Matthew Poole and continuators on Isaiah 9:2

2 The people that walked in darkness , have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death , upon them hath the light shined.

In Mat. 4. 16. it is sate. It notes not their gesture, but their State or Condition, they lived or abode. Onely walking in darkness is more perillous than sitting.

The Expression is general, and so may well comprehend both the Darkness of Calamity, and the Darkness of Ignorance, and Idolatry, and Prophaneness, in which those Parts were eminently involved, by reason of their great distance from God's Sanctuary, and by their frequent Converse with the Gentiles, who bordered upon them, and of which this place is expounded, Mat. 4.

i. e. Shall see at the coming of the Messiah.

Which notes both extreme, and dangerous, or deadly Darkness.

k The People of God, Israel and Iudah, and especially those of them mentioned in the foregoing Verse.

Marginal references: Mat. 4. 16. Eph. 5. 14.