The People Who Walked In Darkness Have Seen A Great Light

 "Yet, where there was but anguish, darkness will disappear.

HE has just afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali; but in the future HE will confer glory on the way of the sea, on the land beyond the Jordan--the pagans' Galilee.

The people who walked in darkness

have seen a great light.

A light has dawned

on those who live in the land of the shadow of death.

YOU have enlarged the nation;

YOU have increased their joy.

They rejoice before YOU,

as people rejoice at harvest time

as they rejoice in dividing the spoil.

For the yoke of their burden,

the bar across their shoulders,

the rod of their oppressors,

YOU have broken it as on the day of Midian."

- Isaiah 8:23-9:3

(This poem may have been composed in the year 732 B.C. when the king of Assyria destroyed Israel, kindred and enemies at the same time.  According to their custom, the Assyrians took many of the people to the other end of their empire.  They resided in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali which, centuries later, would become Galilee.  Dispersed among the pagans, they were coming out of sacred history to enter into darkness.

The liberation promised to them is presented as a crushing victory of the LORD, inaugurating a reign of peace, related to Emmanuel.

The people who walked in darkness... The Gospel [Matthew 4:16] sees in that people the crowds whom JESUS addresses:

- a people dominated by every kind of oppressors;

- a people seeking light and without hope.)

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