From the wicked their light is withheld, and their uplifted arm is broken.
God is questioning Job out of the storm about the daybreak — who commands the morning, and what it does when it comes. This verse is the last line of that picture: light is bad news for those who needed the dark, and the lifted arm is broken.
Darkness as the wicked man's working hours
The verse assumes the wicked have a light of their own, and it is not daylight. Ridout names what it is:
Samuel RidoutThe night is the light of the wicked; they hate the light, and will not come to it, in case their deeds should be exposed. The coming of the light stops their deeds. Their uplifted arm is broken.
This is not poetry alone. Kelly reads the dawn's shaking of the wicked as something anyone can observe about human behaviour at night:
William KellyBecause the darkness of the night is exactly what gives the opportunity for murder and burglary and all the other dishonest dealings of men, more than any other time.
Light that exposes
Withholding the wicked man's light is not God adding a punishment from outside. It is what light does when it arrives. Light shows everything as it really is, beautiful or ruined.
Samuel RidoutA signet ring stamps its mark on shapeless clay. In the same way, the light stamps the varied forms and colours of all things on the face of the earth. Under that light they stand out like a lovely garment — or the opposite, a scene of ruin. The light shows all things as they are: "Anything that becomes visible is light" (Eph. 5:13).
The arm that was lifted
The second half of the verse pictures a raised arm. Grant reads it as the arm of opposition to God, and then applies it to Job himself, who had come near to doing the same thing:
Leslie M. GrantBecause the wicked love darkness, light is withheld from them (v.15). Their arm, lifted up in opposition to God, is simply broken. Job should certainly have been deeply impressed by this. He had been dangerously close to raising his arm against God, and in this way acting as the wicked do.
A dawn still to come
Ridout reads this daybreak as a picture of a larger morning still to come.
Samuel RidoutSo the light of God's presence detects evil. When He causes a new day to dawn — "the day of the Lord" — evildoers will be shaken out of the earth. For this reason His people, who are "children of light, children of the day," order their lives by the light. For this reason, in that fair land where there is no night, nothing unclean can enter. It is the home of light. None could remain there but the sons of light. "Its lamp is the Lamb."
The same light that ends Job's night
The picture cuts both ways. The God who brings morning to expose evil is the God who can bring morning to a suffering man.
Samuel RidoutThis appeal to day and night is very effective. Will Job accuse One who is Light, who sees all things as they are? Will he doubt One who knows the secrets of his heart, and the reason for these chastenings? Do these questions not hint that God will bring Job's night to an end, and at the appointed time cause His dawn to visit the poor sufferer?
Summary
- Night — Darkness is the only "light" the wicked have. They use it as cover, and Kelly notes that night is when crime happens.
- Dawn — Light does not debate evil. It exposes evil, stamping everything into view like a seal pressed into clay.
- Withheld — Losing that light is not an extra penalty. God simply removes the cover their deeds required.
- Broken — The arm raised against God is broken at daybreak. Grant applies this to Job, who had come close to raising his own.
- Morning — The same light that shakes out evildoers is the light that ends Job's night. God's people, children of the day, order their lives by it.