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I shall not return - I shall not return again from the dust to have a dwelling among men.

To the land of darkness - See the notes on Job 3:5. There are here a crowd of obscure and dislocated terms, admirably expressive of the obscurity and uncertainty of the subject. What do we know of the state of separate spirits? What do we know of the spiritual world? How do souls exist separate from their respective bodies? Of what are they capable and what is their employment? Who can answer these questions? Perhaps nothing can be said much better of the state than is here said, a land of obscurity, like darkness. The shadow of death - A place where death rules, over which he projects his shadow, intercepting every light of every kind of life. Without any order, סדרים ולא velo sedarim, having no arrangements, no distinctions of inhabitants; the poor and the rich are there, the master and his slave, the king and the beggar, their bodies in equal corruption and disgrace, their souls distinguished only by their moral character. Stripped of their flesh, they stand in their naked simplicity before God in that place.

Before I go - from where “I shall not return.” To the grave, to the land of shades, to

“That undiscovered country, from whose bourne

No traveler returns.”

To the land of darkness - This passage is important as furnishing an illustration of what was early understood about the regions of the dead. The essential idea here is that it was a land of darkness, of total and absolute night. This idea Job presents in a great variety of forms and phrases. He amplifies it, and uses apparently all the epithets which he can command to represent the utter and entire darkness of the place. The place referred to is not the grave, but the region beyond, the abode of departed spirits, the Hades of the ancients; and the idea here is, that it is a place where not a clear ray of light ever shines. That this was a common opinion of the ancients in regard to the world of departed spirits, is well known. Virgil thus speaks of those gloomy regions:

Oii, quibusimperium est animarum, umbraeque silentes,

Et Chaos, et Phlegethon, loca nocte tacentia late,

Sit mihi fas audita loqui; slt numine vestro

Pandere res alta terra et caligine mersas.

Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram,

Perque domos Ditis vacuas, et inania regna:

Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna

Est iter in silvis: ubi coelum condidit umbra

Jupiter, et rebus nox abstulit atra colorem

Aeneid vi. 259ff

A similar view of Hades was held by the Greeks. Thus, Theognis, 1007:

Ὠς μάκαρ εὐδυίμων τε και ὄλβιος, ὅστις ἄπειρος

Ἄθλων, εἰς ἥ δου δῶμα μέλαν κατέβη.

Hōs makar eudaimōn te kai olbios hostis apeiros

Athlōn eis h' dou dōma melan katebē is nowhere to be found, however, a description which for intensity and emphasis of expression surpasses this of Job.

Shadow of death - See this phrase explained in the note at Job 3:5.

Job did not deny that as a sinner he deserved his sufferings; but he thought that justice was executed upon him with peculiar rigour. His gloom, unbelief, and hard thoughts of God, were as much to be ascribed to Satan's inward temptations, and his anguish of soul, under the sense of God's displeasure, as to his outward trials, and remaining depravity. Our Creator, become in Christ our Redeemer also, will not destroy the work of his hands in any humble believer; but will renew him unto holiness, that he may enjoy eternal life. If anguish on earth renders the grave a desirable refuge, what will be their condition who are condemned to the blackness of darkness for ever? Let every sinner seek deliverance from that dreadful state, and every believer be thankful to Jesus, who delivereth from the wrath to come.