Job 7:4

If I lie down, I say, ¹  ‘When will I arise?’, and the night stretches on ²  and I toss and turn restlessly ³  until the day dawns.

When I lie down I think, ‘How long before I get up?’ The night drags on, and I toss till dawn.

"When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’ But the night continues, And I am continually tossing until dawn.

When I go to bed, I think, ‘When will it be morning?’ But the night drags on, and I toss till dawn.

I go to bed and think, 'How long till I can get up?' I toss and turn as the night drags on--and I'm fed up!

When I go to my bed, I say, When will it be time to get up? but the night is long, and I am turning from side to side till morning light.

When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I rise?’ But the night is long, and I am full of tossing until dawn.

When I lie down, I say, ‘When shall I arise, And the night be ended?’ For I have had my fill of tossing till dawn.

If I lie down, I say, ¹  ‘When will I arise?’, and the night stretches on ²  and I toss and turn restlessly ³  until the day dawns.

¹ tn This is the main clause, and not part of the previous conditional clause; it is introduced by the conjunction אִם (’im) (see GKC 336 §112.gg).

² tn The verb מָדַד (madad) normally means “to measure,” and here in the Piel it has been given the sense of “to extend.” But this is not well attested and not widely accepted. There are many conjectural emendations. Of the most plausible one might mention the view of Gray, who changes מִדַּד (middad, Piel of מָדַּד) to מִדֵּי (midde, comprising the preposition מִן [min] plus the noun דַּי [day], meaning “as often as”): “as often as evening comes.” Dhorme, following the LXX to some extent, adds the word “day” after “when/if” and replaces מִדַּד (middad) with מָתַי (matay, “when”) to read “If I lie down, I say, ‘When comes the morning?’ If I rise up, I say, ‘How long till evening?’” The LXX, however, may be based more on a recollection of Deut 28:67. One can make just as strong a case for the reading adopted here, that the night seems to drag on (so also NIV).

³ tn The Hebrew term נְדֻדִים (nÿdudim, “tossing”) refers to the restless tossing and turning of the sick man at night on his bed. The word is a hapax legomenon derived from the verb נָדַד (nadad, “to flee; to wander; to be restless”). The plural form here sums up the several parts of the actions (GKC 460 §144.f). E. Dhorme (Job, 99) argues that because it applies to both his waking hours and his sleepless nights, it may have more of the sense of wanderings of the mind. There is no doubt truth to the fact that the mind wanders in all this suffering; but there is no need to go beyond the contextually clear idea of the restlessness of the night.