³ tn Or “not sickened by.”

³ sn The proverb warns that anything overindulged in can become sickening. The verse uses formal parallelism to express first the condition and then its consequences. It teaches that moderation is wise in the pleasures of life.

² tn The verb קוּץ (quts) has a two-fold range of meaning: (1) “to feel a loathing; to abhor” and (2) “to feel a sickening dread” (BDB 880 s.v.). The parallelism with “do not despise” suggests the former nuance here. The common response to suffering is to loathe it; however, the righteous understand that it refines one’s moral character and that it is a means to the blessing.

⁴ tn The second colon of the verse is difficult. The word דְּוֵי (d^eve) 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 (k^evodi, “my glory”): “my heart [glory] loathes/is sickened by my bread.”