Bible Geek Word Nerd - Darkness

Beginnings: Darkness

May 16, 2022

“Now the earth was formless and empty, DARKNESS was over the surface of the DEEP, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

 

וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־ פְּנֵ֣י תְה֑וֹם וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־ פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם׃

Genesis 1:2

 

In the primordial world of Genesis 1, where the land is TOHU and BOHU, it is also dark. In ancient near eastern thinking, these three factors (formless, empty, dark) are completely antithetical to life. For life to exist, there must be order and light.

 

The Hebrew word for “darkness” is CHOSHEK (חשֶׁךְ). Used 80 times in the Hebrew Bible, it means both darkness (as it does here in Genesis) and obscurity, conveying a sense of being hidden or even secret, as in Job 12: “He reveals the deep things of DARKNESS and brings utter darkness into the light.” (Hebrew has another word for “secret”, so this is a rare use.) Metaphorically, CHOSHEK can mean dread, terror, distress, confusion, or evil, just as “darkness” can in English. Consider:

• Zephaniah 1:15 – “That day will be a day of wrath a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of DARKNESS and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness…”
  

• Micah 7:8 – “Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in DARKNESS, the LORD will be my light.”
  

• Ecclesiastes 2:14 – “The wise have eyes in their heads, while the fool walks in the DARKNESS…”
  

• Isaiah 5:20 – “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put DARKNESS for light and light for DARKNESS, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”

 

In Hebraic thinking, CHOSHEK is more than the opposite of OR (light). It is also the absence of good and the absence of order. Danger lurks in the darkness. We moderns with electric lights struggle to understand a world that could go pitch black – the dread that accompanies this. The CHOSHEK which was over the deep presents a world without the light of G-d where nothing can live but creatures of the dark.

 

Next, we will look at the word translated “deep” in the verse.