Forming the Light
The Hebrew Scriptures often use the word יָצַר yatsar, translated form, to describe the process of making an artistic work. A potter takes clay and forms it into a vessel. There must be raw material or some kind of resource available before an artist can form anything. In Genesis 2:7, God formed the man from the dust of the ground. The man was the artistic work God formed using dust of the ground as raw material. Chemical analysis of human remains agrees with the chemical analysis of the dust of the ground. But that dust came from the ashes of burned-out stars. We are made from stardust. Astronomers have been saying this recently, but the Bible said we are made from dust thousands of years ago.
Let’s go back much earlier than the formation of the first man, to the very beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth. At the beginning nothing was visible, because everything was dark. Light was the first visible thing in all creation. The light then made other things visible. According to Isaiah, God must have formed the light from some resource He had created earlier. But what is the resource He used in forming light?
Let’s go back much earlier than the formation of the first man, to the very beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth. At the beginning nothing was visible, because everything was dark. Light was the first visible thing in all creation. The light then made other things visible. According to Isaiah, God must have formed the light from some resource He had created earlier. But what is the resource He used in forming light?
