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Mat_4:16. Ὁ λαὸς ὁ καθήμενος , κ . τ . λ .] In opposition to Γαλιλαία τῶν ἐθνῶν , whose inhabitants are characterized as darkened, that is, devoid of divine truth, and sunk in ignorance and sin. The great light, however, which these darkened ones saw is Jesus.
καὶ τοῖς καθημένοις , κ . τ . λ .] repeats the same thought, with the climactic designation of darkness: ἐν χώρᾳ κ . σκιᾷ θανάτου , in the land and darkness, which belong to death. Death, that is, spiritual death (Mat_8:22, see on Luk_15:24), the negation of that living activity which recognises the truth and is morally determined, is personified; the land, whose inhabitants are spiritually dead, belongs to it as the realm of its government, and darkness surrounds it. The common interpretation of it as ἓν διὰ δυοῖν : “in regione et in spissis quidem tenebris = in regione spissis tenebris obducta” (Fritzsche), is, indeed, admissible (see Fritzsche, Exc. IV. p. 856; Nägelsbach on Hom. Il. iii. 100), but unnecessary, and takes away from the poetic description, which is certainly stronger and more vivid if θανάτου is connected not merely with σκιᾷ ( öÇìÀîÈåÆú , infernalis obscuritas, i.e. crassissima), but also with χώρᾳ . On the significant καθήμενος , comp. Lam. l.c. Pind. Ol. i. 133: ἐν σκότῳ καθήμενος . “Sedendi verbum aptum notandae solitudini inerti” (Bengel). Comp. especially, Jacobs, ad Anthol. VI. p. 397; Bremi, ad Dem. Phil. I. p. 119. Nägelsbach on Hom. Il. i. 134.
αὐτοῖς ] see Winer, p. 139 f. [E. T. 265]; Buttmann, p. 125 [E. T. 381].