Translation I did not know I walked in darkness until I saw the light I loved alongside my fellows-each one doing what we thought right We did not always agree on this which meant we had to fight But that was just the way it was we could not escape our plight.
We trusted those who seemed to have the gift of clearer sight We bowed the knee to those who could enforce their vision by their might It was always there of course that tiny shining light But if I kept my back to it It didn't shine too bright.
The light refused to be put out and steadily it shone Stranger still-I heard it speak in a gentle, tender tone It promised It would care for me said I was not alone Strangest of all the Voice itself was one I'd always known.
I tried to share the Voice's words My fellows began to wail and moan "All lies!" they said; "You can't believe a thing that you've been shown It isn't care at all you'll find but a cold and merciless throne It will enslave you and then kill you for the Light consumes its own".
Part of me believed them because they sounded so sincere And I could not deny try as I might I couldn't always hear The Voice that flowed out from the light Its words weren't always clear. I knew if I wished to hear them so I would have to draw near.
Came the day I could hold out no more and though my heart leapt within in fear I began to walk towards the light leaving all I had held dear Though many warned me not to go I didn't turn an ear Away from the voice that called to me I could not cease to hear.
The Light grew as I approached until it was all I could see As I entered into it I found It had entered into me As I dwelt inside the light I made a discovery The Light was not an It at all but Personality.
In Him I was cared for-I was safe My sense of enmity Was something that the darkness birthed there was no need to flee From the truth He'd rule o'er all my life I chose to bend my knee Both His death and life in me now meant We lived in unity.
I still hear the voices of the dark that unrelenting din Some are strange ones I ignore- some are kith and kin Who seek to call me back to them I seek the right words to begin To explain there is no more going out but they can all come in.
There is naught to fear inside His Light this new life is akin To the greatest intimacy of all and yet greater than all have ever been Us in Him and Him in us is how we live herein And anything that might be lost cannot compare to all we win!
I have great fun studying the Bible. I never know what I’m going to learn and yet I always know I’m going to learn something new about the Father revealed in Jesus. It’s an adventure every time. Which doesn’t mean it’s easy. I will start studies and find I’m utterly confused. It is difficult to come to a study without preconceived notions about what the study passage means. I have a background where I’ve experienced different denominations and each one has left behind echoes of its belief systems. I read commentaries and expositions on the passages I study that tell me these passages mean one thing and then, through conducting my own studies, I find these passages mean the exact opposite.
I have already mentioned reading interpretations of Isaiah 45:7 where I’m told God is saying he “permits” or “allows” darkness. The Hebrew word there is “create” and is translated such in other passages. That God says He creates darkness was not easy to understand once I discovered I came to this passage with a bone deep conviction that the light is good and the darkness is bad. I wasn’t aware I felt this way until I was deep into the study and analyzing just what it was I already believed compared to what I was uncovering. Just over the last week there have been multiple times I’ve either read or heard someone say “Jesus is the light that shines in our darkness”. That is absolutely true: He is. Yet I’ve been listening with every fiber of my being not just to the words but the intent and feeling of the context in which they are spoken and I find others have this same conviction that the darkness is bad the light is good. More than that, I see this conviction carries into how we believers view ourselves: I was bad while in darkness and now that I’m in the light Jesus makes me good. Is this true? If God created the darkness, and Isaiah 45:7 directly quotes Him as claiming He did; did He create something bad?
The Hebrew word in Isaiah 45:7 for darkness is choshek (H2822) and is defined in the Strong’s Concordance as: “from 2821, the dark; hence (literally) darkness; figuratively misery, destruction, death, ignorance, sorrow, wickedness–dark(-ness), night, obscurity.” This doesn’t sound good at all and yet this exact word is the same one for darkness in Genesis 1 which God calls “night”. Night isn’t bad, it just is. And yet, if I read slowly and carefully, I find that in verse 4 God sees the light, that it was good and then divides the light from the darkness. In verse 5 He calls the light “Day” and the darkness “Night” and then the First Creation Day comes to a close. God never actually calls the darkness “good” although verse 31 says, “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.” These are all interesting points, but I don’t find an answer to my question.
I open the Strong’s Concordance to the scripture listings of occurrences of “darkness” and begin to look at them. At once, I find the subject of darkness to be far more complicated than I imagined. There are eleven Hebrew words translated “darkness” in the Old Testament and an additional five Greek words in the New. I am currently focusing on the Hebrew words and some aren’t distinct per se from choshek but rather are familial words and come from the same root. For example, Psalm 139:12 says, “Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, but the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You.” The first occurrence of darkness is my study word choshek but the second is chashekah (H2825). According to the Strong’s Concordance, this word is also from 2821 and is defined as “darkness, figuratively misery”.
The two words translated “darkness” in Job 28:3 are a different story. My New King James Version has this verse translated, “Man puts an end to darkness and searches every recess for ore in the darkness and the shadow of death.” The first occurrence of darkness is again choshek but the second is ophel (H652) and means, “dusk–darkness, obscurity, privily.” For those of you wondering: privily is the adverb form of privy and means, “private, hidden, secret, clandestine.” Here we do have two different words coming from different roots and with different meanings although they’ve been translated by the same English word. As I continued to look at scriptures containing my study word, I found plenty more to confuse me. There are scriptures where my study word means physical darkness or night. This is true in Genesis 1 and is also true in passages like Exodus 14:20. And yet, while the meaning of darkness or obscurity doesn’t change, there are far more occurrences where “darkness” is used in a metaphorical rather than physical sense. I found this to be true in many passages of Job, Proverbs, and Psalms but reading all of these did not make it any easier to discern whether darkness was good or bad.
Chapter 20 of Job is titled “Zophar’s Sermon on the Wicked Man” and verse 26 states, “Total darkness is reserved for his treasures”. Those who lose their treasures would call this bad but there are many who would call it good. Then I read in Isaiah 45:3 quotes God as saying, “I will give you treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places.” There is nothing bad here at all. Proverbs 2:13 speaks of men who “leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness,” which of course is bad. But then Psalms 107 speaks of those who rebelled against the words of God (very bad) and thus sit in darkness and in the shadow of death; when they cried out to the Lord in their trouble He saves them out of their distresses and “brings them out of their darkness and the shadow of death” (verses 10-16). That’s good: the darkness was no match for God. Then, most confusing of all, I read in Amos: “Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! For what good is the day of the Lord to you? It will be darkness, and not light” (Amos 1:18). The darkness does sound bad in this passage but how can it be in any way associated with such a certainly good thing as the day of the Lord?
Good or bad. How can I know? I certainly can’t rely on my own judgment because there have been so many bad things that have happened to me and yet, as the transforming light and life and love of Jesus has come in to the circumstance I called bad and redeemed it, it has become good. I can attest to the truth of Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” Nor can I rely on anyone else’s judgment because one person will say a thing is bad and another will say the very same thing is good. I can attest to the truth of Isaiah 5:20: “woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”
I think a great deal about the first few chapters of Genesis, specifically the two trees named in the Garden. There was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. I have a book I have not yet read in its entirety but there’s a passage that has stuck with me. The book is Is God to Blame? by Gregory A. Boyd. He addresses the Serpent’s lie in the first chapter and writes, “Our role as God’s creatures is to receive, enjoy and reflect our Creator’s love and goodness as we exercise the authority over the earth he entrusted to us. But we can’t do this if we try to be wise like God, “knowing good and evil”. To fully reflect God’s image in the way he intended, we must resist the serpent’s temptation to be “like God” in the way God has forbidden. Unlike God, our knowledge and wisdom are finite. We simply are not equipped to make accurate and loving judgments about good and evil…When we try to go beyond this boundary and try to know what God alone can know, when we try to be “wise” like God, it destroys us.”
I don’t yet know whether I agree or disagree with this statement. Perhaps the truth is closer to I see where Mr. Boyd is coming from but, in Jesus; I have His life and mind and wisdom because His Spirit lives in me and teaches me to think as He thinks and know as He knows. “In Jesus” is, I think, the key. I find my confusion begins to clear when I cease trying to understand darkness in terms of good and bad and begin to think of it in terms of Life of Jesus Christ and Not-life of Jesus Christ. Can there be life in the midst of darkness? Since life is Jesus, His life is the light of us all, and the life and light that He is shines in the darkness, then I would say that answer is yes. I would also say this subject of darkness requires further study.
Unless noted otherwise, all scriptures are quoted from The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982
References
Boyd, Gregory A., Is God to Blame? Beyond Pat Answers to the Problem of Suffering, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, 2003, Page 23
Guralnik, David B., Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, William Collins + World Publishing Co., Inc., Cleveland • New York, 1970/1976
Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990
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
Ekirch, Roger A., At Day’s Close Night in Times Past, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, New York, 2005, Page 3
Good Day! I’m posting this later than usual but I wasn’t sure I could post at all as, a few days ago, I had a TBI Incident. There was an amusing brain game on Social Media, I tried it, and am now adding amusing brain games to the list of activities Kate can no longer do post-brain injury.
With my synapses reeling and my brain down for maintenance (copious amounts of sleep and trying not to think too much while awake) I have to postpone the next installment in my study of Isaiah 45:7. With high hopes for continuing next week, I offer this poem for your enjoyment.
I wrote it years ago when I had passed through most of the stages of grief but, instead of coming to acceptance, I was more at resignation. Something needed to change. I was tired of my “oh poor me” thoughts and decided to take stock of my blessings. There were more than I thought once I started counting and, greatest of all, the Holy Spirit had not left me because I was now disabled. Perhaps that sounds silly but it was an important revelation for me. This damaged body was still His temple, I was still one with Jesus, and I was still loved by the Father. Knowing that is my greatest blessing.
Love Letter
A love poem from me to You Is what I am striving to write But the words will not come-the words will not flow And I know I'll be at this all night. What is it exactly I'm trying to say That hasn't been said once before? Perhaps there is nothing, nothing at all But I'll not sleep without trying once more. I long to tell you of all in my heart And I'm not sure just where to begin So I'll start with I love you, a good place I think And I'm grateful I'm redeemed from sin. I am grateful also for so many more things That I'm walking and talking and wielding my pen For You've blessed me so much, even more than I know That I can't but give thanks once again. I can tell You I'm awed that the Creator of all Would care so much about me That He'd choose the cross and face so much pain Knowing it would mean setting me free. So I thank you so much for the blood that You shed For the relationship I have with You And I'll show all I love You as much as I can Because,really, what else can I do?
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
Renaissance Woman 
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