Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark - That is, be extinguished, so that it shall be total darkness - darkness not even relieved by a single star. The word here rendered "twilight" ׁ nesheph means properly a breathing; and hence, the evening, when cooling breezes "blow," or gently breathe. It is used however, to denote both the morning and the evening twilight, though here probably it means the latter. He wishes that the evening of that night, instead of being in any way illuminated, should "set in" with total darkness and continue so. The Septuagint renders it, "night.
Let it look for light, but have none - Personifying the night, and representing it as looking out anxiously for some ray of light. This is a beautiful poetic image - the image of "Night," dark and gloomy and sad, anxiously looking out for a single beam or a star to break in upon its darkness and diminish its gloom.
Neither let it see the dawning of the day - Margin, more literally and more beautifully, "eyelids of the morning." The word rendered "dawning" ‛aph‛aphı̂ym means properly "the eyelashes" (from ּ ‛ûph "to fly" ), and it is given to them from their flying or fluttering. The word rendered "day" ׁ shachar means the aurora, the morning. The sun when he is above the horizon is called by the poets the eye of day; and hence, his earliest beams, before he is risen, are called the eyelids or eyelashes of the morning opening upon the world. This figure is common in the ancient Classics, and occurs frequently in the Arabic poets; see Schultens "in loc." Thus, in Soph. Antiq. 104, the phrase occurs, ̔́ ́ Hameras blefaron . So in Milton' s Lycidas,
" - Ere the high lawns appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the dawn,
We drive afield."
Job' s wish was, that there might be no star in the evening twilight, and that no ray might illuminate that of the morning; that it might be enveloped in perpetual, unbroken darkness.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Job 3:9:
2 Samuel 1:21
Job 3:4
Job 3:6
Psalms 39:4
Ecclesiastes 12:2
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