When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’ But the night is long, and I am full of tossing till 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?
A Night That Gives No Relief
Job has just compared himself to a hired worker longing for the end of the shift. The worker gets his evening; Job gets nothing.
William KellyHere 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."
Suffering in Its Full Range
One writer sees a pattern in what Job lost: his property, then his family, then his health.
Truth & TestimonyWe 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 Hired-Man Mistake
The picture Job reaches for — a worker watching for wages — shows how he was thinking about God. Many people think the same way.
Leslie M. GrantMany 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.
Blaming the Wrong Person
As the chapter goes on, Job's sleepless nights become proof to him that God has turned against him.
Samuel RidoutGod 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!
Why No Explanation Came
Part of what makes the night so long is that Job has no idea why it is happening. That silence was deliberate.
William KellyAt 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.
Love Behind the Trial
Job's own reading of his future was bleak. The book's ending contradicts it.
Leslie M. GrantIf 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.
Summary
- 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.