God has blocked my way so I cannot move. He has plunged my path into darkness.
Parallel translations
- WEB He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass, and has set darkness in my paths.
- KJV He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my paths.
- BSB He has blocked my way so I cannot pass; He has veiled my paths with darkness.
- NKJV He has fenced up my way, so that I cannot pass; And He has set darkness in my paths.
- NASB “He has blocked my way so that I cannot pass, And He has put darkness on my paths.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Job says God has walled up his path and set darkness before him, blocking every way forward. He feels hemmed in by God himself.
Overview
Using imagery of an impassable, darkened road, Job portrays God as the one obstructing his life so he cannot escape his misery. The darkness signals confusion, hopelessness, and the loss of clear direction. Even here Job's words are addressed God-ward, and the believer trusts that the God who hedges in can also make a way, supremely through the One who is the Way (John 14:6).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Job 3:23Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?
- Lam 3:7He has walled me about, that I can’t go out; he has made my chain heavy.
- Lam 3:9He has walled up my ways with cut stone; he has made my paths crooked.
- Ps 88:8You have taken my friends from me. You have made me an abomination to them. I am confined, and I can’t escape.
- Prov 4:19The way of the wicked is like darkness. They don’t know what they stumble over.
- Hos 2:6Therefore behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she can’t find her way.
- Job 30:26When I looked for good, then evil came; When I waited for light, there came darkness.
- Isa 50:10Who among you fears Yahweh, and obeys the voice of his servant? He who walks in darkness, and has no light, let him trust in Yahweh’s name, and rely on his God.
- Josh 24:7When they cried out to Yahweh, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea on them, and covered them; and your eyes saw what I did in Egypt. You lived in the wilderness many days.
- Jer 23:12Therefore their way shall be to them as slippery places in the darkness. They shall be driven on, and fall therein; for I will bring evil on them, even the year of their visitation,” says Yahweh.
- Jer 13:16Give glory to Yahweh your God, before he causes darkness, and before your feet stumble on the dark mountains, and, while you look for light, he turns it into the shadow of death, and makes it gross darkness.
- John 8:12Again, therefore, Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 19:8 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.