A person overwhelmed by sudden misfortune or financial ruin often plunges into a deep psychological state of despair. Consumed by anxiety and a sense of being hunted, they begin to believe their fate is permanently sealed, leaving no possible route for escape.
When destruction descends like a thick darkness, the sufferer loses all hope of ever stepping back into the light of their former life [מצודת דוד, רמב״ן]. They feel entirely trapped in this gloom, convinced it will become their tomb [מלבי״ם]. This darkness takes various forms. It can represent the crushing reality of poverty, where a once-wealthy individual feels completely incapable of ever rebuilding their fortune [אלשיך]. Alternatively, the darkness symbolizes the trauma of exile and oppression, creating a feeling of endless captivity from which a person cannot break free [אלשיך].
Beyond the heavy weight of hopelessness, an intense terror of death hovers over the individual. A terrifying dynamic unfolds: while the victim sits blindly in the dark, unable to see the threats around them, they remain entirely exposed to their enemies. The attacker holding the weapon sees them with perfect clarity, and the blade is already making its way toward them [מצודת דוד, רלב״ג, מלבי״ם, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. Alongside this physical exposure, there is a profound sense of inescapable destiny. The individual feels marked by fate, destined to fall by violence, descend to the grave, and endure severe poverty and lack [רש״י, רמב״ן].
These feelings of ruin and physical danger ultimately merge into a tragic psychological breaking point. Having lost all hope of ever recovering from the darkness of poverty, the person might actually choose to step directly into the path of violence. If robbers arrive to plunder what little remains, the desperate individual will fight back with a complete willingness to die, deciding that a swift death in battle is better than a slow life of starvation [אלשיך]. Ultimately, this mindset reveals a difficult truth about human suffering: those who desperately try to run away from their hardships not only miss out on the personal growth that might emerge from those trials, but they eventually collide directly with the very destruction they were trying to avoid [אלשיך].