Job 10:21

_BEFORE I GO WHENCE I SHALL NOT RETURN, EVEN TO THE LAND OF DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH;_ No JFB commentary on this verse....

14-22 Job did not deny that as a sinner he deserved his sufferings; but he thought that justice was executed upon him with peculiar rigour. His gloom, unbelief, and hard thoughts of God, were as much to be ascribed to Satan's inward temptations, and his anguish of soul, under the sense of God's displeasure, as to his outward trials, and remaining depravity. Our Creator, become in Christ our Redeemer also, will not destroy the work of his hands in any humble believer; but will renew him unto holiness, that he may enjoy eternal life. If anguish on earth renders the grave a desirable refuge, what will be their condition who are condemned to the blackness of darkness for ever? Let every sinner seek deliverance from that dreadful state, and every believer be thankful to Jesus, who delivereth from the wrath to come....

Verse Job 10:21. _I SHALL NOT RETURN_] I shall not return again from the _dust_ to have a dwelling among _men_. _TO THE LAND OF DARKNESS_] Job 3:5. There are here a crowd of obscure and dislocated terms, admirably expressive of the obscurity and uncertainty of the subject. What do we know of the state of separate spirits? What do we know of the spiritual world? How do souls exist separate from their respective bodies? Of what are they capable and what is their employment? Who can answer these questions? Perhaps nothing can be said much better of the state than is here said, _a land of obscurity, like darkness_. _THE SHADOW OF DEATH_] A place where death rules, over which he projects his shadow, intercepting every light of every kind of life. Wi

BEFORE I GO - from where “I shall not return.” To the grave, to the land of shades, to “That undiscovered country, from whose bourne No traveler returns.” TO THE LAND OF DARKNESS - This passage is important as furnishing an illustration of what was early understood about the regions of the dead. The essential idea here is that it was a land of darkness, of total and absolute night. This idea Job presents in a great variety of forms and phrases. He amplifies it, and uses apparently all the epithets which he can command to represent the utter and entire darkness of the place. The place referred to is not the grave, but the region beyond, the abode of departed spirits, the Hades of the ancients; and the idea here is, that it is a place where not a clear ray of light ever shines. That this was

EXPOSITION JOB 10:1 Having answered Bildad, Job proceeds to pour out the bitterness of his soul in a pathetic complaint, which he addresses directly to God. There is not much that is novel in the long expostulation, which mainly goes over ground covered in Job 3:1; Job 6:1; Job 7:1; but some new grounds are alleged as pleas for mercy, if not for justice. These are (1) that he is God's gesture, and in the past (at any rate) has been the object of his care (Job 7:3, J

BEFORE I GO [WHENCE] I SHALL NOT RETURN,.... Before he went out of the world, the way of all flesh, to the grave, his long home, from whence there is no return to this world, and to the business and affairs of it; to a man's house, his family and his friends, to converse with them as before, there will be no return until the resurrection, which Job does not here deny, as some have thought; it was a doctrine he well understood, and strongly asserts in Job 19:26; but this must be understood in the same sense as in Job 7:9; [EVEN] TO THE LAND OF DARKNESS, AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH; which describes not the state of the damned, as some Popish interpreters, carry it; for Job had no thought nor fear of such a state; but the grave, which is called "a land", or country, it being large and spacious, and

CHAPTER S 9-10 JOB ANSWERS BILDAD _ 1. The supremacy and power of God (Job 9:1)_ 2. How then can Job meet Him? (Job 9:11) 3. He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked (Job 9:22) 4. Confession of weakness and the need of a daysman (Job 9:25) 5. Murmuring against God (Job 10:1) 6. Welcoming death (Job 10:18) Job 9:1. The final words of Bildad seemed to have had a momentary soothing

Job's tone becomes sharper. He accuses God of having created him only to torment him. What profit is there to God in destroying the work that has cost Him so much pains? (Job 10:3)? Is God short-sighted, so that He sees faults where they do not exist (Job 10:4)? How can He be, when He is eternal (Job 10:5)? Yet He inquires after Job's sin, torturing to make him confess (Job 10:6 f.). Job reminds God how He has made him (Job 10:10 f. describes according to the poet's physiology the formation of the embryo; _cf._ Ps

OF DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW. deep darkness. Figure of speech _Hendiadys._ Not two things, but one. DARKNESS. Hebrew. _hashak._ See note on Job 3:6....

He begs for a little easing of his pain ere he departs to the land of darkness. _are not my days few_ The same argument as ch. Job 7:16. _cease then, and let me alone_ Another reading is, _let him cease then_, &c. In the last case the speaker turns away from God and speaks of Him. In the rest of the chapter, however, Job everywhere addresses God. _take comfort_ The same word as ch. Job 9:27, _brighten up_....