Matthew Poole and continuators on Isaiah 60:2

2 For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth , and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.

Either Affliction, and Misery, a known Metaphor, or Ignorance, and Idolatry, as also all kinds of Errours, and Immoralities, with which all that are out of the Church are smutted, and polluted, compare Eph. 4. 18, 19.

Either 1. General, all the Inhabitants of the Earth, such as through ignorance reject the Gospel. Or, rather, 2. More particular, the Babylonians by a Synecdoche of the whole for a part in that dismal condition, being harassed by Cyrus, whereby the Jews were delivered, this being also a type of the [illegible: 1+ letters]eliverance of Gods People by the Messiah, which t[illegible: 1+ letters]is Text principally intends.

An allusion to that Egyptian darkness, [illegible: 1 word]. 10. 21, &c. palpable ignorance the inlet▪ and nursery to [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1+ letters] latry, and all prophaneness.

i. e. Christ, Mal. 4. 2. Luke 1. 77, 78, 79.

Shall be wonderful conspicuous; as the Lords [illegible: 1 word] answers to the darkness covering the Earth, so the glory being s[illegible: 1+ letters]en, answers to that gross darkness. The sense is, that whereas the time was, that the people of God were under great calamities, while their enemies were in ease and prosperity, now it shall be quite contrar[illegible: 1+ letters]; now these shall be in Adversity, and those in Prosperity, a great turn of Providence; and withal implies, that this light of grace is a peculiar to his people, in respect of which, all other prosperity is but darkness▪ and misery; as Light was peculiar to Goshen, when darkness was in all the Egytian houses. Exod. [illegible: 1+ letters]0. 23.