Verse 22. — A land of misery and of darkness. 96. Those whom it holds are tormented without and blinded within. Misery pertains to pain, darkness to blindness. — That which holds those expelled from the sight of the strict Judge is called a land of misery and of darkness, because without, pain torments those whom, within, blindness darkens, separated as they are from the true light. Although a land of misery and of darkness can also be understood otherwise. For this land too, in which we are born, is indeed one of misery, but not of darkness, because we suffer here many evils of our corruption, yet still in it, through the grace of conversion, we return to the light, Truth urging us, who says: Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness overtake you (John 12:35).
But that other is at once a land of misery and of darkness, because whosoever has descended to endure its evils in no way ever after returns to the light. In whose description it is still further subjoined: