When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint;
Job has just refused to hold back his words. Now he names the one place a suffering man expects relief — his bed at night — and that raises the question driving the whole book: who is behind the torment, and what is it for?
A bed in Job's world was not what we picture today.
These were mostly divans, low raised seats around the room. They served for reclining on in the day and for sleeping on at night, which explains why they are often called 'beds.'
So the bed was Job's last refuge. One writer compares him with hired workers.
Each day they got relief from their work. The work may have been hard, but they still had their night of ease and rest. "But I have nothing day or night. It is all the same terrible suffering that never lets up."
What Job says here to himself follows a decision he has just made about his mouth.
Job builds on the feeling he has expressed. He says he will not restrain his mouth. He will speak in the anguish of his spirit and complain in the bitterness of his soul (v.11). If we give way to our feelings, the effects will always be this way: we shall not be able to restrain our mouths. Sober wisdom and care for the truth will teach us to hold our words back. Our feelings will lead us to speak without thinking.
Job hoped his bed would comfort him. Instead the nights brought dreams — and one of his friends, Eliphaz, had claimed a vision in the night.
When he looked for comfort in lying down in his bed, he says they "scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions." He refers to the vision Eliphaz claimed to have had. Job thought it was not for his comfort, but to frighten him. That moved him all the more to choose to die.
Job looked past every human and natural cause. Commentators call his faith here real, but incomplete.
Job's piety made him own that God not only must be, but was, concerned in all these calamities; and he was right so far. Job did not blame the Sabeans or the Chaldeans, the lightning, the storm, or the disease. He looked far beyond these secondary causes. He was right to bring God into the trouble. But he was wrong, as we find at the end. He supposed either that there was nothing to correct in his soul, or that God could be anything other than gracious while faithful to him.
What he lacked was not belief in God's involvement but any idea of God's aim.
The real secret of all Job's false reasoning is that he did not understand the character of God, or the purpose of all His dealings. He did not see that God was testing him. He did not see that God was behind the scenes, using various agents to accomplish His wise and gracious ends. Even Satan himself was a mere instrument in the hand of God.
Job could not see who started all this, or why.
God knew what His servant Job needed, and Himself brings forward his case and sets all in movement. Satan is only an instrument — an ignorant though clever instrument — to bring about God's purposes of grace. For Job's good, God lets him have his way up to a point. The aim is to bring Job to know his own heart, and so to a deeper ground of practical relationship with God.
Not every sleepless night is like Job's.
When all is quiet at last, God can speak. Paul and Silas: "about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them" (Acts 16:25). Of King Ahasuerus we read: "On that night the king could not sleep" (Esther 6:1). Then he learned things he had ignored before, and so he set matters right. So insomnia, or sleeplessness, can sometimes be a hidden blessing. In any case it is always a good habit when we suffer from sleeplessness to praise and pray.
- Refuge — The bed was Job's last place of relief, used day and night; when even that failed him, he had nothing left.
- Words — Job let his feelings loose and stopped holding his tongue. Wisdom would have held those words back.
- Source — Job refused to blame people or weather. He traced every blow to God. Commentators call this true but incomplete.
- Blind spot — Job believed God's hand was in it, but he did not know God's aim. Satan was only an instrument in God's hand.
- Purpose — God set it all in motion for Job's good: to bring him to know his own heart and to walk closer with God. So a sleepless night can become a time to pray and praise.
Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions;
Job's bed should have brought him relief. Instead his nights became the worst part of his suffering. Two hard questions follow. Where did the terror come from, and what was God doing?
Job stops describing his misery and turns to speak to God. He traces the dreams to God's hand.
But in the second part Job clearly turned toward God, and began to address Him with his bitter complaint. He realised his own littleness. He was not something great, like a sea or a sea-monster. He cries out that his very nights are a torment. They are filled with dreams and visions of terror which, he feels, come to him from God. He loathes his present life and tells God that he wants to die.
Commentators differ on the source. Some read Job as tracing the dreams straight to God's hand. Another points to Eliphaz, one of Job's friends, who claimed a night vision of his own.
When he looked for comfort in lying down in his bed, he says they "scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions." He refers to the vision Eliphaz claimed to have had. Job considered it was not for his comfort, but to frighten him. This moved him all the more to choose to die. So he declares bitterly, "I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are a breath." We can understand that Job would prefer to be left alone rather than have the cold criticism of his friends.
Job felt God was shooting at him. One writer says he had the archer wrong.
Satan used a misapplication of truth in the speeches of Job's friends. Job 6 shows that this gave Job a terrible shaking. He said, "Oh that my vexation were weighed, and all my calamity laid in the balances! For then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea." "For the arrows of the Almighty are in me; my spirit drinks their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me." This was a great mistake. They were the arrows of Satan. God was not against Job. If Job had only known it, God was for him.
The same writer describes how that lie works on any believer under pressure.
How great is the distress of soul when Satan can insinuate that God is against the believer! How he will magnify every trial, every affliction!
Job's dreams brought him only torment. Yet Scripture does not treat every dream as empty.
Some passages link dreams with trifles and empty things. Even so, the Scriptures give abundant evidence that God often made His mind known to people through dreams. He did this not only with those who obeyed Him, but also with those outside Israel. God said that He would instruct His prophets in dreams. He also used dreams in the case of Nebuchadnezzar and of Daniel, to reveal His will and purpose concerning the future.
Job could see no purpose in his broken nights. Elihu, another speaker in the book, gives one.
Elihu speaks of two different ways in which God deals with man. The first is in a vision of the night, in a dream. When there was no Bible, no written revelation of God, God spoke to man individually by dreams and visions. He does not do so any longer. We now have His completed Word, in which He makes His will known to us. God deals with man this way for a purpose. It is to draw him back from an evil way and to warn him. Then he may leave the pride he nourishes in his heart. It keeps his soul from the pit and his life from perishing by the sword.
Job wanted the suffering to end. One writer names God's purpose in it.
Sometimes we have a little of that experience; but how little it is compared with Job's, and how very quickly it gives place. But God was putting him into the furnace so that he might come out purer than ever. He was under the hand of God, but he begs God's hand to bring it to an end.
- Night — Job's bed was the one place he expected relief. It became the sharpest point of his trial.
- Voices — commentators differ on the source. Some trace the terror to God's hand. Others point to Eliphaz's vision, which frightened Job instead of comforting him.
- Misread — Job blamed the arrows on the Almighty. They were Satan's. God was for him all along.
- Dreams — Scripture links some dreams with empty things. Yet God spoke through dreams before His Word was complete. Now we have that finished Word.
- Furnace — Job could not explain those nights. God had him in the furnace so he would come out purer than ever.