Job 10:21

American Standard Version with Strong's Numbers

Before I go whence I shall not return, [Even] to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death;

📖 Grammatical Analysis

Original Text

בְּטֶ֣רֶם אֵ֭לֵךְ וְלֹ֣א אָשׁ֑וּב אֶל־אֶ֖רֶץ חֹ֣שֶׁךְ וְצַלְמָֽוֶת׃

Transliteration

before ʾēlēk and not ʾāšûb to ʾereṣ ḥōšek and ṣalmāwet

Grammar Details

• *ʾēlēk*: Qal imperfect, 1st singular - I go
• *ʾāšûb*: Qal imperfect, 1st singular - I return
• *ʾereṣ*: noun, feminine singular construct - land of
• *ḥōšek*: noun, masculine singular - darkness
• *ṣalmāwet*: noun, masculine singular - deep darkness/shadow of death

Word Meanings

• *ʾēlēk*: I go/I depart
• *ʾāšûb*: I return/I come back
• *ḥōšek*: darkness/obscurity
• *ṣalmāwet*: deep darkness/shadow of death/gloom

Referenced Verses

• 2 Sam 12:23 : 23 But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.
• Job 3:5 : 5 Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own; Let a cloud dwell upon it; Let all that maketh black the day terrify it.
• Job 16:22 : 22 For when a few years are come, I shall go the way whence I shall not return.
• Ps 23:4 : 4 Yea, thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
• Job 7:8-9 : 8 The eye of him that seeth me shall behold me no more; Thine eyes shall be upon me, but I shall not be. 9 As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, So he that goeth down to Sheol shall come up no more. 10 He shall return no more to his house, Neither shall his place know him any more.
• Job 14:10-14 : 10 But man dieth, and is laid low: Yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? 11 [ As] the waters fail from the sea, And the river wasteth and drieth up; 12 So man lieth down and riseth not: Till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, Nor be roused out of their sleep. 13 Oh that thou wouldest hide me in Sheol, That thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, That thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! 14 If a man die, shall he live [again]? All the days of my warfare would I wait, Till my release should come.
• Ps 88:6 : 6 Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, In dark places, in the deeps.
• Ps 88:11-12 : 11 Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? Or thy faithfulness in Destruction? 12 Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? And thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
• Isa 38:11 : 11 I said, I shall not see Jehovah, [even] Jehovah in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world.
• Jer 2:6 : 6 Neither said they, Where is Jehovah that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and of the shadow of death, through a land that none passed through, and where no man dwelt?
• Job 3:13 : 13 For now should I have lain down and been quiet; I should have slept; then had I been at rest,
• 2 Sam 14:14 : 14 For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God take away life, but deviseth means, that he that is banished be not an outcast from him.