In the beginning I didn't have much interest in reading the Bible. It seemed very dry and boring to me. However I knew it was something I should do, and so I made it a discipline. I had a living breathing prayer life, and a living breathing relationship with God, but the Bible reading was, meh. Then one day I picked up the book and opened it to the book of Samuel. And something happened. King David jumped off the page at me as if I had known him all my life. He became very real to me. When he "stayed home, in the spring, when kings go to war" I shook my head. David! What are you doing? I felt for him when he lost his little baby boy, before he could even be named, and I rejoiced for him when Solomon was born. I was so sad for him when he lost his precious Absolom, and when his best friend, Jonathan, died. When Solomon built the temple, I, who love architecture, was spellbound. It must have been an amazing sight to see the temple in all of it's glory. Likewise, when it was destroyed, I wanted to weep. Such a tragedy! And so it went. I kept reading, through all of the old Testament, and then into the New. Finally, after about two years, I came back around to Samuel. And I started again. As the years have gone by I have begun to remember things, and glean things, unexpected nuggets of mystery, begging to be solved. Sometimes I will be reading along and as I'm reading, I'm thinking, wait...isn't there something about that...in Genesis, or Jeremiah, or Isaiah. One of those times was when I was reading Jeremiah and a verse popped out at me about making people "fishers of men." That really grabbed me, because of course, Jesus said it to his disciples. And the story he told of the Good Samaritan on the road to Jericho...that is also in the old Testament, although it differs just a bit. (2 Chronicles 28:15) And when Jesus was on the cross...My God, My God, why have your forsaken me? That was Psalm 22, a song of David. Could Jesus have been singing on the cross?
To make a long story short, I love reading the Bible now. Far from boring, it has come alive in so many ways I can't even express. It has become my not so secret passion. It's all I want to talk about, anymore. Every time I pick it up I learn something new. They say it's like an onion with never ending layers, and I have to agree with this. I have been reading it for forty years and instead of becoming stale over time, with every reading it becomes more and more alive, more and more interesting, more and more life giving, more and more necessary.
There came a time that I realized I needed to start writing the stuff I was learning down. Things I had picked up, in my reading, and things God had shown me along the way. I can't keep it all in my head and I don't want to forget. So I am reading, writing down what I learn, listening to what God has to tell me in the process, and loving every minute of it.
And oh yeah, I wanted to share as I go. I am in the book of Genesis. I have been here for about a zillion years, well, really about a year, I think. Everytime I finish the book and think I have moved on I end up back here. Right now I am finishing the story of Joseph, but I am also parked here, in the garden where it all started...Eden....which by the way...means Paradise...a synonym for Heaven.
So here we go.
In the Beginning...Beginning in Hebrew is Be-re-sheet, meaning of course, the first, beginning, best, chief. Be-re-sheet actually means Genesis! ...God (Elohim) meaning ruler and judge...created (shaped, formed) the heaven and the earth.
The Earth had no form...(Tohu... Chaos, and void, meaning empty). There was nothing on it. Darkness (choshek...darkness, obscurity) was on the face of the deep (tehom...depths, deep places, the abyss, subterraneran waters.). I like the way the Message words it. A soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, and inky blackness.
And the Spirit (ruach...Holy Spirit of God, third in the Trinity) moved (brooded, or fluttered) over the face of the waters.
And God said.,.(amar...uttered a Word with great latitude) "Light!". And there was Light.
*An interesting note. Here we have the Trinity, all together for the first time in the Bible. God the Father, beginning to create the world, God the son (LIGHT), (John 1:1 In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...) and the Spirit hovering over the face of the deep. The next time the Triune is together (in the written Word) in this way is at the baptism of Jesus (Matthew 3:16) When Jesus comes out of the water He sees Heaven torn open and the Spirit of God descending on him like a dove (Spirit hovering over the water) with a voice (God, the Father) saying "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.*
The Hebrew word light (Or) means light of day. In verse 4, God sees the light as good, and separates it from the darkness. God called the light Day (Yom...day as opposed to night) and the darkness he called Night (layil...night as opposed to day, from the same Hebrew word lul, which means "a twist" away from the light.)
Interesting note. There is no sun, moon or stars yet. That happens on day 4. So although it would appear that we are talking about physical day and night here, I believe there is a deeper meaning lurking behind this verse. In Isaiah 9 the prophet says "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light." Those who dwell in the land of intense darkness and the shadow of death, upon them has the light shined. Jesus is without a doubt the great Light, but is he the Light spoken of here in the beginning? I think so!
And so we come to the end of the first day. Only God does things a little different. And the evening (Eber) and the morning (boker) were the first day. In our world we live from morning to evening. In God's world, and still today in the modern Jewish world, it is the opposite, the days run evening to morning.
Then it gets really interesting. The word evening (Eber...night, sunset) has a root word (arab) that means "to cover with a texture" and is identical with another meaning, and that is to pledge exchange, or become surety (which brings to mind Jesus, exchanging his life for ours, he was knew no sin becoming sin for us) and also to intermix, or mingle. To me...and this is just my thought...not from the Lord or from something I read anywhere else...this sounds like a marriage!
Likewise the word morning (boker...break of day) also has a root word (baqar). Meaning to to plough. (Not sure about that one.) Or break forth (as in morning, when things can be seen by the light of the sun). Also to inspect, care for, consider, search, seek out.
The general consensus among some scholars seems to be that there is a deeper meaning to both of these words. The word eber (evening) seems to come down to the word Chaos, and the word boker (morning) seems to come down to the word order. I am halfway convinced that this is true, but more study needs to be done by me before I am 100 percent convinced. I have no trouble connecting the dots from evening to chaos, but the link between morning and order is more obscure. If true, it would give new meaning to the phrase "Then there was evening and there was morning, the first day. It would read like this. Then there was chaos, and there was order, the first day.
Let me end with this, then. If it is true, that ereb and boker mean chaos and order, as has been suggested, then can we say that Jesus became chaos for us, that we might have order with him? He intermingled with us, became an exchange for us, and now he breaks forth* in our lives, inspects, cares for us, considers us, searches us out, and covers us with his love.
*Way back in the Messianic line, there was a set of twins born to Judah, Jacob's son. The twins were named Perez (breaking forth) and Zerah (rising). I believe both of these names pertain to the coming Messiah, who would exchange our lives for his, "break forth" from the grave and "rising from the dead" would bring us from death to life, from Chaos, to order, from darkness into his glorious light.
More later.
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