He opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke from a burning furnace. The sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke from the pit.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 2. And the smoke, and so forth Luther and his followers propagated and defended their new doctrines with such heat and violence, as to occasion every where seditions and insurrections, which they seemed to glory in. Luther openly boasted of it. “You complain,” said he, “that by our gospel the world is become more tumultuous; I answer, God be thanked for it; these things I would have so to be, and wo to me if such things were not.”—The sun was darkened, and so forth The light of faith, which is the word of God, may well be represented by the sun, according to that of the Psalm 118:105. “Thy word, O Lord, is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my paths.” And as the air is the spring of man’s respiration and life, it may be a just type of morality, which gives spiritual life and worth to all human actions. By the sun, therefore, and air being darkened, we are to understand faith and morality obscured and perverted by the novel doctrines of the reformers. Past. hic.
TR adds “great”