Job 7:3

So am I made to possess months of vanity,.... This is not a reddition or application of the above similes of the servant and hireling, Job 7:1; for that is to be understood, and to be supplied at the

So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me. Months of vanity - comfortless misfortune. "I am made (obliged against my will) to posses" - literally, to be heir to-irony.

This so respects not so much the desire and expectation of a hired servant, which is expressed , as the ground and reason of it, which is plainly implied there, to wit, his hard toil and service, which makes him thirst after rest. I am made to possess; God, by his sovereign power and providence, hath given me this as my lot and inheritance. Months; so he calls them rather than days, to note either the irksomeness and tediousness of his affliction, whereby every day seemed a month to him; or their length and continuance, which, as some infer from hence, had now been upon him some months. Of vanity; empty and unsatisfying, or false and deceitful, not giving me that ease and rest which they promised me, and I expected. Wearisome nights: he mentions nights, because that is the saddest time for sick and miserable persons; the darkness and solitude of the night being of themselves uncomfortable, and giving them more opportunity for solemn and sorrowful thoughts and reflections upon their own miseries.

Job 7:3 So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.Ver. 3. So am I made to possess months of vanity] So, but a great deal worse than so is it with me. The labouring servant hath his shade; the painful hireling hath his hire at the set time; but I am made to possess, or have assigned to me for mine inheritance, not days, but whole months of vanity, that is, of molestation and misery, void of the least comfort or hope of amendment. The soldier, servant, hireling, suffer hardship in hope of better; but with me it is every day worse than other; and were it not for the hope of heaven, the life I lead here would be a little hell to me. From the months of vanity here mentioned (lying months some render them, because he hoped for ease, but found none) it may be gathered that Job’ s calamities lasted a long time, twelve months, say the Hebrews, seven years, saith Suidas. If we hold out faith and patience but half so long in any sort, we think ourselves worthy to be crowned and chronicled. For mouths of vanity some read empty moons; as if Job’ s moon were always in the wane, or ever in the eclipse. And wearisome nights are appointed to me] sc. By God; and that so exactly as if he had numbered them to a night. See Daniel 10:1. Pondere, mensura, numero Deus omnia fecit, It is he that cutteth us out our conditions, that prepareth for us troublesome days and tiresome nights, and purposely that he may take us off from the inordinate love of life: like as by strait binding (which mortifieth and deadeneth the flesh) men are made more able to bear the cutting off of a member; so shall we take our cutting off from this world the more gently, by how much the more painful, pinching days and nights we have endured.

Verse 3. So am I made to possess] But night is no relief to me, it is only a continuance of my anxiety and labour. I am like the hireling, I have my appointed labour for the day. I am like the soldier harassed by the enemy: I am obliged to be continually on the watch, always on the look out, with scarcely any rest.

3. made to possess] lit. made to inherit. They are laid on him by the will of another. Job narrows his view here from the lot of men in general to his own. He is one of an afflicted race, but the universal misery does not alleviate his own, it rather increases it. That loss is common would not make My own less bitter, rather more; Too common! Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break. A sorrowing Arab poet gives expression to a different feeling: Did not a common sorrow console me I would not live an hour among men, But whenever I will, they in like condition with myself respond to me. Hamasa, p. 389, 396. The point of comparison between Job’s life and the day of the hireling lies in their common toil and their common longing for the end of it. Job describes his day as “months of vanity” and “nights of trouble,” indicating that his disease had already endured a long time. He refers to “nights” perhaps because his pains were severest then (cf. Job 7:4; Job 7:14, ch. Job 30:17); although in the East the method also of counting by nights instead of days was common.

So am I made to possess - Hebrew I am made to inherit. The meaning is, that such sad and melancholy seasons now were his only portion.

3. Months of vanity — The misery, ùׁ ?åà, (not “vanity.”) that he is made to inherit month after month, is the pivot of the comparison. As a slave suffers and desires rest, so does Job.