Isaiah’s Insight on Darkness and Light
Isaiah expressed his ideas in some of the most beautiful poetry in the Bible, notably from chapter 40 through the end of the Bible book that bears his name. Modern poets enjoy what they call “poetic license.” People today don’t try to interpret modern poetry literally. But were ancient poets aware of the license modern people are willing to grant them?
Creating the Darkness
Isaiah reports that God made a remarkable statement. God says, I form the light and create darkness (Isaiah 45:7). Surprisingly, this statement can be interpreted literally. This means that the statement makes sense when each word is given its simple, ordinary meaning.
The Hebrew word בָּרָא bara´ translated create refers to creation as a primary work. There is no reference to a consumable resource. Here God says through Isaiah that He creates darkness.
The kind of darkness Augustine defined can never produce light. Under his definition, light is something, but darkness is nothing. If we were to follow Augustine’s line of interpretation then Isaiah would have God saying, “I create the absence of light,” or worse, “I create nothing.” But this makes no sense. “Nothing” has no need of a creator. God created everything that exists. “Nothing” does not exist, and no one created it. But according to Moses, just after the beginning, darkness was an existing, substantive part of the heavens and the Earth.
Dark But Not Evil
The preceding line of analysis started going astray when we introduced a restricted definition of darkness, the one that Augustine proposed. Other interpreters have tried a different approach. They spiritualize the darkness and call it evil. In many places in the Bible darkness is a symbol of evil. But if we read Isaiah 45:7 that way, we have God saying that He creates evil.
Some translations, including the King James Version, do have God saying I make peace, and create evil in the next line. But the New International Version translates the phrase as I bring prosperity and create disaster.
That cannot be. In Moses’ narrative of creation God frequently pauses to evaluate what He has made and everything He has made is always good. In Genesis 1:31 God saw all that He had God made, and it was very good. Everything God made includes the darkness. Therefore the darkness God created was also good. Some people spiritualize the darkness of Isaiah 45:7 and take it as evil, but that leads to logical difficulties.
The simplest interpretation of the light and darkness of Isaiah 45:7 is physical and literal. Isaiah is talking about the kind of darkness and light that a child with seeing eyes understands.
In Genesis 1:4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. The light did not eliminate the darkness. God kept both the darkness and the light, but He separated them. Separation can be done in time or in space or both. The darkness and the light were both good. We will later analyze other kinds of darkness and see why they are good, too.
Formless, Empty, and Dark
Isaiah doubtless meditated on Genesis 1:1‑3 when he wrote that God creates darkness and forms light. In the beginning when the heavens and Earth were created they were at first formless, empty, and dark, but they existed. What created objects are formless, empty, and dark? Augustine says he tried a long time to imagine a formless object and gave up.[i] Science at last knows the answer. Such created objects are found in nature. Physicists can also make them in the laboratory.
What are they? They are electromagnetic rays that vibrate very rapidly. A laser emits light rays that all travel in nearly the same direction. A laser beam has a very definite form. The form is the form of a beam of light, a bundle of rays that go in the same direction. Most light sources emit light rays that go in all directions. Their light is formless. Likewise, natural gamma rays travel in all directions. Such gamma rays are created, existing, dark, and formless.
We tend to think of outer space as an empty vacuum, punctuated here and there with planets, stars, and galaxies. Yet space is not empty, filled with nothing. We say that the light from distant galaxies comes through empty space. But while the light is coming, is the space empty? Space contains the light in transit and is therefore not really empty. Gamma rays travel through empty space, just as light does when it comes to us from the stars and galaxies. Light rays and gamma rays can exist in regions devoid of matter. They are, however, very real. Energy can exist in “empty” space.
Light rays are visible, but gamma rays are dark. Human eyes cannot respond to vibrations that are so rapid. A region filled with gamma rays is therefore an existing object that is formless, empty, and dark. The Bible says that the Earth was formless, empty, and dark. The unformed Earth at first existed in empty space as dark but detectable energy.
Isaiah adds to the confirmation we found in the books of Moses. Neither one knew anything about particle production from gamma rays, but they make an exact description of energetic darkness the beginning of the narrative of the formation of the Earth. We are already far beyond simple coincidences. Somehow Isaiah and Moses avoided error when they spoke of the beginning. If God’s Spirit did not guide them, how did they describe the beginning so accurately?
[i] Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Books XII and XIII, passim, especially Chapter vi, Section 6.
Creating the Darkness
Isaiah reports that God made a remarkable statement. God says, I form the light and create darkness (Isaiah 45:7). Surprisingly, this statement can be interpreted literally. This means that the statement makes sense when each word is given its simple, ordinary meaning.
The Hebrew word בָּרָא bara´ translated create refers to creation as a primary work. There is no reference to a consumable resource. Here God says through Isaiah that He creates darkness.
The kind of darkness Augustine defined can never produce light. Under his definition, light is something, but darkness is nothing. If we were to follow Augustine’s line of interpretation then Isaiah would have God saying, “I create the absence of light,” or worse, “I create nothing.” But this makes no sense. “Nothing” has no need of a creator. God created everything that exists. “Nothing” does not exist, and no one created it. But according to Moses, just after the beginning, darkness was an existing, substantive part of the heavens and the Earth.
Dark But Not Evil
The preceding line of analysis started going astray when we introduced a restricted definition of darkness, the one that Augustine proposed. Other interpreters have tried a different approach. They spiritualize the darkness and call it evil. In many places in the Bible darkness is a symbol of evil. But if we read Isaiah 45:7 that way, we have God saying that He creates evil.
Some translations, including the King James Version, do have God saying I make peace, and create evil in the next line. But the New International Version translates the phrase as I bring prosperity and create disaster.
That cannot be. In Moses’ narrative of creation God frequently pauses to evaluate what He has made and everything He has made is always good. In Genesis 1:31 God saw all that He had God made, and it was very good. Everything God made includes the darkness. Therefore the darkness God created was also good. Some people spiritualize the darkness of Isaiah 45:7 and take it as evil, but that leads to logical difficulties.
The simplest interpretation of the light and darkness of Isaiah 45:7 is physical and literal. Isaiah is talking about the kind of darkness and light that a child with seeing eyes understands.
In Genesis 1:4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. The light did not eliminate the darkness. God kept both the darkness and the light, but He separated them. Separation can be done in time or in space or both. The darkness and the light were both good. We will later analyze other kinds of darkness and see why they are good, too.
Formless, Empty, and Dark
Isaiah doubtless meditated on Genesis 1:1‑3 when he wrote that God creates darkness and forms light. In the beginning when the heavens and Earth were created they were at first formless, empty, and dark, but they existed. What created objects are formless, empty, and dark? Augustine says he tried a long time to imagine a formless object and gave up.[i] Science at last knows the answer. Such created objects are found in nature. Physicists can also make them in the laboratory.
What are they? They are electromagnetic rays that vibrate very rapidly. A laser emits light rays that all travel in nearly the same direction. A laser beam has a very definite form. The form is the form of a beam of light, a bundle of rays that go in the same direction. Most light sources emit light rays that go in all directions. Their light is formless. Likewise, natural gamma rays travel in all directions. Such gamma rays are created, existing, dark, and formless.
We tend to think of outer space as an empty vacuum, punctuated here and there with planets, stars, and galaxies. Yet space is not empty, filled with nothing. We say that the light from distant galaxies comes through empty space. But while the light is coming, is the space empty? Space contains the light in transit and is therefore not really empty. Gamma rays travel through empty space, just as light does when it comes to us from the stars and galaxies. Light rays and gamma rays can exist in regions devoid of matter. They are, however, very real. Energy can exist in “empty” space.
Light rays are visible, but gamma rays are dark. Human eyes cannot respond to vibrations that are so rapid. A region filled with gamma rays is therefore an existing object that is formless, empty, and dark. The Bible says that the Earth was formless, empty, and dark. The unformed Earth at first existed in empty space as dark but detectable energy.
Isaiah adds to the confirmation we found in the books of Moses. Neither one knew anything about particle production from gamma rays, but they make an exact description of energetic darkness the beginning of the narrative of the formation of the Earth. We are already far beyond simple coincidences. Somehow Isaiah and Moses avoided error when they spoke of the beginning. If God’s Spirit did not guide them, how did they describe the beginning so accurately?
[i] Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Books XII and XIII, passim, especially Chapter vi, Section 6.