A Darkness So Thick It Could Be Felt

Adonai said to Moshe, “Reach out your hand toward the sky, and there will be darkness over the land of Egypt, darkness so thick it can be felt!”  Moshe reached out his hand toward the sky, and there was a thick darkness in the entire land of Egypt for three days.  People couldn’t see each other, and no one went anywhere for three days. But all the people of Isra’el had light in their homes.
(Exodus 10:21-23, from the Complete Jewish Bible translation -- it says "ADONAI" where the KJV says "LORD", and it says "Moshe" where the KJV says "Moses.")


It seemed that this thick darkness was a phenomenon that intrigued our Torah study group this week. 

A darkness so thick it could be felt.
What sort of darkness is so thick it can be felt?

And the people of Israel had light in their homes.
Was it just indoors, in their homes?  Or in the whole land of Goshen?  Or wherever the Israelites walked?

Since it specifically stated that the people of Israel had light in their homes, does that mean that the Egyptians DIDN'T have light in THEIR homes?  
Was this darkness just a blotting out of the lights in the sky (sun, moon, stars)?  Or was it a blotting out of all light?  Was even fire darkened for these 3 days?

It says people couldn't see each other and no one went anywhere for 3 days.
If I had an effective torch, I would have gone places, even in the dark.
Was this a darkness that blotted out absolutely all sources of light?

How did God do this?
And what did it look like in person?

Some of the group took this to a metaphorical level, too.  Just as the real bondage that God's people faced in Egypt is often compared to the bondage of slavery to sin that we all faced, so too we considered times in our own lives when it metaphorically felt like we faced a darkness so thick that it could be felt.
And we remembered how God gave us light in our homes and brought us through.

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