Lectionary Calendar
Saturday, October 19th, 2024
the Week of Proper 23 / Ordinary 28
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Read the Bible

King James Version

Job 36:20

Desire not the night, when people are cut off in their place.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Death;   Watchfulness;  

Dictionaries:

- Holman Bible Dictionary - Job, the Book of;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Elihu;  

Parallel Translations

New Living Translation
Do not long for the cover of night, for that is when people will be destroyed.
English Revised Version
Desire not the night, when peoples are cut off in their place.
Update Bible Version
Do not desire the night, When peoples are cut off in their place.
New Century Version
Don't wish for the night when people are taken from their homes.
New English Translation
Do not long for the cover of night to drag people away from their homes.
Webster's Bible Translation
Desire not the night, when people are cut off in their place.
World English Bible
Don't desire the night, When people are cut off in their place.
Amplified Bible
"Do not long for the night, When people vanish from their places.
English Standard Version
Do not long for the night, when peoples vanish in their place.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Dilaie thou not nyyt, that puplis stie for hem.
Berean Standard Bible
Do not long for the night, when people vanish from their homes.
Contemporary English Version
nor can you find safety in the dark world below.
American Standard Version
Desire not the night, When peoples are cut off in their place.
Bible in Basic English
Three dots are used where it is no longer possible to be certain of the true sense of the Hebrew words, and for this reason no attempt has been made to put them into Basic English.
Complete Jewish Bible
Don't desire the night, when people suddenly die.
Darby Translation
Desire not the night, when peoples are cut off from their place.
Easy-to-Read Version
Don't be like those who wish darkness would come and hide them. They try to disappear into the night.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Desire not the night, when peoples are cut off in their place.
King James Version (1611)
Desire not the night, when people are cut off in their place.
New Life Bible
Do not desire the night, when people are taken from their place.
New Revised Standard
Do not long for the night, when peoples are cut off in their place.
Geneva Bible (1587)
Be not carefull in the night, howe he destroyeth the people out of their place.
George Lamsa Translation
He shall deliver you from those who drive you away in the night, and give peoples for your sake, and the nations for your life.
Good News Translation
Don't wish for night to come, the time when nations will perish.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Do not pant for the night, when peoples disappear from their place.
Douay-Rheims Bible
Prolong not the night that people may come up for them.
Revised Standard Version
Do not long for the night, when peoples are cut off in their place.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Spend not the night in carefull thoughtes, how he destroyeth some, and bringeth other in their place.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
And draw not forth all the mighty men by night, so that the people should go up instead of them.
Christian Standard Bible®
Do not long for the nightwhen nations will disappear from their places.
Hebrew Names Version
Don't desire the night, When people are cut off in their place.
Lexham English Bible
You must not long for the night, to cut off people in their place.
Literal Translation
Do not desire the night when people are cut off in their stead.
Young's Literal Translation
Desire not the night, For the going up of peoples in their stead.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Prolonge not thou the tyme, till there come a night for the, to set other people in thy steade.
New American Standard Bible
"Do not long for the night, When people vanish in their places.
New King James Version
Do not desire the night, When people are cut off in their place.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"Do not long for the night, When people vanish in their place.
Legacy Standard Bible
Do not long for the night,When people vanish in their place.

Contextual Overview

15 He delivereth the poor in his affliction, and openeth their ears in oppression. 16 Even so would he have removed thee out of the strait into a broad place, where there is no straitness; and that which should be set on thy table should be full of fatness. 17 But thou hast fulfilled the judgment of the wicked: judgment and justice take hold on thee. 18 Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke: then a great ransom cannot deliver thee. 19 Will he esteem thy riches? no, not gold, nor all the forces of strength. 20 Desire not the night, when people are cut off in their place. 21 Take heed, regard not iniquity: for this hast thou chosen rather than affliction. 22 Behold, God exalteth by his power: who teacheth like him? 23 Who hath enjoined him his way? or who can say, Thou hast wrought iniquity?

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Desire: Job 3:20, Job 3:21, Job 6:9, Job 7:15, Job 14:13, Job 17:13, Job 17:14

cut: Exodus 12:29, 2 Kings 19:35, Proverbs 14:32, Ecclesiastes 11:3, Daniel 5:30, Luke 12:20, Acts 1:25, 1 Thessalonians 5:2, 1 Thessalonians 5:3

Reciprocal: Job 40:12 - in

Cross-References

Genesis 14:6
And the Horites in their mount Seir, unto Elparan, which is by the wilderness.
Genesis 36:2
Esau took his wives of the daughters of Canaan; Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Aholibamah the daughter of Anah the daughter of Zibeon the Hivite;
Genesis 36:22
And the children of Lotan were Hori and Hemam; and Lotan's sister was Timna.
Genesis 36:30
Duke Dishon, duke Ezer, duke Dishan: these are the dukes that came of Hori, among their dukes in the land of Seir.
Genesis 36:38
And Saul died, and Baalhanan the son of Achbor reigned in his stead.
Genesis 36:42
Duke Kenaz, duke Teman, duke Mibzar,
Deuteronomy 2:12
The Horims also dwelt in Seir beforetime; but the children of Esau succeeded them, when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead; as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which the Lord gave unto them.
Deuteronomy 2:22
As he did to the children of Esau, which dwelt in Seir, when he destroyed the Horims from before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead even unto this day:

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Desire not the night,.... Either in a literal sense, which Job might do; not for secrecy to commit sin, as the thief, murderer, and adulterer do; Elihu had no such suspicion of Job; nor for ease and rest, which he expected not; nor would his sores admit thereof; his nights were wearisome, and when come he wished they were gone, Job 7:2; but either for retirement, that he might muse and consider, and endeavour to search and find out the reason of God's dealing with men, in cutting off sometimes such great numbers together. Elihu suggests, that such a search was altogether vain and to no purpose; he would never be able to find out the reason of these things: or rather for shelter from the eye and hand of God; as nothing before mentioned could ward off his stroke, so neither could the night or darkness preserve from it; see Psalms 139:11. Or else the words may be taken in a figurative sense; either of the night of calamity and distress, he might be tempted to desire and wish for, to come upon his enemies; or rather of the night of death, he wished for himself, as he often had done; in doing which Elihu suggests he was wrong; not considering that if God should take him away with a stroke, and he not be humbled and brought to repentance, what would be the consequence of it;

when people are cut off in their place; as sometimes they are in the night, literally taken; just in the place where they stood or lay down, without moving elsewhere, or stirring hand or foot as it were. So Amraphel, and the kings with him, as Jarchi observes, were cut off in the night, the firstborn of Egypt, the Midianites and Sennacherib's army, Genesis 14:15; and so in the night of death, figuratively, the common passage of all men, as Mr. Broughton observes, who renders the words, "for people's passage to their place".

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Desire not the night - That is, evidently, “the night of death.” The darkness of the night is an emblem of death, and it is not uncommon to speak of death in this manner; see John 9:4, “The night cometh, when no man can work.” Elihu seems to have supposed that Job might have looked forward to death as to a time of release; that so far from “dreading” what he had said would come, that God would cut him off at a stroke, it might be the very thing which he desired, and which he anticipated would be an end of his sufferings. Indeed Job had more than once expressed some such sentiment, and Elihu designs to meet that state of mind, and to charge him not to look forward to death as relief. If his present state of mind continued, he says, he would perish under the “wrath” of God; and death in such a manner, great as might be his sufferings here, could not be desirable.

When people are cut off in their place - On this passage, Schultens enumerates no less than “fifteen” different interpretations which have been given, and at the end of this enumeration remarks that he “waits for clearer light to overcome the shades of this night.” Rosenmullcr supposes it means,” Long not for the night, in which nations go under themselves;” that is, in which they go down to the inferior regions, or in which they perish. Noyes renders it, “To which nations are taken away to their place.” Urnbroil renders it, “Pant not for the night, to go down to the people who dwell under thee;” that is, to the Shades, or to those that dwell in Sheol. Prof. Lee translates it, “Pant not for the night, for the rising of the populace from their places.” Coverdale, “Prolong not thou the time, until there come a night for thee to set other people in thy stead.” The Septuagint, “Do not draw out the night, that the people may come instead of them;” that is, to their assistance.

Dr. Good “Neither long thou for the night, for the vaults of the nations underneath them;” and supposes that the reference is to the “catacombs,” or mummy-pits that were employed for burial-places. These are but specimens of the interpretations which have been proposed for this passage, and it is easy to see that there is little prospect of being able to explain it in a satisfactory manner. The principal difficulty in the passage is in the word rendered “cut off,” (עלה âlâh) which means “to go up, to ascend,” and in the incongruity between that and the word rendered in their place (תחתם tachthâm), which literally means “under them.” A literal translation of the passage is, “Do not desire the night to ascend to the people under them;” but I confess I cannot understand the passage, after all the attempts made to explain it. The trauslation given by Umbreit, seems best to agree with the connection, but I am unable to see that the Hebrew would bear this. See, however, his Note on the passage. The word עלה âlâh he understands here in the sense of “going away,” or “bearing away,” and the pbrase the “people under them,” as denoting the “Shades” in the world beneath us. The whole expression then would be equivalent to a wish “to die” - with the expectation that there would be a change for the better, or a release from present sufferings. Elihu admonishes Job not to indulge such a wish, for it would be no gain for a man to die in the state of mind in which he then was.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 36:20. Desire not the night — Thou hast wished for death; (here called night;) desire it not; leave that with God. If he hear thee, and send death, thou mayest be cut off in a way at which thy soul would shudder.


 
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