to eat (literally or figuratively) · interrogative particle + verb, niphal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
salt
מֶ֑לַחMe.lach
H4417
properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
there
יֶשׁyesh-
H3426
there is or are (or any other form of the verb to be · cardinal number, both genders singular absolute
taste
טַ֝֗עַםTa.'am
H2940
properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
white
בְּרִ֣ירbe.Rir
H7388
saliva · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
egg
חַלָּמֽוּתcha.la.Mut
H2495
probably purslain · noun, common feminine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Job 34:3 For the ear trieth words, as the mouth tasteth meat.
Leviticus 2:13 And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lac…
Job 6:30 Is there iniquity in my tongue? cannot my taste discern perverse things?
Job 12:11 Doth not the ear try words? and the mouth taste his meat?
Luke 14:34 Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned?
Colossians 4:6 Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
Job 6:25 How forcible are right words! but what doth your arguing reprove?
Job 16:2 I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 6:1-7
Eliphaz, in the beginning of his discourse, had been very sharp upon Job, and yet it does not appear that Job gave him any interruption, but heard him patiently till he had said all he had to say. Those that would make an impartial judgment of a discourse must hear it out, and take it entire. But, when he had concluded, he makes his reply, in which he speaks very feelingly.
I. He represents his calamity, in general, as much heavier than either he had expressed it or they had apprehended it, Job 6:2, Job 6:3. He could not fully describe it; they would not fully apprehend it, or at least would not own that they did; and therefore he would gladly appeal to a third person, who had just weights a…
unsavoury--tasteless, insipid. Salt is a chief necessary of life to an Easterner, whose food is mostly vegetable.
the white--literally, "spittle" (Sa1 21:13), which the white of an egg resembles.
John Gill on Job 6:6
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…
5 Doth the wild ass bray at fresh grass?
Or loweth an ox over good fodder?
6 Is that which is tasteless eaten unsalted?
Or is there flavour in the white of an egg?
7 That which my soul refused to touch,
The same is as my loathsome food.
The meaning of the first two figures is: He would not complain, if there were really no cause for it; of the two others: It is not to be expected that he should smile at his suffering, and enjoy it as delicate food. על־בּלילו I have translated "over good fodder," for בּליל is mixed fodder of different kinds of grain, farrago. "Without salt" is virtually adjective to תּפל, insipid, tasteless. What is without salt one does not relish, and there is no flavour in…
The Church Fathers
"Can bread without salt be eaten? As if someone were saying to him: Why do you speak thus in figures? He replies that these things expressed on their own would be tasteless. "What is sweetness in foolish speeches? He calls the speeches of men insensate; the word of God is the true bread, but the heavenly bread. "That's why my mind can not shut up. As without salt you can not taste bread, so I owe everything to the word of God, as it is written, "How shall they hear, if no one preacheth them? "
Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? And because this same Law, before the coming of our Mediator, was held not in a spiritual but in a carnal manner, it is rightly added, Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? In the Law, the virtue of the hidden meaning is the salt of the letter. Whosoever, then, being intent upon carnal observances, refused to understand it in a spiritual sense, what else did he but eat 'unsavoury food?' But this 'salt,' 'Truth,' on being known, put into the food, when He taught that the savour of a hidden sense lay at the bottom of the Law, saying, For had ye believed Moses, ye might have believed Me, for he wrote of Me. And again, Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another. But because before our Redeemer's coming, Judaea held the Law in a carnal way, the Gentile world refused to bend themselves to its precepts, which enjoined hard things. Thus it would not eat unsavoury meat. For before that it got the relish of the Spirit, it shrunk from keeping the force of the letter. For which of the Gentiles would bear this, which is therein enjoined, to cut their children's flesh for a religious service? to cut off the sins of speech by death? And hence it is well added yet further; Or can anyone taste, what by being tasted brings death? For the Law, if tasted in a carnal way, 'brought death,' in that it seized the misdeeds of transgressors with a severe visitation; it 'brought death,' in that both by the injunction it made known the sin, and did not by grace put it away, as Paul testifies, saying, The Law made nothing perfect. And again, Wherefore the Law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. And soon after, But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good. But the Gentile world, when turned to Christ, in that it understands Him to be sounding in the words of the Law, being straitened by its desires looks for Him, Whom it ardently loves, in a spiritual way amongst carnal precepts.
Dictionary and topics
Egg — (Heb. beytsah, “whiteness”). Eggs deserted (Isa. 10:14), of a bird (Deut. 22:6), an ostrich (Job 39:14), the cockatrice (Isa. 59:5). In Luke 11:12, an egg is contrasted with a scorpion, which is said…
Salt — Used to season food (Job 6:6), and mixed with the fodder of cattle (Isa. 30:24, “clean;” in marg. of R.V. “salted”). All meat-offerings were seasoned with salt (Lev. 2:13). To eat salt with one is to…
Salt · Used For: Seasoning food — Used For: Seasoning food
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
the tasteless white of an egg? Job’s riddle-like complaint probably refers both to Eliphaz’s weak counsel and the detestable situation God had allowed him to endure.
Rashi on Job 6:6
Can bland food be eaten A thing that has no salt and must be salted, but was not salted, is called תָּפֵל in Mishnaic Hebrew (Shabbath 128a, Hullin 113a, Nedarim 51a).
or is there taste in the saliva that comes from strong tasting foods, for the one who eats a strong-tasting food that increases the saliva, e.g. garlic. That is to say, Do you think their replies that have no substance are acceptable? רִיר [means saliva] as in (I Sam. 2 1:14), “and let his saliva (ריר) run down upon his beard.”
חַלָמוּת is like (below 39:4), “Their sons wax strong (יחלמו),” an expression of strength. Some interpret it as an expression of a dream (חלום), but this does not appeal to me because of the dagesh in…
MORAL INTERPRETATION Or can that which is unsavoury be eaten, not seasoned with salt? Or can anyone taste, what by being tasted brings death? For the words and the practices of the carnal introduce themselves like food into our minds, so as to be swallowed up in the belly of complacence. But any of the Elect eateth not that which is 'unsavory,' for setting apart in judgment the words and the deeds of the froward, he puts them away from the mouth of his heart. Paul forbade unsavoury meat to be offered for the food of souls, when he said to his disciples, Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt. And to the Psalmist also the words of the children of perdition tasted unsavoury in the mouth of the heart, when he said, The wicked have related tales to me which are not after Thy Law. But often, when the words of the wicked press themselves with importunity into our ears, they beget in the heart a war of temptation. And though both reason reject and the tongue censure them, yet that is with difficulty mastered within, which without is sentenced with authority. Whence it is necessary that that should never even reach the ears, which the mind must keep off from the avenue of the imagination by exercising watchfulness. Holy men, then, whereas their hearts pant with aspirations after Eternity, lift themselves to such an exalted elevation of life, that to hear any longer the things that are of the world they account to be a grievous burthen bearing them down. For they reckon that to be impertinent and insufferable, which does not tell of what their hearts are full of. Now it often happens that the mind is already transported to the realms on high in desire, is already entirely parted asunder from the foolish converse of earthly men, but is not yet braced to prefer the crosses of the present life for the love of God; already it seeks the things on high, already it contemns the grovelling follies below, but it does not yet turn itself to the endurance of the adversity which it has to bear. And hence it is added, Or can anyone taste that, which by being tasted brings death? For it is hard to seek after that which torments, to follow that which makes life depart. But very often the life of the righteous stretches itself up to such a height of virtue, that both within it rules in the citadel of interior reason, and without, by bearing with it, brings the…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
