Job 7:14

Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:7-16 Plain truths as to the shortness and vanity of man's life, and the certainty of death, do us good, when we think and speak of them with application to ourselves. Dying is done but once, and therefore it had need be well done. An error here is past retrieve. Other clouds arise, but the same cloud never returns: so a new generation of men is raised up, but the former generation vanishes away. Glorified saints shall return no more to the cares and sorrows of their houses; nor condemned sinners to the gaieties and pleasures of their houses. It concerns us to secure a better place when we die. From these reasons Job might have drawn a better conclusion than this, I will complain. When we have but a few breaths to draw, we should spend them in the holy, gracious breathings of faith and prayer; not in the noisome, noxious breathings of sin and corruption. We have much reason to pray, that He who keeps Israel, and neither slumbers nor sleeps, may keep us when we slumber and sleep. Job covets to rest in his grave. Doubtless, this was his infirmity; for though a good man would choose death rather than sin, yet he should be content to live as long as God pleases, because life is our opportunity of glorifying him, and preparing for heaven.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Then thou scarest me - This is an address to God. He regarded him as the source of his sorrows, and he expresses his sense of this in language indeed very beautiful, but far from reverence.

With dreams - see Job 7:4. A similar expression occurs in Ovid:

Ut puto, cam requies medicinaque publica curae,

Somnus adest, soliris nox venit orba malis,

Somnia me terrent. veros imitantia casus,

Et vigilant sensus in mea damna mei.

Do Ponto, Lib. i. Eleg. 2.

And terrifiest me through visions - See the notes at Job 4:13. This refers to the visions of the fancy, or to frightful appearances in the night. The belief of such night-visions was common in the early ages, and Job regarded them as under the direction of God, and as being designed to alarm him.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

14. The frightful dreams resulting from elephantiasis he attributes to God; the common belief assigned all night visions to God.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

With sad and dreadful dreams, arising either from that melancholy humour which is now so fixed in me, and predominant over me, or from the devil’s malice, who by thy permission disturbs me in this manner; so that I am afraid to go to sleep, and my remedy proves as bad as my disease.

Visions are the same thing with dreams; for there were not only day visions, which were offered to men’s sight when they were awake; but also night visions, which were presented to men’s fancy in their sleep and dreams. See Genesis 28:12 41:1,2 Da 2:1,31 4:5,10.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Then thou scarest me with dreams,.... Not with dreams and visions being told him, as were by Eliphaz, Job 4:13; but with dreams he himself dreamed; and which might arise from the force of his distemper, and the pain of his body, whereby his sleep was broken, his imagination disturbed, and his fancy roving, which led him to objects as seemed to him very terrible and dreadful; or from a melancholy disposition his afflictions had brought upon him; and hence in his dreams he had dismal apprehensions of things very distressing and terrifying; or from Satan, in whose hands he was, and who was permitted to distress and disturb him at such seasons; all which he ascribes to God, because he suffered it so to be: and now these dreams not only hindered sound sleep, and getting that ease and refreshment he hoped for from thence, but even they were frightful and scaring to him, so that instead of being the better for his bed and his couch, he was the worse; these dreams added to his afflictions, and in them he suffered much, as Pilate's wife is said to do, Matthew 27:19,

and terrifiest me through visions; spectres, apparitions, and such like things, being presented to his fancy, while sleeping and dreaming, which filled him with terror, and sorely distressed him, so that he could receive no benefit hereby, but rather was more fatigued and weakened.

Geneva Study Bible

Then thou scarest me {i} with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions:

(i) So that I can have no rest, night or day.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Job 7:14

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

12 Am I a sea or a sea-monster,

That thou settest a watch over me?

13 For I said, My bed shall comfort me;

My couch shall help me to bear my complaint.

14 Then thou scaredst me with dreams,

And thou didst wake me up in terror from visions,

15 So that my soul chose suffocation,

Death rather than this skeleton.

16 I loathe it, I would not live alway;

Let me alone, for my days are breath.

Since a watch on the sea can only be designed to effect the necessary precautions at its coming forth from the shores, it is probable that the poet had the Nile in mind when he used ים, and consequently the crocodile by תּנּין. The Nile is also called ים in Isaiah 19:5, and in Homer ὠκεανός, Egyptian oham ( equals ὠκεανός), and is even now called (at least by the Bedouins) bahhr (Arab. bahr). The illustrations of the book, says von Gerlach correctly, are chiefly Egyptian. On the contrary, Hahn thinks the illustration is unsuitable of the Nile, because it is not watched on account of its danger, but its utility; and Schlottman thinks it even small and contemptible without assigning a reason. The figure is, however, appropriate. As watches are set to keep the Nile in channels as soon as it breaks forth, and as men are set to watch that they may seize the crocodile immediately he moves here or there; so Job says all his movements are checked at the very commencement, and as soon as he desires to be more cheerful he feels the pang of some fresh pain. In Job 7:13, ב after נשׂא is partitive, as Numbers 11:17; Mercier correctly: non nihil querelam meam levabit. If he hopes for such repose, it forthwith comes to nought, since he starts up affrighted from his slumber. Hideous dreams often disturb the sleep of those suffering with elephantiasis, says Avicenna (in Stickel, S. 170). Then he desires death; he wishes that his difficulty of breathing would increase to suffocation, the usual end of elephantiasis. מחנק is absolute (without being obliged to point it מחנק with Schlottm.), as e.g., מרמס, Isaiah 10:6 (Ewald, 160, c). He prefers death to these his bones, i.e., this miserable skeleton or framework of bone to which he is wasted away. He despises, i.e., his life, Job 9:21. Amid such suffering he would not live for ever. הבל, like רוּח, Job 7:7.