Job 7:4
Verse
Context
Job Continues: Life Seems Futile
3So I am allotted months of futility, and nights of misery are appointed me. 4When I lie down I think: ‘When will I get up?’ But the night drags on, and I toss and turn until dawn. 5My flesh is clothed with worms and encrusted with dirt; my skin is cracked and festering.
Sermons
Vance HavnerSummary
Commentary
- Adam Clarke
- Keil-Delitzsch
- Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
- John Gill
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
When I lie down - I have so little rest, that when I do lie down I long for the return of the light, that I may rise. Nothing can better depict the state of a man under continual afflictions, which afford him no respite, his days and his nights being spent in constant anguish, utterly unable to be in any one posture, so that he is continually changing his position in his bed, finding ease nowhere: thus, as himself expresses it, he is full of tossings.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
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 invalid prominent. In נדדים and מדד there is a play of words (Ebrard). רמּה, worms, in reference to the putrifying ulcers; and גּוּשׁ (with זעירא )ג, clod of earth, from the cracked, scaly, earth-coloured skin of one suffering with elephantiasis. The praett. are used of that which is past and still always present, the futt. consec. of that which follows in and with the other. The skin heals, רגע (which we render with Ges., Ew., contrahere se); the result is that it becomes moist again. ימּאס, according to Ges. 67, rem. 4 = ימּס, Psa 58:8. His days pass swiftly away; the result is that they come to an end without any hope whatever. ארג is like κερκίς, radius, a weaver's shuttle, by means of which the weft is shot between the threads of the warp as they are drawn up and down. His days pass as swiftly by as the little shuttle passes backwards and forwards in the warp. Next follows a prayer to God for the termination of his pain, since there is no second life after the present, and consequently also the possibility of requital ceases with death.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
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 Bible Commentary
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 out to its full time: to a discomposed person, that cannot sleep, the night seems long; such count every hour, tell every clock that strikes, and long to see peep of day; these are they that watch for the morning, Psa 130:6, and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day; or, "unto the twilight"; the morning twilight; though some understand it of the twilight or evening of the next day, see Sa1 30:17; and interpret "the tossings to and fro" of the toils and labours of the day, and of the sorrows and miseries of it, lengthened out to the eve of the following day; but rather they are to be understood either of the tosses of his mind, his distressed and perplexed thoughts within him he was full of; or of the tosses of his body, his frequent turning himself upon his bed, from side to side, to ease him; and with these he was "filled", or "satiated" (x); he had enough and too much of them; he was glutted and sated with them, as a man is with overmuch eating, as the word signifies. (t) "tum dixi", Beza, Piscator, Mercerus. (u) So Saadiah Gaon. (w) "tum admensus est versperam", Schmidt; "extendit", Schultens; "et cor", Mercerus; so Aben Ezra, Ben Gersom, and Bar Tzemach. (x) "satior", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius, Schultens.
Job 7:4
Job Continues: Life Seems Futile
3So I am allotted months of futility, and nights of misery are appointed me. 4When I lie down I think: ‘When will I get up?’ But the night drags on, and I toss and turn until dawn. 5My flesh is clothed with worms and encrusted with dirt; my skin is cracked and festering.
- Scripture
- Sermons
- Commentary
- Adam Clarke
- Keil-Delitzsch
- Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
- John Gill
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
When I lie down - I have so little rest, that when I do lie down I long for the return of the light, that I may rise. Nothing can better depict the state of a man under continual afflictions, which afford him no respite, his days and his nights being spent in constant anguish, utterly unable to be in any one posture, so that he is continually changing his position in his bed, finding ease nowhere: thus, as himself expresses it, he is full of tossings.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
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 invalid prominent. In נדדים and מדד there is a play of words (Ebrard). רמּה, worms, in reference to the putrifying ulcers; and גּוּשׁ (with זעירא )ג, clod of earth, from the cracked, scaly, earth-coloured skin of one suffering with elephantiasis. The praett. are used of that which is past and still always present, the futt. consec. of that which follows in and with the other. The skin heals, רגע (which we render with Ges., Ew., contrahere se); the result is that it becomes moist again. ימּאס, according to Ges. 67, rem. 4 = ימּס, Psa 58:8. His days pass swiftly away; the result is that they come to an end without any hope whatever. ארג is like κερκίς, radius, a weaver's shuttle, by means of which the weft is shot between the threads of the warp as they are drawn up and down. His days pass as swiftly by as the little shuttle passes backwards and forwards in the warp. Next follows a prayer to God for the termination of his pain, since there is no second life after the present, and consequently also the possibility of requital ceases with death.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
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 Bible Commentary
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 out to its full time: to a discomposed person, that cannot sleep, the night seems long; such count every hour, tell every clock that strikes, and long to see peep of day; these are they that watch for the morning, Psa 130:6, and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day; or, "unto the twilight"; the morning twilight; though some understand it of the twilight or evening of the next day, see Sa1 30:17; and interpret "the tossings to and fro" of the toils and labours of the day, and of the sorrows and miseries of it, lengthened out to the eve of the following day; but rather they are to be understood either of the tosses of his mind, his distressed and perplexed thoughts within him he was full of; or of the tosses of his body, his frequent turning himself upon his bed, from side to side, to ease him; and with these he was "filled", or "satiated" (x); he had enough and too much of them; he was glutted and sated with them, as a man is with overmuch eating, as the word signifies. (t) "tum dixi", Beza, Piscator, Mercerus. (u) So Saadiah Gaon. (w) "tum admensus est versperam", Schmidt; "extendit", Schultens; "et cor", Mercerus; so Aben Ezra, Ben Gersom, and Bar Tzemach. (x) "satior", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius, Schultens.