Job 3:5

Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.

Ver. 5. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it] Let it be dies luctuosus et lethalis, such a deadly dark day, that each man may think it his last day, fatal and feral. Let there not be dimness only (such as appeareth through a painted glass, dyed with some obscure colour), but horrid and hideous darkness, such as was that at our Saviour's passion, when the sun was totally eclipsed, and a great philosopher thereupon cried out, Either the God of Nature suffers, or the world is at an end. To darkness Job here emphatically addeth the shadow of death. The shadow is the dark part of the thing, so that the shadow of death is the darkest side of death, death in its blackest representation. Now let these stain it, saith he, or challenge it, or espouse it. In nocte funestatur mundi honor - Sordent, silent, stupent cuncta, saith Tertullian, elegantly.

Let a cloud dwell upon it] Crescit etiamnum per Auxesin oratio. Job heaps up words, like in sound, and not unlike in sense. Grief had made him eloquent; as hoping thereby to ease himself. "Let a cloud dwell upon it," a fixed cloud, not such a one as continually hangeth over the island of St Thomas, on the back side of Africa, wherewith the whole island is watered; nor such a cloud of grace as God promiseth to create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, that upon all his glory may be a defence, Isaiah 4:5. But such as St Paul and his company were under before the shipwreck, Acts 27:20, when neither sun nor star appeared for many days together, the heavens being wholly muffled, &c.

Let the blackness of the day terrify it] Or, Let the heat of the day terrify it; as it befalleth those that live under the torrid zone, where nothing prospereth. The Atlantes (a certain people) are said to curse the rising sun, it doth so torture them with extreme heat. When the dog star ariseth, those are in ill case who dwell in hot countries towards the east, they are troubled and terrified. Some take the word Chimrine, here rendered blackness, for those Chemarims mentioned by the prophets, those chimney chaplains of the heathen idols, and so render it thus, Let the priests of the day terrify it, Hinc forsan tenebrae Cimmeriae; that is, Let those who used to observe and distinguish days note it for a terrible day. Others understand it of the noon day devils, that should vex people on that day with hellish heats and fires: the Vulgate Latin hath it thus, Let, as it were, the bitternesses of the day terrify it: and to the same sense the Chaldee Paraphrast. Job still riseth in his discourse, making use of many poetical figures, and tragic phrases, picked out for the purpose.