Job 3:5 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Let darkness and the shadow of death Let the most dismal darkness, like that of the place of the dead, which is a land of darkness, and where the light is darkness, Job 10:21-22; or darkness so gross and palpable, that its horrors are insupportable; stain it Take away its beauty and glory, and render it abominable as a filthy thing; or, rather, challenge or claim it, as the word יגאלהו, jigaluhu, here used, may properly be rendered, the verb גאל, gaal, signifying, primarily, to avenge, redeem, rescue, deliver, claim, possess. Indeed, as Houbigant justly observes, “There enters nothing of pollution into the idea of darkness.” Let a cloud dwell upon it, &c. Let the thickest clouds wholly possess it, and render it terrible to men. Dr. Waterland renders the last clause, Let the blackness make it hideous.