Job 7:4

4 When I lie down to sleep, the hours drag; I toss all night and long for dawn.

Job 7:4 Meaning and Commentary

Job 7:4

When I lie down, I say, when shall I arise
Or, "then I say" F20; 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" F21; or that "he", that is, God, or "it", my heart, "measures the evening" F23, 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, ( Psalms 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 ( 1 Samuel 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" F24; 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.


FOOTNOTES:

F20 (ytrmaw) "tum dixi", Beza, Piscator, Mercerus.
F21 So Saadiah Gaon.
F23 (bre ddmw) "tum admensus est versperam", Schmidt; "extendit", Schultens; "et cor", Mercerus; so Aben Ezra, Ben Gersom, and Bar Tzemach.
F24 (ytebv) "satior", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius, Schultens.

Job 7:4 In-Context

2 like a slave longing for cool shade; like a worker waiting to be paid.
3 Month after month I have nothing to live for; night after night brings me grief.
4 When I lie down to sleep, the hours drag; I toss all night and long for dawn.
5 My body is full of worms; it is covered with scabs; pus runs out of my sores.
6 My days pass by without hope, pass faster than a weaver's shuttle.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.