How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?
Ver. 9. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard?] The ear, we say, is first up in a morning: call a sleeping man by his name, and he will sooner awake and answer to it than to anything else. The wise man therefore thus deals with the sluggard, that he may go forth and shake him, as Samson, not giving way to excessive sleep, which comes as a publican, saith Plutarch, and takes away a third part of our lives at least. Pliny a said to his nephew, when he saw him walk out some hours without studying, Poteras has horas non perdere, you might have put these hours to better uses. May not the same be said to the sleepy sluggard? While the crocodile sleeps with open mouth, the Indian rat shoots himself into his body, and eats up his entrails. While Ishbosheth slept upon his bed at noon, Baanah and Rechab took away his head. Epaminondas, a renowned captain, finding one of his sentinels asleep, thrust him through with his sword: and being chided for so great severity, replied, Talem eum reliqui qualem inveni, I left him but as I found him. It must be our care that death serve us not in like sort, that we be not taken napping, and so "killed with death." Rev 2:23 The bird Onocrotalus is so well practised to expect the hawk to grapple with her, that even when she shutteth her eyes she sleepeth with her beak exalted, as if she would contend with her adversary, to teach us continual vigilance, resembling those who were wont to sleep with brazen balls in their hands, which falling on vessels purposely set on their bedsides, the noise did dissuade immoderate sleep, Nullus mihi per otium exit dies, partem etiam noctium studiis vindico, saith Seneca, b I let no day pass me idly, some part of the night also I spend in study. Our King Alfred, 872 AD, cast the natural day into three parts: eight hours he spent in prayer, study, and writing, eight in the service of his body, and eight in the affairs of his state; which space, having then no other divice for it, he measured by a great wax light divided into so many parts, receiving notice by the keeper thereof, as the several hours passed in the burning. c The Jews divided likewise the day into three parts, the first, ad Tephilla, for prayer; the second, ad Torah, for reading the law; the third, ad Malachah, for work; no talk of sleep. Their work would, likely, keep them waking. As for the law, what Servilius Scevola said of the civil law, holds more true of the divine, Ius civile scriptum est vigilantibus non dormitantibus, the law was not written for sleepers, but wakers. Jerome exhorted some godly women to whom he wrote, not to lay the Bible out of their hands, until being overcome with sleep, and not able any longer to hold up their heads, they bowed them down, as it were, to greet the leaves below them, with a kiss. d And for prayer, David would not fall asleep at it, but break his sleep for it. Psalms 119:62 ; Psa 119:147 He was at it at midnight, at day dawn, and "In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up." Psa 5:3 Two military words e he there makes use of, to shew his wakefulness at his work soldiers are not the greatest sleepers: Caesar was no less vigilant, than valiant: Scanderbeg from his first coming to Epirus never slept more than two hours in a night; - he would not only pray, but marshal up his prayers, put them in good array; and when he had so done, he would be as a spy upon a tower, to see whether he prevailed, whether he got the day. f The spouse slept, but her heart waked; and, as repenting of that half-sleep also, which yet the night and foul weather persuaded, she promiseth to get up early. Song of Solomon 5:2 ; Son 7:12 Our Saviour was up and at prayer "a great while before day." Mar 1:35 The holy angels are styled "Watchers," Eγρηγοροι. Dan 4:10 And they are three times pronounced happy that watch. Luke 12:37,38 ; Luk 12:43 "Watch therefore."
a Lib. iii. cap. 5.
b Sen., Epist.
c Daniel's Chro. 13.
d Tenenti codicem somnus obrepat, et cadentem faciem pagina sacra suscipiat. - Hier, ad Eust.
e Egneroch, ex radice gnarach, ordinavit, aciem disposuit: sappel, ex radice tsaphah, speculando expectavit. Hinc tsopheh, speculator.
f Turk. Hist., fol. 297.