Job 10:22

Job 10:22 A land of darkness, as darkness [itself; and] of the shadow of death, without any order, and [where] the light [is] as darkness.

Ver. 22. A land of darkness, &c.] This is not a description of hell, and of the state of the damned (as some would have it), for Job never meant to come there, no more than Jacob did, Gen 37:35; Gen 42:38; but it is such an elegant description of the grave, as exceedeth the phantasy of poet, and the rhetoric of all heathen orators. There is something like it in David’s Psalms, especially Psa 88:11-12, where the grave is called a place of perdition, a land of forgetfulness, and of darkness, whereinto they who descend praise not God, Psa 115:17. In respect of their bodies they do not, they cannot, Isa 38:18. Hell, indeed, is much more a land of darkness as darkness itself; it is that outer darkness, a darkness beyond a darkness, as the dungeon is beyond the prison; and the pains of hell are the chains of darkness. Now death is hell’s harbinger to the wicked, and hence it is so dreadful in the apprehension and approach of it, that men’s hearts do even die within them, as Nabal’s did, through fear of death; and they tremble thereat as the trees of the wood, or leaves of the forest, with Ahaz, Isa 7:2. Darkness, we know, is full of terror: the Egyptians were sorely frightened by their three days’ thick darkness, insomuch as that none stirred off his stool all that while, Exo 10:23, and it was the more terrible, doubtless, because they had no warning of it, as they had of other plagues. How oft do men chop into the chambers of death (their long home, the grave) all on the sudden, as he that travelleth in the snow may do over head and ears into a clay pit! Death of any sort is unwelcome to nature, as being its slaughterman: but when sudden, it is so much the more ghastly; and those that desperately dare death to a duel cannot look it in the face with blood in their cheeks: only to those that are in Christ the bitterness of death is past, the sting of it pulled out, the property altered, as hath been already noted. Christ, the Sun of righteousness, saith a learned expositor here (Mr Caryl), lay in the grave, and hath left perpetual beams of light there for his purchased people. The way to the grave is very dark, but Christ hath set up lights for us, &c.

And of the shadow of death] The shadow is the dark part of the thing, so that the shadow of death is the darkest side of death, death in its most hideous and horrid representations; the shadow of death is the substance of death, or death with addition of greatest deadliness.

Without any order] Heb. And not orders. What then? confusion surely, without keeping to rules or ranks: men’s bones are mingled in the grave; whether they have been princes or peasants it cannot be discerned; Omnia mors aequat: as chessmen are put up all together in the bag when the game is ended, without distinction of king, duke, bishop, &c., so here. Junius rendereth it, expertem vicissitudinum, without any interchanges, distinctions, vicissitudes, or varieties (as of day, night, summer, winter, heat, cold, &c.) of which things consisteth the greatest part of the brevity of this world.

And where the light is as darkness] How great then must needs be that darkness? as our Saviour speaketh in another case, Mat 6:23. Surely when, by the return of the sun, there is light in the land of the living, in the grave all is abyssed and sunk into eternal night; as the bodies of those two smothered princes were by their cruel uncle, Richard III, in the black deeps, a place so called at the Thames’ mouth. In the grave light and darkness are both alike; and as the images in Popish temples see nothing, though great wax candles be lighted up before them; so the clearest light of the sun shining in his strength would be nothing to those that are dead and buried. Let this be much and often thought on; mors tua, mors Christi, &c. thine deathe, the death of Christ &c. Cyrus, that great conqueror, lying on his death bed, praised God, saith Xenophon, that his prosperity had not puffed him up; for he ever considered that he was but mortal, and must bid adieu to the world. Charles V, emperor of Germany, caused his sepulchre and grave clothes to be made five years before his death, and carried them closely with him whithersoever he went. Samuel sent Saul newly anointed to Rachel’s sepulchre, 1Sa 10:2-4, that he might not become proud of his new honours, &c.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Job_10:22

And the shadow of death, without any order.

Death without order

While Job was under the bereaving hand of God, his thoughts were naturally turned upon the frailty of man, the shortness of life, and the gloomy scenes of mortality. The truth stated here is this--God discovers no order in calling men out of the world by death.

I. God discovers no order in sending death among mankind. Job believed that there is perfect order in the Divine Mind, respecting death, as well as every other event. In relation to God death is perfectly regular; but this regularity He has seen proper to conceal from the view of man. Though God has passed a sentence of mortality upon all mankind, yet He never discovers any order in the execution of it.

1. He sends death without any apparent respect to age.

2. Without any regard to mens bodily strength or weakness.

3. Without any apparent respect to the place of their dying.

4. There is no order apparent in the means of death.

5. God pays no visible regard to the characters of men, in calling them off the stage of life.

6. God appears to pay no regard to the circumstances of men, in putting an end to their days.

7. Nor does He appear to consult the feelings of men.

II. Why does God send death through the world without any discernible order?

1. To make men sensible that He can do what He pleases, without their aid or instrumentality.

2. To make them know that He can dispose of them according to the counsel of His own will.

3. To convince man that he can do nothing without Him.

4. By concealing the order of death, God teaches mankind the propriety and importance of being constantly prepared for it.

Learn--If death is coming to all men, and coming without any order, then it equally concerns all to live a holy and religious life. And since God discovers no order in death, it becomes the bereaved and afflicted to submit to His holy and absolute sovereignty. This subject admonishes all to prepare without delay for their great and last change. (N. Emmons, D. D.)

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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

No distinction between light and darkness, but where all is very darkness itself.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

The ideas of order and light, disorder and darkness, harmonize (Gen 1:2). Three Hebrew words are used for darkness; in Job 10:21 (1) the common word "darkness"; here (2) "a land of gloom" (from a Hebrew root, "to cover up"); (3) as "thick darkness" or blackness (from a root, expressing sunset). "Where the light thereof is like blackness." Its only sunshine is thick darkness. A bold figure of poetry. Job in a better frame has brighter thoughts of the unseen world. But his views at best wanted the definite clearness of the Christian's. Compare with his words here Rev 21:23; Rev 22:5; Ti2 1:10.

Next: Job Chapter 11

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 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!

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

22. without any order] There Chaos reigns; cf. the beautiful description of the effect of light upon the earth, ch. Job_38:12-14.

the light is as darkness] The light in that region is

No light, but rather darkness visible.

Job’s three friends, strong in their traditional theory and unobservant of facts or indifferent to them, maintained that God’s rule of the world was righteous, by which they meant that He rewarded the righteous with outward good and dispensed severe suffering only to the great sinner. Job agreed with them that this ought to be the way in which God governed the world, and would be the way in which a just ruler would govern it. But his own experience and much that he could perceive taking place in the world convinced him that the world was not governed in this way in fact. This feeling not only disturbed but threatened to transform Job’s whole idea of God. His unbearable sufferings and this thought of God’s injustice together suggested to his mind the conception of the supreme Power in the world as an omnipotent, cruel Force, that crushed all, good and evil, alike, and mocked at the despair of the innocent. This is the tone of Job’s mind in ch. 9, in which he does not address God but speaks of Him in a kind of agitated soliloquy, as if fascinated by the omnipotent unmoral spectre which his imagination has conjured up. The difference between Job’s ways of thinking and those prevailing in our own day can readily be seen. In our day we have reached an ideal of God, to which, if there be any God, he must correspond. And even if we took the same pessimistic view of the world as Job did we should hesitate to believe that the conception was embodied in any Being; we should probably conclude that there was no God. But such a conclusion could not suggest itself to an Oriental mind. God’s existence and personality were things which Job could not doubt. Hence he had no help but invest God with the attributes of evil which he thought he saw reflected in the world.

It might seem that Job is now on the high road to renounce God, as Satan had predicted he would do. But Job does not find renouncing God quite so easy a thing. And he enters upon a course in ch. 10 which, though at first it appears to take him a step further in this direction, is really the beginning of a retreat. He endeavours to set before his mind as broad a view of God as he is able, in order that by thinking of all that he knows of God he may catch the end of some clue to his calamities. This makes him realize how much he is still sure of in regard to God. And first, he cannot doubt that He is all-knowing and omnipotent (Job_10:3-7). But he goes further. He cannot help seeing in the carefulness and lavish skill with which he was fashioned round about in all his being by the hands of God, not only wisdom, but a gracious Benevolence, and in the preservation of his spirit a Providence which was good. And he dwells on these things, not in the cold manner of a philosopher making an induction, but with all the fervour of a religious mind, which felt that it had fellowship with the Being whose goodness it experienced, and still longed for this fellowship. Yet God’s present treatment of him seemed in contradiction to all this. Thus Job balances God against Himself. Others have done the same, asking the question whether the order of the world inclines to the side of benevolence or of evil; and some have professed themselves unable to answer. So strong is Job’s present sense of misery that he concludes that the universal Ruler is evil. His present treatment of him displays His real nature, and His former goodness was but apparent (Job_10:13-17). Thus this singular method adopted by Job of balancing God against God seems to have led him further into darkness. Yet there is no other method by which he can reach the light; and though the balance inclines in one direction meantime, by and by it will incline in another. See notes on chap. Job_16:18 seq.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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; Amo 4:13; compare Job 17:13; Isa 8:22; Isa 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; Rev 21:23; Rev 22:5. O had Job been favored with these views of heaven, he would not have thus feared to die!

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Horror. At death all distinction of ranks is at an end. (Tirinus) --- Hebrew, "where the light is as darkness." (Protestants) Septuagint, "To the land of eternal darkness, where there is no sound, nor life of mortals to see." (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

A land of darkness; either in things, without any succession of day and night, winter and summer; or among persons, where great and small are in the same condition, Job 3:19.

Where the light is as darkness; where there is no difference between light and darkness, where the day is as dark as the night, where there is nothing but perpetual and uninterrupted darkness.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

22. Darkness itself — Ophel. Darkness particularly thick. (Furst.) The spectacle that the interior of the dark and gloomy sepulchre presented, evidently tinged Job’s views of the state of the dead. The vivid imagination of the Arab, notwithstanding the teaching of the Koran, still sees in the tomb the real, conscious home of the dead. “I have read some poems of the Arabians in which they are represented as visiting the graves of their friends like dwelling places, conversing with them, and watching the dust of their dwellings.… The dead were held so dear that one could not, must not, think of them as dead, even in the grave, and thus they were represented there as still having an animate, though shadowy, existence.” — Herder. (See further, Hebrew Poetry, 1:173.)

Without any order — “Where all is confused, like unto a chaos.” — GESENIUS, Thesaurus. The light is as darkness — It shines as thick darkness. Such darkness reigns there that their broad daylight is as dark as midnight on earth. (Hirtzel.) Thus Milton: —

Yet from those flames

No light, but rather darkness visible.

Dr. Clarke cites Sophocles: “Thou, darkness, be my light.” This “bold and tremendous” description of the underworld of the dead is not surpassed in any language, and forcibly recalls the conclusion to a similar, but vastly inferior, one by Seneca: —

Ipsaque morte pejor est mortis locus, etc.,

And death’s abode is worse than death itself.

— Hercules Furens.

The description Job gives of the underworld bears some points of resemblance to that recovered from the Assyrian tablets, supposed to have been made at least twenty centuries before Christ. It appears in the account of the descent of the goddess Ishtar to the infernal regions. To “the house of the departed, the seat of the god Iskalla; to the house from within which there is no exit; to the road the course of which never returns; to the place within which they long for light; the place where dust is their nourishment, and their food mud; light is never seen, in the darkness they dwell; its chiefs, also, like birds, are clothed with wings; over the door and its bolts is scattered dust.” — GEORGE SMITH, Assyrian Discov., p. 220.

EXCURSUS IV

THE DAYSMAN.

In the judicial language of the Middle Ages, the word day was specially applied to the day appointed for hearing a cause. (Wedgwood.) Hence our English word daysman denoted the judge who presided at the day fixed, for he was the man of the day. No better word could have been selected to express the faith of our translators, that this daysman is Christ, who will judge the world on the day which God hath appointed. Act_17:31.

The word מוכיח, mokiahh, daysman, which Furst renders “mediator,” “umpire,” is used in the Hiphil form with the idea of judging or deciding between two parties. The Septuagint version gives as the equivalent of mokiahh, μεσιτης ημων, the same term (mesites) that is employed by the apostle (Gal_3:19-20; 1Ti_2:5, and Heb_8:6) for Mediator. The Septuagint also adds, “and a reprover, and one who should hear (through) in the midst of both,” διακουων αναμεσον, etc. Many manuscripts, (Dr. Clarke speaks of fifteen,) and the ancient versions, the Septuagint, Arabic, and Syriac,. read לו, lou, “would that,” in place of לא, lo, “not;” thus, “Would that there were a days-man,” etc. This passage has given rise to extreme views. On the one side is that of the Fathers: thus St. Gregory — “The holy patriarch Job, contemplating the sins of man and the wrath of God against sin, prays for a mediator who is both God and man. He beholds him from afar, and longs for a redeemer who may lay his hands on both.” St. Augustine (Psalm ciii) also writes: “Job desired to see Christ; he desired a mediator. What is a mediator? One who stands in the midst in order to adjust a cause. Were we not the enemies of God, and had we not a bad cause toward God? Who could put an end to that bad cause but He (medius arbiter) concerning whom the apostle says,” etc., 1Ti_2:5. At the other extreme is the view of the Rationalists, thus expressed by Dr. Noyes: “An arbiter who may have authority to control either of us who shall exceed the limits of propriety in the controversy, and also oblige us to stand to his decision.” Job had been but just before (Job 10:31) treating of moral defilement that had stained the soul beyond all human power of removal. Such was this defilement that even after man’s utmost cleansing of himself, his own unclean garments would abhor contact with so filthy a being. Though there be the intervention of a verse, (32,) yet such a degrading transition as would be implied in the rationalistic interpretation of this verse is unworthy of Job. It means a descent from the profoundest and most momentous question that can conceivably engage the mind of man, to the platitude of a super-divine umpire, (pedagogue,) whose duty it should be to hold in restraint two quarrelsome disputants, God and man. Its absurdity is stamped upon its face.

Nor are we inclined with the Fathers to attribute to Job too great a knowledge of divine truth. His moral needs unquestionably led him to think of and desire superhuman help — the intervention of some being who should assist in the adjudication of the cause at issue between man and God. He sighed for some one to stand between, and not as the Rationalists say, above, both. With Job the real knowledge of a mediator was more of the heart than of the head — more a feeling than a mental conception. The heart’s wants belong to the race, and to every age; clear perception of truth to but few. In the fulness of time, meridian knowledge of a mediator should come with the mediator himself. “Job, out of his religious entanglement, proclaimed the necessity of a mediator to humanize God two thousand years before he came.” — Davidson. An exceedingly ancient custom of the Arabs certainly favours the evangelical view. “The Arabs,” says Herodotus, (iii, 8,) “plight faith with the forms following. When two men would swear a friendship, they stand on each side of a third; he, with a sharp stone, makes a cut on the inside of the hand of each, near the middle finger, and taking a piece from their dress, dips it in the blood of each, and moistens therewith seven stones lying in the midst, calling the while on Bacchus and Urania. After this the man who makes the pledge commends the stranger (or the citizen, if citizen he be) to all his friends, and they deem themselves bound to stand to the engagement.” A like custom is perpetuated to the present day among the Arabs. “When any one commits an offence against another individual,” says Sir J.G. Wilkinson, (ibid.,) “he endeavors to find a mediator to intercede in his behalf, and the tent of that person becomes an asylum (like the refuge city of the Jews, Num_35:11) until the compact has been settled.” Some such Semitic custom of mediation Job probably had in mind. The old Accadian faith, as we now learn from Assyrian tablets, embraced an idea of divine mediation for the benefit of men. The primitive Accad (see note on Job_1:17) worshipped a God, (Silik-moulou khi,) “him who orders what is good for man,” the eldest son of Hea, through whom the will of his father, Hea, was communicated to men; “him, the command of whose mouth is propitious, the sublime judge of heaven.” The early Accadian hymns recognise the great power he had with his father, Hea, in averting evils from men. — LENORMANT, la Magie, 346, 7. See further, Speaker’s Com., vol. vi, p. 266, Excursus on Chaldee Magic.

In the presence of such light from the not far distant land of Chaldea, into contact with which our history brings us closely, (Job_1:17,) we are not to suppose an inadvertent use of words on the part of Job when he speaks of “a daysman;” but rather, that he may have possessed at least as enlightened views as those of the Chaldeans, from whose land it will be remembered Abraham had early migrated. But of Abraham, Christ says he “rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.” Joh_8:56. This anticipatory knowledge of Christ may have been vouchsafed to him before he left Ur of the Chaldees, (Gen_11:31,) and have been communicated by him to his Chaldaean countrymen, and preserved in tradition, which, after the lapse of so many centuries, has been marvellously brought to light. The most ancient false religions were burdened with the momentous problem of Job — How shall the evil of sin be compounded, and man made pure? On a point of so much interest we adduce a few illustrations: “What shall I do,” cried Zoroaster, “O Ormazd, steeped in brightness, in order to battle with Daroodj-Ahriman, father of the evil law, how shall I make men pure and holy?” Ormazd answered and said, “Invoke, O Zoroaster, the pure law of the servants of Ormazd;… invoke my spirit, me, who am Ahura-Mazda, the purest, strongest, wisest, best of beings; me, who have the most majestic body; who, through purity, am supreme, whose soul is the excellent word, and ye, all people, invoke me as I have commanded Zoroaster.” — KLEUKER’S Avesta Vendidad Farg., 19. See HARDWICK, ibid., ii, pp. 392-395.

The later literature of the Brahman frequently intimates that deliverance is secured by a son. Of such a one the Rig Veda, (vii, 56, 24,) translated by Max Muller, early speaks: “O, Maruts, may there be to us a strong son, who is a living ruler of men, through whom we may cross the waters on our way to the happy abode; then may we come to your own house.” Buddha himself confessed his own age to be irremediably corrupt, and prophesied of a Buddha to be called Mait-reya, the loving, the merciful, who will cause justice to reign over the earth. See further, on Buddha, BUNSEN, God in History, 1:371. “For we ought,” says Plato, describing the last scenes in the life of Socrates, “with respect to these things, either to learn from others how they stand, or to discover them for one’s self; or, if both these are impossible, then, taking the best of human reasonings, and that which is most difficult to be refitted, and embarking on this as one who risks himself on a raft, so to sail through life, UNLESS one could be carried more safely, and with less risk, on a surer conveyance, or SOME DIVINE REASON (λογου θειου τινος). — Phaedo, section 78. See also Socrates, in Plato, Second Alcibiades, section 23.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

A land of darkness, as darkness itself; or, a land of thick darkness (see the Revised Version). And of the shadow of death, without any order. The absence of order is a new and peculiar feature. We do not find it in the other accounts of Hades. But it lends additional horror and weirdness to the scene. And where the light is as darkness. Not, therefore, absolutely without light, but with such a light as Milton calls "darkness visible."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

darkness Heb. עפתה. This is a noun meaning darkness, like (Amos 4: 13) “dawn and darkness (ועיפתה).”

the shadow of death it is, without orders in it (that there are no orders of man; i.e., there are no customs, for there is no civilization, and its light is like darkness).

and where the light is as darkness The illuminated place [therein] is like darkness.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.