Discovery BoxJob 10:22 
Context10:22 to the land of utter darkness,
like the deepest darkness,
and the deepest shadow and disorder, 1
where even the light 2 is like darkness.” 3
Job 24:13
Context24:13 There are those 4 who rebel against the light;
they do not know its ways
and they do not stay on its paths.
Job 24:16
Context24:16 In the dark the robber 5 breaks into houses, 6
but by day they shut themselves in; 7
they do not know the light. 8
Job 29:24
Context29:24 If I smiled at them, they hardly believed it; 9
and they did not cause the light of my face to darken. 10
1 tn The word סֵדֶר (seder, “order”) occurs only here in the Bible. G. R. Driver found a new meaning in Arabic sadira, “dazzled by the glare” (“Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 76-77); this would mean “without a ray of light.” This is accepted by those who see chaos out of place in this line. But the word “order” is well-attested in later Hebrew (see J. Carmignac, “Précisions aportées au vocabulaire d’hébreu biblique par La guerre des fils de lumière contre les fils de ténèbres,” VT 5 [1955]: 345-65).
2 tn The Hebrew word literally means “it shines”; the feminine verb implies a subject like “the light” (but see GKC 459 §144.c).
3 tn The verse multiplies images for the darkness in death. Several commentators omit “as darkness, deep darkness” (כְּמוֹ אֹפֶל צַלְמָוֶת, kÿmo ’ofel tsalmavet) as glosses on the rare word עֵיפָתָה (’efatah, “darkness”) drawn from v. 21 (see also RSV). The verse literally reads: “[to the] land of darkness, like the deep darkness of the shadow of death, without any order, and the light is like the darkness.”
4 tn Heb “They are among those who.”
5 tn The phrase “the robber” has been supplied in the English translation for clarification.
6 tc This is not the idea of the adulterer, but of the thief. So some commentators reverse the order and put this verse after v. 14.
7 tc The verb חִתְּמוּ (khittÿmu) is the Piel from the verb חָתַם (khatam, “to seal”). The verb is now in the plural, covering all the groups mentioned that work under the cover of darkness. The suggestion that they “seal,” i.e., “mark” the house they will rob, goes against the meaning of the word “seal.”
8 tc Some commentators join this very short colon to the beginning of v. 17: “they do not know the light. For together…” becomes “for together they have not known the light.”
9 tn The connection of this clause with the verse is difficult. The line simply reads: “[if] I would smile at them, they would not believe.” Obviously something has to be supplied to make sense out of this. The view adopted here makes the most sense, namely, that when he smiled at people, they could hardly believe their good fortune. Other interpretations are strained, such as Kissane’s, “If I laughed at them, they believed not,” meaning, people rejected the views that Job laughed at.
10 tn The meaning, according to Gordis, is that they did nothing to provoke Job’s displeasure.
