---

The first clause of the text is religious. It does not refer to the light of the natural heavens. It refers to all there is in the religion of man, and in the things which affect him in the experience of it. His condition is to be one of a mixed character, not wholly good, and not wholly evil — not all light, not all dark. This mixture may be seen in several particulars.

1. In the matter of a believer's holiness. Therein there is some light, but it is not clear nor dark. The believer has some true conformity to God, but it is not a perfect conformity. He often wonders at himself, — at the inconsistencies and contradictions that he finds in his own experience. In his poor soul faith struggles to get the better of unbelief — the love of the world comes up to combat the love of God. His heart is inconsistent, his soul unsteady, his way devious, and he cannot be ignorant that his holiness is only of an imperfect character. Whenever God spares a regenerated sinner upon the earth after the time of his regeneration, such a regenerated sinner will have this chequered experience.

2. This mixture may be seen in the believer's knowledge. There is a mixture of clearness and obscurity in the knowledge of God's people which nothing could describe more perfectly than Zechariah has here described it. They have know. ledge, but, in all parts of it, it is limited. Behold a disciplined believer. He is in the furnace. He knows who put him there. He knows that the process will stop when the purpose of it is accomplished. But there are other things he does not know. He attempts to know them, but he cannot find them out. He asks, For what particular sin am I thus afflicted? He knows not why God has Sent that particular affliction on him. Behold a believer examining his own heart. He knows something about it. He very well knows its deceitfulness. But it is a wonder to him how his deceitfulness will work. When shall he ever be sure of a heart that has so often wandered? We ought to remember that the imperfection of our knowledge results from our creature littleness and the imperfection of our present state; and that so far as we have any necessity of knowing in order to be saved, our knowledge may be as clear and definite as our capacities will allow.

3. The comforts of God's people have in them a wonderful mingling of light and gloom. It is not all clear day with them, It is not all night: The alternation of comfort and depression which Christians experience, constitutes a chapter of facts which shows the mingled character of their life, whether we can have knowledge of the reasons for it or not.

4. The condition of life. We fail in few things as Christians more than we fail of fitly noticing the changes we pass through as God is leading us on. However this may be, there are strange minglings of light and darkness in our condition. So fluctuating and uncertain is the condition of life here, that no mortal can be found whose biography has any considerable resemblance to his anticipations; his life has not carried out the plans of his youth. We are knocked about in the world. Our condition is shifting, fluctuating, varying. There is scarcely a believer among us who is not compelled, amid this mingling of light and darkness, to recognise the immediate hand of his God. Amid all this mixture of good and evil, we cannot understand why it is so. How needful is faith! After Zechariah has mentioned the mingled clearness and obscurity of our state, he immediately points us to One who can understand it. "It shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day nor night." Of itself it is of a mixed character. To us it is mixed. We cannot understand it. God can. We can turn over the chequered scene into His hands. It is to Him all one day. He sees no darkness in it. It is all alike light — all "one." He has one intent in all the dispensations that affect us. When it is said, "At evening time it shall be light," we are not to understand that the evening or night shall be turned into day. The rain led character of the believer's experience shall pass. Light shall come at the end. This may find illustration in all the features of the believer's experience.

(T. S. Spencer, D. D.)

---

---

KJV: And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:

WEB: It will happen in that day, that there will not be light, cold, or frost.