Job 3:5

5 Let the dark and the black night take it for themselves; let it be covered with a cloud; let the dark shades of day send fear on it.

Job 3:5 Meaning and Commentary

Job 3:5

Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it
Let there be such darkness on it as on persons when dying, or in the state of the dead; hence the sorest afflictions, and the state of man in unregeneracy, are compared unto it, ( Psalms 23:4 ) ( Isaiah 9:2 ) ; let there be nothing but foul weather, dirt, and darkness in it, which may make it very uncomfortable and undesirable; some render the word, "let darkness and [the] shadow of death redeem it" ^F26, challenge and claim it as their own, and let light have no share or property in it:

let a cloud dwell upon it;
as on Mount Sinai when the law was given; a thick dark cloud, even an assemblage of clouds, so thick and close together, that they seem but one cloud which cover the whole heavens, and obscure them, and hinder the light of the sun from shining on the earth; and this is wished to abide not for an hour or two, but to continue all the day:

let the blackness of the day terrify it;
let it be frightful to itself; or rather, let the blackness be such, or the darkness of it such gross darkness, like that as was felt by the Egyptians; that the inhabitants of the earth may be terrified with it, as Moses and the Israelites were at Mount Sinai, at the blackness, tempest, thunders, and lightnings, there seen and heard: as some understand this of black vapours exhaled by the sun, with which the heavens might be filled, so others of sultry weather and scorching heat, which is intolerable: others render the words, "let them terrify it as the bitternesses of the day" ^F1; either with bitter cursings on it, or through bitter calamities in it; or, "as those [who have] a bitter ^F2 day", as in the margin of our Bibles, and in others.

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FOOTNOTES:

F26 (whlagy) "vindicassent", Junius & Tremellius; "vendicent", Cocceius; "vindicent", Schultens.
F1 (Mwy yryrmk) "tanquam amaritudines dici", Schmidt, Michaelis; "velut amarulenta diei", Schultens; so the Targum.
F2 "Velut amari diei", Mercerus; "tanquam amari diei", Montanus.

Job 3:5 In-Context

3 Let destruction take the day of my birth, and the night on which it was said, A man child has come into the world.

4 That day--let it be dark; let not God take note of it from on high, and let not the light be shining on it;

5 Let the dark and the black night take it for themselves; let it be covered with a cloud; let the dark shades of day send fear on it.

6 That night--let the thick dark take it; let it not have joy among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months.

7 As for that night, let it have no fruit; let no voice of joy be sounded in it;