“Where is the way to the dwelling of light? And darkness, where is its place,
Parallel translations
- WEB “What is the way to the dwelling of light? As for darkness, where is its place,
- KJV Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof,
- BSB Where is the way to the home of light? Do you know where darkness resides,
- NASB ¶“Where is the way to the dwelling of light? And darkness, where is its place,
- NLT “Where does light come from, and where does darkness go?
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
God asks where light dwells and where darkness has its home. Job cannot locate the origins of the most basic realities.
Overview
The LORD inquires about the very dwelling places of light and darkness, treating them almost as living things with appointed homes. Job has no answer. The poetry underscores how the most familiar phenomena remain deep mysteries known only to their Creator.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Ezek 32:8I will make all the bright lights of the sky dark over you, and set darkness on your land, says the Lord Yahweh.
- Deut 4:19and lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the army of the sky, you are drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which Yahweh your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole sky.
- Ps 105:28He sent darkness, and made it dark. They didn’t rebel against his words.
- Ps 18:11He made darkness his hiding place, his pavilion around him, darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies.
- Matt 27:45Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.
- Job 38:12–13“Have you commanded the morning in your days, and caused the dawn to know its place;
- Amos 4:13For, behold, he who forms the mountains, and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought; who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the high places of the earth: Yahweh, the God of Armies, is his name.”
- Isa 45:7I form the light, and create darkness. I make peace, and create calamity. I am Yahweh, who does all these things.
- Gen 1:14–18God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs to mark seasons, days, and years;
- Gen 1:3–4God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
- Ps 104:20You make darkness, and it is night, in which all the animals of the forest prowl.
- John 1:9The true light that enlightens everyone was coming into the world.
- 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.”
- 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.
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 38:19 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.