Exodus 10:23

They saw not one another. — Heb., man did not see his brother. The darkness was absolute, equal to that of the darkest night.

Neither rose any from his place. — Comp. Exodus 16:29. No one quitted his house. Mr. Millington imagines that they all sat “glued to their seats” (Plagues of Egypt, p. 159), but this savours of over-literalism. It is not necessary to suppose that they had no artificial light, or that they ceased to move from chamber to chamber. What the writer intends to note is that all business and all intercourse with neighbours was suspended. No one quitted the house in which he was when the darkness began.

All the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. — The visitation, whatever it was, did not extend to the land of Goshen. (Comp. Exodus 8:22; Exodus 9:4; Exodus 9:26.)