Job 7:3

3. Months of vanity The misery, שׁוא , (not “vanity.”) that he is made to inherit month after month, is the pivot of the comparison. As a slave suffers and desires rest, so does Job. The suffering of the former is for a day, followed by its inseparable sweet night of repose; but Job’s misery is for months, with the ever-recurring nights, not of repose, but of distress. Job frequently refers to the night as the season when his sufferings culminated. This leads to the poetical culmination in “nights” rather than in “months.” The Arabs count their time by nights rather than by days. Job’s sufferings had evidently been long protracted before the friends came upon the scene.

Are appointed They appoint, or number out. The agent, as in many other similar cases, Job leaves unmentioned. Compare Job 4:18-19: “they crush:” Job 18:18. “They shall drive him from light to darkness.” Also Job 19:26; Job 34:20. Dr. Tayler Lewis argues, in loc., that the real or supposed agent is some fearful or repulsive being, whom Job on this account dreads to mention. The grammarians, on the other hand, lay down that such forms of the verb may be used indefinitely. See Nordheimer, ii, p. 46.