Posts

Showing posts with the label darkness

Word for Word: Episode 19

וַיִּקְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים And God named... The verb  קָרָא (qara) means to address by naming. When God gives a name to something he defines its primary purpose or function. It is away to show sovereignty over that which is named. לָאֹור֙ יֹ֔ום Light is named Day By declaration, Light was called upon to be a unit of time. In reference to the earth, the daylight would be that part in which the lightbearer would light the inhabitants. The word  יֹ֔ום (yom) does not denote an exact period of time, but rather the nature of that time. וְלַחֹ֖שֶׁךְ קָ֣רָא לָ֑יְלָה And the darkness He called Night The naming of the darkness transformed chaos into a time for rest. The word לַיִל (layil) is a primitive one, but seems to have been derived from לוּל (lul), which means to fold back, that is, to turn around. In the naming of the periodic darkness upon the earth, God leaves a clue to how He "separated" the darkness. It was by turning the surface away from the light, blocking it f...

Word for Word: Episode 18

וַיַּבְדֵּ֣ל אֱלֹהִ֔ים  בֵּ֥ין הָאֹ֖ור וּבֵ֥ין הַחֹֽשֶׁךְ׃ And God separated the light from the darkness Some things just cannot exist together. After filling the universe with light, God reintroduced darkness. Light destroys darkness, but it's full effect can be toxic. Since the earth was to be the home to plants and animals that ate plants (or at least the fruit and seeds), Light had to be dosed properly. Darkness had to exist for life to thrive. Essentially, visible light is a small part of a wide spectrum of massless particles, or virtual particles existing in vibrations. Light reveals the substance hidden in a vast desert of "empty" space. These vibrations can be deadly at frequencies on higher than what we call violet, a dark blue color. On the other end, long invisible waves of light provide life sustaining heat beyond the red we see. Other benefits from these longer waves include radio waves that have been harnessed to carry information long distances. But ...

Word for Word: Episode 10

וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְהֹ֑ום And darkness on the face of the deep Before there was light, there was darkness, חֹ֖שֶׁךְ, all across the universe. The consolidation of the particles into one place was a noisy event of high energy waves far shorter than visible light. The fact that no one but God was there to see any of this shows that it is by revelation. The darkness is said to be "on the face" ( פְּנֵ֣י ) of "the deep" ( תְהֹ֑ום ). The versatile preposition עַל (`al) is used in the sense of over or above. The word פְּנֵ֣י derived from the verb and unused noun פָּנָה which means to turn. The phrase עַל־פְּנֵ֣י often is translated with the sense of "in the presence of". In other words, the primal darkness was as dark as is possible. Since "God is light", the original darkness is sometimes thought to be a metaphor. A literal reading, though, can easily render support to a gravitational black hole the size of the known uni...