Darkness
Once Abram’s offerings were brought before the Lord and arranged properly, the sun set and a thick darkness fell. A smoking firepot with a blazing torch passed between the offerings as the Lord made a covenant with Abram on his behalf, saying “to your descendants I give this land…” The promise was for a distant future, generations after oppression and slavery, outside the purview of Abram’s peaceful life. Although Abram did not see what God was doing as the covenant was made, he found rest while the smoke and fire of God appeared among his offerings.
Thick darkness, smoke, and fire from the day of the Lord’s covenant with Abram are the same qualities of God’s sovereign power that surround the covenant given at Mount Sinai. (Exodus 19:18 and 21) The law that was given there established the Levitical priesthood that called Abraham’s descendants to bring five offerings to God as their forefather had.[1] They saw thick darkness at Sinai like Abram did at the time of God’s covenant with him. It was the same signal that God was doing something for them beyond their ability to perceive, and that their part was simply to rest.[2]
The darkness surrounding God’s covenant with Abram and with Abraham’s descendants at Sinai was not a departure from His nature, but one in keeping with the solemnity of the covenant He was making with His people. Darkness likewise covered the earth from noon until three in the afternoon when Jesus died for us on the Cross. (Matthew 27:45) Although it was the height of daylight, “darkness came over all the land” as the Son of God’s own precious, sinless, pleasing, perfect life was offered to make a new covenant that eternally secured our promised inheritance of blessing from God. Just as darkness illustrated for our ancestors that there was more taking place in the moment than what could be discerned by natural sight, what took place at the Cross will take all of eternity to discover. The magnitude of it is so great and the covenant for all generations: past, present, and future. It is in the covenant Christ made on our behalf that our souls find a rest far better than Abram’s deep sleep; and now we awake to find that it is finished.
[1] Hebrews 7:11
[2] God told Moses that He would appear in a dense cloud so that the people would hear Him and trust Moses. The cloud cover was for them to enter trustful rest not to terrify. (Exodus 19:9)
