Isidore of Seville : In the ninth plague, darkness fell. Either it means the blindness of their minds or that they should realize that the workings of the divine economy and of providence are most obscure. For God made darkness his hiding place. But they desired boldly and rashly to investigate it and, drawing one conclusion after another, fell into the dense and palpable darkness of ignorance. — QUESTIONS ON THE OLD TESTAMENT, Exodus 14:15 Origen of Alexandria : We say, lest perhaps also the "palpable darkness" in Egypt was made in this manner for "three days", not from an eclipse of the sun, but either because dark clouds ran together into one, or because the air there then became thicker over the Egyptians only — for "to all the sons of Israel", as the scripture testifies, "there was light in all the places in which they were dwelling". For it is also impossible in an eclipse of the sun, which happens from the coming together of the moon to the sun, for darkness to be made for "three" continuous "days"; and it would be believed that there was some other cause of the darkness in Egypt, if the sun had even been named, or as though darkened at that time. But now the scripture of Exodus says nothing else except that "Moses stretched out his hand to heaven, and there was darkness and gloom and the rest over the whole land of Egypt for three days; and no one saw his brother, nor did anyone rise from his bed for three days". And just as, when Moses stretched out his hand "to heaven", "darkness was made over the Egyptians", who held the servants of God in servitude, an image of the future darkness which was to seize the Egyptians, similarly also when Christ at the sixth hour stretched out his hands on the cross to heaven over the people who had cried out: "take this man from the earth", and "crucify, crucify him", darkness was made, and they were deprived of all light. Likewise under Moses "there was darkness and gloom over the whole land of Egypt for three days; and no one saw his brother, nor did anyone rise from his bed for three days; but to all the sons of Israel there was light in all the places in which they were dwelling". But under Christ darkness fell over the whole earth of Judea for three hours, but there was light over all the rest of the earth. Which everywhere illumines the whole Church of God in Christ. — COMMENTARY ON Matthew 134