Bible Strands
Job 36:20
Do not long for the night, when people vanish from their homes.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Elihu addresses Job within his ongoing discourse on divine justice, warning him against trusting wealth or human effort to avert coming distress.
The words — תִּשְׁאַ֥ף (tish.'Af) means you long for, and הַ/לָּ֑יְלָה (ha./La.ye.lah) means the night, forming the literal command against desiring nocturnal cover.
The thread — The pattern of sudden nocturnal judgment recurs in Exodus 12:29, 2 Kings 19:35, and Job 34:20, where death or divine strike occurs without warning during darkness.
Why it lands — The text commands readers not to seek the night as a refuge, since it brings unannounced removal from safety and demands sober readiness for God's intervention.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Desire not the night, when people are cut off in their place.
Cross-references
- Exodus 12:29 Now at midnight the LORD struck down every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner in the dungeon, as well as all the firstborn among the livestock.
- 2 Kings 19:35 And that very night the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies!
- Job 34:20 They die in an instant, in the middle of the night. The people convulse and pass away; the mighty are removed without human hand.
- Job 34:25 Therefore, He recognizes their deeds; He overthrows them in the night and they are crushed.
- Job 3:20 Why is light given to the miserable, and life to the bitter of soul,
- Job 6:9 that God would be willing to crush me, to unleash His hand and cut me off!
- Job 7:15 so that I would prefer strangling and death over my life in this body.
- Job 14:13 If only You would hide me in Sheol and conceal me until Your anger has passed! If only You would appoint a time for me and then remember me!
- Job 17:13 If I look for Sheol as my home, if I spread out my bed in darkness,
- Proverbs 14:32 The wicked man is thrown down by his own sin, but the righteous man has a refuge even in death.