to be tranquil · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
rest
שָׁקַ֥טְתִּיsha.Ka.ti
H8252
to repose (usually figurative) · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
quiet
נָ֗חְתִּיNa.che.ti
H5117
to rest · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
trouble
רֹֽגֶזRo.gez
H7267
commotion · noun, common masculine singular absolute
came
וַיָּ֥בֹאvai.Ya.vo'
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
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 7:14 Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions:
Job 27:9 Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him?
Psalms 143:11 Quicken me, O LORD, for thy name’s sake: for thy righteousness’ sake bring my soul out of trouble.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 3:20–end
Job, finding it to no purpose to wish either that he had not been born or had died as soon as he was born, here complains that his life was now continued and not cut off. When men are set on quarrelling there is no end of it; the corrupt heart will carry on the humour. Having cursed the day of his birth, here he courts the day of his death. The beginning of this strife and impatience is as the letting forth of water.
I. He thinks it hard, in general, that miserable lives should be prolonged (Job 3:20-22): Wherefore is light in life given to those that are bitter in soul? Bitterness of soul, through spiritual grievances, makes life itself bitter. Why doth he give light? (so it is in the origi…
I was not in safety . . . yet trouble came--referring, not to his former state, but to the beginning of his troubles. From that time I had no rest, there was no intermission of sorrows. "And" (not, "yet") a fresh trouble is coming, namely, my friends' suspicion of my being a hypocrite. This gives the starting-point to the whole ensuing controversy.
Next: Job Chapter 4
John Gill on Job 3:26
I was not in safety,.... This cannot refer to the time of his prosperity; for he certainly then was in safety, God having set an hedge about him, so that none of his enemies, nor even Satan himself, could come at him to hurt him:
neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; which also was not true of him before his afflictions, for he did then enjoy great peace, rest, and quietness; he lay in his nest at ease, and in great tranquillity; and thought and said he should die in such a state, see Job 29:18, &c. nor is the sense of these expressions, that he did not take up his rest and satisfaction in outward things, and put his trust and confidence in his riches, and yet trouble came upon him; but…
24 For instead of my food my sighing cometh,
And my roarings pour themselves forth as water.
25 For I fear something terrible, and it cometh upon me,
And that before which I shudder cometh to me.
26 I dwelt not in security, nor rested, nor refreshed myself:
Then trouble cometh.
That לפני may pass over from the local signification to the substitutionary, like the Lat. pro (e.g., pro praemio est), is seen from Job 4:19 (comp. Sa1 1:16): the parallelism, which is less favourable to the interpretation, before my bread (Hahn, Schlottm., and others), favours the signification pro here. The fut. consec. ויּתּכוּ (Kal of נתך) is to be translated, according to Ges. 129, 3, a, se effundunt (not effude…
The Church Fathers
I was neither in peace, nor in silence, nor in rest. For it was only false goods, the loss of which he feared. "And anger came to me. The vengeance before which the just barely will be saved (1 Pet. 4:18).
Job then adds, "Was I not quiet?" The Greek reads, "I was not quiet." That is to say, I did not continue in the fruition and prosperity of my goods. He says he feared he might encounter against his intention the evil necessity to reveal part of his vexations with wailing accents. Therefore Job says, "Was I not quiet?" This means that while the harshness of my pain struck me, I wanted to hide in silence what I suffered, but such an abundance of raging misfortunes befell me that I am forced to reveal my tribulations with a feeble voice.
From this, Job's preparation against the adversary emerges. Even Paul, who possessed the hope and grace of the Spirit, was vigilant and fought the adversary, since he knew that for the holy the struggle "was not against enemies of blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil." Our struggle is also against the archvillain himself, the devil, who prowls around "like a roaring lion … looking for someone to devour." Even though Job was vigilant, the devil did not refrain from asking for permission to test him and to impose on him the burden he proceeds to place on him. Job's difficult experience seems like God's wrath, yet he knows that his sufferings are not the result of his sinfulness. For Job states, "I know that I shall be vindicated." Even in other passages Scripture describes hardship as "wrath." It is said, "You sent out your fury; it consumed them like stubble." When we hear about God's wrath, we do not consider it a condition of the soul similar to human emotions. Such an emotion cannot be sent, since it lives in the soul. The wrath of God, however, is sent, for "you sent out your fury," that is, hardship. Hardship is imposed. Job calls that which has affected him as "wrath."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Despondency · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Murmuring · Exemplified: Job — Exemplified: Job
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).
