They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope at noonday as in the night.
Parallel translations
- KJV They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope in the noonday as in the night.
- BSB They encounter darkness by day and grope at noon 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 dark without light. He makes them stagger like a drunken man.
- Deut 28:29You will grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. You will only be oppressed and robbed always, and there will be no one to save you.
- Isa 59:10We grope for the wall like the blind. Yes, we grope as those who have no eyes. We stumble at noon as if it were twilight. Among those who are strong, we are like dead men.
- Prov 4:19The way of the wicked is like darkness. They don’t know what they stumble over.
- Amos 8:9It will happen in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh, “that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.
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.