Matthew Poole and continuators on Job 38:19

19. Where is the way where light dwelleth ? and as for darkness where is the place thereof?

Or rather, the place, as the next Clause explains it, and the Hebrew Phrase will bear.

i. e. Hath its constant and settled abode For in the place where Iob lived, and in most other parts of the inhabited World, it is like [illegible: 1+ letters] Traveller that cometh and goeth continually every day. This may be referred, eith [illegible: 1+ letters], 1. to the places under the two Poles, where first the light, and then the darkness continues for six Months together. Or rather 2. to the Sun the Fountain of Light. And as this is a Poetical Book, so this may be [illegible: 1+ letters] Poetical Expression and Question, Whither goes the Sun when it departs from this Hemisphear? Where is the Tabernacle and the Chamber in which both sacred, as Psal. 19. 4. 5. and profane Poets suppose the Sun to rest? Dost thou know the place where the Sun when it sets may be found, and whence thou canst fetch it back again. For it is to be carefully observed that he speaks not here of a bare and simple knowledge of this matter, which was plain and easie to Iob and many others, who were not ignorant that the Sun was the Fountain of Light from whose approach light comes▪ and by whose departure darkness is caused, but of an operative knowledge, even such as could and did enable him to take it to the bound thereof, as it follows, v. 20. And withal he seems here to speak not onely of the daily course and motion of the Sun, and the vicissitude of Day and Night, but also and especially of the first production of the light which was before Iob was born, as is evident from v. 21. And this makes the Question more difficult and more considerable, the sense whereof may be this▪ Seeing there was a time when there was nothing but gross and comfortless darkness upon the face of the Earth, what way came light into the World? Which was the place where light dwelt at that time, and whence it was fetched? and whence came that orderly constitution and constant succession of Light and Darkness? Was this thy work? Or wast thou privy to it, or a Counsellor, or Assistant in it? Or was it not done by me alone long before thou hadst a being?