21. And the Lord said unto Moses. God here inflicts the punishment without denouncing it; because Pharaoh had deceitfully broken his promise of being obedient to His word. Since, therefore, he had so wickedly abused God’s clemency, he must needs be suddenly overtaken by a new calamity, that he might in the darkness feel God’s avenging hand, which he had despised. Nor, indeed, would he have been alarmed by menaces; as it will directly appear, that, when he was warned of the death of his first-born, and of the same slaughter both upon the first-born of man and of beast through the whole land, he was unmoved, and in his security provoked God, as if he had heard nothing. There is no wonder, then, that God covered the whole land with darkness before Pharaoh could suspect anything of the kind. At the end of the verse, some translate the word ימש, (125) yamesh, passively; as if he had said that the darkness might be felt. For the word חשך, choshek, darkness, (126) is singular in Hebrew. Those who take it transitively, because they suppose it to be put indefinitely, understand a noun, with this meaning, “that a man might feel.” But if the transitive sense be preferred, it will be better referred to Pharaoh. But I willingly subscribe to their opinion, who hold that the darkness was so thick that it might be felt by the hand.
(125) ימש, the vowels determine this verb to be in the Hiphil, or active causal voice. חשך , darkness, comes after the verb; the ordinary position of the nominative in Hebrew. The words, therefore, should naturally mean the darkness shall make (a man) feel. — W.
(126) Referring, of course, to the Latin plural noun tenebrae.