In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men,
The verse belongs to Job 4-7, within a book that sets forth the great problems that have perplexed humanity through all ages concerning overruling providence and sin and suffering, where God disciplines Job by bringing him through the fire of affliction while his three friends charge him with sin and declare his sufferings are because of sin, exposing how prone humanity is to misjudge its fellows. It describes Eliphaz's reported experience of receiving thoughts from a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, placing visions in the thoughts of the night while people are in deep sleep. That experience was terrifying and awe-filled, involving an image, silence, and a speaking voice, illustrating the fear that can accompany an encounter with the unseen. Night visions of this kind are one way God communicates with people.
The verse shows truth is always present and always operating, in private no less than in public, in shade equally as in sunshine, at midnight as well as at noon, often working in night visions during deep sleep wherever there is a conscience to feel or a mind to think, drawing with silent, sweet, irresistible attraction like gravitation to work out its blessed results. When read with Job 4:11-19, the passage describes sheol as a place of silence, secrecy, sleep, rest, darkness, corruption, and worms where the dead lie in the dust, a sleeping, dark state of death without knowledge or conscious activity. The verse only identifies the setting of Eliphaz's reported vision and does not prove that all his claims about Job and God were true, for his statements cannot be treated as reliable simply because they appear in Scripture but must be tested against inspired declarations elsewhere in the Bible.
The verse belongs to Job 4-7, within a book that sets forth the great problems that have perplexed humanity through all ages concerning overruling providence and sin and suffering, where God disciplines Job by bringing him through the fire of affliction while his three friends charge him with sin and declare his sufferings are because of sin, exposing how prone humanity is to misjudge its fellows. It describes Eliphaz's reported experience of receiving thoughts from a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, placing visions in the thoughts of the night while people are in deep sleep. That experience was terrifying and awe-filled, involving an image, silence, and a speaking voice, illustrating the fear that can accompany an encounter with the unseen. Night visions of this kind are one way God communicates with people.
The verse shows truth is always present and always operating, in private no less than in public, in shade equally as in sunshine, at midnight as well as at noon, often working in night visions during deep sleep wherever there is a conscience to feel or a mind to think, drawing with silent, sweet, irresistible attraction like gravitation to work out its blessed results. When read with Job 4:11-19, the passage describes sheol as a place of silence, secrecy, sleep, rest, darkness, corruption, and worms where the dead lie in the dust, a sleeping, dark state of death without knowledge or conscious activity. The verse only identifies the setting of Eliphaz's reported vision and does not prove that all his claims about Job and God were true, for his statements cannot be treated as reliable simply because they appear in Scripture but must be tested against inspired declarations elsewhere in the Bible.