The people that walked in darkness
Meaning not the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, in the times
of Hezekiah, when Sennacherib besieged them, as Jarchi and Kimchi
interpret it; and much less the people of Israel in Egypt, as the
Targum paraphrases it; but the inhabitants of Galilee in the
times of Christ; see ( Matthew 4:16
) ( John 1:48
) ( John 7:49
John 7:52 ) and
is a true character of all the people of God before conversion,
who are in a state of darkness, under the power of sin, shut up
in unbelief; are in gross ignorance of themselves, and their
condition; of sin, and the danger they are exposed to by it; of
divine and spiritual things; of the grace of God; of the way of
peace, life, and salvation by Christ; and of the work of the
blessed Spirit; and of the truths of the Gospel; they are in the
dark, and can see no objects in a spiritual sense; not to read
the word, so as to understand it; or to work that which is good;
and they "walk" on in darkness, not knowing where they are, and
whither they are going; and yet of these it is said, they
have seen a great light;
Christ himself, who conversed among the Galilaeans, preached unto
them, and caused the light of his glorious Gospel to shine into
many of their hearts; by which their darkness was removed, so
that they not only saw Christ, this great light, with their
bodily eyes, but with the eyes of their understanding; who may be
called the "light", because he is the author and giver of all
light, even of nature, grace, and glory; and a "great" one,
because he is the sun, the greatest light, the sun of
righteousness, the light of the world, both of Jews and Gentiles;
he is the true light, in distinction from all typical ones, and
in opposition to all false ones, and who in his person is God
over all. They that dwell in the land of the shadow of
death;
as Galilee might be called, because it was a poor, miserable, and
uncomfortable place, from whence no good came; and this character
fitly describes God's people in a state of nature and
unregeneracy, who are dead in Adam, dead in law, and dead in
trespasses and sins, dead as to the spiritual use of the powers
and faculties of their souls; they have no spiritual life in
them, nor any spiritual sense, feeling, or motion; and they
"dwell", continue, and abide in this state, till grace brings
them out of it; see ( John 12:46 ) :
upon them hath the light shined:
Christ in human nature, through the ministration of his Gospel,
by his spirit, so as to enlighten them who walk in darkness, and
to quicken them who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, and
to comfort them in their desolate estate; and this light not only
shone upon them in the external ministration of the word, as it
did "upon" the inhabitants in general, but it shone "into" the
hearts of many of them in particular, so that in this light they
saw light.