Desire not the night, when people are cut off in their place.
Parallel translations
- WEB Don’t desire the night, when people are cut off in their place.
- BSB Do not long for the night, when people vanish from their homes.
- NKJV Do not desire the night, When people are cut off in their place.
- NASB “Do not long for the night, When people vanish in their places.
- NLT Do not long for the cover of night, for that is when people will be destroyed.
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
Elihu warns Job not to long for the night when peoples are cut off. He cautions against desiring death or judgment.
Overview
This difficult verse seems to warn Job against longing for the 'night,' likely a desire for death or for divine judgment to fall. Job had at times wished for death (Job 3), and Elihu counsels against such longing. The verse calls sufferers to entrust their times to God rather than crave escape, finding instead hope in the Lord who holds life and death in His hands.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Job 34:25Therefore he knoweth their works, and he overturneth them in the night, so that they are destroyed.
- 2 Kgs 19:35And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.
- Exod 12:29And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.
- Job 34:20In a moment shall they die, and the people shall be troubled at midnight, and pass away: and the mighty shall be taken away without hand.
- Eccl 11:3If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.
- Dan 5:30In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain.
- Prov 14:32The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous hath hope in his death.
- Job 6:9Even that it would please God to destroy me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off!
- Job 14:13O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!
- Luke 12:20But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
- Acts 1:25That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.
- 1 Th 5:2–3For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
- Job 7:15So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life.
- Job 3:20–21Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;
- Job 17:13–14If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness.
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 36:20 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.