The Dirge

For my groaning comes at the sight of my food, and my cries pour out like water.  Job 3:24  NASB

Cries pour out – It’s not whimpering tears.  No sir.  These Hebrew words say something much more powerful—and distressing.  But we’ll need to arrange the syntax according to the Hebrew, not the English.  Therefore, we investigate “poured out like water my cries.”

First, nātak.  nātak—be poured, drop (of rain), be melted or molten^[1]

Such things as water (above), groans (Job 3:24), divine wrath (II Chr 12:7; 34:25, etc.), and curses (Dan 9:11) are poured forth, and in an interesting figure for death Job asks God if he has not indeed “poured me out as milk?” (Job 10:10).^[2]

Notice the connection once again with death and dying.  These are funerary wails, quite typical in ancient times.  Loud! Demanding!  Extreme!  Not tears on the pillow, for sure.  And they are accompanied with šĕʾāgâ, a word that clarifies exactly what Job feels.  Certainly much more than “cries.”

שְׁאָגָה (šĕʾāgâ) roaring.^[3]

The verb šāʾag signifies the uttering of the loud deep rumbling cry of the lion, and it is so used in Amos 3:4, 8; Jud 14:5; and Ps 104:21.

In Ps 38:8 [H 9], David says, “I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart,” here using the verb šāʾagto describe his apparent deep groanings because of his sins (v. 18) and his enemies (v. 12). In contrast, Ps 74:4 declares that the enemies of the Lord “roar” in happy triumph as they set up their ensigns amid the ruins of the Lord’s house which they have conquered and desecrated.^[4]

שְׁאָגָה  (šĕʾāgâ). Roaring. This feminine noun is used to refer to roaring literally or figuratively. Of special interest is Ps 22, which, along with Isa 53, so well foretells the Messiah’s suffering. Here in Ps 22:1 [H 2] the Messiah asks the Father why he is so “far from helping me, from the words of my roaring?” The Messiah—it must be answered—is roaring, groaning, as did David in Ps 38:8 [H 9] (šāʾag, see above), because of his estrangement from the Father or his abandonment to judgment upon the cross (see ʿāzab) as he bore the sins of many (Mt 27:46).^[5]

Now you get the picture!  Job feels like a caged lion, stripped of all his power.  Sometimes a man comes to Africa expecting to take home a trophy lion head.  If he has the right amount of money, he can be guaranteed such a prize.  It’s called “canned lion.”  The lion is put in a cage so that the hunter can shoot the beast and claim his prize, going home with the proclamation that he went on safari and shot a lion.  There is such a demand that lions are bred in  captivity for the sole purpose of being killed by big game hunters.  Such a lion is Job.  Bred for destruction.  Powerless to fight back.  Roaring to no avail.  Sent to the slaughter by divine edict.

Is that you?

Topical Index: pour out, nātak, cries, roaring, šĕʾāgâ, canned lion, Job 3:24

^[1] Fisher, M. C. (1999). 1442 נָתַך. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 608). Moody Press.

^[2] Ibid.

^[3] Cohen, G. G. (1999). 2300 שָׁאַג. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament(electronic ed., p. 890). Moody Press.

^[4] Ibid.

^[5] Ibid.