³ tn Heb “and the day will be dark over them.”

² tn Heb “it will be dark for you without divination.”

³ sn Lapis lazuli is a dark-blue semiprecious stone.

⁷ tn Or “walk about”; NCV “all we have is darkness.”

⁴ tn Heb “and your darkness [will be] like noonday.”

² tn Heb “and their works are in darkness, and they say.”

² tn Heb “[who] delay until dark, [until] wine enflames them.”

¹ tn Heb “you make darkness, so that it might be night.”

² tn Or “put darkness between you and the Egyptians.”

¹ tn Heb “between the evenings” meaning between dusk and dark.

³ tn Heb “ways of darkness.” Darkness is often metaphorical for sinfulness, ignorance, or oppression. Their way of life lacks spiritual illumination.

³ tn The verse multiplies images for the darkness in death. Several commentators omit “as darkness, deep darkness” (כְּמוֹ אֹפֶל צַלְמָוֶת, k^emo ʾofel tsalmavet) as glosses on the rare word עֵיפָתָה (ʿefatah, “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.”

² tn Grk “utter darkness of darkness.” Verse 4 speaks of wicked angels presently in “chains of utter darkness,” while the final fate of the false teachers is a darker place still.

⁵ tn The accusative (“darkness”) is here an adverbial accusative of place, namely, “in the darkness,” or because he was successfully led by God’s light, “through the darkness” (see GKC 374 §118.h).

¹ tn The two nouns “cloud” and “darkness” form a nominal hendiadys: “and it was the cloud and the darkness” means “and it was the dark cloud.” Perhaps this is what the Egyptians saw, preventing them from observing Moses and the Israelites.

⁵ tn On this term BDAG 1022 s.v. ὑακίνθινος states, “hyacinth-colored, i.e., dark blue (dark red?) w. πύρινος Rv 9:17.”

¹ tn Heb “a land of the darkness of Yah [= thick or deep darkness].” The idea of danger is an added connotation in this context.

⁴ tn Heb “and one will gaze toward the land, and look, darkness of distress, and light will grow dark by its [the land’s?] clouds.”

⁵ sn Dark regions refers to Sheol, which the psalmist views as a dark place located deep in the ground (see Ps 88:6).

² tn The verse ends with “the stone of darkness and deep darkness.” The genitive would be location, describing the place where the stones are found.