And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
And the light shineth in darkness - that is, in this dark fallen world; for though the Life was the light of men," they were "sitting in darkness and the shadow of death" when He came of whom our Evangelist is about to speak, with no ability to find the way either of truth or of holiness. In this thick darkness, then-in this obliquity, intellectual and moral, the light of the Living Word "shineth;" that is, by all the rays of natural or revealed teaching with which men were favoured before the Incarnation.
And the darkness comprehended it not, х ou (G3756) katelaben (G2638)] - 'did not take it in.' Compare Romans 1:28, "They did not like to retain God in their knowledge." Thus does our Evangelist, by hinting at the inefficacy of all the strivings of the unincarnate Word, gradually pave the way for the announcement of that final remedy-the Incarnation. Compare 1 Corinthians 1:21.