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 a common opinion of the ancients in regard to the world of departed spirits, is well known. Virgil thus speaks of those gloomy regions:
Oii, quibusimperium est animarum, umbraeque silentes,
Et Chaos, et Phlegethon, loca nocte tacentia late,
Sit mihi fas audita loqui; slt numine vestro
Pandere res alta terra et caligine mersas.
Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram,
Perque domos Ditis vacuas, et inania regna:
Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna
Est iter in silvis: ubi coelum condidit umbra
Jupiter, et rebus nox abstulit atra colorem
Aeneid vi. 259ff
A similar view of Hades was held by the Greeks. Thus, Theognis, 1007:
Ὠς μάκαρ εὐδυίμων τε και ὄλβιος, ὅστις ἄπειρος
Ἄθλων, εἰς ἥ δου δῶμα μέλαν κατέβη.
Hōs makar eudaimōn te kai olbios, hostis apeiros
Athlōn eis h' dou dōma melan katebē.
There is nowhere to be found, however, a description which for intensity and emphasis of expression surpasses this of Job.
Shadow of death - See this phrase explained in the note at Job 3:5.