Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 38:19

Where [is] the way [where] light dwelleth? and [as for] darkness, where [is] the place thereof,

19. The first clause reads,

What is the way to where light dwelleth?

Light and darkness are here regarded as things independent of one another; they are both real agents, each of which has its place or abode, from which it streams forth over the earth, and to which it is again taken back ( Job 38:20).

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19 21. Light and darkness.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19 38. The wonders of the heavens.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Where is the way where light dwelleth? – Or, rather, where is the way or path to the place where light dwells? Light is conceived of as coming from a great distance, and as having a place which might be regarded as its home. It comes in the morning, and is withdrawn at evening, and it seems as if it came from some far distant dwelling-place in the morning to illuminate the world, and then retired to its home in the evening, and thus gave place for darkness to visit the earth. The idea is this, Dost thou know, when the light withdraws from the world, to what place it betakes itself as its home? Canst thou follow it to its distant abodes, and tell where they are? And when the shadows of night come forth, and take its place, canst thou tell whence they come; and when they withdraw again in the morning, canst thou follow them, and tell where they are congregated together to abide? The thought is highly poetic, and is not to be taken literally. The meaning is, that God only could know what was the great fountain of light, and where that was; and the question substantially may be asked of man with as much force and propriety now as in the time of Job. Who knows what is the great fountain of light to the universe? Who knows what light is? Who can explain the causes of its rapid flight from world to world? Who can tell what supplies it, and prevents it from being exhausted? Who but God, after all the discoveries of science, can fully understand this?

And as for darkness, where is the place thereof? – Darkness here is personified. It is represented as having a place of abode as coming forth to take the place of light when that is withdrawn, and again as retiring to its dwelling when the light reappears.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 19. Where light dwelleth] What is the source of light? Yea, what is light itself? It is not in the sun, for light was before the sun; but what is light? It is no doubt a substance; but of what kind? and of what are its particles? As to darkness, what is IT? Is it philosophical to say, it is the mere privation of light? I shall think philosophy has made some advances to general accuracy and perfection when it proves to us what cold is, and what darkness is, leaving mere privations out of the question.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

The way; or rather, the place, as the next clause explains it, and the Hebrew phrase will bear.

Where light dwelleth, i.e. hath its constant and settled abode; for in the place where Job lived, and in most other parts of the inhabited world, it is like a traveller, that cometh and goeth continually every day. This may be referred either,

1. To the place under the two poles, where first the light, and then the darkness, continues for six months together. Or rather,

2. To the sun, the fountain of light. And as this is a poetical book, so this may be a poetical expression and question, Whither goes the sun, when it departs from this hemisphere? Where is the tabernacle and the chamber in which both sacred, as Psa 19:4,5, and profane poets suppose the sun to rest? Dost thou know the place where the sun when it sets may be found, and whence thou canst fetch it back again. For it is to be carefully observed, that he speaks not here of a bare and simple knowledge of this matter, which was plain and easy to Job, and many others, who were not ignorant that the sun was the fountain of light, from whose approach light comes, and by whose departure darkness is caused; but of an operative knowledge, even such as could and did enable him to take it to the bound thereof, as it follows, Job 38:20. And withal, he seems here to speak not only of the daily course and motion of the sun, and the vicissitude of day and night, but also and especially of the first production of the light, which was before Job was born, as is evident from Job 38:21. And this makes the question more difficult and more considerable, the sense whereof may be this: Seeing there was a time when there was nothing but gross and comfortless darkness upon the face of the earth, what way came light into the world? which was the place where light dwelt at that time, and whence it was fetched? and whence came that orderly constitution and constant succession of light and darkness? Was this thy work? or wast thou privy to it, or a counsellor or assistant in it? or was it not done by me alone long before thou hadst a being?

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

19-38. The marvels in heaven.”What is the way (to the place wherein) light dwelleth?”The origin of light and darkness. In Gen 1:3-5;Gen 1:14-18, “light”is created distinct from, and previous to, light-emitting bodies, theluminaries of heaven.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Where [is] the way [where] light dwelleth?…. Or the way to the place where it dwells, and what that is;

and [as for] darkness, where [is] the place thereof? where these were placed when they were first separated at the creation? where light goes and dwells, when it departs from us at sun setting? and where the darkness betakes itself, and makes its abode at sun rising? What is the chamber of the sun, and the tabernacle of it? from whence it sets out, and whither it returns? And though these questions may be answered by geographers and astronomers in their way; yet they seem to respect chiefly the disposal of light and darkness, in such a manner as to cause the revolution of them, and the inequality of days and nights in different seasons and climates; and which is not in the power of men to effect, but depends on the sovereign will of God.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

. He must also understand the cosmical phenomena of light and darkness; must not only know the paths to their house, but himself, venerable in years, must at some time have escorted them to their home, Job 38:19-21.

19. Way where light dwelleth Neither does the corpuscular theory of Newton, nor Huyghens’ undulatory theory, account for the rise, the cause, or the source of light. Its dwelling place, “in what kind of land it dwells,” (Septuagint,) is an impenetrable mystery. “Ask of the learned THE WAY, the learned are blind.”

Speaking of light, Prof. Tyndall remarks: “We are here dealing, for the most part, with suppositions and assumptions merely. We have never seen the atoms of a luminous body, nor their motions. We have never seen the medium which transmits their motions, nor the waves of that medium.” The Forms of Water, pp. 10, 12. And yet science has penetrated so far into the arcana of nature as to measure the magnitude of ‘the light waves’ by their effects, and to find them varying from one thirty thousandth to one sixty thousandth of an inch. “The whole of that region of space over which astronomers have extended their survey, and doubtless a region many millions of millions of times more extended, may be compared to a wave-tossed sea, only that, instead of a wave-tossed surface, there is a wave-tossed space. At every point, through every point, along every line, athwart every line, myriads of light waves are at all times rushing with the inconceivable velocity of 185,000 miles per second.” R.A. Proctor. Science, instead of solving, is constantly adding to, its difficulties. Its tetra incognita its land of the unknown in an inverse ratio to the explorations made, is constantly enlarging. The most approved works of modern science, professedly clearing the way to the penetralia of nature, do but little more than open up a multitude of indeterminate problems. The haze that rests upon the nature of ultimate material causes upon the beginning or essence of nature’s forces is no less dense now than in the days of Job. The secret of this lies in the profound thought of Edmund Burke, that every subject we attempt to explore branches into the infinite. The most that philosophy does is to record the processes of nature to peer a little into the infinite unknown, in which the primordia of nature DWELL. To make man sensible of his consummate ignorance, and to open up to him the essential finiteness of the human mind, is really the gist of these questions; questions which, though they he never so simple, philosophy will be powerless fully to unfold so long as mind is cased in flesh and blood. “As in Genesis i, the light is here regarded as a self-subsistent, natural force, independent of the heavenly luminaries by which it is transmitted; and herein modern investigation agrees with the direct observations of antiquity.” Schlottmann. See an article entitled “Drifting Light Waves,” by R.A. Proctor, in Contemporary Review, 1877, 2. pp. 219-240. Also, “On the Place where Light Dwelleth,” in Eclectic Magazine, 1870, i, pp. 725-739; 2. 80-86, taken from the British Quarterly Review.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments