DEUTERONOMY xxviii. 36, 37.
Not the least impressive of the afflictions denounced against a disloyal
people, in the book Deuteronomy, is that which should make day and night
a fear and a trouble to them; so that in the morning they should say,
“Would God it were even!” and at even, “Would God it were morning!”
There is at once terrible realism and suggestiveness in words but too
familiar to most who have themselves suffered, or watched by the couch
of sleepless suffering. Job utters a complaint of wearisome nights as
appointed to him; so that when he lay down, he said, “When shall I arise,
and the night be gone?” and thus was he full of tossings to and fro unto
the dawning of the day. Like the Psalmist, he cried in the daytime, but
it seemed that God heard not; and in the night season he was not silent,
but it seemed as though from above there was neither voice, nor any to
answer, nor any that regarded. In such cases, one day telleth another of
seeming desolation; and one night certifieth another almost of despair.
And the eventide is longed for in broad daylight, if haply, with mere
change, it may bring relief. But when it has set in, and eve has saddened
into night, there is wearying for daybreak, as possibly the bringer of a
boon that, however, it fails to bring.