Commentaria in Exodum
22. HORRIBLE DARKNESS.—In Hebrew, darkness of gloom, that is, most gloomy and thickest, and therefore horrible. For, first, it was so great as to be palpable; secondly, it lasted three days and nights; thirdly, it was in all the land of Egypt; fourthly, in it the Egyptians did not see one another, nor moved from their bed or place, as though they were bound in chains in prison, as the Wise Man says chap. 17, verse 16: while meanwhile the rest of men over the whole world, nay the Hebrews in Egypt, enjoyed the clearest light; fifthly, the Egyptians through fear did not dare to speak, eat or rise from bed, but in silence were tormented by hunger, giving themselves to no sense except to feel the present evil, says Philo; sixthly, the Egyptians heard horrible sounds, and saw through flames flashing forth terrifying spectres and monsters, which all but took away their breath. “For there appeared to them a sudden fire, full of fear; and being struck with the fear of that face which was not seen, they thought the things which they saw to be worse,” as is said Wis. 17:6; seventhly, from the remorse of an ill-conscious conscience they feared and shuddered at everything, says the Wise Man, whether they heard the sound of birds, or the bellowing of beasts, or the rustling of trees, or the roar of waters, stones or mountains, they thought all these had conspired for their death: “For though no monsters disturbed them, yet being frightened by the passing of beasts and the hissing of serpents they perished trembling,” as is said Wis. 17:9. See here how fearful, how anxious an evil conscience is; for, as the Wise Man says in the same place: “A troubled conscience always presumes grievous things.” And Cicero against Piso: “His own fraud,” he says, “his own deed, his own crime, his own audacity drives each from sanity and mind. These are the furies of the impious, these the flames, these the torches”; and Macrobius, book 1 On the Dream of Scipio, chap. 10: “The vulture,” he says, “gnawing the immortal liver, the (wise) Poets wished to be understood as nothing else than the torments of an evil conscience, searching the inmost bowels subject to guilt, and tearing the very vitals with the unwearied reminder of the crime committed, and ever stirring up cares if perchance they try to rest, as though clinging to the fibres that grow again, and sparing itself by no pity, by this law, that under its own judgment no guilty man is absolved, nor can avoid his own sentence.” Understand by sentence the conscience accusing and condemning; eighthly, the Septuagint add that with the darkness there was whirlwind, storm and tempest.
23. NO MAN SAW HIS BROTHER (his neighbour), NOR MOVED HIMSELF OUT OF THE PLACE IN WHICH HE WAS.—Hebrew, and no man rose from under himself, as if to say: from the seat, or place on which he sat. The Septuagint, and no one rose from his bed: namely, astonished by so great a prodigy, especially placed in such horrible darkness, they feared everything, so that they dared not move from their place, lest they run into monsters or precipices; for from such unaccustomed darkness the Egyptians thought the whole order of the world was overturned and dissolved. Whence Wisdom 17 and 18 says the Egyptians were then as if bound by a chain, and shut up in prison, and therefore miserable as bound: for they were deprived of all light of sun, heaven, fire, candle, and of all light whatever. Whence Philo: The fire, he says, which we use, was either extinguished by the troubled air, or overcome by the thickest darkness. And the Wise Man, chap. 17, says: “And the force of fire could not give them light.” Wherefore Cajetan errs, when he says the Egyptians were deprived only of heavenly light, not of domestic light of fire or candle: for Scripture refutes this, when it says these darknesses were palpable: again, that no one saw another, no one moved from his place, the Israelites alone enjoyed light. And indeed otherwise this would have been a slight punishment: for many who dwell near the pole are naturally deprived of heavenly light for many months, nay for half a year, nature supplying them with another domestic light from oiled wood, which burns like a candle. What care I whether I see by the light of the sun, or of fire or candle, provided I see? Burgensis adds that the mist and thickness of the air was then so great that it not only took away all sight of light, but hindered progressive motion. But this seems incredible; for so this mist would have to be dense, solid, and resisting like stone or iron.
WHEREVER THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL DWELT, THERE WAS LIGHT.—In Hebrew, in their dwellings, as if to say: Not only in neighbouring streets, squares or houses, but in the same house the Hebrews in their chambers enjoyed light, while the Egyptians dwelling in Gessen, in their places, were wrapped in Cimmerian darkness, God stretching out the sun’s rays to the Hebrews, not to the Egyptians; and pouring the thickest mist upon the Egyptians, not the Hebrews. Wisdom chap. 18 says that the Hebrews in these three days heard indeed the voices of the Egyptians, but saw none of them.
Tropologically, this darkness signified the blindness of mind of Pharao and the Egyptians, says Origen, who, having experienced so many plagues, yet would not believe and obey God. For the devil blinds the hearts of those, doing in this as the eagle. For the eagle, as Pliny relates, book 10, chap. 3, to trip up and devour a stag, is wont to roll in dust, and sitting on the stag’s horns to shake it into the stag’s eyes, and to beat its face with its wings, until it hurls it, blinded as it were and raging, over the rocks: so the demon blinds men with earthly dust, and so hurls them, as it were raging, over the rocks of hell. Secondly, this darkness signified their idolatry and errors; for is it not darkness to adore a calf? Thirdly, it signified that the reasons of divine Providence are most obscure and unsearchable. For God “made darkness his covert,” Psalm 17. Fourthly, this ninth plague, says St. Augustine, answers the ninth precept: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife”; for he who covets her lives in the great darkness of incontinence and uncleanness. Hence fifthly, this darkness was an image of the darkness of hell, of which St. Bernard, serm. 16 on the Canticles: “I fear hell, I tremble at the teeth of the infernal beast, I dread the gnawing worm, and the scorching fire, smoke and vapour and sulphur, and the spirit of storms: I dread the exterior darkness. Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes, that I may forestall with weeping the weeping and gnashing of teeth?” Who here would not fear? If he fears, why does he not beware? “The time is short,” says Paul, “the fashion of this world passeth away.” So live then in the world as though there were no world: for soon it will pass and vanish. On the other hand, so live that thou mayest live for ever, that thou mayest escape eternal pains and death. For in hell “to the wretched there is death without death, end without end: because there death lives, and the end always begins,” says St. Gregory, book 9 Moral. chap. 48.
24. AND PHARAO CALLED MOSES,—the three days being ended; for during them no one dared to move from his place, which is also plain from the words of Pharao: for he does not, as is his wont, ask to be freed from the plague, as it had now ceased; but fearing worse things: “Go,” he says, “sacrifice” to God. So Lyranus, Abulensis, Pereira.
LET YOUR SHEEP ONLY AND HERDS REMAIN,—as a pledge; lest you flee and not return.
25. THOU SHALT GIVE US ALSO VICTIMS.—Thou givest that we may depart, but thou must give also victims, namely our sheep and cattle for sacrificing, and what follows indicates this: for it follows: “All the flocks shall go with us.”
27. AND THE LORD HARDENED PHARAO’S HEART,—both by taking away the plague of darkness; and by demanding through Moses that not only the Hebrews but all their cattle be let go; and by not giving him softening grace, which Pharao had so often deserved to lose. Whence in this chapter after so many plagues Scripture most uses this phrase, namely that God hardened Pharao, to signify that his hardening was a punishment of sin.
29. I WILL NOT SEE THY FACE ANY MORE,—of my own accord I will not approach thee, I will not press thee, but thou rather wilt desire to see me, when in the next and last plague of the firstborn thou wilt compel us to go out, chap. 12, verse 31.