Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 9:2

"The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." — Isaiah 9:2 (ASV)

The people that walked in darkness ... —These words direct us back to Isaiah 8:21-22. The prophet sees in his vision a light shining on the forlorn and weary wanderers. They had been wandering in the valley of the shadow of death (the phrase comes from Psalm 23:4; Job 3:5), almost as in the gloom of Sheol itself. Now there breaks in the dawn of a glorious day.

Historically, the return of some of the inhabitants of that region to their allegiance to Jehovah and the house of David (2 Chronicles 30:11; 2 Chronicles 30:13) may have been the starting point of the prophet’s hopes. The words have a special interest to the Christian student, as they were quoted by Matthew (Matthew 4:15–16) in connection with our Lord’s ministry in Galilee, perhaps with His being “of Nazareth,” which was in the tribe of Zebulun.

We cannot positively say that such a fulfillment as that was in the prophet’s thoughts. The context shows that he was thinking of Assyrian invasions, and the defeat of Assyrian armies, of a nation growing strong in numbers and prosperity. In this, as in other cases, the Evangelist adapts the words of prophecy to a further meaning than that which apparently was in the mind of the writer, and interprets them by his own experience. When he compared the state of Galilee, yet more, perhaps, that of his own soul, before and after the Son of man had appeared as the light of the world, Isaiah’s words seemed the only adequate expression of the change.