Job 7:3
in Job 7So I am allotted months of futility, and nights of misery are appointed me.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
So am I made to possess months of misery, And wearisome nights are appointed to me.
KJV
So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.
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This verse in Job 7
Commentary
13 notes on this verseA commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
So am I made to possess - Hebrew I am made to inherit. The meaning is, that such sad and melancholy seasons now were his only portion. Months of vanity - That is, months which were destitute of comfort; in other words, months of affliction. How long his trials had continued before this, we have no means of ascertaining. There is no reason, however, to suppose that his bodily sufferings came upon him all at once, or that they had not continued for a considerable period.
This site's exposition
Is not man consigned to labor on earth
on Job 7:1-3
Job reads his own life through the figure of a hired laborer: "Are not his days like those of a hired hand". The complaint grows from a bad day into a whole allotted season, Job's answer to the friends' view that his suffering is a passing correction.
This site's exposition
months of futility
Barnes gives allotted the sense of inherit, so the months of futility are the estate he has been handed. Nights of misery are appointed him too. Wesley adds that night is the hardest time for the sick.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
Not only is this life painful, but it is also frightful, because, after being wounded, I am now in the condition to fear the blows of the Lord. This is why I jump from one place to another in fright, like those slaves who are …
The Medieval Church3 voices
"So I have passed empty months," for I considered the past months passed empty for me, because I did not obtain final perfection in them. "And nights," i.e. when I should have been resting from my afflictions. "I have counted sleepless," i.e. I considered them …
A commentator
Gregory the DialogistMorals on the Book of Job, Book VIII · Written before 604.
proposed
So am I made to possess months of vanity, and I have numbered me wearisome nights. Yet, if this sentence be referred to the voice of Holy Church, the meaning thereof is traced out with a little more particularity. For she herself has 'months of vanity,' who in her weak members has to bear earthly actions running on to nought without the meed of life. She 'numbers to herself wearisome nights,' in that in her strong members she bears manifold afflictions.
A commentator
BonaventureDisputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection, Question 2 · Written in the 13th century.
proposed
Likewise, Gregory, in the Moralia, on that passage of Job: I have numbered for myself laborious nights: "The elect serve the Creator of all things and are often straitened by want of things; they cling to God through love, and yet they lack the supports …
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
If my sins be not pardoned while I live, I am lost and undone for ever." Note, The consideration of this, that we must shortly die, and perhaps may die suddenly, should make us all very solicitous to get our sins pardoned and our iniquity taken away.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — odd-straight-quotes
5 more voices on this verse
The Puritans and the Awakening4 voices
Months - So he calls them rather than days, to note the tediousness of his affliction. Vanity - Empty and unsatisfying. Nights - He mentions nights, because that is the saddest time for sick and miserable persons; the darkness and solitude of the night being of themselves uncomfortable, and giving them more opportunity for solemn and sorrowful reflections.
So am I made to possess months of vanity,....
Those that are in great uneasiness, through pain of body or anguish of mind, think by changing sides, changing places, changing postures, to get some ease; but, while the cause is the same within, it is all to no purpose; it is but a resemblance of a fretful discontented spirit, that is ever shifting, but never easy.
It very much increases the affliction of sickness and age, to a good man, that he is thereby forced from his usefulness. He insists not so much upon it that they are days in which he has no pleasure as that they are days in which he does not good; on that account they are months of vanity.
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
So am I made to possess - But night is no relief to me, it is only a continuance of my anxiety and labor. I am like the hireling, I have my appointed labor for the day. I am like the soldier harassed by the enemy: I am obliged to be continually on the watch, always on the look out, with scarcely any rest.
The words behind it
9 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| כֵּ֤ן | ken | so | H3651 → | 771 times |
| הָנְחַ֣לְתִּי | hanechalti | I have been allotted | H5157 → | |
| לִ֭י | li | for myself | ||
| יַרְחֵי־ | yarchei- | months of | H3391 → | 12 times |
| שָׁ֑וְא | shav' | worthlessness | H7723 → | 53 times |
| וְלֵיל֥וֹת | veleilot | and nights of | H3915 → | 233 times |
| עָ֝מָ֗ל | ʾamal | trouble | H5999 → | 55 times |
| מִנּוּ־ | minu- | people have allotted | H4487 → | |
| לִֽי׃ | li | to me |
כֵּ֤ןso
kenH3651 →771 times
הָנְחַ֣לְתִּיI have been allotted
hanechaltiH5157 →
לִ֭יfor myself
li
יַרְחֵי־months of
yarchei-H3391 →12 times
שָׁ֑וְאworthlessness
shav'H7723 →53 times
וְלֵיל֥וֹתand nights of
veleilotH3915 →233 times
עָ֝מָ֗לtrouble
ʾamalH5999 →55 times
מִנּוּ־people have allotted
minu-H4487 →
לִֽי׃to me
li
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Ecclesiastes 1:14I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, and have found them all to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.
it leads to
- Ecclesiastes 2:11
Yet when I considered all the works that my hands had accomplished and what I had toiled to achieve, I found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind; there was nothing to…
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Ecclesiastes 2:26
To the man who is pleasing in His sight, He gives wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner He assigns the task of gathering and accumulating that which he will hand over…
- Ecclesiastes 2:17
So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind.
- Ecclesiastes 6:9
Better what the eye can see than the wandering of desire. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.
- Ecclesiastes 2:11
Through
Psalms 39:5You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing before You. Truly each man at his best exists as but a breath. Selah
it leads to
- Psalms 144:4
Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.
- Psalms 89:47
Remember the briefness of my lifespan! For what futility You have created all men!
- Psalms 90:9–10
For all our days decline in Your fury; we finish our years with a sigh.
- Psalms 62:9
Lowborn men are but a vapor, the exalted but a lie. Weighed on the scale, they go up; together they are but a vapor.
- Psalms 144:4
Where this verse is studied
On this page
About Job
This page draws on 11 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Bonaventure, Disputed Questions on Evangelical Perfection, Question 2; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book VIII; Hesychius of Jerusalem, HOMILIES ON JOB 10.7.2-3; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job.