Job 3:26

26. I was not in safety I was not at rest, nor was 1 secure; I rested not, yet trouble came. The common interpretation of this passage is, trouble came upon trouble, without any intermission or respite between them. Hitzig follows the Targum in supposing that the four clauses correspond to the four messengers of misfortune, who, by their quick succession, gave Job no opportunity for resting and recovering from the crushing effect of these continual strokes. The Septuagint, however, renders it, I was not at peace nor quiet, nor had I rest; yet WRATH came upon me; which justifies the view that this verse strikes the keynote of self-justification, heard now for the first time; a note to which the rest of the book resounds. He had lived for God, yet trouble came. He had not, like others, been at rest; in no sense had he sunk into spiritual torpor. The lowest depth is now disclosed: God had afflicted one who had been faithful to him. “Job’s self-justification as a man, after the measure of men, and before men, was just; but, as St. Paul says of Abraham, ‘not before God.’ Hence, when in a subsequent chapter God appears and speaks, he is condemned by both God and himself.” Nothing else in this lamentation justifies the apparent assault of Eliphaz, Job 4:6-7.

The chapter thus concludes with a few startling sentences, each one in the original consisting of two words. The first three are quite the same in meaning, and partake of the tumult of mind through which the servant of God is now passing. Such redundancy or pleonasm is an embellishment common among poets of every age and country, and is often used to express mental perturbation. Comp. Isaiah 8:22.