Matthew 4:16

ἐν σκοτίᾳ : the darkness referred to, in the view of the evangelist, is possibly that caused by the imprisonment of the Baptist (Fritzsche). The consolation comes in the form of a greater light, φῶς μέγα, great, even the greatest. The thought is emphasised by repetition and by enhanced description of the benighted situation of those on whom the light arises: “in the very home and shadow of death”; highly graphic and poetic, not applicable, however, to the land of Galilee more than to other parts of the land; descriptive of misery rather than of sin.