ʿereḇ: It’s a New Night

“And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” (Genesis 1:4-5)

In Jewish antiquity, new days started at sundown.

With poetic reflection of the great story of Creation, it was darkness that preceded light.

Rather than the dull blade of nighttime dwindling the flame of the day, it was the sharp slash of luminescence that pierced through a black and untamed nothingness.

This is meaningful, as it depicts something core to the way in which we’ve been designed to live, being that: our rest precedes our work.

Said differently, we are intended for a life that works from the outflow of a personhood filled with rest, as opposed to the more common Western approach of working until the break of rest has - out of necessity - arrived.

The prior suggests we are filled with a wellspring whose surplus runs over in generative labor, while the latter burns through our energy like a phone battery in need of plugging in by the time we’ve logged off for the day.

See the difference?

That isn’t to say we don’t likewise rest after the hard and just and life-giving work of a long day or week (indeed, Shabbat was the last day of the week, not the first), but to reveal the starting point from which we ultimately exert ourselves.

Consider, for instance, the Hebrew word for evening - ʿereḇ - which is connected to the root word ʿāraḇ, meaning a pledge of safety or an exchange. It is a provision for which we anticipate.

Anticipation is fundamental to the nighttime. A longing and expectancy that, in the darkness of a new day, light will once more break forth - that the faithfulness of Adonai again display himself as the constant Creator who penetrates the fear and chaos of the hidden and unseen.

In one of David’s lyrics, he would sing: “I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me.” (Psalm 3:5)

Sleep makes us as vulnerable as lambs, but its in these moments we might recall our Shepherd’s pledge of protection. He will make good on his promises.

Simply consider the death and resurrection of Yeshua.

He was killed in the darkness of Friday (the beginning of Shabbat), resting all of Saturday (Shabbat), then - rather than coming back to life at sundown (at the conclusion of Shabbat and the resting point of a new day) - he rose at the piercing dawn of Sunday (sunrise on the first day of the new work week).

This is a picture of new creation - a successful voyage back to the garden where the Garden King has once more conquered the death of nothingness with the gleam of new life.

It is true: out of rest and darkness, Yeshua returned - performing a miracle and perhaps displaying the most generative expression of work the world has ever seen.

This is the life we are daily invited into.

Like baptism, each night we immerse ourselves into a kind of death, trusting that each morning we will burst forth in the same resurrection power of our Messiah.

This is our hope, that light always overcomes darkness, and this is our calling, to begin our days with a kind of rest that brings about life-giving cultivation.

While “weeping may tarry for the night… joy comes with the morning.” (Psalm 30:5)

May we experience resurrection anew as we witness morning breaking through darkness once more.