamities.

Wesley's Job 6:2 Bible Commentary

6:2 My grief - The cause of my grief. Weighed - Were fully understood, and duly considered. O that I had an equal judge!that would understand my case, and consider whether I have not cause for complaints. Together - Together with any other most heavy thing to be put into the other scale.