Job 3:5

“HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it. By 'the shadow of death,' we must understand 'oblivion,' for as death ends life, so oblivion puts an end to memory. As therefore the apostate Angel is delivered over to eternal oblivion, he is overclouded with the shadow of death. Therefore let him say, Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; i.e. 'So let him be overwhelmed with the blindness of error, that he never more rise up again to the light of repentance by recollection of God's regard. Let a cloud dwell upon it: and let it be enveloped in bitterness. It is one thing that our old enemy suffers now, bound by the chains of his own wickedness, and another that he will have to suffer at the end. For in that he is fallen from the rank of the interior light, he now confounds himself within with the darkness of error; and hereafter he is involved in bitterness, in that by desert of a voluntary blindness, he is tortured with the eternal torments of hell. Let it be said then, 'What is it that he, who has lost the calm of the light interior, now endures as the foretaste of his final punishment? Let a cloud dwell upon it. Moreover let that subsequent doom be added also, which preys upon him without end.' Let him be folded up in bitterness; for every thing folded up, shews, as it were, no end any where, for as it shews not where it begins, so neither does it discover where it leaves off. The old enemy then is said to be folded up in bitterness, in that not only every kind of punishment, but punishment too without end awaits his Pride; which same doom then receives its beginning when the righteous Judge cometh at the last Judgment.”

“MORAL INTERPRETATION. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it. Then indeed darkness stains the day, when the delight of our inclinations is smitten through with the inflictions of penance. By darkness moreover may be signified secret decisions. For what we see in the light we know, but in the dark we either discern nothing at all, or our eyes are bewildered with an uncertain sight. Secret decrees then are like a certain kind of darkness before our eyes, being utterly inscrutable to us. And hence it is written of God, He made darkness His secret place; and we know well that we do not deserve pardon, but, by the grace of God preventing us, we are freed from our sins by His secret counsels. Darkness, therefore, stains the day, when the joy of gratification, which is a proper subject of tears, is in mercy hidden from that ray of just wrath by His secret determinations. And the shadow of death. For in Holy Scripture, the shadow of death is sometimes understood of oblivion of mind, sometimes of imitation of the devil, sometimes of the dissolution of the flesh. For the shadow of death is understood of the oblivion of the mind, in that, as has been said above, as death causes that that which it kills should no longer remain in life, so oblivion causes that whatsoever it seizes should no longer abide in the memory. And hence too, because John was coming to proclaim to the Hebrew people That God, Whom they had forgotten, he is justly said by Zacharias, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death; for 'to sit in the shadow of death,' is to turn lifeless to the knowledge of the love of God in a state of oblivion. The shadow of death is taken to mean the imitating our old enemy. For, since he brought in death, he is himself called death, as John is witness, saying, and his name is death. And so by the shadow of death is signified the imitating of him. For as the shadow is shaped according to the character of the body, so the actions of the wicked are cast in a figure of conformity to him. Hence when Isaiah saw that the Gentiles had fallen away after the likeness of our old enemy, and that they rose up again at the rising of the true Sun, he justly records, as though in the past, what his eyes beheld as certain in the future, saying, They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a great light hath shined. Moreover, the shadow of death is taken for the dissolution of the flesh, in that, as that is the true death whereby the soul is separated from God, so the shadow of death is that whereby the flesh is separated from the soul. And hence it is rightly said by the Prophet in the words of the Martyrs, Though Thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death. For those, who, we know, die not in the spirit, but only in the flesh, can in no wise say that they are 'covered with the true death,' but with the shadow of death. How is it then that blessed Job demands the shadow of death, for putting out the day of evil enjoyment, but that for the obliterating of our sins in God's sight he calls for the Mediator between God and man, who should undertake for us the death of the flesh alone, and Who by the shadow of His own death, should do away the true death of transgressors? For He comes to us, who were held in the bands of death, both of the spirit and of the flesh, and His own single Death He reckoned to our account, and our two deaths, which He found, He dissolved. For if He had Himself undertaken both, He would never have set us free from either. But He took one sort in mercy, and condemned them both with justice. He joined His own single Death to our twofold death, and by dying He vanquished that double death of ours. And hence it was not without reason that He lay in the grave for one day and two nights, namely, in that He added the light of His own single Death to the darkness of our double death. He, then, that took for our sakes the death of the flesh alone, underwent the shadow of death, and buried from the eyes of God the sin that we have done. Therefore let it be truly said, Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it. As though it were said in plain words; 'Let Him come, Who, that He may snatch from the death of the flesh and of the spirit, us, that are debtors thereto, may, though no debtor, discharge the death of the flesh.' But since the Lord lets no sin go unpunished, for either we visit it ourselves by lamenting it, or God by judging it, it remains that the mind should ever have a watchful eye to the amendment of itself. Therefore, in whatever particular each person sees that he is succoured by mercy, he must needs wipe out the stains thereof in the confession of it. Let a shade dwell upon it. For because the eye is perplexed in the shade, therefore the perplexity of our mind in penitence is itself called shade, for as the shade obscures the light of day with a mass of clouds, so confusion overclouds the mind with troubled thoughts. Of which it is said by one, There is a shame which is glory and grace. For when in repenting we recall our misdoings to remembrance, we are at once confounded with heaviness and sorrow, the throng of thoughts clamours vociferously in our breast, sorrow wears, anxiety wastes us, the soul is turned to woe, and, as it were, darkened with the shade of a kind of cloud. Now this shade of confusion had oppressed the minds of those to their good, to whom Paul said, What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? Let shade, then, seize this day of sin, i.e. 'Let the chastening of penance with befitting sorrow discompose the flattery of sin.' Let it be enfolded in bitterness. For the day is enfolded in bitterness, when, upon the soul returning to knowledge, the inflictions of penance follow upon the caresses of sin. We 'enfold the day in bitterness,' when we regard the punishments that follow the joys of forbidden gratification, and pour tears of bitter lamenting around them. For whereas what is folded up is covered on every side, we wish 'the day to be folded in bitterness,' that each man may mark on every side the ills that threaten crooked courses, and may cleanse the wantonness of self-gratification by the tears of bitter sorrow. But if we hear that day, which we have rendered the 'gratification of sin,' assailed with so many imprecations, that, surely, our tears poured around it may expiate whatsoever sin the soul is become guilty of by being touched with gratification through negligence, with what visitings of penitence is the night of that day to be stricken, i.e. the actual consent to sin? For as it is a less fault when the mind is carried away in delight by the influence of the flesh, yet by the resistance of the Spirit offers violence to its sense of delight; so it is a more heinous and complete wickedness not only to be attracted to the fascination of sin by the feeling of delight, but to pander to it by yielding consent. Therefore the mind must be cleansed from defilement by being wrung harder with the hand of penitence, in proportion as it sees itself to be more foully stained by the yielding of the consent.”

“Second, from the interposition of clouds or things like this which hide the rays of the sun. The text means this when it says, "Let gloom claim it." Third, when the subject himself lacks the power of sight, since when someone is dead or deprived of sight, the clarity of the sun is taken away from him. The next verse expresses this, "and the shadow of death." Job explains two ways which can produce the aforementioned darkness. First, as to the order when he says, "Let clouds dwell on it." For clouds dwell on a day when a day which dawned clear and beautiful is suddenly and unexpectedly overcast by clouds. Job's own life seems to be like this. Second, as to the kind of darkness. So he says, "Let it be enveloped in bitterness." In this verse he shows that everything which has been said about darkening should refer to the darkness of sorrow. In fact, his style seems to explain an allegory using another allegory. In all these expressions, he only means to say that the day of his birth should not be judged as one of joy but as one of mourning since he entered by his birth into a life of such great adversity.”