Properly, a twist (away of the light), i.e. night ; figuratively, adversity
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H3915 is the ordinary Hebrew noun for night, the portion of the daily cycle associated with darkness. Genesis 1:5 names night within God's ordering of time, so darkness is not an independent power outside His creation.
Reader summary
Full entry for לַיִל (H3915) · Open the biblical lexicon
H3915 is the ordinary Hebrew noun for night, the portion of the daily cycle associated with darkness. Genesis 1:5 names night within God's ordering of time, so darkness is not an independent power outside His creation.
The BSB source-word alignment has 233 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include night (52), by night (28), and night (20), at night (13), in the night (13).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 1:5. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (28), Genesis (25), Exodus (18), Isaiah (18).
H3915 is the ordinary Hebrew noun for night, the portion of the daily cycle associated with darkness. Genesis 1:5 names night within God's ordering of time, so darkness is not an independent power outside His creation. Exodus 12:42 remembers the night when the Lord kept vigil to bring Israel out of Egypt and calls later generations to keep vigil in remembrance.
Job 30:17 uses night as the setting of severe bodily pain, while Psalm 42:8 speaks of the Lord's song accompanying prayer at night. The word can remain plainly temporal or become the setting for danger, grief, waiting, protection, prayer, revelation, or deliverance. It does not make every nighttime scene symbolic, and it must not be used to equate physical darkness, skin color, depression, or grief with moral evil.
H3915 gives pastoral language for hours when suffering feels intensified and witnesses are few, but it also places those hours inside God's created time and remembered faithfulness. Teachers can acknowledge fear, insomnia, pain, lament, and watchfulness without promising that every distress ends before morning.
H3915 names ordinary night from creation onward and becomes the temporal setting of Passover deliverance, travel, danger, pain, prayer, labor, vigilance, and divine address. Scripture neither romanticizes night nor abandons it to chaos; each passage determines its force.
God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
God names the darkness night and orders evening and morning within the first day, presenting nighttime as part of created temporality rather than a rival divine realm.
Because the Lord kept a vigil that night to bring them out of the land of Egypt, this same night is to be a vigil to the Lord, to be observed by all the Israelites for the generations to come.
The Passover night is remembered as the Lord's vigil of deliverance and becomes a covenant practice of watchful remembrance for Israel's generations.
Night pierces my bones, and my gnawing pains never rest.
Job describes nighttime pain piercing his bones and refusing rest, giving unsoftened bodily language to suffering that religious counsel must not dismiss.
The Lord decrees His loving devotion by day, and at night His song is with me as a prayer to the God of my life.
Amid the psalmist's distress, the Lord's song is present at night as prayer to the God of his life, sustaining lament without pretending the surrounding sorrow has vanished.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Night as darkness symbolizing adversity and spiritual danger; fundamental biblical metaphor for trial and divine testing.
Night as darkness symbolizing adversity and spiritual danger; fundamental biblical metaphor for trial and divine testing.
properly, a twist (away of the light), i.e. night; figuratively, adversity BDB: night Usage: (mid-)night (season).
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 235 lexical occurrence verses.
לַיִל is built from this root:
Night represents the spiritual and national crisis being questioned.Isaiah 21:11-12
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
H3915 teaches the church to remain truthful when light is absent. Genesis begins with God naming night, which means darkness belongs within the ordered rhythm He governs and is not itself a hostile deity. Exodus remembers a particular night when judgment and liberation converged. Israel's vigil does not make every night another Passover; it disciplines communal memory around the Lord who brought an enslaved people out.
Job prevents easy devotional language from becoming cruel. For him, night is when pain pierces his bones and rest does not come. Psalm 42 offers companionship rather than denial: the worshiper still asks why his soul is downcast, yet the Lord's song accompanies prayer in the night. These texts allow pastors to speak of night without a single formula. Some people sleep; others work, flee danger, care for children, endure pain, keep watch, or pray through grief.
Faithfulness may mean rest, seeking medical help, establishing safety, joining a vigil, or simply telling the truth until another person can help carry it. Night imagery can describe adversity, but interpreters must never racialize darkness or treat depression as moral failure. H3915 locates vulnerable hours within God's hearing while leaving room for unresolved lament and ordinary means of care.
Ps.42.8
H3915 is a Hebrew noun for night and nighttime. It often functions in temporal phrases such as by night or all night, while poetic contexts can make night the setting or image of distress without changing the noun into a technical term for evil.
The New Testament likewise places prayer, betrayal, trial, resurrection expectation, and watchfulness in nighttime settings. Those passages continue Scripture's honest range: night can conceal danger or host faithful vigil, but Christian hope rests in God's action rather than in assigning one symbolic meaning to every dark hour.