EXODUS 10:21

Q: What is meant by the darkness that could be felt? 

 

All modern translations use similar phrasing for this verse, and almost all commentators explain this

 phenomenon in the same way. The New Bible Dictionary (p. 1002) is typical of their comments: “This

 was a khamsin dust-storm, but no ordinary one. The heavy inundation had brought down and deposited

 masses of 'red earth', now dried out as a fine dust over the land. The effect of this when whirled up by a

 khamsin wind would be to make the air extraordinarily thick and dark, blotting out the light of the sun.”

 

The only dissenting voice is that of John Durham (Exodus, pp. 138-139), who translates the original

 Hebrew phrase somewhat differently as “a darkness so thick people will have to feel their way around.”

In either case, it was obviously an extraordinary event.