Job 24:16

King James Version (KJV)

In the dark they dig through houses, which they had marked for themselves in the daytime: they know not the light.

Adam Clarke
Bible Commentary

In the dark they dig through houses - Thieves in Bengal very frequently dig through the mud wall and under the clay floors of houses, and, entering unperceived, plunder them while the inhabitants are asleep. Mr. Good's version of this paragraph I shall lay before the reader: -

Job 24:15; For the dark too watcheth the eye of the adulterer; Exclaiming, No eye shall behold me. Then putteth he the muffler on his face;

Job 24:16; He wormeth into houses amidst the darkness. In the daytime they seal themselves up, They know not the light:

Job 24:17; For, the dawn they reckon to themselves as the death-shade; The horrors of the death-shade as it returneth.

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Albert Barnes
Notes on the Whole Bible

In the dark they dig through houses - This refers, probably, to another class of wicked persons. The adulterer steals forth in the night, but it is not his way to “dig” into houses. But the persons here referred to are robbers, who conceal themselves by day, and who at night secretly enter houses for plunder. The phrase “dig through” probably has reference to the fact that houses were made of clay, or of bricks dried in the sun - a species of mud cottages, and whose walls, therefore, could be easily penetrated. In the East, nearly all the houses are made of unburned brick, and there is little difficulty in making a hole in the wall large enough to admit the human body; compare Ezekiel 12:7. In Bengal, says Mr. Ward, it is common for thieves to dig through the walls of houses made of mud, or under the house floors, which are made merely of earth, and enter thus into the dwellings while the inmates are asleep. Rosenmuller‘s Alte u. neue Morgenland “in loc.”

Which they had marked for themselves in the day-time - According to this translation the idea would be, that in the day-time they carefully observed houses, and saw where an entrance might be effected. But this interpretation seems contrary to the general sense of the passage. It is said that they avoid the light, and that the night is the time for accomplishing their purposes. Probably, therefore, the meaning of this passage is, “in the day time they shut themselves up.” So it is rendered by Gesenius, Rosenmuller, Noyes, and others. The word here used, and rendered “marked” (חתם châtham ), means to seal, to seal up; and hence, the idea of shutting up, or making fast; see Job 9:7, note; Isaiah 8:17, note. Hence, it may mean to shut up close as if one was locked in; and the idea here is, that in the day-time they shut themselves up close in their places of concealment, and went forth to their depredations in the night.

They know not the light - They do not see the light. They do all their work in the dark.

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Matthew Henry
Concise Bible Commentary

See what care and pains wicked men take to compass their wicked designs; let it shame our negligence and slothfulness in doing good. See what pains those take, who make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts of it: pains to compass, and then to hide that which will end in death and hell at last. Less pains would mortify and crucify the flesh, and be life and heaven at last. Shame came in with sin, and everlasting shame is at the end of it. See the misery of sinners; they are exposed to continual frights: yet see their folly; they are afraid of coming under the eye of men, but have no dread of God's eye, which is always upon them: they are not afraid of doing things which they are afraid of being known to do.

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