Job 7:13

If ¹  I say, ²  “My bed will comfort me, ³  my couch will ease ⁴  my complaint,”

Job 7:3,4; Job 9:27,28; Ps 6:6; Ps 77:4

¹ tn The particle כִּי (ki) could also be translated “when,” but “if” might work better to introduce the conditional clause and to parallel the earlier reasoning of Job in v. 4 (using אִם, ’im). See GKC 336-37 §112.hh.

² tn The verb literally means “say,” but here the connotation must be “think” or “say to oneself” – “when I think my bed….”

³ sn Sleep is the recourse of the troubled and unhappy. Here “bed” is metonymical for sleep. Job expects sleep to give him the comfort that his friends have not.

⁴ tn The verb means “to lift up; to take away” (נָשָׂא, nasa’). When followed by the preposition בּ (bet) with the complement of the verb, the idea is “to bear a part; to take a share,” or “to share in the burden” (cf. Num 11:7). The idea then would be that the sleep would ease the complaint. It would not end the illness, but the complaining for a while.