What Does Job 18:6 Mean?
Light grows dark in his tent, and his lamp above him goes out.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
The light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle shall be put out with him.THE KEY
The darkness reaches from the person’s dwelling to the lamp that shines with them, leaving no light in the scene.
THE MEANING
You feel the severity of the image: light in the dwelling becomes dark, and the lamp above the person is extinguished. The verse pictures darkness reaching both the space around someone and the light that remains with them.
THE ROOT
אוֹר
ʾor
GROWS FROM
א־ו־ר
To shine or be luminous.
The verse begins with אוֹר, light or illumination, and says it becomes dark in the dwelling. That movement makes the darkness a change in what was lit, before the person’s own lamp is extinguished.
ALSO GROWS
maʾor: Luminary, light-bearer.
מָאוֹר
This related form names a bearer of light, making the verse’s turn from illumination to darkness especially stark.
heʾir: Shone or gave light.
הֵאִיר
This verb from the same root describes light actively shining, the state that the opening word in Job says has ended.
חָשַׁךְ
ḥāshakh
GROWS FROM
ח־ש־ך
To become dark or obscure.
“grows dark” in this verse is ḥāshakh. The verb and the Hebrew word for darkness share the same root: the light itself becomes dark. The line then moves from that change in the dwelling to a separate image, the person’s lamp being extinguished.
ALSO GROWS
ḥoshekh: Darkness.
חֹשֶׁךְ
This noun names the condition expressed by the verb in the verse: the dwelling’s light has become darkness.
ḥashekhah: Darkness or deep darkness.
חֲשֵׁכָה
This related noun shows the same root naming darkness as a surrounding condition, echoing the darkened space of the tent.
THE PATTERN
Scripture uses a person’s lamp or inner light to make the state of their life visible: it may shine, go dark, or be extinguished.
When his lamp shone upon my head, and by his light I walked through darkness.The light of the aligned rejoices; the lamp of the restless goes out.But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. So if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!THE THREAD
For you kindle my lamp; the LORD my God lights up my darkness.Job’s lamp is extinguished, while this verse says the speaker’s candle is lit and their darkness is illuminated. Its verb for “light” comes from the same root, אוֹר (ʾor), that names the light at the start of Job 18:6.
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