Albert Barnes Commentary Job 23:2

"Even to-day is my complaint rebellious: My stroke is heavier than my groaning." — Job 23:2 (ASV)

Even today - At the present time. I am not relieved. You afford me no consolation. All that you say only aggravates my woes.

My complaint - See the notes at Job 21:3.

Bitter - Sad, melancholy, distressing. The meaning is not that he made bitter complaints in the sense which those words would naturally convey, or that he meant to find fault with God, but that his case was a hard one. His friends furnished him no relief, and he had in vain endeavored to bring his cause before God.

This is now, as he proceeds to state, the principal cause of his difficulty. He does not know where to find God; he cannot get his cause before Him.

My stroke - Margin, as in Hebrew “hand;” that is, the hand that is upon me, or the calamity that is inflicted upon me. The hand is represented as the instrument of inflicting punishment or causing affliction; see the notes at Job 19:21.

Heavier than my groaning - My sighs bear no proportion to my sufferings. They are no adequate expression of my woes. If you think I complain, if I am heard to groan, yet the sufferings which I endure are far beyond what these would seem to indicate. Sighs and groans are not improper. They are prompted by nature, and they furnish some relief to a sufferer. But they should not be:

1. with a spirit of murmuring or complaining;
2. they should not be beyond what our sufferings demand, or the proper expression of our sufferings. They should not be such as to lead others to suppose we suffer more than we actually do.
3. they should—when they are extorted from us by the severity of suffering—lead us to look to that world where no groan will ever be heard.