A nation or an individual can reach a point of absolute despair, where every attempt to find salvation is met with closed doors, growing suffering, and no way out. After looking upward to the heavens yields no answer, the gaze turns downward to the earth. The primary approach among commentators is that turning to the earth represents a desperate search for human assistance. It is an attempt to find help from earthly rulers, form political alliances, or simply locate any possible escape route [רש״י, מצודת דוד, רד״ק, אברבנאל]. However, this hope is immediately shattered. Instead of rescue, they meet a reality filled only with distress and darkness. The root cause of this relentless suffering is the abandonment of God's path in favor of idolatry and seeking out mediums and spirits [אברבנאל].
The overlapping descriptions of suffering and blackness serve as a poetic way to highlight the sheer intensity of the pain closing in from every possible direction [רד״ק, מצודת דוד]. Others find careful distinctions in the type of tragedy experienced. One form of distress represents a physical, external threat, such as an enemy siege, while another points to a deep, internal mental anguish. Similarly, there is a difference in the darkness itself: one level is simply the absence of sunlight, but another is a profound, absolute blackness without any source of light [מלבי״ם].
The overwhelming atmosphere is understood in two main ways. It is widely seen as an extension of the deep darkness and gloom covering the land [מצודת ציון, רד״ק, שד״ל, אבן עזרא, אברבנאל]. Alternatively, it reflects utter weariness and exhaustion [רש״י, שטיינזלץ]. Building on the idea of exhaustion, a unique perspective suggests that the external physical threats destroy the people so rapidly that the internal mental anguish actually grows tired, finding no victims left to afflict [מלבי״ם].
As the suffering peaks, the fate of those trapped in the darkness unfolds. Most commentators explain that the people themselves are violently pushed, banished, and thrust into the absolute blackness [רש״י, מצודת דוד, רד״ק, שטיינזלץ], or scattered within it [אבן עזרא]. Another view suggests that it is the darkness and anguish that spread out, stretching across the entire land [שד״ל]. Finally, a starkly different interpretation proposes that the heavy gloom itself is driven away. In this tragic picture, the initial wave of darkness has already destroyed everything so completely that there is simply no room left for the final gloom to take hold [מלבי״ם].