He believeth not that he shall return out of
darkness
When he lies down at night he despairs of ever seeing the light
of the morning, through fear of an enemy, a robber, a murderer,
or of one disaster or another, ( Deuteronomy
28:66 Deuteronomy
28:67 ) ; or when he is in any affliction and calamity, which
is often signified by darkness, he cannot persuade himself that
he shall ever be delivered out of it, and restored to his former
condition again: and here Eliphaz seems to glance at Job, who had
no hope of his being brought into such a state of prosperity he
had been in; whereas good men, when in darkness, believe they
shall be brought again to the light, as the church in ( Micah 7:8 Micah 7:9 ) ; or the
infidel, who knows he must be laid in the dark and silent grave;
the Heathen man, such as were many of the neighbours of Eliphaz,
the Idumeans, among whom he dwelt, who were without the hope of a
glorious resurrection; and which is an article of pure
revelation, and which the idolatrous Heathen were strangers to,
and so believed it not, or any deliverance from the grave; or
this may respect the blackness of darkness, the outer darkness,
the darkness of hell, which when once a wicked man is cast into,
and enveloped with, he despairs, as he well may, of ever being
delivered out of it:
and he is waited for of the sword;
or by them that kill with the sword, as the Targum, who lie in
wait for him, to rob him, and kill him; or in his own
apprehension he seems to have nothing but drawn swords about him,
or a sword hanging over his head, or the judgments of God ready
to fall upon him for his sins; for he, having killed others with
the sword, must expect to be killed with it himself.