Job 24:17

For to them, deep darkness is their morning; surely they are friends with the terrors of darkness!

Berean Standard Bible

Study note

Setting — Elihu addresses Job and his friends during a discourse on the hidden nature of divine justice, describing the inverted moral state of the wicked. He speaks this observation while detailing how evildoers operate outside the reach of human law.

The words — The text highlights צַלְמָוֶת (tzalmavet), meaning "deep darkness," and יַכִּיר (yakkir), meaning "he is acquainted with" or "friends with." These terms frame the wicked's daily reality as an intimate alliance with terror rather than light.

The thread — This motif of inverted light appears in Job 3:5, where darkness reclaims the day, and parallels the sudden ruin described in Psalms 73:18. Jeremiah 2:26 extends the theme by comparing the wicked to thieves caught in shame.

Why it lands — The verse demands recognition that the wicked do not merely fear darkness but actively align with it as their normal state. It requires the reader to accept that moral corruption inverts natural order without offering immediate comfort or explanation.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.

The Hebrew words

כִּ֤יkifor יַחְדָּ֨ו׀yach.Davtogether בֹּ֣קֶרBo.ker[is] morningלָ֣מוֹla./mofor/ themצַלְמָ֑וֶתtzal.Ma.vetdeep darkness כִּֽי־ki-for יַ֝כִּ֗ירya.Kirhe is acquainted with בַּלְה֥וֹתbal.Hot[the] terrors of צַלְמָֽוֶת׃tzal.Ma.vetdeep darkness

King James Version

For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death: if one know them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death.

Cross-references

Job 3:5 May darkness and gloom reclaim it, and a cloud settle over it; may the blackness of the day overwhelm it.
Psalms 73:18 Surely You set them on slick ground; You cast them down into ruin.
Jeremiah 2:26 As the thief is ashamed when he is caught, so the house of Israel is disgraced. They, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets
2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive his due for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.
Revelation 6:16 And they said to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.