Isaiah 60:2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

For, behold, darkness shall cover the earth Ignorance, idolatry, and all kinds of errors and vices; and gross darkness the people Like that of Egypt; the most palpable blindness and infatuation as to divine things; but the Lord Christ, the bright and morning-star, the day- spring from on high, or, rather, the Sun of righteousness, Revelation 22:16; Luke 1:78; Malachi 4:2; shall arise upon thee By his gospel and his grace, bringing light to those that before sat in darkness, and in the shadow of death; and his glory shall be seen upon thee Shall be wonderfully conspicuous. “The design of the Holy Spirit in this clause, as I suppose,” says Vitringa, “is to describe the state of the nations of the world, at the time when God should illuminate the church with this light, as if by a new advent of his Son, and a repeated manifestation of his divine kingdom. Almost all the world should be found in a similar state of darkness to that wherein the Son of God found it at his first coming; and if we might form any judgment from the state of things, from the darkness which now overspreads the earth, through the prevalence of Popery, infidelity, and immorality, in the countries professing Christianity, and Mohammedanism and paganism in the other regions of the earth, we may reasonably conclude, that these words of the prophet, at the period alluded to, will not want their exact completion.”