Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 6:6
Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt? or is there [any] taste in the white of an egg?
Can that which is unsavoury – Which is insipid, or without taste.
Be eaten without salt – It is necessary to add salt in order to make it either palatable or wholesome. The literal truth of this no one can doubt, Insipid food cannot be relished, nor would it long sustain life. The Orientals eat their bread often with mere salt, without any other addition except some dry and pounded summer-savory, which last is the common method at Aleppo. Russells Natural History of Aleppo, p. 27. It should be remembered, also, that the bread of the Orientals is commonly mere unleavened cakes; see Rosenmuller, Alte u. neue Morgenland, on Gen 18:6. The idea of Job in this adage or proverb is, that there was a fitness and propriety in things. Certain things went together, and were necessary companions. One cannot be expected without the other; one is incomplete without the other. Insipid food requires salt in order to make it palatable and nutritious, and so it is proper that suffering and lamentation should be united.
There was a reason for his complaints, as there was for adding salt to unsavory food. Much perplexity, however, has been felt in regard to this whole passage; Job 6:6-7. Some have supposed that Job means to rebuke Eliphaz severely for his harangue on the necessity of patience, which he characterizes as insipid, impertinent, and disgusting to him; as being in fact as unpleasant to his soul as the white of an egg was to the taste. Dr. Good explains it as meaning, Doth that which has nothing of seasoning, nothing of a pungent or irritating power within it, produce pungency or irritation? I too should be quiet and complain not, if I had nothing provocative or acrimonious; but alas! the food I am doomed to partake of is the very calamity which is most acute to my soul, that which I most loathe, and which is most grievous or trying to my palate. But the real sense of this first part of the verse is, I think, that which is expressed above – that insipid food requires proper condiment, and that in his sufferings there was a real ground for lamentation and complaint – as there was for making use of salt in that which is unsavory. I see no reason to think that he meant in this to reproach Eliphaz for an insipid and unmeaning address.
Or is there any taste in the white of an egg? – Critics and commentators have been greatly divided about the meaning of this. The Septuagint renders it, ei de kai esti geuma en remasi kenois; is there any taste in vain words? Jerome (Vulgate), can anyone taste that which being tasted produces death? The Targums render it substantially as it is in our version. The Hebrew word rendered white ( ryr) means properly spittle; 1Sa 21:13. If applied to an egg, it means the white of it, as resembling spittle. The word rendered egg ( challamuth) occurs nowhere else in the Scriptures. If it be regarded as derived from chalam, to sleep, or dream, it may denote somnolency or dreams, and then fatuity, folly, or a foolish speech, as resembling dreams; and many have supposed that Job meant to characterize the speech of Eliphaz as of this description.
The word may mean, as it does in Syriac, a species of herb, the purslain (Gesenius), proverbial for its insipidity among the Arabs, Greeks, and Romans, but which was used as a salad; and the whole phrase here may denote purslain-broth, and hence, an insipid discourse. This is the interpretation of Gesenius. But the more common and more probable explanation is that of our common version, denoting the white of an egg. But what is the point of the remark as Job uses it? That it is a proverbial expression, is apparent; but in what way Job meant to apply it, is not so clear. The Jews say that he meant to apply it to the speech of Eliphaz as being insipid and dull, without anything to penetrate the heart or to enliven the fancy; a speech as disagreeable to the mind as the white of an egg was insipid to the taste. Rosenmuller supposes that he refers to his afflictions as being as unpleasant to bear as the white of an egg was to the taste. It seems to me that the sense of all the proverbs used here is about the same, and that they mean, there is a reason for everything which occurs. The ass brays and the ox lows only when destitute of food. That which is insipid is unpleasant, and the white of an egg is loathsome. So with my afflictions. They produce loathing and disgust, My very food Job 6:7 is disagreeable, and everything seems tasteless as the most insipid food would. Hence the language which I have used – language spoken not without reason, and expressive of this state of the soul.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 6:6
Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt?
Seasoning for Christianity
Salt gives a zest to many unpalatable things, and is an invaluable condiment. The health, the digestion, the entire well-being of man, demand its use. The patriarch is alluding to those matters which give zest to life, even as salt gives zest to food. Some things axe pleasant enough to eat, and require nothing wherewith to be seasoned. Sugar is sweet in itself. So there are some occupations and pleasures of life which need nothing to render them enjoyable. But there are other things which, like unsavoury or tasteless food, demand some addition to give them a zest or make them more pleasant to perform. A few examples will make the meaning plain:–
I. Take a mother and her babe. If we look at her disinterestedly, we shall see what a vast amount of unpleasant labour she must undergo. No toil is too great, no work too exhausting, no effort too repulsive. In itself such patience or self-denial would be considered an intolerable hardship. But when the unsavoury morsel is taken with the salt of love, how sweet to the taste does it become! What would otherwise be a painful labour is turned into a delightful joy.
II. Take a man and his business. What is business but a toil–a painful, bitter, wearisome contest, rising early and toiling late? It is One of the unsavoury things to which the words of the patriarch may allude. To swallow it for its own sake alone would cause a good many to make a very wry face. And what is the salt of business? Why, it is money and gain. What a zest these impart to the hardest labour and the early toil! How sweetly goes down the hardship when the clinking coins are counted from the till at night.
III. Take the toiling student. How hard he labours over his midnight lamp! Amusement is forsworn, pleasures and relaxation are given up. But the flavour improves when eaten with the salt of ambition or the desire of honour. Then the toil is transformed into a pleasure and the trouble into a labour of love.
IV. So also we may take the Christian soldier. Who can say that the Christian life is pleasant in itself? It is humiliation, sorrow, bitterness, disappointment. It means an apparently unavailing contest with powers that are more powerful than ourselves. But once flavour the Christian life with salt, and how different it becomes! Flavour the bitterness with the love of God, the blessed sympathy of Christ, the glorious reward beyond, and then as the golden sunshine gilds and beautifies the most rugged scene, so the bitterness is turned into a sheen of glory and the toil is forgotten. (J. J. S. Bird.)
The treatment of the unsavoury
Unsavoury means insipid, without taste. It is necessary to add salt in order to make it either palatable or wholesome. The literal truth of this no one can doubt. Insipid food cannot be relished, nor would it long sustain life. The Orientals eat their bread often with mere salt, without any other addition except some dry and pounded summer savory, which last is the common method at Aleppo. It should be remembered also that the bread of the Orientals is commonly mere unleavened cakes. The idea of Job in this adage or proverb is, that there was a fitness and propriety in things. Certain things went together, and were necessary companions. One cannot be expected without the other; one is incomplete without the other. Insipid food requires salt in order to make it palatable and nutritious, and so it is proper that suffering and humiliation should be united. There was a reason for his complaints, as there was for adding salt to unsavoury food. Some have supposed that Job means to rebuke Eliphaz severely for his harangue on the necessity of patience, which he characterises as insipid, impertinent, and disgusting to him; as being, in fact, as unpleasant to his soul as the white of an egg was to his taste. Dr. Good explains it as meaning, Doth that which hath nothing of seasoning, nothing of a pungent or irritating power, within it, produce pungency or irritation? I, too, should be quiet, and complain not if I had nothing provocative or acrimonious; but, alas! the food I am doomed to partake of is the very calamity which is most acute to my soul, that which I most loathe, and which is most grievous and trying to my palate. But I see no reason to think that in this he meant to reproach Eliphaz for an insipid and unmeaning address. (Albert Barnes.)
A cure for unsavoury meats: or, salt for the white of an egg
This is a question which Job asked of his friends, who turned out to be so unfriendly. Thus he battles with those miserable comforters who inflamed his wounds by pouring in verjuice and vinegar instead of oil and wine. The first of them had just opened fire upon him, and Job by this question was firing a return shot. He wanted the three stern watchers to understand that he did not complain without cause. His were not sorrows which he had imagined; they were real and true, and hence he asks this question first, Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass? or loweth the ox over his fodder? If these creatures lift up their notes of complaint, it is when they are starving. He was like one who finds no flavour in his food, and loathes the morsel which he swallows. That which was left to him was tasteless as the white of an egg; it yielded him no kind of comfort; in fact, it was disgusting to him. The speech, also, to which Job had listened from Eliphaz the Temanite did not put much sweetness into his mouth; for it was devoid of sympathy and consolation. Here he tells them that Eliphaz had administered unto him unsavoury meat without salt;–mere whites of eggs, without taste. Not a word of love, pity, or fellow feeling had the Temanite uttered. We may now forget the much tortured patriarch Job, and apply this text to ourselves.
I. The first point will be this, that a want of savour is a very great want in anything that is meant for food. Everybody knows that all kinds of animal life delight in food that has a flavour in it. It is exactly the same with regard to the food of our souls. It is a very great fault with a sermon when there is no savour in it. It is a killing fault to the people of God when a book contains a good deal of what may be true, but vet lacks holy savour–or what, in others words, we call unction. But what and of savour is that which we expect in a sermon?
1. I answer, first, it is a savour of the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. The next necessity to secure savour is a devout spirit in the preacher–a savour of devotion.
3. Another matter goes to make up sweet savour in a discourse, and that is, a savour of experience. But these three things are not the whole of it. There is a sacred something: it is not nameless, for I will name it by and by: it is a heavenly influence which comes into man, but which has no name among the things that belong to men. This sacred influence pervades the speaker, flavouring his matter, and governing his spirit, while at the same time it rests upon the hearer so that he finds his mind awake, his faculties attentive, his heart stirred. Under this mysterious influence the hearers spirit is in a receptive condition, and as he hears the truth it sinks into his soul as snowflakes drop into the sea. Take away from any preaching or any teaching Christ as the subject, devotion as the spirit, experience as the strength of testimony, and the Holy Ghost as being all in all, and you have removed all the savour; and what is left? What can we do with a savourless Gospel?
II. I find a rendering given to the text, which, if it be not absolutely accurate, nevertheless states an important truth, namely, that that which is unsavoury from want of salt must not be eaten.
1. There is a great deal in this world which is unsavoury for want of salt; I mean in common conversation. Alas, it is easy to meet with people–and even people wearing the Christian name–whose conversation has not a particle of salt, in it. Nothing that tends to edification is spoken by them. Their talk has an abundance of gaiety, but no grace in it. They exhibit any amount of frivolity, but no godliness. Again, there is some talk in the world–I hope not among professors–which has no salt in it even of common morality; and consequently it corrupts, and becomes impure and obnoxious.
2. Now, the same thing is true, not only of common conversation, but of a great deal of modern teaching. If a mans discoursing has not salt enough in it to keep false doctrine out of it, it is not the kind of food for you. Clean provender is not so scarce that you need to eat carrion.
III. The third point is, that there are certain things in the world which need something else with them. Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg? There are many things in this world which we cannot tolerate by themselves; they need seasoning with them.
1. One of the first of these may read us a lesson of prudence; that is, reproof. It is a Christian duty to reprove a brother who is in a fault, and we should speak to him with all gentleness and quietness, that we may prevent his going farther into evil, and lead him back to the right way. It is the habit of some brethren to do everything forcibly; but in this case one needs more love than vigour, more prudence than warmth, more grace than energy. Rebuke, however kindly you put it, and however prudently you administer it, will always be an unsavoury thing: therefore, salt it well. Think over it. Pray over it. Mix kindness with it. Rub the salt of brotherly love into it. Speak with much deference to your erring friend, and use much tenderness, because you are not faultless yourself. Savour your admonitions with affection, and may the Lord make them acceptable to those who need them.
2. Now for other matters which many people do not like by themselves; I mean, the doctrines of the Gospel. The true doctrines of the Gospel never were popular, and never will be; but there is no need for any of us to make them more distasteful than they naturally are. Man is a king, so he thinks, and when he hears of another king he straightway grows rebellious. If the Gospel be distasteful we must add a flavouring to it. What shall it be? We cannot do better than flavour it with holiness! Where there is a holy life men cannot easily doubt the principles out of which it springs.
3. Now, a third egg which cannot be eaten without salt is affliction. Afflictions are very unsavoury things. Afflictions are unsavoury meat. What is to be done with them, then? Why, let us salt them, if we can. Salt your affliction with patience, and it will make a royal dish. By grace, like the apostle, we shall glory in tribulations also.
4. I will not detain you longer to speak about persecution, though that is another unsavoury article, with which salt of consolation is much to be desired.
5. But, lastly, there is the thought of death. Is not death an unsavoury thing in itself? The body dreads dissolution and corruption, and the mind starts back from the prospect of quitting the warm precincts of this house of clay, and going into what seems a cold, rarefied region, where the shivering spirit flits naked into mystery untried. What salt, say you, shall I mingle with my thoughts of death? Why, the thought that you cannot die; since because He lives you shall live also. Add to it the persuasion that though you be dead, yet shall you live. Thoughts of the resurrection and the swinging open of the pearly gates, and of your entrance there. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 6. Can that which is unsavoury] Mr. Good renders this verse as follows: Doth insipid food without a mixture of salt, yea, doth the white of the egg give forth pungency? Which he thus illustrates: “Doth that which hath nothing of seasoning, nothing of a pungent or irritable power within it, produce pungency or irritation? I too should be quiet and complain not, if I had nothing provocative or acrimonious, but, alas! the food I am doomed to partake of is the very calamity which is most acute to my soul – that which I most loathe, and which is most grievous or trying to my palate.” Some render the original, Is there any dependence on the drivel of dreams?
There have been a great variety of interpretations given of this verse. I could add another; but that of Mr. Good is as likely to be correct as that of any other critic.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Can or do men use to eat unsavoury meats with delight, or without complaint? This is either,
1. A reflection upon Eliphazs discourse, as unsavoury, which could not give him any conviction or satisfaction. But his censure of Eliphazs speech begins not till Job 6:14, and then it proceeds. Or rather,
2. A justification of Jobs complaints (of which both the foregoing and following verses treat) by another argument. Men do commonly complain of their meat when it is but unsavoury, how much more when it is so bitter as mine is! which is implied here, and expressed in the next verse; where the sense here begun is completed, and this general proposition is accommodated to Jobs condition.
In the white of an egg, Heb. in the white of a yolk, i.e. which encompasseth the yolk of an egg.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
6. unsavourytasteless,insipid. Salt is a chief necessary of life to an Easterner, whosefood is mostly vegetable.
the whiteliterally,”spittle” (1Sa 21:13),which the white of an egg resembles.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt?…. As any sort of pulse, peas, beans, lentiles, c. which have no savoury and agreeable taste unless salted, and so many other things and are disagreeable to men, and not relished by them, and more especially things bitter and unpleasant; and therefore Job intimates, it need not seem strange that the wormwood and water of gall, or the bread of adversity and water of affliction, he was fed with, should be so distasteful to him, and he should show such a nausea of it, and an aversion to it, and complain thereof as he did: though some apply this to the words and speeches of Eliphaz, and his friends he represented, which with Job were insipid and foolish talk, and very unsuitable and disagreeable to him, yea, loathed and abhorred by him, not being seasoned with the salt of prudence, grace, and goodness, see Col 4:6;
or is there [any] taste in the white of an egg? none at all. The same things are designed by this as the former. Mr. Broughton renders it, “the white of the yolk”; and Kimchi says d it signifies, in the language of the Rabbins, the red part of the yolk, the innermost part; but others, from the use of the word in the Arabic language, interpret it of the froth of milk e, which is very tasteless and insipid: but the first of the words we render “white” always signifies “spittle”; and some of the Jewish writers f call it the spittle of soundness, or a sound man, which has no taste, in distinction from that of a sick man, which has; and the latter word comes from one which signifies to dream; and Jarchi observes, that some so understand it here; and the whole is by some rendered, “is there any taste” or “savour in the spittle of a dream” or “drowsiness” g? such as flows from a person asleep, or in a dream; and so may fitly express the vain and empty words, as the Septuagint translate the phrase, of Job’s friends, in his esteem, which to him were no than the words of some idle and dreaming person, or were like the dribble of a fool or madman, as David mimicked, 1Sa 21:13; and it is observed h, that the word “spittle” is very emphatically used, since it useless in judging of different tastes, and mixed with food, goes into nourishment, as the white of an egg.
d Sepher Shorash, rad. ; so Ben Melech. e Hottinger. Smegma Oriental. l. 1. c. 7. p. 152. Hinckeman. Praefat. ad Alcoran. p. 29. f R. Issac in Kimchi ibid. Ben Melech Ben Gersom in loc so some in Bar Tzemach; “saliva sanitatis”, Gussetius, p. 260. g “in saliva somnolentiae”, Schultens. h Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 4. p. 670.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
6. Unsavoury white of an egg Rir hhallamouth. The latter word is one of the many in this book which occur but once in the Bible. This is because of the great antiquity of the book of Job. This archaism has given rise to conflicting views. Michaelis thinks it means the insipid froth of camel’s milk, from which the Arabs derive many proverbs, comparing anger, vanity, and whatever is superficial with this tasteless froth. ( Sup. ad Lex., page 779.) Others suppose it signifies the broth or slime of purslain, an herb proverbial among the Arabs, Greeks, and Romans for its insipidity. Thus Renan and Merx. The authorized version is preferable, as Dillmann shows; also Umbreit, Ewald, Delitzsch, and Hitzig. An objection is made by Bottcher, that the Hebrews before the captivity did not keep poultry. The objection is inapposite, since geese, together with beef, constituted the principal part of the animal food throughout ancient Egypt. That by tasteless food he means his sorrows, and perhaps his loathsome disease, is evident from the preceding verses. As insipid food calls for some kind of condiment or relish, so does his calamity justify complaint.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 6:6. Or is there any taste in the white of an egg Job’s indignation being raised, he expresses in metaphor how absurd and how nauseous to him the discourse of Eliphaz had been. Our version of the latter clause seems to be void of all connection with what goes before. Mr. Mudge supposes Job to allude, in the original words, to those medicinal potions which were administered by way of alterative; and, agreeably to his criticism, the clause should be rendered, Is there any relish in the nauseous medicinal draught? See the Observations, p. 128.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Job 6:6 Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there [any] taste in the white of an egg?
Ver. 6. Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? ] Or, Can that which is unsavoury for want of salt be eaten? Hunger will down with unsavoury or unpleasant food, though salt or sauce be wanting; but when meat is putrefied for want of salt, and full of maggots, it will hardly be eaten, unless it be in extreme famine: it is as if he should say, a man doth with no good will feed upon unsavoury or loathsome meats; how, then, can I use such moderation as you desire I should, my evils being extreme, sweetened with no kind of comfort, nor seasoned with anything that is any way toothsome or wholesome? that I speak not of your tasteless and insulting speeches, which are no small vexation to me.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Can . . . ? Figure of speech Erotesis. App-6.
white of an egg. “Egg” occurs only here. “White” (Hebrew. rir) is found elsewhere only in 1Sa 21:13, where it is rendered “spittle”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
that which: Job 6:25, Job 16:2, Lev 2:13, Luk 14:34, Col 4:6
taste: Job 6:30, Job 12:11, Job 34:3, Psa 119:103, Heb 6:4, Heb 6:5
Reciprocal: Job 12:3 – I am not inferior to you Mar 9:50 – is good
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 6:6. Can that which is unsavoury Or rather, that which is insipid, be eaten without salt? Is it not requisite that every thing insipid should be seasoned, to give it a relish, and make it agreeable? Therefore life itself, when it has lost those comforts, which are the seasoning to it, and give it its relish, then becomes insipid, so that it is nothing more than a burden. Now, if men commonly complain of their meat when it is only unsavoury, how much more when it is so bitter as mine is? Some commentators, however, consider Job here as referring to Eliphazs discourse, which had been insipid and disagreeable to him, as having no substance, and carrying no weight with it: like unsavoury food, not seasoned nor cured, instead of satisfying and instructing him, it had been nauseous and offensive, like corrupted meat to a weak and sick stomach. Or is there any taste in the white of an egg? Our version of this clause, says Dr. Dodd, seems to be void of all sense and connection with what goes before. Mr. Mudge supposes Job to allude, in the original words, to those medicinal potions, which were administered by way of alterative; and, agreeably to his criticism, the clause should be rendered, Is there any relish in the nauseous medicinal draught?
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
6:6 Can that which is {e} unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there [any] taste in the white of an egg?
(e) Can a man’s taste delight in that, which has no savour? meaning that no one takes pleasure in affliction seeing they cannot do away with things that are unsavoury to the mouth.