The absence of or inability to sleep. Scripture suggests that sleeplessness will sometimes result from divine intervention. Scripture also provides examples of deliberate sleeplessness in order to seek God.
Anxiety and sorrow as causes of sleeplessness
Ecclesiastes 2:22–23 See also Proverbs 6:1–4; Ecclesiastes 5:12; Jeremiah 45:3
For what does a man get for all the toil and striving with which he labors under the sun? Indeed, all his days are filled with grief, and his task is sorrowful; even at night, his mind does not rest. This too is futile.
Other causes of sleeplessness
Work
In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for bread to eat — for He gives sleep to His beloved.
Pain and sickness
Job 30:17 See also Job 7:4–5, Job 33:19; Revelation 14:11
Night pierces my bones, and my gnawing pains never rest.
Evil deeds
Proverbs 4:14–16 See also Isaiah 5:27
Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evildoers. Avoid it; do not travel on it. Turn from it and pass on by. For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; they are deprived of slumber until they make someone fall.
Concern for God's cause
Psalm 132:4–5 See also Isaiah 62:6; Luke 2:37, Luke 6:12; Acts 12:12
I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for the LORD, a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob.”
People who experienced sleeplessness
Jacob
As it was, the heat consumed me by day and the frost by night, and sleep fled from my eyes.
Saul
1 Samuel 16:14 Loss of sleep probably among the troubles of Saul alleviated by David's playing. See also 1 Samuel 16:15–23
Now the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and a spirit of distress from the LORD began to torment him.
Xerxes
That night sleep escaped the king; so he ordered the Book of Records, the Chronicles, to be brought in and read to him.
Job
Job 7:4 See also Job 7:11–15
When I lie down I think: ‘When will I get up?’ But the night drags on, and I toss and turn until dawn.
Darius
Paul
2 Corinthians 11:27 See also 2 Corinthians 6:5
in labor and toil and often without sleep, in hunger and thirst and often without food, in cold and exposure.
God deprives sinners of rest
Isaiah 48:22 parallels Hebrews 3:11, Hebrews 4:1–5
“There is no peace,” says the LORD, “for the wicked.”
Restlessness because of judgment on sin
Revelation 14:11 See also Deuteronomy 28:67; 1 Samuel 16:14; Isaiah 21:4, Isaiah 23:12, Isaiah 57:20–21; Lamentations 5:5
And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. Day and night there is no rest for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.”
Sleeplessness allows people to receive messages from God
Daniel 2:1; Zechariah 4:1 See also 1 Samuel 3:1–10; Daniel 2:29; Matthew 27:19
In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams that troubled his spirit, and sleep escaped him.
Then the angel who was speaking with me returned and woke me, as a man is awakened from his sleep.
A challenge to abandon sleep
Abandoning actual sleep
Luke 6:12 See also Matthew 26:36–46 parallels Mark 14:32–42, Luke 22:47–53; Luke 2:37; Revelation 16:15
In those days Jesus went out to the mountain to pray, and He spent the night in prayer to God.
Abandoning spiritual lethargy
Psalm 57:8 See also Proverbs 6:10; Ecclesiastes 5:2; Isaiah 51:9
Awake, my glory! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn.
God's watchfulness
Psalm 121:3–4; Isaiah 40:28–31
He will not allow your foot to slip; your Protector will not slumber. Behold, the Protector of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary; His understanding is beyond searching out. He gives power to the faint and increases the strength of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall. But those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.
The blessing of sleep
Psalm 4:8 See also Leviticus 26:6; Psalm 3:5, Psalm 127:2; Proverbs 3:24
I will lie down and sleep in peace, for You alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.
Related themes
Dictionary of Bible Themes © 1999 Martin Manser, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, via Bible Aquifer. Formatted for this site, with Scripture from the Berean Standard Bible.