“He will guard the steps of his faithful,
but the wicked will be silenced in darkness.
For it is not by strength that a person prevails —”
-1 Samuel 2:9
So far in Hannah’s prayer we’ve talked about the Lord’s sovereignty over the following elements of human existence:
-Life & Death
-One’s place in society
-Whether one will be rich or poor
-Whether one will be strong & powerful versus weak and feeble
-Whether one will be respected & have dignity versus one who will suffer humiliation at the Lord’s Hand
-Whether one will go hungry versus one who will have plenty to eat
And then at the end, Hannah speaks of the Lord’s complete control over all the physical processes of our planet.
However, from verse 9, things shift from the physical to the spiritual.
The issue of good versus evil is presented to us.
Those who remain faithful to the Lord and His commandments (God’s Torah) are the faithful…
While those who allow cynicism and doubt to take root in their lives are the evil.
The faithful will have the Lord to personally guide them through the ups and downs of life…
While the evil will walk in darkness.
The Hebrew word for darkness is CHOSHEK and should be familiar to you.
We first encountered this word back in Exodus.
Recall when God stretched out his hand and caused a black darkness to cover Egypt causing dread and terror to the land’s native inhabitants.
What’s interesting about this word is that it doesn’t just mean the absence of physical light…
Like the darkness that comes when the sun sets.
CHOSHEK is actually a spiritual term and more means the absence of spiritual light than physical light.
It’s the opposite of God’s spiritual light, His divine wisdom and divine enlightenment.
Are you catching this?
I hope so because it’s important.
When darkness overtook Egypt during the plague, the REAL point being communicated is that the Egyptians were plunged into spiritual darkness.
They were engulfed by the very essence of evil…
Which is what happens when God is not present.
This is the real meaning of “darkness” when it’s presented to us in the Scriptures.
Leave a Reply