For to them, deep darkness is their morning; surely they are friends with the terrors of darkness!
Parallel translations
- WEB For the morning is to all of them like thick darkness, for they know the terrors of the thick darkness.
- KJV For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death: if one know them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death.
- NKJV For the morning is the same to them as the shadow of death; If someone recognizes them, They are in the terrors of the shadow of death.
- NASB “For the morning is the same to him as thick darkness, For he is familiar with the terrors of thick darkness.
- NLT The black night is their morning. They ally themselves with the terrors of the darkness.
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
For these evildoers, morning feels like deep darkness because they are at home with night's terrors. It matters because sin inverts what is good and fearful.
Overview
Job observes that to the wicked the dawn is like thick gloom, for they are familiar with the dread of darkness. Their moral world is so inverted that daylight, which should bring safety, threatens exposure. The verse shows how sin reorders the soul, a disorder healed only by the transforming light of Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Job 3:5May darkness and gloom reclaim it, and a cloud settle over it; may the blackness of the day overwhelm it.
- 2 Cor 5:10–11For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive his due for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.
- Jer 2:26As the thief is ashamed when he is caught, so the house of Israel is disgraced. They, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets
- Ps 73:18–19Surely You set them on slick ground; You cast them down into ruin.
- Rev 6:16–17And they said to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.
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 24:17 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.