23:8 “If I go to the east, he is not there,
and to the west, yet I do not perceive him.
23:17 Yet I have not been silent because of the darkness,
because of the thick darkness
that covered my face. 1
1 tn This is a very difficult verse. The Hebrew text literally says: “for I have not been destroyed because of darkness, and because of my face [which] gloom has covered.” Most commentators omit the negative adverb, which gives the meaning that Job is enveloped in darkness and reduced to terror. The verb נִצְמַתִּי (nitsmatti) means “I have been silent” (as in Arabic and Aramaic), and so obviously the negative must be retained – he has not been silent.