“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.
Church Fathers on Matthew 4:16
Matthew having related the forty days' fast, the temptation of Christ, and the ministry of Angels, proceeds, 'Jesus having heard that John was cast into prison.'
By God without doubt, for none can effect any thing against a holy man, unless God deliver him up. 'He withdrew into Galilee,' that is, out of Judaea; both that He might reserve His passion to the fit time, and that He might set us an example of flying from danger.
It is not blameworthy not to throw one’s self into peril, but when one has fallen into it, not to endure manfully. He departed from Judaea both to soften Jewish animosity, and to fulfil a prophecy, seeking moreover to fish for those masters of the world who dwelt in Galilee.
Read all 16 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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