Tool Beta
Is It Actually in the Bible?
Phrases people quote as Scripture. The real verse, or the honest answer that there is not one.
"In watchings often" means Paul spent a lot of time watching or observing things
"Watchings" meant sleepless nights, staying awake through toil or danger, not observing something.
2 Corinthians 11:27, in every translation this tool compares.
2 Corinthians 11:27 lists Paul's hardships: "In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." "Watchings" belongs with the other physical hardships in that list: it means loss of sleep, staying up because of labor, danger, prayer, or travel, essentially what we'd now call sleepless nights or vigils.
Modern English uses "watch" mainly to mean "look at" (watch TV, watch a game), so a reader can miss that Paul is listing a physical toll, exhaustion from lack of sleep, right alongside hunger, cold, and fasting.
