Job 3:7

Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Job 3:7. Let that night be solitary — Destitute of all society of men, meeting and feasting together. Let it afford no entertainment or pleasure of any kind; let no joyful voice come therein — No music, no harmony of sound be heard, no cheerful or pleasing voice admitted! Let no expressions of joy be so much as once attempted, however engaging and affecting they may be.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:1-10 For seven days Job's friends sat by him in silence, without offering consolidation: at the same time Satan assaulted his mind to shake his confidence, and to fill him with hard thoughts of God. The permission seems to have extended to this, as well as to torturing the body. Job was an especial type of Christ, whose inward sufferings, both in the garden and on the cross, were the most dreadful; and arose in a great degree from the assaults of Satan in that hour of darkness. These inward trials show the reason of the change that took place in Job's conduct, from entire submission to the will of God, to the impatience which appears here, and in other parts of the book. The believer, who knows that a few drops of this bitter cup are more dreadful than the sharpest outward afflictions, while he is favoured with a sweet sense of the love and presence of God, will not be surprised to find that Job proved a man of like passions with others; but will rejoice that Satan was disappointed, and could not prove him a hypocrite; for though he cursed the day of his birth, he did not curse his God. Job doubtless was afterwards ashamed of these wishes, and we may suppose what must be his judgment of them now he is in everlasting happiness.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Lo, let that night be solitary - Dr. Good, "O! that night! Let it be a barren rock!" Noyes, "O let that night be unfruitful!" Herder, "Let that night be set apart by itself." The Hebrew word used here גלמוּד galmûd means properly "hard;" then sterile, barren, as of a hard and rocky soil. It does not mean properly solitary, but that which is unproductive and unfruitful. It is used of a woman who is barren, Isaiah 49:21, and also of that which is lean, famished, emaciated with hunger; Job 15:34; Job 30:3. According to this it means that that should be a night in which none would be born - a night of loneliness and desolation. According to Jerome, it means that the night should be solitary, lonely, and gloomy; a night in which no one would venture forth to make a journey, and in which none would come together to rejoice. Thus interpreted the night would resemble that which is so beautifully describe by Virgil, Aeneid vi. 268:

Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbras,

Perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna.

It is probable, however, that the former is the correct interpretation.

Let no joyful voice come therein - Let there be no sound of praise and rejoicing. The Chaldee paraphrases this," Let not the crowing of a cock be heard in it." The sense of the whole is, that Job wished that night to be wholly desolate. He wished there might be no assembling for amusement, congratulation, or praise, no marriage festivals, and no rejoicing at the birth of children; he would have it as noiseless, solitary, and sad, as if all animals and human beings were dead, and no voice were heard. It was a night hateful to him, and he would have it in no way remembered.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. solitary—rather, "unfruitful." "Would that it had not given birth to me."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Solitary, i.e. destitute of all society of men meeting and feasting together, which commonly was done at night, suppers being the most solemn meals among divers ancient nations. See Mark 6:21 Luke 14:16 John 12:2 Revelation 19:9,17.

Let no joyful voice; neither of the bride and bridegroom, nor any that celebrate their nuptials, or any other merry solemnity.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Lo, let that night be solitary,.... Let there be no company for journeys, or doing any business; no meetings of friends, neighbours, or relations on it, for refreshment, pleasure, and recreation, after the business of the day is over, as is frequently done; let there be no associations of this kind, or any other: in the night it was usual to have feasts on various accounts, and especially on account of marriage; but now let there be none, let there be as profound a silence as if all creatures, men and beasts, were dead, and removed from off the face of the earth, and nothing to be heard and seen on it: or, "let it be barren" or "desolate" (e), so R. Simeon bar Tzemach interprets it, and refers to Isaiah 49:21; that is, let no children be born in it, and so no occasion for any joy on that account, as follows; let it be as barren as a flint (f):

let no joyful voice come therein; which some even carry to the nocturnal singing of saints in private or in public assemblies, and to the songs of angels, those morning stars in heaven; but it seems rather to design natural or civil joy, or singing on civil accounts; as on account of marriage, and particularly on account of the birth of a child, and especially his own birth, and even any expressions of joy on any account; and that there might not be so much as the crowing of a cock heard, as the Targum has it.

(e) "orba", Syr. "desolata", Ar. "vasta", Schmidt. (f) "Sterilis", Schultens; "effoetus", apud Arab. in ib. See Hottinger. Smegma Orientale, l. 1. c. 7. p. 136.

Geneva Study Bible

Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7. be solitary] Rather perhaps, barren, as Isaiah 49:21. Let it not experience a parent’s joy, and le nought that lives date its birth from it.

no joyful voice] of birthday rejoicing.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 7. - Lo, let that night be solitary; or, sterile; "let no one be born in it." Lot no joyful voice come therein; literally, no song. Perhaps the moaning is, "Let no such joyful announcement be made," as that mentioned in ver. 3. Job 3:7

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

6 That night! let darkness seize upon it;

Let it not rejoice among the days of the year;

Let it not come into the number of the month.

7 Lo! let that night become barren;

Let no sound of gladness come to it.

8 Let those who curse the day curse it,

Who are skilled in stirring up leviathan.

9 Let the stars of its early twilight be darkened;

Let it long for light and there be none;

And let it not refresh itself with eyelids of the dawn.

Darkness is so to seize it, and so completely swallow it up, that it shall not be possible for it to pass into the light of day. It is not to become a day, to be reckoned as belonging to the days of the year and rejoice in the light thereof. יחדּ, for יחדּ, fut. Kal from חדה (Exodus 18:9), with Dagesh lene retained, and a helping Pathach (vid., Ges. 75, rem. 3, d); the reverse of the passage Genesis 49:6, where יחד, from יחד, uniat se, is found. It is to become barren, גּלמוּד, so that no human being shall ever be conceived and born, and greeted joyfully in it.

(Note: Fries understands רננה, song of the spheres (concentum coeli, Job 38:37, Vulg.); but this Hellenic conception is without support in holy Scripture.)

"Those who curse days" are magicians who know how to change days into dies infausti by their incantations. According to vulgar superstition, from which the imagery of Job 3:8 is borrowed, there was a special art of exciting the dragon, which is the enemy of sun and moon, against them both, so that, by its devouring them, total darkness prevails. The dragon is called in Hindu râhu; the Chinese, and also the natives of Algeria, even at the present day make a wild tumult with drums and copper vessels when an eclipse of the sun or moon occurs, until the dragon will release his prey.

(Note: On the dragon rhu, that swallows up sun and moon, vid., Pott, in the Hallische Lit. Zeitschr. 1849, No. 199; on the custom of the Chinese, Kuffer, Das chinesische Volk, S. 123. A similar custom among the natives of Algeria I have read of in a newspaper (1856). Moreover, the clouds which conceal the sky the Indians represent as a serpent. It is ahi, the cloud-serpent, which Indra chases away when he divides the clouds with his lightning. Vid., Westergaard in Weber's Indischer Zeitschr. 1855, S. 417.)

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