the dark · noun, common masculine singular absolute
hid
טָמ֪וּןta.Mun
H2934
to hide (by covering over) · verb, qal passive participle, masculine singular absolute
places
לִצְפּ֫וּנָ֥יוlitz.Pu.Nav
H6845
to hide (by covering over) · preposition + verb, qal passive participle, masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
fire
אֵ֣שׁ'esh
H784
fire (literally or figuratively) · noun, common both genders singular absolute
blown
נֻפָּ֑חnu.Pach
H5301
to puff · verb, pual perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
consume
תְּ֭אָכְלֵהוּTe.'a.khe.le.hu
H398
to eat (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
ill
יָרַעyâraʻ
H3415
properly
left
שָׂרִ֣ידsa.Rid
H8300
a survivor · noun, common masculine singular absolute
tabernacle
בְּאָהֳלֽוֹbe.'o.ho.Lo
H168
a tent (as clearly conspicuous from a distance) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 21:9 Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the LORD shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them…
Psalms 120:4 Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper.
Job 18:5-6 Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine.
Job 18:18-19 He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.
Psalms 109:9-15 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
Isaiah 8:22 And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness.
Isaiah 14:20-22 Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evildoers shall never…
Isaiah 30:33 For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 20:23–end
Zophar, having described the many embarrassments and vexations which commonly attend the wicked practices of oppressors and cruel men, here comes to show their utter ruin at last.
I. Their ruin will take its rise from God's wrath and vengeance, Job 20:23. The hand of the wicked was upon him (Job 20:22), every hand of the wicked. His hand was against every one, and therefore every man's hand will be against him. Yet, in grappling with these, he might go near to make his part good; but his heart cannot endure, nor his hands be strong, when God shall deal with him (Eze 22:14), when God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him and rain it upon him. Every word here speaks terror. It is not only…
All darkness--that is, every calamity that befalls the wicked shall be hid (in store for him) in His (God's) secret places, or treasures (Jde 1:13; Deu 32:34).
not blown--not kindled by man's hands, but by God's (Isa 30:33; the Septuagint in the Alexandrian Manuscript reads "unquenchable fire," Mat 3:12). Tact is shown by the friends in not expressly mentioning, but alluding under color of general cases, to Job's calamities; here (Job 1:16) UMBREIT explains it, wickedness, is a "self-igniting fire"; in it lie the principles of destruction.
ill . . . tabernacle--Every trace of the sinner must be obliterated (Job 18:15).
John Gill on Job 20:26
All darkness shall be hid in his secret places,.... In such places of secrecy, where he may promise himself safety, he shall find more calamities of all sorts; or every kind of judgments shall find him out, and come upon him, sometimes signified by darkness, see Isaiah 8:22; or utter darkness, the blackness of darkness; everlasting wrath, ruin, and destruction, are laid up and reserved in God's secret places for him, and lie hid among his treasures of vengeance, which he in due time will bring forth from thence, and punish the guilty sinner with, Jde 1:13; or all this shall be because of secret sins, as Ben Gersom interprets it; and so Mr. Broughton renders the words, "for his store"; that i…
"Let the stranger shake his house. The demon coming from outside to tempt us; because everyone also has his own temptations.
Ver. 26. All darkness is hid in his secret places. 34. For though the hypocrite exhibits good actions on the surface, yet a certain 'darkness' of evil deeds appears in him; yet it less comes forth in act, than lies buried in his secret thought. For he who does not fulfil all things at once in execution, does in his heart in silence hold all things that may do mischief. Thus 'all darkness' is said to be 'hid in his secret places,' in that though he does not exhibit to view all things evil in himself, yet he aims to bring down all upon his fellow-creatures. Now let him add the retribution, which this soul so reprobate shall be visited with. It goes on; A fire that is not kindled shall consume him. 35. Most wonderfully in these few words is the fire of hell set forth! For bodily fire, in order to become fire, stands in need of bodily fuel; and when it is necessary for it to be preserved, as we well know, it is nourished by wood heaped upon it, neither can it be, except by being kindled, nor live, save by being cherished. But contrarily the fire of hell, whilst it is a bodily fire, and bodily consumes the children of perdition that are cast into it, is neither kindled by human effort, nor kept alive by wood, but being once made to be, it lasts unextinguishable: at one and the same time it needs no kindling, and lacks not heat. And so it is well said of this wicked one; A fire not kindled shall consume him; in that the justice of the Almighty, foreseeing future events, did from the very beginning of the world create the fire of hell, which should once begin in the punishment of the wicked, but never end its heat even without fuel. But it is necessary to know, that all the children of perdition, as they sinned in Spirit and flesh conjointly, are there tormented in spirit and flesh alike. Hence it is said by the Psalmist, Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of Thine anger. [Ps. 21, 9] The Lord shall confound them in His wrath, and the fire shall devour them. For an 'oven' is heated within; but he who is 'devoured by fire' begins to be consumed from the outside. Thus that holy Scripture might shew that the lost burn both within and without, it testifies that they are at once 'devoured by fire,' and 'made as a fiery oven,' that by fire they should be tormented in the body, and by grief burn in spirit. Hence in this place too, when it is declared of the…
Dictionary and topics
Worldliness · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Keil & Delitzsch on Job 20:26–end
26 All darkness is reserved for his treasured things,
A fire that is not blown upon devoureth him;
It feedeth upon what is left in his tent.
27 The heavens reveal his iniquity,
And the earth riseth up against him.
28 The produce of his house must vanish,
Flowing away in the day of God's wrath.
. . . . . .
29 This is the lot of the wicked man from Elohim,
And the heritage decreed for him from God.
As in Psa 17:14 God's store of earthly goods for the children of men is called צפוּן (צפין), so here the stores laid up by man himself are called צפוּניו. Total darkness, which will finally destroy them, is decreed by God against these stores of the godless, which are brought together not as coming…
Images such as deepest darkness and wildfire are often associated with God’s presence (Deut 4:11; 5:22-23; Heb 12:18) and especially with his judgment (Exod 9:23-24; 10:21-29).
Rashi on Job 20:26
for what awaits him For the hidden things that lie in store for him.
fire that was not blown The fire of Gehinnom.
harm shall befall the survivor in his tent Harm will come upon the survivor who will remain in his tent. The entire portion deals with the people of Sodom. “Harm shall befall the survivor in his tent” means that even Lot who escaped from them—harm befell his tent, i.e., his wife, who became a pillar of salt. I found this in the midrash of Rabbi Tanchuma (Buber, Vayera 8).
