“The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.”
The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned. The Isaiah 9:2 citation interprets the darkness of Galilee's situation as the context for the arrival of light. The people dwelling in darkness — under foreign occupation, spiritually marginalized, geographically distant from Jerusalem's religious center — are precisely the people on whom the great light dawns first. The shadow of death is both metaphorical (spiritual darkness) and political (the death that empire brings). John 1:5 declares the same truth: the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Jesus arrives in the darkest corner of the Jewish world and turns it into the epicenter of his ministry.
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