Isaiah 8:22

The NET Bible®

When one looks out over the land, he sees distress and darkness, gloom and anxiety, darkness and people forced from the land.

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
They will look toward the earth and see only distress, darkness, and the gloom of affliction, and they will be driven into thick darkness.

Hebrew Names Version
and they shall look to the eretz, and see, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and into thick darkness [they shall be] driven away.

King James Version
And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness.

English Standard Version
And they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness.

New American Standard Bible
Then they will look to the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be driven away into darkness.

New Century Version
They will look around them at their land and see only trouble, darkness, and awful gloom. And they will be forced into the darkness.

Amplified Bible
Then they will look to the earth, they will see only distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be driven away into darkness and overwhelming night.

World English Bible
and they shall look to the earth, and see, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and into thick darkness [they shall be] driven away.

Geneva Bible (1587)
And when he shall looke to the earth, beholde trouble, and darkenes, vexation and anguish, and he is driuen to darkenes.

Legacy Standard Bible
Then they will look to the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be banished into thick darkness.

Berean Standard Bible
Then they will look to the earth and see only distress and darkness and the gloom of anguish. And they will be driven into utter darkness.

Contemporary English Version
and on earth, they will find only trouble and darkness, terrible trouble and deepest darkness.

Complete Jewish Bible
or [down] at the earth, they will see only trouble and darkness, anguished gloom and pervasive darkness. But there will be no more gloom for those who are now in anguish. In the past the land of Z'vulun and the land of Naftali were regarded lightly; but in the future he will honor the way to the lake, beyond the Yarden, Galil-of-the-Goyim.

Darby Translation
and they will look to the earth; and behold, trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish; and they shall be driven into thick darkness.

Easy-to-Read Version
And when the captives turn their faces to the ground, there is only a depressing darkness closing in—the dark sadness of people forced to leave their country.

George Lamsa Translation
And they shall look to the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, tribulation and dimness shall scatter them; but he shall not afflict him who is in distress as in the former time.

Good News Translation
or stare at the ground, but they will see nothing but trouble and darkness, terrifying darkness into which they are being driven.

Lexham English Bible
or look to the earth. But look! Distress and darkness, the gloom of affliction! And it will be thrust into darkness!

Literal Translation
And they shall look to the land. And, behold, trouble and darkness and gloom of anguish; and they are driven to darkness.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
and beholde, there is trouble and darcknesse, vexacion is rounde aboute him, and the cloude of erroure And out of soch aduersite, shall he not escape.

American Standard Version
and they shall look unto the earth, and, behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and into thick darkness they shall be driven away.

Bible in Basic English
And he will be looking down on the earth, and there will be trouble and dark clouds, black night where there is no seeing.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
or look unto the earth, behold distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish, and outspread thick darkness. For is there no gloom to her that was stedfast? Now the former hath lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but the latter hath dealt a more grievous blow by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, in the district of the nations.

King James Version (1611)
And they shall looke vnto the earth: and behold trouble and darkenesse, dimnesse of anguish; and they shall be driuen to darkenesse.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
And beholde there is trouble and darknesse, dymnesse is rounde about him, & he shalbe driuen into darknesse.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
and they shall look on the earth below, and behold severe distress, and darkness, affliction, and anguish, and darkness so that one cannot see; and he that is in anguish shall not be distressed only for a time.

English Revised Version
and they shall look unto the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and into thick darkness they shall be driven away.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
And it schal loke to the erthe, and lo! tribulacioun, and derknessis, and vnbyndyng, ether discoumfort, and angwisch, and myist pursuynge; and it schal not mow fle awei fro his angwisch.

Update Bible Version
and they shall look to the earth, and see distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and into thick darkness [they shall be] driven away.

Webster's Bible Translation
And they shall look to the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and [they shall be] driven to darkness.

New King James Version
Then they will look to the earth, and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish; and they will be driven into darkness.

New Living Translation
and down at the earth, but wherever they look, there will be trouble and anguish and dark despair. They will be thrown out into the darkness.

New Life Bible
Then they will look to the earth and see trouble and darkness and suffering and will be driven out into darkness.

New Revised Standard
or they will look to the earth, but will see only distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be thrust into thick darkness.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
And unto the land, shall they look hard, And lo! distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish, driven away!

Douay-Rheims Bible
And they shall look to the earth, and behold trouble and darkness, weakness and distress, and a mist following them, and they cannot fly away from their distress.

Revised Standard Version
and they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be thrust into thick darkness.

Young's Literal Translation
And unto the land it looketh attentively, And lo, adversity and darkness! -- Dimness, distress, and thick darkness is driven away, But not the dimness for which she is in distress!

New American Standard Bible (1995)
Then they will look to the earth, and behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be driven away into darkness.

Contextual Overview

¹⁶ Tie up the scroll as legal evidence, seal the official record of God's instructions and give it to my followers. ¹⁷ I will wait patiently for the Lord , who has rejected the family of Jacob; I will wait for him. ¹⁸ Look, I and the sons whom the Lord has given me are reminders and object lessons in Israel, sent from the Lord who commands armies, who lives on Mount Zion. ¹⁹ They will say to you, "Seek oracles at the pits used to conjure up underworld spirits, from the magicians who chirp and mutter incantations. Should people not seek oracles from their gods, by asking the dead about the destiny of the living?" ²⁰ Then you must recall the Lord 's instructions and the prophetic testimony of what would happen. Certainly they say such things because their minds are spiritually darkened. ²¹ They will pass through the land destitute and starving. Their hunger will make them angry, and they will curse their king and their God as they look upward. ²² When one looks out over the land, he sees distress and darkness, gloom and anxiety, darkness and people forced from the land.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

look: Isaiah 5:30, Isaiah 9:1, 2 Chronicles 15:5, 2 Chronicles 15:6, Jeremiah 13:16, Jeremiah 30:6, Jeremiah 30:7, Amos 5:18-20, Zephaniah 1:14, Zephaniah 1:15, Matthew 8:12, Matthew 24:29, Luke 21:25, Luke 21:26, Jude 1:13

driven to darkness: Job 18:18, Proverbs 14:32, Jeremiah 23:12, Matthew 22:13

Reciprocal: Genesis 4:14 - driven Exodus 10:21 - darkness Job 15:22 - He believeth not Job 20:26 - darkness Job 22:11 - darkness Job 38:15 - from Psalms 88:12 - dark Proverbs 19:3 - fretteth Isaiah 9:19 - is the land Isaiah 24:11 - all joy Isaiah 50:11 - ye shall Joel 2:2 - A day of darkness Nahum 1:8 - darkness Revelation 16:10 - full

Cross-References

Genesis 8:8
Then Noah sent out a dove to see if the waters had receded from the surface of the ground.

Genesis 8:9
The dove could not find a resting place for its feet because water still covered the surface of the entire earth, and so it returned to Noah in the ark. He stretched out his hand, took the dove, and brought it back into the ark.

Genesis 8:11
When the dove returned to him in the evening, there was a freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak! Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth.

Genesis 8:12
He waited another seven days and sent the dove out again, but it did not return to him this time.

Genesis 8:16
"Come out of the ark, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons' wives with you.

Genesis 8:17
Bring out with you all the living creatures that are with you. Bring out every living thing, including the birds, animals, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Let them increase and be fruitful and multiply on the earth!"

Genesis 8:20
Noah built an altar to the Lord . He then took some of every kind of clean animal and clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

Genesis 45:6
For these past two years there has been famine in the land and for five more years there will be neither plowing nor harvesting.

Exodus 34:21
"On six days you may labor, but on the seventh day you must rest; even at the time of plowing and of harvest you are to rest.

Jeremiah 5:24
They do not say to themselves, "Let us revere the Lord our God. It is he who gives us the autumn rains and the spring rains at the proper time. It is he who assures us of the regular weeks of harvest."

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And they shall look unto the earth,.... As persons in distress, upwards and downwards, backwards and forwards, on the right hand and on the left, particularly into the land of Judea; a land that used to flow with milk and honey, a land of light, plenty, and prosperity:

and behold trouble and darkness; adversity, and miseries of all kinds, expressed by a variety of words; and even words fail to express the tribulation of these times, which were such as were not from the beginning of the world, Matthew 24:22:

dimness of anguish; or "fleeing from affliction" e, multitudes everywhere fleeing from one place to another, to avoid the calamities coming upon them, Matthew 24:16:

and [they shall be] driven to darkness; when they endeavour to escape one calamity, they shall be driven and fall into another; the whole land shall be full of nothing else.

e מעוף a עוף "volare", Forerius.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And they shall look unto the earth - They would look upward and find no relief, and then in despair cast their eyes to the earth to obtain help there. Yet equally in vain. The whole image is one of intense anguish brought on the nation for leaving the counselor the true God.

And behold ... - see the note at Isaiah 5:30.

Trouble - Anguish, oppression, צרה tsârâh, from צור tsûr, to oppress, to straiten, to afflict. This is a remarkable instance of the prophet Isaiah’s manner - of a rapid, impetuous, and bold style of utterance. He accumulates images; piles words on each other; and deepens the anxiety by each additional word, until we almost feel that we are enveloped by the gloom, and see objects of terror and alarm on every side.

Dimness of anguish - These words should be kept separate in the translation - צוּקה מעוּף m^e‛ûp tsûqâh, “darkness, oppression” - accumulated epithets to heighten the gloom and terror of the scene.

And they shall be driven to darkness - Hebrew, מנדה ואפלה va'ăpēlâh m^enudāch a darkness that is driven, or that is urged upon itself; that becomes condensed, accumulated, until it becomes terrible and frightful. The idea is that of a driving tempest, or an involving obscurity (מנדה m^enudāch from נדה nâdâh, to push, thrust, impel, urge on, as a driving storm). The prophet has thus accumulated every possible idea of gloom and obscurity, and probably there is not anywhere a more graphic description of gathering darkness and trouble, and of the consternation of those involved in it, than this. So fearful and terrific are the judgments of God when he comes forth to punish people!