Job 24:17

This verse expands the last clause of Job 24:16:

For the morning is to them as the shadow of death,

For they know the terrors of the shadow of death.

The "shadow of death" is equivalent almost to "midnight;" see note ch. Job 3:5. These malefactors know not the light (Job 24:16), the morning seems to them midnight, so much do they fear and shun it; but they know, they are familiar with, the terrors of midnight, for this is their day. Others make "morning" predicate, for midnight is to them(like) the morning. This, however, does not connect so closely with Job 24:16. "Shakespeare has the same thought as indeed what thought has he not? and tells us that -when the searching eye of heaven, that lights this lower world, is hid behind the globe,"

-Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen,

In murders and in outrage …

But when from under this terrestrial ball

He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines,

And darts his light through every guilty hole,

Then murders, treason, and detested sins,

The cloak of night being plucked from off their backs,

Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves." "

(Cox, Commentary on Job, p. 317.)