Job 10:22

World English Bible

Contextual Overview

¹⁴ If I sin, then you mark me. You will not acquit me from my iniquity. ¹⁵ If I am wicked, woe to me. If I am righteous, I still shall not lift up my head, Being filled with disgrace, And conscious of my affliction. ¹⁶ If my head is held high, you hunt me like a lion. Again you show yourself powerful to me. ¹⁷ You renew your witnesses against me, And increase your indignation on me. Changes and warfare are with me. ¹⁸ "'Why, then, have you brought me forth out of the womb? I wish I had given up the spirit, and no eye had seen me. ¹⁹ I should have been as though I had not been. I should have been carried from the womb to the grave. ²⁰ Aren't my days few? Cease then, Leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort, ²¹ Before I go where I shall not return from, To the land of darkness and of the shadow of death; ²² The land dark as midnight, Of the shadow of death, without any order, Where the light is as midnight.'"

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

the shadow of death: Where death projects his shadow, intercepting the light of life: without any order, having no arrangement, no distinction of inhabitants; the poor and the rich are there, the king and the beggar, their bodies in equal corruption and disgrace: where the light is as darkness, a palpable obscure, space and place, with only such a light or capability of distinction, as renders "darkness visible." Job 3:5, Job 34:22, Job 38:17, Psalms 23:4, Psalms 44:19, Psalms 88:12, Jeremiah 2:6, Jeremiah 13:16, Luke 16:26

Reciprocal: Job 7:7 - no more see Job 14:12 - So man Job 15:30 - depart Job 17:13 - the grave Job 18:18 - He shall be driven Job 28:3 - the stones Psalms 107:14 - brought Ecclesiastes 11:8 - yet Amos 5:20 - darkness Matthew 4:16 - shadow Luke 1:79 - and

Cross-References

Genesis 9:26
He said, "Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Shem; Let Canaan be his servant.

Genesis 10:1
Now this is the history of the generations of the sons of Noah and of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood.

Genesis 10:9
He was a mighty hunter before Yahweh. Therefore it is said, "Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before Yahweh."

Genesis 10:17
the Hivite, the Arkite, the Sinite,

Genesis 10:27
Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah,

Numbers 23:7
He took up his parable, and said, From Aram has Balak brought me, The king of Moab from the mountains of the East: Come, curse me Jacob, Come, defy Israel.

2 Kings 15:19
There came against the land Pul the king of Assyria; and Menahem gave Pul one thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand.

Job 1:17
While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said, "The Chaldeans made three bands, and swept down on the camels, and have taken them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you."

Isaiah 11:11
It shall happen in that day, that the Lord will set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, who shall remain, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

Isaiah 21:2
A grievous vision is declared to me; the treacherous man deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; besiege, Media; all the sighing of it have I made to cease.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

A land of darkness, as darkness [itself],.... Not merely like it, but truly so; as gross thick darkness, like that of Egypt, that might be felt; even blackness of darkness, which is as dark as it possibly can be; not only dark, but darkness, extremely dark:

[and] of the shadow of death; which is repeated for the illustration and confirmation of it, as having in it all kind of darkness, and that to the greatest degree:

without any order, or "orders" i; or vicissitudes and successions of day and night, summer and winter, heat and cold, wet and dry; or revolutions of sun, moon, and stars, or of the constellations, as Aben Ezra; and whither persons go without any order, either of age, sex, or station; sometimes a young man, sometimes an old man, and the one before the other; sometimes a man, sometimes a woman; sometimes a king, prince, and nobleman, and sometimes a peasant; sometimes a rich man, and sometimes a poor man; no order is observed, but as death seizes them they are brought and laid in the grave, and there is no order there; the bones and dust of one and the other in a short time are mixed together, and, there is no knowing to whom they belong, only by the omniscient God:

and [where] the light [is] as darkness; were there anything in the grave that could with any propriety be called light, even that is nothing but darkness; darkness and light are the same thing there: or when "it shineth it is darkness" k; that is, when the sun shines brightest here, as at noon day, it is entire darkness in the grave; no light is discerned there, the rays of the sun cannot penetrate there; and could they, there is no visive faculty in the dead to receive them; all darkness is in those secret places.

i ולא סדרים "et non ordines", Pagninus, Montanus, Bolducius, Mercerus; "sine ordinibus", Cocceius, Schmidt. k ותפע "splendet", Beza, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

A land of darkness - The word used here (עיפה ‛êyphâh) is different from that rendered “darkness” השׁך chôshek in the previous verse. That is the common word to denote darkness; this seldom occurs. It is derived from עוּף ‛ûph, to fly; and then to cover as with wings; and hence, the noun means that which is shaded or dark; Amos 4:13; compare Job 17:13; Isaiah 8:22; Isaiah 9:1.

As darkness itself - This is still another word אפל 'ôphel though in our common version but one term is used. We have not the means in our language of marking different degrees of obscurity with the accuracy with which the Hebrews did it. The word used here אפל 'ôphel denotes a THICK darkness - such as exists when the sun is set - from אפל 'aphêl, to go down, to set. It is poetic, and is used to denote intense and deep darkness; see Job 3:6.

And of the shadow of death - I would prefer reading this as connected with the previous word - “the deep darkness of the shadow of death.” The Hebrew will bear this, and indeed it is the obvious construction.

Without any order - The word rendered order (סדרים sedārı̂ym) is in the plural. It is from סדר, obsolete, to place in a row or order, to arrange. The meaning is, that everything was mingled together as in chaos, and all was confusion. Milton has used similar language:

- “A vast immeasurable abyss.”

- “dark, wasteful, wild.”

Ovid uses similar language in speaking of chaos: “Unus chaos, rudis indigestaque moles.”

And where the light is as darkness - This is a very striking and graphic expression. It means that there is no pure and clear light. Even all the light that shines there is dark, sombre, gloomy - like the little light of a total eclipse, which seems to be darkness itself, and which only serves to render the darkness more distressing. Compare Milton:

“A dungeon horrible on all sides round,

As one great furnace flamed, yet from those flames

No light; but rather darkness visible

Served only to discover sights of woe.”

Par. Lost, 1.

The Hebrew here literally is, “And it shines forth (יתפע yatopha‛) as darkness:” that is, the very shining of the light there, if there is any, is like darkness! Such was the view of Job of the abodes of the dead - even of the pious dead. No wonder he shrank back from it, and wished to live. Such is the prospect of the grave to man, until Christianity comes and reveals a brighter world beyond the grave - a world that is all light. That darkness is now scattered. A clear light shines even around the grave, and beyond there is a world where all is light, and where “there is no night,” and where all is one bright eternal day; Revelation 21:23; Revelation 22:5. O had Job been favored with these views of heaven, he would not have thus feared to die!

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 10:22. Where the light is as darkness. — A palpable obscure: it is space and place, and has only such light or capability of distinction as renders "darkness visible." The following words of Sophocles convey the same idea: Ιω σκοτος εμοι φαος; "Thou darkness be my light." It is, as the Vulgate expresses it, Terra tenebrosa, et operta mortis caligine: Terra miseriae et tenebrarum, ubi umbra mortis, et nullus ordo, sed sempiternus horror inhabitat: "A murky land, covered with the thick darkness of death: a land of wretchedness and obscurities, where is the shadow of death, and no order, but sempiternal horror dwells everywhere." Or, as Coverdale expresses this last clause, Wheras is no ordre but terrible feare as in the darknesse. A duration not characterized or measured by any of the attributes of time; where there is no order of darkness and light, night and day, heat and cold, summer and winter. It is the state of the dead! The place of separate spirits! It is out of time, out of probation, beyond change or mutability. It is on the confines of eternity! But what is THIS? and where? Eternity! how can I form any conception of thee? In thee there is no order, no bounds, no substance, no progression, no change, no past, no present, no future! Thou art an indescribable something, to which there is no analogy in the compass of creation. Thou art infinity and incomprehensibility to all finite beings. Thou art what, living, I know not, and what I must die to know; and even then I shall apprehend no more of thee than merely that thou art E-T-E-R-N-I-T-Y!