1But there shall be no more gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali; but in the latter time he has made it glorious, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
2The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
The light has shined on those who lived in the land of the shadow of death.
3You have multiplied the nation.
You have increased their joy.
They rejoice before you according to the joy in harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the plunder. 4For the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as in the day of Midian. 5For all the armor of the armed man in the noisy battle, and the garments rolled in blood, will be for burning, fuel for the fire. 6For a child is born to us. A son is given to us; and the government will be on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, on David’s throne, and on his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from that time on, even forever. The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will perform this.
8The Lord sent a word into Jacob,
and it falls on Israel.
9All the people will know,
including Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria, who say in pride and in arrogance of heart,
10“The bricks have fallen,
but we will build with cut stone.
The sycamore fig trees have been cut down,
but we will put cedars in their place.”
11Therefore Yahweh will set up on high against him the adversaries of Rezin,
and will stir up his enemies,
12The Syrians in front,
and the Philistines behind;
and they will devour Israel with open mouth.
For all this, his anger is not turned away,
but his hand is stretched out still.
13Yet the people have not turned to him who struck them,
neither have they sought Yahweh of Armies.
14Therefore Yahweh will cut off from Israel head and tail,
palm branch and reed, in one day.
15The elder and the honorable man is the head,
and the prophet who teaches lies is the tail.
16For those who lead this people lead them astray;
and those who are led by them are destroyed.
17Therefore the Lord will not rejoice over their young men,
neither will he have compassion on their fatherless and widows;
for everyone is profane and an evildoer,
and every mouth speaks folly.
For all this his anger is not turned away,
but his hand is stretched out still.
18For wickedness burns like a fire.
It devours the briers and thorns;
yes, it kindles in the thickets of the forest,
and they roll upward in a column of smoke.
19Through Yahweh of Armies’ wrath, the land is burned up;
and the people are the fuel for the fire.
No one spares his brother.
20One will devour on the right hand, and be hungry;
and he will eat on the left hand, and they will not be satisfied.
Everyone will eat the flesh of his own arm:
21Manasseh eating Ephraim and Ephraim eating Manasseh, and they together will be against Judah.
For all this his anger is not turned away,
but his hand is stretched out still.
In 1:3 Moses refers to God's creation of light, but not the creation of darkness. This is true also of evil. God, who created good, also did not create evil. Thus, neither darkness nor evil is a creation. Evil is the absence of Good 1 and darkness is the absence of Light. The prophet Isaiah speaks of God bringing the light into the darkness, and dispels it (See Isa 9:1, 2), and the apostle John speaks of the time when there will be no longer any darkness or of the sun and moon but God will provide the light (Rev 21:23). Interestingly, the "light" in 1:3 is followed by the creation of two great lights to rule the day and the night on the fourth day of creation. One biblical scholar who views Genesis 1 as a myth due to the mention of light on day 1, whereas the luminaries of day 4, has a conundrum because the new heavens and new earth have just the opposite issue with no sun or moon because God is the light, and yet it clearly is not a myth.
An important feature of the Mosaic account is that God evaluates His creative work and declares it good. As well, His command caused reality, and unlike the pagan mythology, demonstrated His sovereignty over the created order of Genesis 1 by naming the different days of creation. In the ancient Near East, to name was to exercise authority. The naming motif is carried over in chapter two where Adam is given the responsibility to name all of the animals of the earth, and also the naming of the woman that Yahweh made as a helper for him.
St. Augustine seems to agree with this definition, with some refinement: "Augustine further restricted evil. He said that evil, rather than existing on its own, was a 'loss of good.' Augustine was criticized (accurately) for this definition. Not every absence of good is evil. The medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas helped solve this problem. He said that evil is a lack of some good that something should have. So a lack of sight is [natural] evil in a man, but not a rock. In the end, evil cannot exist without something to corrupt. So the logical argument given above fails because its second premise (evil exists) is wrongly understood." H. Wayne House, Does God Feel Your Pain? Finding Answers When Life Hurts. (Navasota, TX: Lampion House Publishing, 2022, 2nd ed.), p. 59. ↩︎