Tag Archives: Book of Isaiah

The Ways of Darkness

02 Monday May 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Welcome, Readers, to the Month of May and the return to my study of Isaiah 45:7. 

I am still looking at the second part of the first line of this passage: “I create darkness”.  I’ve already looked at the meaning of the Hebrew letters comprising the word translated “darkness” and was curious what I might discover in the Greek. 

A brief recap: the Hebrew word for darkness in Isaiah 45:7 is choshek and, in the OT, is used for the darkness of night as well as metaphorical darkness.  The NT does use separate words to express these concepts.  In a previous post, I mentioned there are five different words for darkness in the New Testament.  I ought to have been more specific and I will endeavor to be so in the future.  There are five reference numbers for darkness in the Strong’s Concordance but only two unique words used: zophos and skotos.  The other three words corresponding to the Strong’s numbers are all related to skotos.  They are skoteinos, skotia, and skotoo.  “Night” is nyx (or nox-pronounced noox).  I looked up “darkness” in the Dictionary of New Testament Theology and found nyx can also have the metaphorical meaning of “darkness” equivalent to skotos in some passages (John 11:10, 9:4, 1 Thess. 5:5-7) which made me wonder just which word would correspond to choshek in Isaiah 45:7.  I purchased a copy of the Septuagint and found the word was skotos. 

The Dictionary of New Testament Theology says this about skotos:  “In classical Greek, darkness applies primarily to the state characterized by the absence of light (phos) without any special metaphysical overtones.  The thought is chiefly of the effect of darkness upon man.  In the dark man gropes around uncertainly (Plato, Phaedo, 99b), since his ability to see is severely limited.  Thus the man who can see may become blind in the darkness and no longer know which way to turn.  Hence darkness appears as the “sphere of objective peril and of subjective anxiety”. (H. Conzelmann, TDNT VII 424).  Since all anxiety ultimately derives from the fear of death, the ominous character of darkness culminates in the darkness of death which no man can escape (cf. Homer, IL., 4, 461).  Darkness is therefore Hades, the world of the dead, which already reaches out into our world in the mythical figures of the Eumenides, the children of Skotos and Gaia (Soph., Oedipus Coloneus, 40).

A little further into the entry for “darkness”, I found a mention of Gnosticism and read; “Here the concept of darkness goes beyond the purely relative to become an independent force, seen as the unlimited ruler of the earthly world.  This world is so filled with darkness that even its luminaries are but skoteinon phos-dark light (Corp. Herm. 1, 28).  In radical contrast to this world of darkness shines the transcendent world, the priority of which is stressed in Gnostic literature.  Man has been endowed with a soul, coming from a spark of light.  It is his task by means of gnosis (knowledge) to attain to enlightenment.”

I went through a period of time where I was fascinated by the stories of the Greek gods and goddesses and read everything I could get my hands on.  Thus, I was already aware Nyx was the Night goddess but did not remember coming across Skotos.  Darkness was deified by the Greeks as Erebus and such was the information I could find in the volumes I have.  Once I went online I did find websites that told me Scotus (or Skotos) was another name for Erebus.  I find this fascinating.  It’s important to remember the Bible was not written in a vacuum.  These Greek words were part of a vibrant culture and had ideas and belief systems connected with them far and beyond the way they were being used by the writers of the NT. 

So many passages in the NT equate darkness with a way of thinking.  Looking at two examples; Romans 1:21 says, “they…became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened” and Ephesians 4:18 says, “having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.”  As I read the section on darkness in the Theology Dictionary, I thought about the belief systems the NT writers were so steadfastly against: Gnosticism, Pantheism, etc.  One of my Bible Teachers recently spoke on the way our thought processes come down to us from our ancestors as well as being formed by the world around us.  I have been thinking about how true that is.  I believe words mean certain things because of how I’ve heard them used.  There are words spoken that evoke pictures in my mind and these pictures come from movies or books.  Anyone who has seen my bookshelves know I am not one to eschew books or movies because of the messages contained in them but I think making the realization is important.  Everything I hear and see affects my thought processes.  It is only through careful study and learning to discern the voice of Jesus Christ in the midst of innumerable other voices that I come to see which of my own thought processes are resting on a foundation of lies.  This is true of the world at large: age-old thought processes are still with us.  I read sermons preached today that sound a great deal like the excerpt on Gnosticism.  I hear fellow believers saying things that sound a great deal like Greco-Roman Pantheism. 

Isaiah 45:5 says, “I am the Lord and there is no other; there is no God besides Me.”  This is a truth universally recognized among believers except when it comes to talking about Satan.  Satan is spoken of in terms that infer he is somehow God’s opposite.  He is said to be the Prince of Darkness and ruler over hell.  I do understand where these ideas come from.  John 12:31 and John 14:30 speak of the “ruler of this world”.  Ephesians 2:2 uses the term “the prince of the power of the air” and then there is Ephesians 6:12: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”  I acknowledge there are spiritual powers of darkness at work but let us who know the Living God not give Satan more power than he is due and let us never in our words equate him with God.

The Theology Dictionary says, “The key to the OT view of light and darkness is faith in God as Creator who stands above both.  He is not only the Lord of light; darkness also has to bow before Him.”  In the NT, in the very Day we are living in, we see Jesus who, “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:4).  Finishing out the passages in John, we find the ruler of this world is “cast out” and “has nothing” in Jesus.  Whatever usurped rule the devil might have had, he is utterly defeated.  He is filled with fury because he knows his time is short and it is Jesus Himself who holds the keys to death and hades (Revelation 12:12, 1:18). 

The entire NT proclaims Jesus Christ’s total victory and it also speaks against this Gnostic idea that we attain enlightenment.  We cannot because “the carnal mind is enmity against God” (Romans 8:7) and “the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).  Left to ourselves, we would forever walk in darkness.  Praise God our Father and the precious Lord Jesus Christ that we are NOT left to ourselves!  “God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). 

What about the Gnostic idea that darkness is the ruling force here on Earth?  All I have to do is turn on the news to see that much is true, right?  No.  All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus (Matthew 28:18).  There is no other power beside Him.  Why then are people still in darkness?  The Strong’s defines skotos as “shadiness, obscurity”.  Skotos comes from the root skia which means “darkness of error or an adumbration”.  I had to look up “adumbration” and found it means, “shadow or faint image…concealment or overshadowing.”  The darkness obscures and mars what is true.  Its power is based in lies but, again, I do not discount it.  Human beings are capable of terrible things when they believe a lie. 

“Test everything,” Paul says in 1 Thessalonians, “hold fast to what is true.”  What is true?  Jesus Christ Himself is “the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6) and each one of us must know Him for ourselves.  Study is important.  The Bereans in Acts took everything Paul said and compared it to the scriptures to see if it was true.  I cannot stress how important it is not to accept anything anyone says, especially if they are telling you who Jesus is, and to search the scriptures for yourself.  More importantly, know Him.  It is the will of God for everyone to know Him (Jeremiah 31:34, Hebrews 8:11).  You do not need someone with a long string of letters attached to the last name to tell you who He is.  The Holy Spirit does that.  (John 15:26, John 16:13). 

Let us ask to know Him and trust His promise is sure that in asking we will receive.  Let us trust in our Glorious Heavenly Father who knows how to give good gifts to His children.  Let us know that, having received His Spirit, the same mind that was in Christ Jesus is in us.  And then, let us marvel at how He transforms us as He renews our minds.

Unless noted otherwise, all scriptures are quoted from The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Erebus | Classical Mythology Wiki | Fandom

EREBUS (Erebos) – Greek Primordial God of Darkness (theoi.com)

Greek & Roman Mythology – Tools (upenn.edu)

Adumbration Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

Brown, Colin, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume I, Regency Reference Library, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1967-1971, Pages 420-425

Bulfinch, Thomas, Bulfinch’s Mythology, Avenel Books, Crown Publishers, Inc., USA, 1978, Page 4

Cotterell, Arthur, The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology, Hermes House, Annes Publishing Limited, London, UK, 2005, Pages 41, 55

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

No Fear of Darkness

14 Monday Mar 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Hello, Readers! 

I am thrilled to be back this week once more looking at Isaiah 45:7: “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things.”  While my previous studies on light are in no way comprehensive, I am moving on from “I form the light” and am beginning to look at “and create darkness.”  I noted it once before but it’s worth repeating: the word translated “create” here is the Hebrew word bara which does indeed mean “to create”.  It’s the same word as that found in Genesis 1:1: God created the heavens and the earth.  It does not mean “allow” or “permit” as I’ve found in some other’s commentaries on this passage.  The truth is stated plainly.  God creates the darkness.

I will say this portion of the passage has never bothered me.  I’ve always liked the darkness-nighttime anyway.  It is only at night and far away from the artificial lights of modern civilization, that the spectacular beauty of the cosmos can be seen.  Nighttime has always been a sacred time to be alone in the presence of God.  I used to like to withdraw from the conversations around the campfire, to sit by myself listening to the sounds of the night, and just be in the presence of God.  Of course, I never strayed too far because I never wanted to become lost in the darkness or misstep and harm myself because my vision was obscured so I realize that even in those moments of peace and quiet, there was a wariness of the dark.

There have been times when I’ve been in darkness and felt that wariness turn to fear.  Have you ever gone on a cave tour?  There’s that moment when the guide switches off the lights and darkness is experienced in a way that isn’t possible on the surface of the earth.  We all wave our hands in front of our faces and cannot see them.  I don’t know about you but I have a vivid imagination.  I wonder what it would be like to remain in that darkness.  Would I be able to remain calm if the electricity failed and I had to feel my way out of the depths of the earth?  It is a scintillating moment of fear, a safe thrill because the lights have never failed to come back on.

As I began this study on darkness, I remember a book I purchased and read some years ago.  It is called At Days Close Night in Times Past by A. Roger Ekirch.  I was curious if anything in it would pertain to my study and so I began rereading it. I was fascinated as I read about the fear of the darkness.  In his preface, Mr. Ekirch writes, “One can only speculate about when an inherent fear of darkness might first have taken root in the human psyche.  In view of the terror that must have struck our earliest ancestors, very likely this most ancient of human anxieties has existed from time immemorial…”1

But did it?  The Hebrew word translated “darkness” in my study passage is choshek (Strong’s, H2822).  It’s the same word as “darkness” in Genesis 1:2 and, when I look at Genesis, I see no fear associated with darkness.  It’s there on the face of the deep in those first moments of creation.  God divides the darkness from the light and names it “Night” on the first day.  He sets a light to rule it on the fourth.  There is nothing frightening about the darkness: it just is.  In fact, I see night as a gift from God to humankind.  As the sun sets and evening sets in, the work of the day is done.  There is nothing to do but eat and rest.  God’s covenant with the earth means the sun will rise, there will be morning, and there is nothing to fear (See Jeremiah 33:25-26).  That was true as long as humankind stayed in relationship with their Creator.

It’s so important to look at the Serpent’s words in Genesis 3.  The intimation of The Lie is that God isn’t really trustworthy, in fact He’s a liar (“you will not surely die”), He’s keeping something good from humankind, and it would be best if humans did away with Him entirely and became gods in their own right.  When both chose to believe the Serpent rather than God, one of their first acts were to hide themselves from each other and then to hide from the One who had been their companion in the Garden (Genesis 3:7-9).  With such a devastating breaking of relationship and this new fear causing our parents to be unsure whether or not God could really be trusted, I am not surprised that Mr. Ekirch’s research caused him to conclude fear of the dark has existed since time immemorial.

This fear of the darkness is found in religion.  Mr. Ekirch writes, “It would be difficult to exaggerate the suspicion and insecurity bred by darkness….Just as heaven glowed with celestial light, darkness foreshadowed the agonies waiting transgressors after death.  Often likened to hell (“eternal night”), nighttime anticipated a netherworld of chaos and despair, black as pitch, swarming with imps and demons….Indeed, it was the conviction of some divines that God created night as proof of hell’s existence.  ‘Like the face of hell,’ was how a seventeenth-century Venetian described the advance of evening.2

Further on in the Chapter, I read, “Night,” cautioned a proverb, “belongs to the spirits.”  The uninviting climes of evening-their horrible sights and foreign sounds, their noisome vapors-beckoned a host of demons and spirits, which the Stuart playwright John Fletcher called the “blacke spawne of darknesse.”  The sky was their empire, the night air their earthy domain.  None, of course, was more feared than Satan, the “Prince of Darkness,” whose misdeeds were legion, spread far and wide with the growth of printing by popular tracts and scholarly texts.”3

I had not remembered how many quotes by different believers through the ages were shared by Mr. Ekirch. I found the substance of these quotes surprising although I don’t know why I did.  I read popular tracts and scholarly texts written in this day and age that tell me this fear of the darkness and the belief that Satan rules over it is not something left back in earlier centuries. It is terribly sad that believers don’t seem to know that Jesus has come! Through His death and resurrection, He has destroyed the one who had the power of death and He now holds the keys to both death and hell [or the grave-the word hades has been translated both ways (Hebrews 2:15, 1 Corinthians 15:12-19, Revelation 1:18)]. All authority is His (Matthew 28:18). There is no need whatsoever to fear the darkness.

While darkness itself is not something to be feared, there is no denying the deeds humans choose to do in it make it worthwhile to exercise caution.  I am under no illusions as to the state of the heart of some humans and am extremely careful when and how I make any after-dark forays.  I am not suggesting our freedom from fear should then make us foolhardy.  The point I am trying to make is that when God created darkness, He did not create something bad.  Night does not belong to the spirits nor does it belong to those who seek to hide their deeds in it.  It belongs to the One who created it and I trust Him to watch over me.  He is the Covenant Father and, resting in Him, I know that when I lie down I will not be afraid and my sleep will be sweet (Proverbs 3:24). 

Unless noted otherwise, all scriptures are quoted from The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

  1. Ekirch, Roger A., At Day’s Close Night in Times Past, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, New York, 2005, Page 3
  2. Ibid., Page 8
  3. Idib., Page 15

His Marvelous Light

28 Monday Feb 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

In my study of Isaiah 45:7, and specifically my study of light, I have had two scriptures running through my head.  The first is James 1:17; “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”  The second is 1 Peter 2:9; “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light”. 

The passage from James was foremost in my mind as I was reading about light in Dr. Ben Still’s Mind Maps: Physics and read about atomic spectra: the range of light emitted by atoms.  Dr. Still writes, “Since the mid-nineteenth century, chemists have noticed that atoms did not emit light of all colors, but instead emitted light of just certain wavelengths.”  Dr. Still does go on to describe how Niels Bohr explains the why of this but I remained stuck on the fact that atoms emit light at all.  I look at my body with new eyes and in wonder knowing that, even though I can’t see it, there is a light show going on at the atomic level. 

I know that what is “born of flesh is flesh” and “what is born of spirit is spirit”.  This body was built from the flesh of my parents (and their parents, and their parents…) and so the lights my atoms give off are a biological mechanism and is likely not what James had in mind when he wrote, “Father of lights.”  And yet; I am not separate from my body.  My spirit is knitted to it and, because I am One Spirit with the Lord Jesus Christ, His Spirit is also knitted to it.  My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and I await the day when this mortality is swallowed up in His immortality and this body is made like His.  Until then, I look at this body with all its imperfections and see it as the dwelling place of God.  The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (John 1:14) and now the living God is perfectly at home living in me.  If that doesn’t wipe out any vestige of feelings of worthlessness, I don’t know what will.

I’ve been thinking about what it means for God to be living inside of us, dwelling in a temple of living stones rather than one made with hands.  There is no denying that while it is the absolute truth that I now am One with God through the unity of the Holy Spirit, this body is still subject to hunger, pain, and death.  There are dimensions to this life in Jesus that are not yet made manifest.  I read the New Testament and find so many scriptures urging me to press in, lay hold of, pursue, run towards the goal, etc.  In his first letter to Timothy, the Apostle Paul writes; “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.  I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power.  Amen” (1 Timothy 6:12-16).k

There is so much in this passage it deserves a dedicated study of its own.  For the sake of this one, one of the questions I asked myself was, what is this unapproachable light?  I can study the aspects of light in my physics books, see attributes of God, and know that I cannot ever study the creation enough to know God.  The light that He is is uncreated and therefore far above and beyond the electromagnetic spectrum capable of being studied.  This light that God is, called the Shekinah in the Old Testament, could not really be known in those days either.  First, most of the tabernacle was off limits to the people of Israel.  Only the tribe of Levi could minister to the Lord and then the number of people who could enter the different sections got smaller and smaller until only the High Priest could enter beyond the veil into the Shekinah of God and he could only do so once a year.  (I’m simplifying for sake of space. Read Leviticus, especially Chapter 16).  Until Jesus.

The Book of Hebrews describes what Jesus fulfilled-what the tabernacle of old pointed to.  The Book of Hebrews describes Him as our High Priest who offered Himself as sacrifice once and for all, by one offering perfected forever those who are being sanctified and SAT DOWN at the right hand of God.  This is so amazing.  Whereas the high priest of old could only enter the presence of God one day a year and then had to do so year after year after year, Jesus, our best and last High Priest, entered into the presence of God and has never left it.  He abides in that unapproachable light and, just as the high priest of old represented all of Israel as he ministered in the Holy of Holies, so did Jesus represent every one of us.

I was listening to a teaching this week on the Feasts of the Lord and I saw this so clearly: Jesus entering into the Shekinah-that uncreated light of God-once and for all.  I hold this picture in mind as I think on what it means to be “in Christ”.  By offering up Himself, Jesus had made a new and living way through the veil “that is, His flesh.  Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest…” (Hebrews 10:10, 9) He opened the way for everyone. He opened the way for me. It is astonishing to know that even as I sit at my desk I am In Him, that at this moment I am seated with Him in heavenly places” (Ephesians 2:6) and as He is so am I in this world” (1 John 4:17). 

He has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.  He is the light of the world, the light shining in the darkness which the darkness cannot put out.  Because we are as He is, so are we the light of the world.  Because we are in Him and Him in us, we too dwell in the unapproachable light, the secret place of the Most High, the very life and light and heart of The Father.  This is our present reality because His Spirit lives in us. Jesus Himself is the treasure we have in earthen vessels, the eternal life we lay hold of.  We await the transforming of our mortal bodies to be like His glorious body but that waiting does not change the truth that now, at this moment, we live and move and have our being in the Lord Jesus Christ, the light of life.

Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all scriptures are quoted from The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Still, Dr. Ben, Mind Maps Physics: How to Navigate the World of Science, 1st Edition, Unipress Books Limited, 2020, Page 98

The Feasts of the Lord

Discovering the Light

14 Monday Feb 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

This week I am returning to my study of Isaiah 45:7 and am continuing to look at the word “light”.  I have written about seeing a picture of The Word being compressed into the human Jesus.  More than that, a cell in the womb of the Virgin Mary.  One of my Bible teacher’s recently mentioned there is a spark of light when a sperm fertilizes an egg.  This phenomenon was first recorded in mice but has since been recorded in humans as well.  It is sparks of zinc exploding and the effect is like fireworks.  This is an amazing discovery and yet this explosion of light is something that takes place on a biological level.  It’s a mechanism of creation. 

What took place when the Creator became the creation?  I cannot imagine.  All scripture gives me is a taste of the miracle that took place.  Scripture states the Holy Spirit “overshadowed” Mary.  That word in the Greek is episkiazo (G1982) and means “to cast a shade upon, to envelop in a haze of brilliancy, to invest with preternatural influence-overshadow”.  The picture of Mary being enveloped in a haze of brilliancy-light-and the Light of the world bursting into being in her womb is beautiful to me.  Light begat Light.

Fascinating as this thought is, I must put it on a back burner as I am in danger of digressing from my study.  I see the light that is Jesus in Isaiah 45:7 but perhaps I am way off.  Perhaps God is merely declaring Himself as Creator. Reading further in the chapter I find verse 12 where God says; “I have made the earth and created man on it” so the idea of Creator and creation is in the chapter.  I have read commentaries and other blog posts on this passage and, almost to a one, I find the insistence that what is meant here is that God permits darkness and evil but is not responsible for it.  And yet, the English word “create” is the translation of the Hebrew word and is translated the same in other places.  The Hebrew is bara (H1254) and is the same word found in Genesis 1:1: In the beginning, God created (or bara-ed) the heavens and the earth.

I find the same Hebrew words for darkness and light in my Isaiah passage in the verses 2 and 3 of Genesis.  In Genesis 1:1 God baras the heavens and the earth.  In Genesis 1:2 darkness-choshek in the Hebrew-is on the face of the deep.  In Genesis 1:3 God says “Let there be light”-owr in the Hebrew-and there is light.  The words are the same as my passage in Isaiah but the pattern is different.  Darkness is mentioned before light and, in Genesis, the light is brought into being and not formed.  The word yatsar does not appear anywhere in the story of creation.  I think something other than the act of creating is being spoken about in my Isaiah passage but I’d like to be certain.

An integral part of any study I do is to look to other translations of the Bible to see how verses have been rendered.  As I read through, I do have my thought strengthened that Isaiah 45:7 is not referencing creation.  Every translation carries the idea of a way of living.  Consider the New American Standard: “The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these.”  The Young’s Literal Translation is especially interesting because instead of using the word “creating”, Mr. Young says “preparing darkness” and “preparing evil”.

While the translations are helpful, they are not at all helpful.  In fact, I find I am confused.  Whether or not this passage is referencing the act of creation or is speaking of Jesus, how can that same God who the New Testament stresses IS love create darkness and evil?  Some translations have disaster or calamity in the place of evil but the different words don’t soften what feels like a blow.  The Amplified appears to share my confusion because that translation renders this verse as; “I form the light and create darkness; I make peace [national well-being. Moral evil proceeds from the will of men, but physical evil proceeds from the will of God], and I create [physical] evil-calamity; I am the Lord Who does all these things”.  I like the Amplified Bible and use it a great deal but in this passage I do not get the sense the translators are expanding the text to show the nuances of the original language. Rather, this feels like an insistence that God didn’t really mean what He says here.  What He REALLY means is…I move on to other sources.

I look up the meaning of light (Strong’s number H216) in Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies.  At first, Wilson’s appears to be directing me back to the light created in Genesis 1:2.  The entry begins with, “…light is that subtle fluid, called into existence the first day of creation; as this material element of nature was created before the sun, so it appears to subsist independent of that body (see Job 38: 19, 24) to which it is attracted as a centre, and flows back in powerful agency through the solar system to every planet included in it.”  If the definition stopped here, so would I and yet, I read further: “Light is put for life, natural and spiritual…life signifies prosperity, honour, joy…light in darkness is encouragement, comfort, or good hope in adversity…light, in a spiritual sense, attributed to God, to Christ, hence the saving knowledge of God and of Christ.”  This is helpful for me to gain understanding of the nuances of the meaning of light but I don’t feel as if I yet understand. 

I move on to the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon and find the first precise attribution of the definition of light to the Messiah.  I read the entry and, under #9, find, “light of instruction so the Messianic servant is light, the advent of Messiah is shining of great light”.  Rabbi Benjamin Blech writes, “What was the original light of Day One in the week of creation?  It could not have been sunlight.  The sun was not created until the Fourth Day.  It was a light of far greater intensity.  It was a light, according to our Sages, set aside for the future of Messianic fulfillment.”

Am I certain that Isaiah 45:7 is speaking of Jesus and thus holds spiritual truths to be discovered? I am certain there are truths to be discovered but am still not certain as to the meaning of the passage, especially considering the fact that the Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic the Bible was originally written are all dead languages and thus translations and renderings are subject to debate regarding their preciseness.  I have seen enough to say there’s solid reasoning to believe there is something more than God’s creating light meant here but then I’ve seen enough to wonder if the light mentioned in Genesis 1 doesn’t mean something more than light created.

Chaim Bentorah shares a story of a man who asked a rabbi a certain question.  The rabbi gave his answer and the man excitedly said, “You’re right!”  Then another rabbi, overhearing the answer, joined the conversation and explained why the first rabbi was wrong and gave his own answer, which was the total opposite of the first.  The man who’d’ asked the original question got excited again and declared to the second rabbi, “You’re right!”  A third rabbi entered the conversation and said, “He’s right, and he’s right?  They both can’t be right.”  The man pointed to the third rabbi and announced, “You’re right.”

It’s a story that makes me chuckle but one I think all believers should take to heart.  As I seek to discover the meaning of Isaiah 45:7, I am certain of one thing: there is nothing to fear because this passage makes clear there is no power above God.  Does the fact that this passage states God creates both darkness and evil shake my faith in any way?  No.  This is where relationship is so important.  I know Him.  He is real in my life and has proven Himself trustworthy, faithful, and good in the midst of both well-being and calamity.  Because I know Him, I do not doubt His character or His love for me.  I also know I have a great deal to learn and thus, praying for the Holy Spirit to guide me and interpret for me, I continue my study.

References

Scientists Just Captured The Flash of Light That Sparks When a Sperm Meets an Egg (sciencealert.com)

New American Standard Bible, A.J. Holman Company, La Habra, California, 1960-1977

The Comparative Study Bible, Zondervan Bible Publishers, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1984

Bentorah, Chain, Hebrew Word Study: Revealing the Heart of God, Whitaker House, New Kensington, PA, 2016, Page 317

Blech, Benjamin, The Secrets of Hebrew Words, Jason Aronson, Inc., Northvale, New Jersey, 1991, Page 30.

Brown, Francis, D.D., D. Litt., The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, Eighteenth Printing-September 2018, 1906

Green, Jay P., The Interlinear Bible Hebrew Greek English Volume One, Authors for Christ, Lafayette, Indiana, 1976-1985

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Wilson, William, Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts

Young, Robert, Young’s Literal Translation of the Holy Bible, Revised Edition Old Testament, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1898, Reprinted 1995