Psalm 16:3 — you tested my heart by night; night is the affliction
“You tested my heart; you visited by night” (Psalm 17:3; LXX 16:3).
If affliction works patience, and patience testing, then affliction works testing. And if the testing ran its course in the night, the night here signifies the affliction, in which a stumbling rational soul is darkened.
“Enter through the narrow gate and the afflicted way”: that is, the practical life, which seems at first a bringer of pain and not of joy, but afterward giving back fruits of righteousness to those trained through it.
Greek
16.3 ̓Εδοκίμασας τὴν καρδίαν μου, ἐπεσ κέψω νυκτός. Εἰ ἡ θλῖψις ὑπομονὴν κατεργάζεται, ἡ δὲ ὑπομονὴ δοκιμασίαν, ἡ θλῖψις α ρα δο κιμασίαν κατεργάζεται· εἰ δὲ ἡ δοκιμα σία ἐν νυκτὶ διέδραμεν, ἡ νὺξ ἐνταῦθα τὴν θλῖψιν σημαίνει, ἐν ῃ σκοτοῦται πταιομένη ψυχὴ λογική. –Εἰσέλθετε διὰ τῆς στενῆς πύλης καὶ τεθλιμμένης ὁδοῦ, τουτέστι τῆς πρακτικῆς, η τις δοκεῖ πρῶτον ὀδύνης, καὶ οὐ χαρᾶς πρόξενος, υ στερον μέντοι καρποὺς δικαιοσύνης ἀποδιδοῦσα τοῖς δι' αὐτῆς γε γυμνασμένοις.