Job 6:7

I ¹  have refused ²  to touch such things; ³  they are like loathsome food to me. ⁴ 

I refuse to touch it; such food makes me ill.

"My soul refuses to touch them; They are like loathsome food to me.

My appetite disappears when I look at it; I gag at the thought of eating it!

Everything in me is repulsed by it--it makes me sick.

My soul has no desire for such things, they are as disease in my food.

My appetite refuses to touch them; they are like food that is loathsome to me.

My soul refuses to touch them; They are as loathsome food to me.

I ¹  have refused ²  to touch such things; ³  they are like loathsome food to me. ⁴ 

¹ tn The traditional rendering of נַפְשִׁי (nafshi) is “my soul.” But since נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) means the whole person, body and soul, it is best to translate it with its suffix simply as an emphatic pronoun.

² tn For the explanation of the perfect verb with its completed action in the past and its remaining effects, see GKC 311 §106.g.

³ tn The phrase “such things” is not in the Hebrew text but has been supplied.

⁴ tn The second colon of the verse is difficult. The word דְּוֵי (dÿve) means “sickness of” and yields a meaning “like the sickness of my food.” This could take the derived sense of דָּוָה (davah) and mean “impure” or “corrupt” food. The LXX has “for I loathe my food as the smell of a lion” and so some commentators emend “they” (which has no clear antecedent) to mean “I loathe it [like the sickness of my food].” Others have more freely emended the text to “my palate loathes my food” (McNeile) or “my bowels resound with suffering” (I. Eitan, “An unknown meaning of RAHAMIÝM,” JBL 53 [1934]: 271). Pope has “they are putrid as my flesh [= my meat].” D. J. A. Clines (Job [WBC], 159) prefers the suggestion in BHS, “it [my soul] loathes them as my food.” E. Dhorme (Job, 80) repoints the second word of the colon to get כְּבֹדִי (kÿvodi, “my glory”): “my heart [glory] loathes/is sickened by my bread.”