They meet with darkness in the daytime (comp Deuteronomy 28:29 and Isaiah 59:10). The metaphor expresses the bewilderment of the crafty, when they find their schemes foiled, and all their subtlety of no avail.
Suddenly their light goes out; they know not what to do, or which way to turn; "their way is hid" (Job 3:23); they are baffled, perplexed, confounded. And grope in the noonday as in the night (comp. Job 12:25).
A variant form of the preceding hemistich.