Joshua 24:7

24:7 Your fathers ¹  cried out for help to the Lord; he made the area between you and the Egyptians dark, ²  and then drowned them in the sea. ³  You witnessed with your very own eyes ⁴  what I did in Egypt. You lived in the wilderness for a long time. ⁵ 

Proverbs 4:19

4:19 The way of the wicked is like gloomy darkness; ⁶ 

they do not know what causes them to stumble. ⁷ 

Isaiah 50:10

50:10 Who among you fears the Lord?

Who obeys ⁸  his servant?

Whoever walks in deep darkness, ⁹ 

without light,

should trust in the name of the Lord

and rely on his God.

Jeremiah 13:16

13:16 Show the Lord your God the respect that is due him. ¹⁰ 

Do it before he brings the darkness of disaster. ¹¹ 

Do it before you stumble ¹²  into distress

like a traveler on the mountains at twilight. ¹³ 

Do it before he turns the light of deliverance you hope for

into the darkness and gloom of exile. ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 23:12

23:12 So the paths they follow will be dark and slippery.

They will stumble and fall headlong.

For I will bring disaster on them.

A day of reckoning is coming for them.” ¹⁵ 

The Lord affirms it! ¹⁶ 

John 8:12

Jesus as the Light of the World

8:12 Then Jesus spoke out again, ¹⁷  “I am the light of the world. ¹⁸  The one who follows me will never ¹⁹  walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

[24:7]  ¹ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the fathers) has been specified in the translation for clarity (see the previous verse).

[24:7]  ² tn Or “put darkness between you and the Egyptians.”

[24:7]  ³ tn Heb “and he brought over them the sea and covered them.”

[24:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “your eyes saw.”

[24:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “many days.”

[4:19]  ⁶ sn The simile describes ignorance or spiritual blindness, sinfulness, calamity, despair.

[4:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “in what they stumble.”

[50:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “[who] listens to the voice of his servant?” The interrogative is understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line).

[50:10]  ⁹ tn The plural indicates degree. Darkness may refer to exile and/or moral evil.

[13:16]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Give glory/respect to the Lord your God.” For this nuance of the word “glory” (כָּבוֹד, kavod), see BDB 459 s.v. כָּבוֹד 6.b and compare the usage in Mal 1:6 and Josh 7:19.

[13:16]  ¹¹ tn The words “of disaster” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation to explain the significance of the metaphor to readers who may not be acquainted with the metaphorical use of light and darkness for salvation and joy and distress and sorrow respectively.

[13:16]  ¹² tn Heb “your feet stumble.”

[13:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “you stumble on the mountains at twilight.” The added words are again supplied in the translation to help explain the metaphor to the uninitiated reader.

[13:16]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and while you hope for light he will turn it into deep darkness and make [it] into gloom.” The meaning of the metaphor is again explained through the addition of the “of” phrases for readers who are unacquainted with the metaphorical use of these terms.

[23:12]  ¹⁵ tn For the last two lines see 11:23 and the notes there.

[23:12]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[8:12]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “Then again Jesus spoke to them saying.”

[8:12]  ¹⁸ sn The theory proposed by F. J. A. Hort (The New Testament in the Original Greek, vol. 2, Introduction; Appendix, 87-88), that the backdrop of 8:12 is the lighting of the candelabra in the court of women, may offer a plausible setting to the proclamation by Jesus that he is the light of the world. The last time that Jesus spoke in the narrative (assuming 7:53-8:11 is not part of the original text, as the textual evidence suggests) is in 7:38, where he was speaking to a crowd of pilgrims in the temple area. This is where he is found in the present verse, and he may be addressing the crowd again. Jesus’ remark has to be seen in view of both the prologue (John 1:4, 5) and the end of the discourse with Nicodemus (John 3:19-21). The coming of Jesus into the world provokes judgment: A choosing up of sides becomes necessary. The one who comes to the light, that is, who follows Jesus, will not walk in the darkness. The one who refuses to come, will walk in the darkness. In this contrast, there are only two alternatives. So it is with a person’s decision about Jesus. Furthermore, this serves as in implicit indictment of Jesus’ opponents, who still walk in the darkness, because they refuse to come to him. This sets up the contrast in chap. 9 between the man born blind, who receives both physical and spiritual sight, and the Pharisees (John 9:13, 15, 16) who have physical sight but remain in spiritual darkness.

[8:12]  ¹⁹ tn The double negative οὐ μή (ou mh) is emphatic in 1st century Hellenistic Greek.