before I go — and I shall not return — to the land of darkness and deep shadow,
Job has begged God for a brief pause in his suffering, and here he says why. He believes he is about to leave for a place nobody comes back from. His picture of that place is all negative. So how much did a suffering man of his day really know about what lay beyond his last breath?
A man at the end of his hope
What has broken him is not the sores on his body but something inward. And he says it all straight to God, not about Him.
Samuel RidoutIt is not the bodily suffering that has wrung this bitter cry from him, but he has lost, or is in danger of losing, faith in God's goodness. There is barely a gleam of light in his whole speech. In the closing part (Job 10) he lets himself loose in the dark despair that has settled down on his soul. He does not stand staring into that darkness; instead he pours out all those thoughts before the eye of God. May not this very surrender to misery suggest the root of faith in his heart?
Death, with nothing revealed beyond it
Job's future looks black because he had no revelation to light it.
F. B. HoleHe again complained that he had ever been born, and as to the future he had no light. Death was to him as "a land of darkness," as we see in verses 21 and 22. We have to pass on to New Testament days to get such a word as that, "the true light now shines" (1 John 2:8).
What "I shall not return" means
Some take this phrase to mean Job expected nothing after death. One writer answers that Job means this world: he will not come back to the life he is leaving.
Frederick W GrantJob 10:21 and Job 16:22 prove that Job's thoughts are running in this direction. If it were otherwise, then when he says that in dying he "goes to a place he will not return from," he is denying all resurrection. But he is thinking of a return to the scene before him. It is not an abstract statement. He simply means the scene of mixed joy and sorrow he was in the middle of. And Scripture often speaks this way. "Enoch was not." Is that extinction? No, "he was translated, that he should not see death."
Not every word in the book is God's word
The book of Job is inspired Scripture. That does not make Job's despairing picture of death a teaching to build on.
William KellyWe must remember that, although the Book of Job is inspired, it would be a great mistake to admit that the speeches are inspired. Satan's words were certainly not inspired, yet the book records them. Part of the profit of the book is that we have the mistakes of the speakers. Every one of the three friends was very much mistaken in what he said, and Job himself also.
Light has since entered that land
That darkness did not stay. Christ's coming broke into it.
Numerical Bible NotesIn the past death was a shadow over souls, such as we find it in Job's picture of "a land of darkness, as darkness itself and … where the light is as darkness" (Job 10:22). But now with the Life the Light has come, and it pierces the shadow of death. He meets and defeats the one who had the power of death, and He frees the captives (Heb. 2:14-15).
Why Job's gloom should move us to thanks
Job had no way out of his darkness. A reader today does.
F. B. HoleYet even today there are all too many who regard death as the taking of "a leap in the dark." And it truly is that to them, if they neglect or reject the Christ the Gospel presents to them. Such people have no excuse, while for Job there was every excuse. We say again: the gloom of this excellent saint of Old Testament days should move us to give much thanks to God, who has brought us out of darkness into His "marvellous light."
Summary
- Darkness felt. Job's real wound is not his body but his fading confidence in God's goodness. Yet he pours the whole complaint out to God, and that may show faith still alive underneath.
- Darkness described. With no revelation about what follows death, he can only call it a land of darkness; he had no light on his future.
- Darkness misread. "I shall not return" points to the world of joy and sorrow he is leaving. It is not a denial of resurrection — "Enoch was not" did not mean Enoch had stopped existing.
- Darkness recorded, not taught. The book is inspired, but the speeches inside it include the speakers' mistakes. Job's picture of death is honest, not a rule of doctrine.
- Darkness broken. With the Life came the Light. It pierced the shadow and freed the captives — so Job's gloom becomes our reason for thanks.