Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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quenched their coal; justly therefore does God put out their lights. Compare it with the punishment of the Sodomites, Ge 19:11. Let us dread the consequences of sin; if three days' darkness was so dreadful, what will everlasting darkness be?
The children of Israel, at the same time, had light in their dwellings (Ex 10:23), not only in the land of Goshen, where most of them dwelt, but in the habitations of those who were dispersed among the Egyptians: for that some of them were thus dispersed appears from the distinction afterwards appointed to be put on their door-posts, Ex 12:7. This is an instance,
(1.) Of the power of God above the ordinary power of nature. We must not think that we share in common mercies as a matter of course, and therefore that we owe no thanks to God for them; he could distinguish, and withhold that from us which he grants to other. He does indeed ordinarily make his sun to shine on the just and unjust; but he could make a difference, and we must own ourselves indebted to his mercy that he does not.
(2.) Of the particular favour he bears to his people: they walk in the light when others wander endlessly in thick darkness; wherever there is an Israelite indeed, though in this dark world, there is light, there is a child of light, one for whom light is sown, and whom the day-spring from on high visits. When God made this difference between the Israelites and the Egyptians, who would not have preferred the poorest cottage of an Israelite to the finest palace of an Egyptian? There is still a real difference, though not so discernible a one, between the house of the wicked, which is under a curse, and the habitation of the just, which is blessed, Pr 3:33. We should believe in that difference, and govern ourselves accordingly. Upon Ps 105:28, He sent darkness and made it dark, and they rebelled not against his word, some ground a conjecture that, during these three days of darkness, the