Exodus 10:21-23
And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt. And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days: They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days: but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): We cannot but think that this particular plague had something in it more than ordinarily instructive.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): “He sent darkness, and made it dark,” Psalm 105:28. It was no natural or common darkness.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): And a most dreadful plague it was, and therefore is put first of the ten in Psalm 105:28; and in the destruction of the spiritual Egypt it is produced by the fifth vial, which is poured out upon the “seat of the beast,” Revelation 16:10.
THOMAS S. MILLINGTON (1821-1906): A darkness “which may be felt.”—more oppressive and intolerable the longer it continued; “felt” upon their bodies as a physical infliction, and “felt” even more in their souls in agonies of fear and apprehension; such a darkness as that which, the fifth angel pours out upon the seat of the beast: “Whose kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds,” Revelation 16:10,11.
JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): We may observe concerning this plague that it was a total darkness.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): It is easily interpreted. God is Light: darkness is the withdrawal of light. Therefore, this judgment of darkness, gave plain intimation that Egypt was now abandoned by God. Nothing remained but death itself. The darkness continued for three days—a full manifestation of God’s withdrawal.
H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): We have darkness presented in four different ways in Scripture. There is the natural darkness, “having the understanding darkened,” Ephesians 4:18. This darkness is natural to all men. No man by nature understands God.
CHARLES SIMEON: The ungodly man is truly in darkness with respect to every thing that is of a spiritual nature. He neither does, nor can, comprehend any thing of that kind, for want of a spiritual discernment.
A. W. PINK: “The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble,” Proverbs 4:19, and this because they are “without God in the world,” Ephesians 2:12.
H. A. IRONSIDE: In the second place, we have willful darkness. Our Lord Jesus said, “This is the condemnation”—not that men were born sinners, but “that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil,” John 3:19. Men are therefore responsible when they reject the light that comes to them. That is the condemnation. That is willful darkness.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost,” 2 Corinthians 4:3. Why should the apostle Paul put an if upon its being hid? all mankind are in a lost and perishing condition through sin; though some will not be lost eternally, whom God has chosen, Christ has redeemed, and who by the Spirit are brought to believe in Christ; but there are others who will be lost for ever; to these the Gospel is hid; they are such, who are left to the native blindness of their minds, and are given up to a reprobate mind, and to judicial darkness.
H. A. IRONSIDE: The solemn result of willful darkness is judicial darkness. In Jeremiah 13:16 we read, “Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.” Does a God who is Light sometimes cause darkness? Yes, if men deliberately reject and turn their backs on the light. Pharaoh rejected the light. He hardened himself against God, and God hardened him in his sins…When people refuse light, the light is withdrawn, and they are given up to judicial darkness.
CHARLES SIMEON: Truly in relation to the future world he is in darkness, even in “a darkness that may be felt.” If he reflect at all, he can feel nothing but “a certain fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation to consume him,” Hebrews 10:27, and has no prospect but that of “the blackness of darkness for ever,” Jude 1:13.
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): And there is no darkness so gross or so terrible as that judicial darkness which settles down upon the heart governed by self-will while professing to have light from God—“because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And “for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness,” 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12.—How awful is this! How solemnly it speaks to the whole professing church! How solemnly it addresses the conscience of both the writer and the reader of these lines! Light not acted upon becomes darkness—Matthew 6:23 “If the light which is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”
MATTHEW HENRY: Pharaoh had time to consider, if he would have improved it…It was a righteous thing with God thus to punish them. Pharaoh and his people had rebelled against the light of God’s word, which Moses spoke to them; justly therefore are they punished with darkness, for they loved it and chose it rather. The blindness of their minds brings upon them this darkness of the air. Never was a mind so blinded as Pharaoh’s, never was the air so darkened as Egypt’s.
A. W. PINK: Finally, this three days of dense darkness upon Egypt utters a solemn warning for all who are now out of Christ.
H. A. IRONSIDE: If you persist in loving darkness rather than light God may some day say, “If you want the darkness you may have it,” and you will enter into the darkness forever. That is the doom of those who have refused the light—eternal darkness!
MATTHEW HENRY: Let us dread the consequences of sin; if three days’ darkness was so dreadful, what will everlasting darkness be?
J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life,” John 8:12. Let this saying sink down into our hearts. It is weighty and full of meaning…He only is the true Light Who came into the world to save sinners, Who died as our substitute on the cross, and sits at God’s right hand.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Hence it follows, that out of Christ there is not even a spark of true light.
A. W. PINK: Unsaved reader, if you continue in your present course, if you go on slighting the mercy of God, if you refuse to heed His warning to flee from the wrath to come, you shall be finally cast into “the outer darkness,” Matthew 8:12. Neglect, then, thy soul’s salvation no longer. Turn even now unto Him who is “the Light of the world,” and “in His light thou shalt see light,” Psalm 36:9.
