A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness.
A land of darkness, as darkness itself. The ideas of order and light, disorder and darkness, harmonize (Genesis 1:2). Three Hebrew words are used for darkness in Job 10:21-22:
(1) in Job 10:21 the common word "darkness" х choshek (H2822)];
(2) in Job 10:22 'a land of gloom' х `eepaataah (H5890)], from a Hebrew root х `uwp (H5774)], to cover up;
(3) 'as darkness itself,' or 'as thick darkness' or blackness х 'opel (H652)], 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 - "The city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof" (Revelation 21:23); "There shall be no night there" (Revelation 22:5; 2 Timothy 1:10).
Remarks:
(1) God has no pleasure in the pain of His creatures. But the afflicted believer is at times so confused in mind by the sharpness of his sufferings as to utter hasty complaints as to the dealings of God. Instead of asking, "in bitterness of soul," "Wherefore dost thou contend with me?" the tried saint should ask, What is the lesson that thou wouldest have me to learn from my affliction?
(2) The elaborate construction of the human body, and its marvelous successive development from the embryonic state (Job 10:8-11), and furthermore, God's continued favour and providential care all our life long (Job 10:12), are alone ancient to show that "He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men, to crush under His feet all the prisoners of the earth" (Lamentations 3:33-34).
(3) Though we have not faculties now to see all God's reasons for His dealings with us, yet we do know that (3) Though we have not faculties now to see all God's reasons for His dealings with us, yet we do know that afflictions are among the things which God has hidden in His eternal purpose (Job 10:13) concerning the believer, and which "work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28).
(4) It is a wrong spirit to be in to wish we never had been born at all (Job 10:18-19), because whatever else we lose, if we have faith, we can never lose God and the future heaven, where sickness, sorrow, and sighing shall be no more. But great allowance is to be made for Job, when we remember how much more indistinct, generally speaking, was the light then enjoyed by believers than that with which we are favoured (Job 10:21-22).