So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.
Job answers his friends by comparing life on earth to hard service — the long day of a hired worker. He got empty months and painful nights in return for the good he did, and that raises a hard question: has God been fair with him?
Note: the older translation used in the quotes below says "months of vanity" and "wearisome nights." The ESV says "months of emptiness" and "nights of misery."
Verses 1 and 2 set up a working man's day, and verse 3 turns it against Job. A labourer at least gets his evening; Job had no break at all.
"Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth?" (Job 7). There he has another ground; his trial was so prolonged. It was not merely a huge trial of the kind that usually passes very quickly in this world… A servant longs for the shade of evening, when he has finished his work. A hired worker looks for the reward of his work. "So I am made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me." Servants and hired workers had their break from work every day. The work may have been hard, but they still had their night of ease and rest. Job could only say: "I have nothing day or night; it is all the same terrible unbroken suffering."
Job's comparison shows how he was thinking about God: as an employer with a payroll.
Job's questions in verse 1 show why he was so upset at God's dealings… Many people are like Job here. They think of their relationship to God as that of a hired man working for a fair employer. Do right, and the pay should be good. Do wrong, and they expect a painful return. But Job was in agonising pain. Was this the pay for the good he had done? He had looked eagerly for his wages for doing good (v. 2), and found himself enduring months of futility and wearisome nights, tossing to and fro in his bed.
The same writer names what God was after in leaving that wage unpaid.
God was seeking to teach Job that his relationship to Him must not be that of a man working for wages. Job was one whom God loved and who loved God. So he was to do good out of a heart of love, expecting no payment for it. Job did not at this time understand this, and neither did his friends.
Job weighs his months of pain against a life that is almost over.
Having challenged his friends to test him, Job now dwells on his sufferings, with the shortness of life in view. His nights are sleepless, full of "tossings to and fro," and his months of pain never let up. So he longs for that "appointed time" set for all flesh, like a hired worker waiting eagerly for the close of his day's work.
Job was not exaggerating, and his friends owed him a response they never gave.
No one can read the first section without being struck by the sadness of his plight. He felt it deeply himself, and he expressed it in a moving way. "Months of vanity" and "wearisome nights" had been his portion. A servant or hired worker longs for the shade of evening and for his wages; in the same way Job was longing for the end… He paints his pitiful state in the clearest colours, and his friends should have been more filled with compassion.
Job could see no reason for months rather than moments. God had one.
But God was putting him into the furnace in order that he might come out purer than ever.
He would put the precious ore into the crucible. He knew how much unsuspected evil lay hidden under all that outward excellence, mixed even with the inner piety of this good man. He would show that even piety cannot feed upon itself, nor righteousness lean upon its own arm.
Job says the nights were apportioned to him. He meant it as a complaint; read another way, the same word is comfort.
Your time is measured. Infinite wisdom considered your days and hours of suffering from eternity.
- Appointed — Job's nights were not random. God measured them out, and infinite wisdom counted every hour before they came.
- Wages — He treated God as an employer who owed him good pay for good work. The unpaid wage is what made the pain unbearable.
- Love — God's lesson was that the bond is love, not payroll. Do good because you love Him, and expect no pay.
- Furnace — The trial ran into months, not moments. A crucible needs time to bring up what lies hidden under real piety.
- Compassion — His plight was real, and he told it plainly. His friends answered with argument instead of pity.
If I lie down, I say, When shall I rise up, and the darkness be gone? and I am full of tossings until the dawn.
Job is describing a body that gets no rest. Lying down only starts the count towards morning, and the verse raises the question the whole book circles: why does God let a man He calls precious suffer pain that never stops?
Job has just compared himself to a hired worker longing for the end of the shift. The worker gets his evening; Job gets nothing.
Here he has another reason to complain: his trial lasted so long. It was not just a huge trial, which is usually very brief in this world. If people have great agony, say in the foot or the head, very often they become unconscious if it is the head. If it is the foot, no doubt it is very trying, but it passes. The attack passes. "But how is it that I from head to foot am nothing but a mass of sores, and inwardly suffering the deepest agony?"… Hired workers had their daily break from work. The work may be hard, but still they 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."
One writer sees a pattern in what Job lost: his property, then his family, then his health.
We can see that it was divine wisdom that chose these three things to represent the whole range of human suffering. First there was the sudden loss of all his possessions… Then the total loss of his family, which was bereavement. Then there was terrible pain. It is very hard to imagine the painful state he describes: ulcers covering him from head to foot, and no relief from pain day or night… And when the day comes it is just the same thing over again (Job 7:4-6). Job's sufferings were of a kind very well known to us.
The picture Job reaches for — a worker watching for wages — shows how he was thinking about God. Many people think the same way.
Many people consider their relationship to God to be like that of a hired man working for a righteous employer. If they do right, their pay should be good; if they do wrong, they expect painful repayment. But Job was suffering agonising pain. Was this the pay for the good he had done?… God was seeking to teach Job that his relationship to Him must not be that of a man working for wages. It must be that of one whom God loved and who loved God, doing good out of a heart of love, expecting no payment for it. Job did not at this time understand this, and neither did his friends.
As the chapter goes on, Job's sleepless nights become proof to him that God has turned against him.
God is his enemy, watching as if he were the tossing sea, ready to overleap its bounds, or some monster of the waters to be taken and destroyed. Day and night His hand was heavy upon him. The broken sleep as he tossed on his bed was unbearable, because of the terrifying dreams God sent. So strangling was better than the choking dread that filled his soul with terror. Poor sufferer! And he was attributing it to his best Friend!
Part of what makes the night so long is that Job has no idea why it is happening. That silence was deliberate.
At first sight the difficulty grows when we remember how precious he was to God, and God's tender mercy to His children. Think of such a trial on earth, right after hearing what God said about him in heaven. But much of the profit this book gives depends on one thing: God made known both His estimate of Job and Satan's trial of him only in heaven. The reason for the trial stayed a secret for the present — a secret on earth, not in heaven. Neither Job nor his friends knew anything of what God had said about him.
Job's own reading of his future was bleak. The book's ending contradicts it.
If Job had only realised that it was because of God's pure love to him that He allowed such things to try him, how different would his attitude have been! In the end he was brought to that conclusion, so the story closes bright with God's praise and Job's great blessing.
- Unrelieved — Job's complaint is not that the pain was sharp. It never stopped. Even night, which gives the hardest worker his rest, gave him nothing.
- Representative — his losses covered property, family and health. That is why his sleepless night still reads like suffering we know.
- Misconceived — behind his words lies the hired-man view of God: good behaviour should buy good treatment. God was teaching him love instead.
- Misattributed — Job read the long nights as proof that God had turned against him. He was blaming his best Friend.
- Hidden, then blessed — Job never learned on earth why the trial came. It came from God's love, and the book ends in blessing, not in the hopeless dawn Job expected.