Job 28:3 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

He setteth an end to darkness— He hath set, or, an end is set to darkness, and an extremity to all, or, to the universe. He (meaning man, that audacious creature) searcheth out the stones of darkness, and the shadow of death. He digs into another world, as it were, for gold and precious stones. תכלית taklith, as well as קצ ketz, signifies the end, the border, and extremity of any thing; and the extremity of all, or the universe, I apprehend to mean the same-horizontal circle which divides the light and darkness from each other; for what is above the horizon is, in effect, the universe to us; at least, it was so to the ancients, who considered all below it, as, to them, a region of perpetual darkness. It was this upper visible hemisphere which they called the world; see chap. Job 18:18 and 1 Samuel 2:8. That this must be the meaning here, seems further confirmed by a parallel place in this speech of Job, chap. Job 26:10 where he points out the same horizontal circle in almost the same words: He hath set a circle as a boundary upon the face of the waters, even to the extremity of light and darkness; i.e. to the very edge where light and darkness meet. This is evidently the sense of that passage, and we see that the expressions in both are much the same; only what is called the extremity of light in one, is in the other passage, called the extremity of all, or the universe, meaning the whole enlightened hemisphere. See Proverbs 26:10. Isaiah 44:24. If this then be the true sense of this difficult passage, I believe the reader will agree with me, that the thought is very noble and sublime: it is as if we should say, in the language of Horace, Nequicquam Deus abscidit, &c. "In vain is it that God hath divided the light from the darkness, if men will dig into the land of darkness itself for gold and treasures." As the author of the Book of Job was, perhaps, the most brief writer that ever appeared in the world, and his language the most concise; he just gives you a glimpse of things, and leaves the rest to be supplied by the imagination of the reader. His thoughts are like the gold and jewels that he speaks of; precious in themselves, we must sometimes labour hard, and go deep for them. Peters. Heath understands the passage somewhat differently; and, supposing it to contain a description of the dreadful life of the miner, who descends into the bowels of the earth in search of ore, he renders it, Maketh a league with darkness, and all destruction; who searcheth out the stones of darkness, and the shadow of death.