Let there be light!

Hello and Shalom,

I thought I would start with a statement about light! Light is a fascinating thing. It is what allows your eyes to perceive colors, see near and far, and experience all the visual nuances of the world around you. Without light we would not know darkness and without darkness we would not know light. With that said lets look at the Creator of light.

Bresheet (Genesis) 1:1-5

1) In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth. 2) The earth was without form, and void; and darkness on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of Elohim was hovering over the face of the waters. 3) Then Elohim said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. 4) And Elohim saw the light, good; and Elohim divided the light from the darkness. 5) Elohim called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. In this passage we see that it is Elohim that created the heavens and the earth and the darkness and the light.

Before I go further I would like to mention that a person could spend a considerable amount of time studying the first verse. I would recommend to everyone that they do study each verse very carefully. For this entry however, I wanted to focus on the light portion of this section.) Before we look at light let's look at lights counterpart darkness. Darkness in verse 2 is choshek (transliterated word) חֹשֶׁךְ (Hebrew text) it is a masculine noun. The important thing to note is that darkness is being referred to as a thing. So from this we can see that darkness was created first before light.

Now let's look at how Elohim created light. Verse 3 tells us that Elohim said, "Let there be light". The word for said is amar אָמַר literally meaning to speak showing us that light was created by the spoken word of Elohim. I find it fascinating that what we see was spoken into existence.

We now know who created light and how light was created. Now we can look at what light is. The word for light is owr אוֹר it is used to describe the light of day, the light of a lamp, the light of life, the light of instruction and the light that is Yahweh! There are other examples as well if you get out your concordance you will find the full list.

I have taken the time here to briefly explain light so that when we see a reference to light you will have an understanding of were I'm coming from.

As I have stated a person could spend an enormous amount of time studying Bresheet 1:1-5. I will come back to this in the future but for now I would like to jump ahead to:

Bimidbar (Numbers) 8:1-5

1) And Yahweh spoke to Moshe, saying: 2) "Speak to Aharon, and say to him, 'When you arrange the lamps, the seven lamps shall give light in front of the menorah.'" 3) And Aharon did so; he arranged the lamps to face toward the front of the menorah, as Yahweh commanded Moshe. 4) Now this workmanship of the menorah was hammered gold; from its shaft to its flowers it was hammered work. According to the pattern which Yahweh had shown Moshe, so he made the menorah.

In this passage we see that the menorah had seven lamps and these lamps were to face forward so that the light would be in front of the Menorah verse 2. This phrase in verse 2 shows that it was Aharon the High Priest who was responsible to make sure the light would shine forward. Also in Vayikra (Leviticus) 24:2 we see that the Menorah was to be continually lit. The Menorah would always be giving light to guide the way through the Mishkan (Tent of Meeting). Directly across from the Menorah was the table of showbread. On this table was placed 12 loaves of bread Vayikra (Leviticus) 24:5-9. I believe that these 12 loaves represented the twelve tribes of Israel so symbolically the Menorah was always giving light to the entire nation of Israel. The people of Israel always had the light of Yahweh shining on them as long as they kept His mitzvot (commandments). We read in Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 2:5 House of Yaakov, come, and let us walk in the light of Yahweh. The light here is most likely referring to the word of Yahweh which is his written Torah. Taking the word of Tehillim (Psalm) 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light for my path. I also see a direct correlation to Yeshua. Yochanan (John) 8:12 tells us that Yeshua said "I am the light of the world." So like the Menorah, Yeshua shines on us continually if we follow Him. To follow Yeshua is to have "the light of life" as well, which I believe is the written Torah. The written Torah is the light that teaches us how to live.

So to conclude this commentary I would like to say that I believe that a person must "walk in the light of Yahweh" and the only way to do that is to accept Yeshua as their redeemer so that you can begin to follow the written Torah.

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