to lie down (for rest · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
say
וְאָמַ֗רְתִּיve.'a.Mar.ti
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 1st person common singular
arise
אָ֭קוּם'A.kum
H6965
to rise (in various applications · verb, qal imperfect, 1st person common singular
night
עָ֑רֶב'A.rev
H6153
dusk · noun, common masculine singular absolute
gone
מִדַּדmiddad
H4059
flight
full
וְשָׂבַ֖עְתִּיve.sa.Va'.ti
H7646
to sate · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 1st person common singular
fro
נְדֻדִ֣יםne.du.Dim
H5076
properly · noun, common masculine plural absolute
day
נָֽשֶׁףNa.shef
H5399
properly · noun, common masculine 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
Deuteronomy 28:67 In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wh…
Job 7:13-14 When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint;
Psalms 77:4 Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
Job 30:17 My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest.
Psalms 6:6 I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.
Psalms 130:6 My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.
Job 17:12 They change the night into day: the light is short because of darkness.
Psalms 109:23 I am gone like the shadow when it declineth: I am tossed up and down as the locust.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 7:1-6
Job is here excusing what he could not justify, even his inordinate desire of death. Why should he not wish for the termination of life, which would be the termination of his miseries? To enforce this reason he argues,
I. From the general condition of man upon earth (Job 7:1): "He is of few days, and full of trouble. Every man must die shortly, and every man has some reason (more or less) to desire to die shortly; and therefore why should you impute it to me as so heinous a crime that I wish to die shortly?" Or thus: "Pray mistake not my desires of death, as if I thought the time appointed of God could be anticipated: no, I know very well that that is fixed; only in such language as this I t…
Literally, "When shall be the flight of the night?" [GESENIUS]. UMBREIT, not so well, "The night is long extended"; literally, "measured out" (so Margin).
John Gill on Job 7:4
When I lie down, I say, when shall I arise,.... Or, "then I say", &c. (t); that is, as soon as he laid himself down in his bed, and endeavoured to compose himself to sleep, in order to get rest and refreshment; then he said within himself, or with an articulate voice, to those about him, that sat up with him; oh that it was time to rise; when will it be morning, that I may rise from my bed, which is of no manner of service to me, but rather increases weariness?
and the night be gone? and the day dawn and break; or "night" or "evening be measured", as in the margin, or "measures itself" (u); or that "he", that is, God, or "it", my heart, "measures the evening" (w), or "night"; lengthens it o…
4 If I lie down, I think:
When shall I arise and the evening break away?
And I become weary with tossing to and fro unto the morning dawn.
5 My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of earth;
My skin heals up to fester again.
6 My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle,
And vanish without hope.
Most modern commentators take מדּד as Piel from מדד: the night is extended (Renan: la nuit se prolonge), which is possible; comp. Ges. 52, 2. But the metre suggests another rendering: מדּד constr. of מדּד from נדד, to flee away: and when fleeing away of the evening. The night is described by its commencement, the late evening, to make the long interval of the sleeplessness and restlessness of the in…
The Church Fathers
"If I fall asleep, I ask when will the day come; if I watch, I also look for when the evening comes. This is indeed the desire of work which torments man in rest, and that of rest which torments him in work. "From evening to morning I am filled with bitterness. That's where he came in separating from God. So God, advancing toward evening, drove them away. Which means that the unfortunate have no hope of relief until the morning, according to what is written: "In the morning I will appear before you (2); That is to say, when after the judgment, God, the true morning, will reveal himself to the righteous. This is why Our Lord is buried in the evening and resurrects in the morning (3). We can therefore compare this life to the morning star.
When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise? and again I look for the evening. For in the night, day is desired, in the day, evening is longed for; in that grief will not let the things that are before us give satisfaction, and while it saddens the heart in the experience of the present, it is ever stretching it to something beyond in expectation, as it were by a consolatory longing. But because at one and the same time the afflicted mind is drawn out in desire, and yet its grief, even though beguiled by longings, is not ended; it is rightly added, And I shall be filled with pains even until the darkness. But we shall make out these words more exactly and more applicably, if we go back to the order of the foregoing interpretation. For by sleep the torpor of inaction, and by rising the exercising of action, is represented. By the name of the evening moreover, because it accords with sleep, we have set forth again the desire of inaction. But Holy Church, as long as she is leading a life of corruption, never ceases to bewail the inconveniences of her condition of mutability. For man was created for this end, that, with mind erect, he might mount to the citadel of contemplation, and that no touch of corruption should cause him to swerve from the love of his Maker; but herein, that he moved the foot of his will to transgression, turning it away from the innate stedfastness of his standing, he immediately fell away from the love of his Creator into himself. Yet in forsaking the love of God, that true stronghold of his standing, he could not stand fast in himself either; in that by the impulse of a slippery condition of mutability, being precipitated beneath himself through corruption, he also came to be at strife with himself. And now, in that he is not secured by the stedfastness of his creation, he is ever being made to vary by the fit of alternating desire, so that both at rest he longs for action, and when busied pants for rest. For because the stedfast mind, when it might have stood, would not, it is now no longer able to stand even when it will, in that in leaving the contemplation of its Creator, it lost the strength of its health, and wherever placed is ever seeking some other place through uneasiness. And so in setting forth the fickleness of the human mind, let him say, When I go to sleep, I say, When shall I arise? and again I shall look for the…
Dictionary and topics
Night · Wearisome to the afflicted — Wearisome to the afflicted
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).
Job’s trial might already have gone on for months. • The Hebrew term (‘amal) that runs throughout Job is translated as “misery/miserable” (3:20; 11:16; 16:2; 20:22) or as “trouble” (3:10; 4:8; 5:6, 7; 15:35).
Rashi on Job 7:4
If I would lie down at night, I would hope and say, etc.
and the evening depart When will it become light and when will the time of arising come, and when will the evening depart? [The word מדד ] is an expression of (Gen. 31:40) “and sleep was banished (ותדד).” The “mem” is a defective radical, as in מאמר, statement; משמר, watch.
And I was sated with restlessness I was sated with restlessness on my bed by day until twilight, because, due to the torments I could not sleep until the twilight of day, since my flesh was clothed with worms.
