They encounter darkness by day and grope at noon as in the night.
Parallel translations
- WEB They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope at noonday as in the night.
- KJV They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope in the noonday as in the night.
- NKJV They meet with darkness in the daytime, And grope at noontime as in the night.
- NASB “By day they meet with darkness, And grope at noon as in the night.
- NLT They find it is dark in the daytime, and they grope at noon as if it were night.
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
The crafty meet darkness in daytime and grope at noon as in the night. It pictures God leaving the cunning confused and blind despite their schemes.
Overview
Eliphaz portrays the clever stumbling in midday darkness, robbed of insight. The image of judicial blindness recalls God's power to confound the proud. Scripture warns that those who reject the light walk in darkness, while Christ comes as the light of the world, so that those who follow him need not grope but walk in the light of life.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Job 12:25They grope in the darkness without light; He makes them stagger like drunkards.
- Deut 28:29and at noon you will grope about like a blind man in the darkness. You will not prosper in your ways. Day after day you will be oppressed and plundered, with no one to save you.
- Isa 59:10Like the blind, we feel our way along the wall, groping like those without eyes. We stumble at midday as in the twilight; among the vigorous we are like the dead.
- Prov 4:19But the way of the wicked is like the darkest gloom; they do not know what makes them stumble.
- Amos 8:9And in that day, declares the Lord GOD, I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the daytime.
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 5:14 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.