In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night.
] Which is the usual time adulterers take to commit their works of darkness in, by which they think to conceal them; they being such as they themselves do not care should be seen and known, ( Job 24:15 ) ; their works will not bear the sun and daylight, therefore they take the twilight and when the sun is set; and choose the night, and not light nights neither, but the blackest and darkest nights, as fittest for their purpose; most likely to meet with harlots, and less liable to be seen by their neighbours; but always to be seen by the omniscient God, with whom the darkness and the light are both alike. Perhaps these several words may express the time from the young man's first setting out to his drawing nigh to the harlot's house, and his being attacked and ensnared by her; when he first set out from his own or his father's house, it was "twilight", the sun was declining; by that time he had got good part of his way the sun set, and then it was "evening"; and when he came near the harlot's house it was "black [and] dark night": and this may represent the gradual and progressive growth of Popery; there was first a "twilight", a decline of the purity of Gospel light and knowledge, and then the sun of the Gospel set, which brought on an "evening", and issued in the gross "darkness" of Popery, represented by the Thyatirian church state, as before observed; since that, the "morning star" of the Reformation has appeared, but this is become obscure, we are in a twilight again; it is neither day nor night with us as yet, but a dark black night is hastening on; and it is easy to observe how many, like this foolish young man, are marching on in a stately manner to the harlot's house, or are verging to Popery, whether they design it or not.