BIBLICAL ASTRONOMY – IN THE BEGINNING…DARKNESS

Through the study of Biblical Astronomy we begin to understand the majesty and awesome power of YHVH. This, in turn, will embed a healthy fear of YHVH within us.

We continue with our study of Wheel of Stars by Andrew Gabriel Roth

He reveals mysteries from the darkness and brings the deepest darkness into the light. Job 12.22

He laid out the horizon on the surface of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness. The pillars that hold up the sky tremble, astounded at his rebuke. Job 26.10-11

Many think of darkness as a bad thing when studying scripture, and often it is, but darkness clearly has a place within the righteousness of YHVH as well. Genesis 1 tells us that the day begins in darkness. In fact, darkness is the natural state of things prior to YHVH performing His creative act in Genesis 1.3

Now, extend this idea into the realm of science. Most scientists now adhere to the “Big Bang” as how our Universe began. This is what the “light” may be—a flash of light which began creation from nothing: By faith we understand that the ^[a]worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. Hebrews 11.3. The light may have been the Shekinah of Yahweh.

Physics tell us that both time and space began in this moment. Remember: Our Elohim is beyond time and space and, therefore, He is before time and space!

Isaiah chapter 45 tells us that YHVH hides His secrets in darkness. Darkness is like an artist’s canvass from which light and life were born: Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you comprehended the extent of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this. Job 38.17-18

Darkness only becomes “evil” when it attempts to re-assert itself outside of Yahweh’s plan and seeks to supplant the life and light that Yahweh created for His purposes…I form the light and create the darkness: I make peace and create evil:* I the Lord do all these things. Isaiah 45.7

* Evil here is from Hebrew word ra, meaning: adversity, affliction, or calamity. It would better be rendered “and create adversity.” Yahweh does not create evil, only the possibility of evil through giving us free will. Satan began without sin and fell from grace through his rebellion (Ezekiel 28.16). Disobedience to Yahweh automatically creates conflict which can lead to evil.

Once light comes there is no going back to pure darkness. Now every day will be reckoned, not from “night to night” but from “evening to evening” as in “and there was evening and there was morning, day one.” Everything is within its place and time under YHVH’s command! Note: Evening is a mixing of light and shadows.

“Where is the way to the dwelling place of light? And darkness, where is its dwelling place, that you may take it to its territory, That you may know the paths to its home? Job 38.19-20

The word evening in Hebrew is erev, which means a time when light and shadows mix. Now, since the very beginning, darkness has to deal with the reality that there is, and will always be, a light somewhere in the Universe!

Darkness may dominate the landscape in its season, but it will never be as it was before time. The light has forever limited darkness from its former total dominion, which according to Isaiah 45.7, YHVH created for His express purposes. (Sometimes darkness is also sent as a warning of His wrath (Joel 2.31).

Let’s consider darkness in its Set-Apart and Yahweh-intended form: Darkness is an integral mechanism with light used to mark the seasons and to divide the day and night. The Hebrew day, which is solar, begins and ends in darkness; so darkness is the “bookend” of time itself. Note: In the beginning the Spirit brooded in darkness.

The Hebrew year actually begins in darkness. The last month of the Hebrew/Biblical year, Adar, means “to darken”. This is why each month also begins in darkness, sometime between the conjunction of the New Moon and the appearance of the crescent sliver. The “appearing crescent” is a backwards looking marker to the actual time the month began (New Moon) as opposed to heralding the beginning of the new month (sliver).

Since the darkness is allowed as a controlling mechanism for the stars, it must also be the case that the moon sets the Hebrew month.

He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns deep darkness into dawn and who darkens day into night,
who summons the water of the sea and pours it out over the surface of the earth—Yahweh is his name. Amos 5.8

He commands the sun not to shine and seals off the stars. He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. He makes the stars: the Bear (Aldebaran, Orion, the Pleiades, and the constellations of the southern sky. Who does great and unsearchable things, does wonders without number. Job 9.7-10

As I have been studying Biblical Astronomy in Wheel of Stars I have begun to understand the awesome majesty and Eternalness of Yahweh. We have a tendency to forget His great power. We have lost that healthy fear of Yahweh in our lives.

The Apostle Paul said we should work out our own salvation with fear and trembling…Philippians 2.12 This is sage advice!