Job 7:4 · World English Bible
Job 7:4 Meaning When I Lie Down
When I lie down, I say, ‘When will I arise, and the night be gone?’ I toss and turn until the dawning of the day.
What does Job 7:4 mean?
Asking when suffering will end keeps a person facing the clock, and the clock is the cruelest part of the night. A mind sent every few minutes to check whether the night is over will report the same finding every time, and each report renews the despair that sent it.
From the Self-Help reading below.
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Asking when suffering will end keeps a person facing the clock, and the clock is the cruelest part of the night.
A mind sent every few minutes to check whether the night is over will report the same finding every time, and each report renews the despair that sent it. The emotion produces the question, the question refreshes the emotion, and the hours get counted rather than passed.
The sores are real and Yahweh has not answered yet. What the repeated asking adds is the measuring, and measuring is what turns a night into a length. A man who moves the question from when this ends to what is still his tonight keeps the pain and stops adding the length of the night to it.
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Live Job 7:4 today
- On a night you cannot sleep, stop checking the clock. Trade when will this end for what is still fine right now, the warm blanket, the quiet, the breath.
- When someone is in a long hard stretch, do not promise them it is almost over. Ask what today actually has in it, and stay in that with them.
- In a slow line, a delayed flight, a waiting room, put the phone away instead of counting minutes. The waiting is the same length either way, but it stops being measured.
How much of what I call hard is the thing itself, and how much is my counting of it?
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