NOTES for Psa 35:10

What do we call light? How do we determine that what we see is light? The point is that we do not determine it: God determined it when, at the creation of the world, He said, "Let there be light." Light is a reality created by God, and we "see" as light and call light not something arbitrary, but precisely this reality. It would seem simple, and I am breaking through an open door. But now let us remember the first half of the verse. Life too was created by God, but for some reason we keep appropriating it. We say "my life," "our life," as though it were something we made for ourselves and define for ourselves. We consider ourselves entitled to live this life "somehow," to spend it recklessly, and even to end it by our own will. And here the psalmist brings himself and us back to the right understanding: God is the source of life, just as He is the source of light. Life, even our own, has its foundation not in us but in God, just as the reality of light is determined not by the fact that we see it, but by the fact that God created it.