Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 318 · November 14
Treasures of Darkness
“And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.”
Two doors of brass with an iron bar across them, and behind them a room with no window, because that is where a city keeps what it cannot afford to lose. The man who ends up with the key was born in another country and has never heard of the God discussing him.
The verse before yours is that room being opened. I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron. Then the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places. Darkness and secret places are addresses. They are where the strongroom is, and the riches in it are what a conquering army carries out of a city it has taken. The line has been printed on a great many posters as hidden wealth waiting for the believer, and one sentence earlier the verse names who it was spoken to: Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus. A Persian king, the one who later sent the exiles home to rebuild.
Read what the vault is for. That thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. Twice in two verses God says the man does not know him. I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me, runs the first. Then, I girded thee, though thou hast not known me. The strongrooms of the east go to a pagan who cannot yet name the hand doing the handing, and the purpose is that he should learn the name. Wealth here is instrumental, spent on somebody else's knowledge of God, and the same chapter says who owns the dark it was stored in: I form the light, and create darkness.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 318 is Water for the Thirsty (Isaiah 44:3).