God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light “day”, and the darkness he called “night”. There was evening and there was morning, the first day.
Parallel Translations
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God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness.
God called the light “day”, and the darkness he called “night”. There was evening and there was morning, the first day.
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And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
Show all 3 translations
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And God said: 'Let there be light.' And there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
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Cross-references (40)
- 2 Corinthians 4:6 (v3) seeing it is God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory…
- John 1:5 (v3) The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn’t overcome it.
- Isaiah 45:7 (vv3, 5) I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity. I am Yahweh, who does all these things.
- Isaiah 60:19 (v3) The sun will be no more your light by day; nor will the brightness of the moon give light to you, but Yahweh will be your everlasting…
- 1 John 1:5 (v3) This is the message which we have heard from him and announce to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
Show all 38 cross-references
- Ephesians 5:8 (v3) For you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord. Walk as children of light,
- John 3:19 (v3) This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil.
- Psalms 97:11 (v3) Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.
- John 1:9 (v3) The true light that enlightens everyone was coming into the world.
- Psalms 33:6 (v3) By Yahweh’s word, the heavens were made: all their army by the breath of his mouth.
- Psalms 33:9 (v3) For he spoke, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood firm.
- Psalms 148:5 (v3) Let them praise Yahweh’s name, for he commanded, and they were created.
- Psalms 74:16 (v5) The day is yours, the night is also yours. You have prepared the light and the sun.
- Ephesians 5:14 (v3) Therefore he says, “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
- 1 John 2:8 (v3) Again, I write a new commandment to you, which is true in him and in you; because the darkness is passing away and the true light already…
- Job 38:19 (v3) “What is the way to the dwelling of light? As for darkness, where is its place,
- Psalms 104:2 (v3) He covers himself with light as with a garment. He stretches out the heavens like a curtain.
- Ecclesiastes 2:13 (v4) Then I saw that wisdom excels folly, as far as light excels darkness.
- 1 Timothy 6:16 (v3) He alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and eternal power. Amen.
- Psalms 118:27 (v3) Yahweh is God, and he has given us light. Bind the sacrifice with cords, even to the horns of the altar.
- Genesis 1:18 (v4) and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good.
- Ecclesiastes 11:7 (v4) Truly the light is sweet, and it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to see the sun.
- Job 36:30 (v3) Behold, he spreads his light around him. He covers the bottom of the sea.
- Psalms 104:20 (v5) You make darkness, and it is night, in which all the animals of the forest prowl.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:5 (v5) You are all children of light and children of the day. We don’t belong to the night, nor to darkness,
- Genesis 8:22 (v5) While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.”
- Jeremiah 33:20 (v5) “Yahweh says: ‘If you can break my covenant of the day and my covenant of the night, so that there will not be day and night in their time;
- Genesis 1:8 (v5) God called the expanse “sky”. There was evening and there was morning, a second day.
- Psalms 19:2 (v5) Day after day they pour out speech, and night after night they display knowledge.
- Genesis 1:31 (vv4–5) God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.
- 1 Corinthians 3:13 (v5) each man’s work will be revealed. For the Day will declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself will test what sort of…
- Ephesians 5:13 (v5) But all things, when they are reproved, are revealed by the light, for everything that reveals is light.
- Genesis 1:12 (v4) The earth yielded grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with their seeds in it, after their kind; and God…
- Genesis 1:23 (v5) There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
- Genesis 1:13 (v5) There was evening and there was morning, a third day.
- Genesis 1:19 (v5) There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
- Genesis 1:10 (v4) God called the dry land “earth”, and the gathering together of the waters he called “seas”. God saw that it was good.
- Genesis 1:25 (v4) God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its…
38 distinct cross-references across this passage (40 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (21 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv3–5 3. And God said Moses now, for the first…
3. And God said Moses now, for the first time, introduces God in the act of speaking, as if he had created the mass of heaven and earth without the Word. Yet John testifies that
‘without him nothing was made of the things which were made,’ (John 1:3.)
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And it is certain that the world had been begun by the same efficacy of the Word by which it was completed. God, however, did not put forth his Word until he proceeded to originate light; because in the act of distinguishing his wisdom begins to be conspicuous. Which thing alone is sufficient to confute the blasphemy of Servetus. This impure caviler asserts, that the first beginning of the Word was when God commanded the light to be; as if the cause, truly, were not prior to its effect. Since however by the Word of God things which were not came suddenly into being, we ought rather to infer the eternity of His essence. Wherefore the Apostles rightly prove the Deity of Christ from hence, that since he is the Word of God, all things have been created by him. Servetus imagines a new quality in God when he begins to speak. But far otherwise must we think concerning the Word of God, namely, that he is the Wisdom dwelling in God, and without which God could never be; the effect of which, however, became apparent when the light was created.
Let there be light. It was proper that the light, by means of which the world was to be adorned with such excellent beauty, should be first created; and this also was the commencement of the distinction, (among the creatures.) It did not, however, happen from inconsideration or by accident, that the light preceded the sun and the moon. To nothing are we more prone than to tie down the power of God to those instruments the agency of which he employs. The sun an moon supply us with light: And, according to our notions we so include this power to give light in them, that if they were taken away from the world, it would seem impossible for any light to remain. Therefore the Lord, by the very order of the creation, bears witness that he holds in his hand the light, which he is able to impart to us without the sun and moon. Further, it is certain from the context, that the light was so created as to be interchanged with darkness. But it may be asked, whether light and darkness succeeded each other in turn through the whole circuit of the world; or whether the darkness occupied one half of the circle, while light shone in the other. There is, however, no doubt that the order of their succession was alternate, but whether it was everywhere day at the same time, and everywhere night also, I would rather leave undecided; nor is it very necessary to be known.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv3–5 The light was made before either Sun or Moon…
The light was made before either Sun or Moon was created: therefore we must not attribute that to the creatures that are God’s instruments, which only appertaineth to God.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv3–5 Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light:…
Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Ver. 3. And God saith, Let there, &c.] He commanded the "light to shine out of darkness." {2Co 4:6} "He spake the word, and it was done." {Psa 33:9; Psa 148:5} {a} Creation is no motion, but a simple and bare emanation; which is, when without any repugnancy of the patient, or labour of the agent, the work or effect doth voluntarily and freely arise from the action of the working cause, as the shadow from the body. So God’s irresistible power made this admirable work of the world, by his bare word, as the shadow and obscure representation of his unsearchable wisdom and omnipotency.
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And there was light.] This first light was not the angels, as Augustine would have it; nor the element of fire, as Damascene; nor the sun, which was not yet created, nor a lightsome cloud, nor any such thing; but the "first day," which God could make without means, as Calvin well observeth. This light was the first ornament of the visible world, and so is still of the "hidden man of the heart," the new creature. {Act 26:18} The first thing in St Paul’s commission there, was to "open men’s eyes, to turn them from darkness to light," &c. To dart such a saving light into the soul, as might illighten both organ and object. In which great work also, Christ’s words are operative, together with his commands, in the mouths of his ministers. "Know the Lord; understand, O ye brutish among the people," &c. {Psa 94:8} There goes forth a power to heal, as it did in Luk 5:17; or as when he bade Lazarus arise, he made him to arise, so here the word and the Spirit go together; and then what wonder that the spirit of darkness falls from the heaven of men’s hearts, "as lightning". {Luk 10:18} So as that they that erst "were darkness, are now light in the Lord," {Eph 5:8} and do "preach forth the praises of him who hath called them out of darkness into his marvellous light". {εξαγγεληζε, 1Pe 2:9}
{a} Dei Dicere est Efficere. "of God to speak is to accomplish"
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv3–5 He commanded, not by such a word or speech…
He commanded, not by such a word or speech as we use, which agreeth not with the spiritual nature of God; but either by an act of his powerful will, called the word of his power, Heb 1:3 or, by his substantial Word, his Son, by whom he made the worlds, Heb 1:2; Psa 33:6, who is called: The Word, partly, if not principally, for this reason, Joh 1:1-3,10.
There was light; which was some bright and lucid body, peradventure like the fiery cloud in the wilderness, giving a small and imperfect light, successively moving over the several parts of the earth; and afterwards condensed, increased, perfected, and gathered together in the sun.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v3 We have here a further account of the first…
We have here a further account of the first day's work, in which observe, 1. That the first of all visible beings which God created was light; not that by it he himself might see to work (for the darkness and light are both alike to him), but that by it we might see his works and his glory in them, and might work our works while it is day. The works of Satan and his servants are works of darkness; but he that doeth truth, and doeth good, cometh to the light, and coveteth it, that his deeds may be made manifest, Joh 3:21. Light is the great beauty and blessing of the universe. Like the first-born, it does, of all visible beings, most resemble its great Parent in purity and power, brightness and beneficence; it is of great affinity with a spirit, and is next to it; though by it we see other things, and are sure that it is, yet we know not its nature, nor can describe what it is, or by what way the light is parted, Job 38:19, Job 38:24. By the sight of it let us be led to, and assisted in, the believing contemplation of him who is light, infinite and eternal light (Jo1 1:5), and the Father of lights (Jam 1:17), and who dwells in inaccessible light, Ti1 6:16. In the new creation, the first thing wrought in the soul is light: the blessed Spirit captives the will and affections by enlightening the understanding, so coming into the heart by the door, like the good shepherd whose own the sheep are, while sin and Satan, like thieves and robbers, climb up some other way. Those that by sin were darkness by grace become light in the world. 2. That the light was made by the word of God's power. He said, Let there be light; he willed and appointed it, and it was done immediately: there was light, such a copy as exactly answered the original idea in the Eternal Mind. O the power of the word of God! He spoke, and it was done, done really, effectually, and for perpetuity, not in show only, and to serve a present turn, for he commanded, and it stood fast: with him it was dictum, factum - a word, and a world. The world of God (that is, his will and the good pleasure of it) is quick and powerful. Christ is the Word, the essential eternal Word, and by him the light was produced, for in him was light, and he is the true light, the light of the world, Joh 1:9; Joh 9:5. The divine light which shines in sanctified souls is wrought by the power of God, the power of his word and of the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, opening the understanding, scattering the mists of ignorance and mistake, and giving the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ, as at first, God commanded the light to shine out of darkness, Co2 4:6. Darkness would have been perpetually upon the face of fallen man if the Son of God had not come, and given us an understanding, Jo1 5:20. 3. That the light which God willed, when it was produced, he approved of: God saw the light that it was good. It was exactly as he designed it, and it was fit to answer the end for which he designed it. It was useful and profitable; the world, which now is a palace, would have been a dungeon without it. It was amiable and pleasant. Truly the light is sweet (Ecc 11:7); it rejoiceth the heart, Pro 15:30. What God commands he will approve and graciously accept; he will be well pleased with the work of his own hands. That is good indeed which is so in the sight of God, for he sees not as man sees. If the light is good, how good is he that is the fountain of light, from whom we receive it, and to whom we owe all praise for it and all the services we do by it! 4. That God divided the light from the darkness, so put them asunder as that they could never be joined together, or reconciled; for what fellowship has light with darkness? Co2 6:14. And yet he divided time between them, the day for light and the night for darkness, in a constant and regular succession to each other. Though the darkness was now scattered by the light, yet it was not condemned to a perpetual banishment, but takes its turn with the light, and has its place, because it has its use; for, as the light of the morning befriends the business of the day, so the shadows of the evening befriend the repose of the night, and draw the curtains about us, that we may sleep the better. See Job 7:2. God has thus divided time between light and darkness, because he would daily remind us that this is a world of mixtures and changes. In heaven there is perfect and perpetual light, and no darkness at all; in hell, utter darkness, and no gleam of light. In that world between these two there is a great gulf fixed; but, in this world, they are counterchanged, and we pass daily from one to another, that we may learn to expect the like vicissitudes in the providence of God, peace and trouble, joy and sorrow, and may set the one over-against the other, accommodating ourselves to both as we do to the light and darkness, bidding both welcome, and making the best of both. 5. That God divided them from each other by distinguishing names: He called the light day, and the darkness he called night. He gave them names, as the Lord of both; for the day is his, the night also is his, Psa 74:16. He is the Lord of time, and will be so, till day and night shall come to an end, and the stream of time be swallowed up in the ocean of eternity. Let us acknowledge God in the constant succession of day and night, and consecrate both to his honour, by working for him every day and resting in him every night, and meditating in his law day and night. 6. That this was the first day's work, and a good day's work it was. The evening and the morning were the first day. The darkness of the evening was before the light of the morning, that it might serve for a foil to it, to set it off, and make it shine the brighter. This was not only the first day of the world, but the first day of the week. I observe it to the honour of that day, because the new world began on the first day of the week likewise, in the resurrection of Christ, as the light of the world, early in the morning. In him the day-spring from on high has visited the world; and happy are we, for ever happy, if that day-star arise in our hearts.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv3–5 And God said,.... This phrase is used, nine times…
And God said,.... This phrase is used, nine times in this account of the creation; it is admired by Longinus the Heathen in his treatise "of the Sublime", as a noble instance of it; and it is most beautifully paraphrased and explained in Psa 33:6 as expressive of the will, power, authority, and efficacy of the divine Being; whose word is clothed with power, and who can do, and does whatever he will, and as soon as he pleases; his orders are always obeyed. Perhaps the divine Person speaking here is the Logos or Word of God, which was in the beginning with God, and was God, and who himself is the light that lightens every creature. The words spoke were,
let there be light, and there was light: it at once appeared; "God commanded light to shine out of darkness"; as the apostle says, Co2 4:6 this was the first thing made out of the dark chaos; as in the new creation, or work of grace in the heart, light is the first thing produced there: what this light was is not easy to say. Some of the Jewish Rabbins, and also some Christian writers, think the angels are designed by it, which is not at all probable, as the ends and use of this light show: others of them are of opinion, that it is the same with the sun, of which a repetition is made on the fourth day, because of its use and efficacy to the earth, and its plants; but others more rightly take it to be different from the sun, and a more glimmering light, which afterwards was gathered into and perfected in the body of the sun (f). It is the opinion of Zanchius (g), and which is approved of by our countryman, Mr. Fuller (h), that it was a lucid body, or a small lucid cloud, which by its circular motion from east to west made day and night (i); perhaps somewhat like the cloudy pillar of fire that guided the Israelites in the wilderness, and had no doubt heat as well as light; and which two indeed, more or less, go together; and of such fiery particles this body may well be thought to consist. The word "Ur" signifies both fire and light.
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(f) Vid. Menasseh ben Israel conciliator in Gen. qu. 2. (g) De Operibus Dei, par. 3. l. 1. c. 2. col. 239. and l. 2. c. 1. (h) Miscell. Sacr. l. 1. c. 12. (i) Milton seems to be of the same mind:----- -----and forthwith light. Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure, Sprung from the deep, and from her native east To journey thro' the airy gloom began, Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle Sojourned the while.----- Paradise Lost, B. 7. l. 243, &c.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On v3 We have here a farther account of the first…
We have here a farther account of the first day's work. In which observe,
1. That the first of all visible beings which God created was light, the great beauty and blessing of the universe: like the first-born, it doth, of all visible beings, most resemble its great parent in purity and power, brightness and beneficence.
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2. That the light was made by the word of God's power; He said, Let there be light - He willed it, and it was done; there was light - Such a copy as exactly answered the original idea in the eternal mind.
3. That the light which God willed, he approved of. God saw the light, that it was good - 'Twas exactly as he designed it; and it was fit to answer the end for which he designed it.
4. That God divided the light from the darkness - So put them asunder as they could never be joined together: and yet he divided time between them, the day for light, and the night for darkness, in a constant succession. Tho' the darkness was now scattered by the light, yet it has its place, because it has its use; for as the light of the morning befriends the business of the day, so the shadows of the evening befriend the repose of the night. God has thus divided between light and darkness, because he would daily mind us that this is a world of mixtures and changes. In heaven there is perpetual light, and no darkness; in hell utter darkness, and no light: but in this world they are counter-changed, and we pass daily from one to another; that we may learn to expect the like vicissitudes in the providence of God.
5. That God divided them from each other by distinguishing names. He called the light Day, and the darkness he called night - He gave them names as Lord of both. He is the Lord of time, and will be so 'till day and night shall come to an end, and the stream of time be swallowed up in the ocean of eternity.
6. That this was the first day's work, The evening and the morning were the first day - The darkness of the evening was before the light of the morning, that it might set it off, and make it shine the brighter. See note at "ver. 3"
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv3–4 Verse 3. And God said, Let there be light]…
Verse 3. And God said, Let there be light] הי אור ויהי אור YEHI OR, vaihi or. Nothing can be conceived more dignified than this form of expression. It argues at once uncontrollable authority, and omnific power; and in human language it is scarcely possible to conceive that God can speak more like himself. This passage, in the Greek translation of the Septuagint, fell in the way of Dionysius Longinus, one of the most judicious Greek critics that ever lived, and who is highly celebrated over the civilized world for a treatise he wrote, entitled Περι Ὑψους, Concerning the SUBLIME, both in prose and poetry; of this passage, though a heathen, he speaks in the following terms: - Ταυτῃ και ὁ των Ιουδαιων θεσμοθετης (ουχ ὁ τυχων ανηρ,) επειδη την του θειου δυναμιν κατα την αξιαν εχωρησε, καξεφηνεν· ευθυς εν τῃ εισβολη γραψας των νομων, ΕΙΠΕΝ Ὁ ΘΕΟΣ, φησι, τι; ΓΕΝΕΣΘΩ ΦΩΣ· και εγενετο. ΓΕΝΕΣΘΩ ΓΗ· και εγενετο." So likewise the Jewish lawgiver (who was no ordinary man) having conceived a just idea of the Divine power, he expressed it in a dignified manner; for at the beginning of his laws he thus speaks: GOD SAID - What? LET THERE BE LIGHT! and there was light. LET THERE BE EARTH! and there was earth." - Longinus, sect. ix. edit. Pearce.
Many have asked, "How could light be produced on the first day, and the sun, the fountain of it, not created till the fourth day?" With the various and often unphilosophical answers which have been given to this question I will not meddle, but shall observe that the original word אור signifies not only light but fire, see Isa 31:9; Eze 5:2. It is used for the SUN, Job 31:26. And for the electric fluid or LIGHTNING, Job 37:3. And it is worthy of remark that It is used in Isa 44:16, for the heat, derived from (אש esh, the fire. He burneth part thereof in the fire (במו אש bemo esh:) yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha! I have seen the fire, ראיתי אור raithi ur, which a modern philosopher who understood the language would not scruple to translate, I have received caloric, or an additional portion of the matter of heat. I therefore conclude, that as God has diffused the matter of caloric or latent heat through every part of nature, without which there could be neither vegetation nor animal life, that it is caloric or latent heat which is principally intended by the original word.
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That there is latent light, which is probably the same with latent heat, may be easily demonstrated: take two pieces of smooth rock crystal, agate, cornelian or flint, and rub them together briskly in the dark, and the latent light or matter of caloric will be immediately produced and become visible. The light or caloric thus disengaged does not operate in the same powerful manner as the heat or fire which is produced by striking with flint and steel, or that produced by electric friction. The existence of this caloric - latent or primitive light, may be ascertained in various other bodies; it can be produced by the flint and steel, by rubbing two hard sticks together, by hammering cold iron, which in a short time becomes red hot, and by the strong and sudden compression of atmospheric air in a tube. Friction in general produces both fire and light. God therefore created this universal agent on the first day, because without It no operation of nature could be carried on or perfected.
Light is one of the most astonishing productions of the creative skill and power of God. It is the grand medium by which all his other works are discovered, examined, and understood, so far as they can be known. Its immense diffusion and extreme velocity are alone sufficient to demonstrate the being and wisdom of God. Light has been proved by many experiments to travel at the astonishing rate of 194,188 miles in one second of time! and comes from the sun to the earth in eight minutes 11 43/50 seconds, a distance of 95,513,794 English miles.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv3–5 Gen 1:3. God said — Not by an articulate…
Gen 1:3. God said — Not by an articulate voice; for to whom should he speak? but in his own eternal mind. He willed that the effect here mentioned should be produced, and it was produced. This act of his almighty will is termed, Heb 1:3, the word of his power. Perhaps, however, his substantial Word, his Son, by whom he made the worlds, Heb 1:2, and Psa 33:6; Psa 33:9, is here intended, and whom the ancient fathers of the Christian Church thought to be termed the Word, Joh 1:1, chiefly for this reason. Let there be light, &c. — The noted critic, Longinus, in his celebrated Treatise on the Sublime, expresses his admiration of this sentence, as giving a most just and striking idea of the power of God. In bringing order out of confusion, and forming the sundry parts of the universe, God first gave birth to those that are the most simple, pure, active, and powerful; which he, probably, afterward used as agents or instruments in forming some other parts. Light is the great beauty and blessing of the universe; and as it was the first of all visible things, so, as the firstborn, it most resembles its great parent in purity and power, in brightness and beneficence. Probably the light was at first impressed on some part of the heavens, or collected in some lucid body, the revolution of which distinguished the three first days. On the fourth it was condensed, increased, perfected, and placed in the body of the sun and other luminaries.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On v3 - III. The First Day
- III. The First Day
3. אמר 'āmar, “say, bid.” After this verb comes the thing said in the words of the speaker, or an equivalent expression. In this respect it corresponds with our English “say.”
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אור 'ôr, “light.” Light is simply what makes a sensible impression on the organs of vision. It belongs to a class of things which occasionally produce the same effect.
ויאמר vayo'mer “then said.” Here we have come to the narrative or the record of a series of events. The conjunction is prefixed to the verb, to indicate the connection of the event it records with what precedes. There is here, therefore, a sequence in the order of time. In a chain of events, the narrative follows the order of occurrence. Collateral chains of events must of necessity be recorded in successive paragraphs. The first paragraph carries on one line of incidents to a fit resting-place. The next may go back to take up the record of another line. Hence, a new paragraph beginning with a conjoined verb is to be connected in time, not with the last sentence of the preceding one, but with some sentence in the preceding narrative more or less distant from its terminating point (see on Gen 1:5, and Gen 2:3). Even a single verse may be a paragraph in itself referring to a point of time antecedent to the preceding sentence.
A verb so conjoined in narrative is in Hebrew put in the incipient or imperfect form, as the narrator conceives the events to grow each out of that already past. He himself follows the incidents step by step down the pathway of time, and hence the initial aspect of each event is toward him, as it actually comes upon the stage of existence.
Since the event now before us belongs to past time, this verb is well enough rendered by the past tense of our English verb. This tense in English is at present indefinite, as it does not determine the state of the event as either beginning, continuing, or concluded. It is not improbable, however, that it originally designated the first of these states, and came by degrees to be indefinite. The English present also may have denoted an incipient, and then an imperfect or indefinite.
3. ראה rā'âh, “see” ὁράω horaō, אור 'ôr, “emit light,” ראה rā'âh, “see by light.”
טיב ṭôb, “good.” Opposite is: רע rā‛.
4. קרא qārā', “cry, call.”
ערב ‛ereb, “evening, sunset.” A space of time before and after sunset. ערבים ‛arebayı̂m, “two evenings,” a certain time before sunset, and the time between sunset and the end of twilight. הערבים בין bēyn hā‛arbayı̂m “the interval between the two evenings, from sunset to the end of twilight,” according to the Karaites and Samaritans; “from sun declining to sunset,” according to the Pharisees and Rabbinists. It might be the time from the beginning of the one to the beginning of the other, from the end of the one to the end of the other, or from the beginning of the one to the end of the other. The last is the most suitable for all the passages in which it occurs. These are ten in number, all in the law Exo 12:6; Exo 16:12; Exo 29:31, Exo 29:41; Exo 30:8; Lev 23:5; Num 9:3, Num 9:5,Num 9:8; Num 28:4. The slaying of the evening lamb and of the passover lamb, the eating of the latter and the lighting of the lamps, took place in the interval so designated.
At the end of this portion of the sacred text we have the first פ (p). This is explained in the Introduction, Section VII.
The first day’s work is the calling of light into being. Here the design is evidently to remove one of the defects mentioned in the preceding verse, - “and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” The scene of this creative act is therefore coincident with that of the darkness it is intended to displace. The interference of supernatural power to cause the presence of light in this region, intimates that the powers of nature were inadequate to this effect. But it does not determine whether or not light had already existed elsewhere, and had even at one time penetrated into this now darkened region, and was still prevailing in the other realms of space beyond the face of the deep. Nor does it determine whether by a change of the polar axis, by the rarefaction of the gaseous medium above, or by what other means, light was made to visit this region of the globe with its agreeable and quickening influences. We only read that it did not then illuminate the deep of waters, and that by the potent word of God it was then summoned into being. This is an act of creative power, for it is a calling into existence what had previously no existence in that place, and was not owing to the mere development of nature. Hence, the act of omnipotence here recorded is not at variance with the existence of light among the elements of that universe of nature, the absolute creation of which is affirmed in the first verse.
Gen 1:3
Then said God. - In Gen 1:3, God speaks. From this we learn that He not only is, but is such that He can express His will and commune with His intelligent creatures. He is manifest not only by His creation, but by Himself. If light had come into existence without a perceptible cause, we should still have inferred a first Causer by an intuitive principle which demands an adequate cause for anything making its appearance which was not before. But when God says, “Be light,” in the audience of His intelligent creatures, and light forthwith comes into view, they perceive God commanding, as well as light appearing.
Speech is the proper mode of spiritual manifestation. Thinking, willing, acting are the movements of spirit, and speech is the index of what is thought, willed, and done. Now, as the essence of God is the spirit which thinks and acts, so the form of God is that in which the spirit speaks, and otherwise meets the observations of intelligent beings. In these three verses, then, we have God, the spirit of God, and the word of God. And as the term “spirit” is transferred from an inanimate thing to signify an intelligent agent, so the term “word” is capable of receiving a similar change of application.
Inadvertent critics of the Bible object to God being described as “speaking,” or performing any other act that is proper only to the human frame or spirit. They say it is anthropomorphic or anthropopathic, implies a gross, material, or human idea of God, and is therefore unworthy of Him and of His Word. But they forget that great law of thought and speech by which we apprehend analogies, and with a wise economy call the analogues by the same name. Almost all the words we apply to mental things were originally borrowed from our vocabulary for the material world, and therefore really figurative, until by long habit the metaphor was forgotten, and they became to all intents and purposes literal. And philosophers never have and never will have devised a more excellent way of husbanding words, marking analogies, and fitly expressing spiritual things. Our phraseology for mental ideas, though lifted up from a lower sphere, has not landed us in spiritualism, but enabled us to converse about the metaphysical with the utmost purity and propriety.
And, since this holds true of human thoughts and actions, so does it apply with equal truth to the divine ways and works. Let there be in our minds proper notions of God, and the tropical language we must and ought to employ in speaking of divine things will derive no taint of error from its original application to their human analogues. Scripture communicates those adequate notions of the most High God which are the fit corrective of its necessarily metaphorical language concerning the things of God. Accordingly, the intelligent perusal of the Bible has never produced idolatry; but, on the other hand, has communicated even to its critics the just conceptions they have acquired of the spiritual nature of the one true God.
It ought to be remembered, also, that the very principle of all language is the use of signs for things, that the trope is only a special application of this principle according to the law of parsimony, and that the East is especially addicted to the use of tropical language. Let not western metaphysics misjudge, lest it be found to misunderstand eastern aesthetics.
It is interesting to observe in the self-manifesting God, the great archetypes of which the semblances are found in man. Here we have the sign-making or signifying faculty in exercise. Whether there were created witnesses present at the issue of this divine command, we are not here informed. Their presence, however, was not necessary to give significance to the act of speech, any more than to that of self-manifestation. God may manifest Himself and speak, though there be none to see and hear.
We see, too, here the name in existence before the thing, because it primarily refers to the thing as contemplated in thought.
The self-manifesting God and the self-manifesting act of speaking are here antecedent to the act of creation, or the coming of the thing into existence. This teaches us that creation is a different thing from self-manifestation or emanation. God is; He manifests Himself; He speaks; and lastly He puts forth the power, and the thing is done.
Let there be light. - The word “be” simply denotes the “existence” of the light, by whatever means or from whatever quarter it comes into the given locality. It might have been by an absolute act of pure creation or making out of nothing. But it may equally well be effected by any supernatural operation which removes an otherwise insurmountable hinderance, and opens the way for the already existing light to penetrate into the hitherto darkened region. This phrase is therefore in perfect harmony with preexistence of light among the other elementary parts of the universe from the very beginning of things. And it is no less consonant with the fact that heat, of which light is a species or form, is, and has from the beginning been, present in all those chemical changes by which the process of universal nature is carried on through all its innumerable cycles.
Gen 1:4
Then saw God the light that it was good. - God contemplates his work, and derives the feeling of complacence from the perception of its excellence. Here we have two other archetypal faculties displayed in God, which subsequently make their appearance in the nature of man, the understanding, and the judgment.
The perception of things external to Himself is an important fact in the relation between the Creator and the creature. It implies that the created thing is distinct from the creating Being, and external to Him. It therefore contradicts pantheism in all its forms.
The judgment is merely another branch of the apprehensive or cognitive faculty, by which we note physical and ethical relations and distinctions of things. It comes immediately into view on observing the object now called into existence. God saw “that it was good.” That is good in general which fulfills the end of its being. The relation of good and evil has a place and an application in the physical world, but it ascends through all the grades of the intellectual and the moral. That form of the judgement which takes cognizance of moral distinctions is of so much importance as to have received a distinct name, - the conscience, or moral sense.
Here the moral rectitude of God is vindicated, inasmuch as the work of His power is manifestly good. This refutes the doctrine of the two principles, the one good and the other evil, which the Persian sages have devised in order to account for the presence of moral and physical evil along with the good in the present condition of our world.
Divided between the light and between the darkness. - God then separates light and darkness, by assigning to each its relative position in time and space. This no doubt refers to the vicissitudes of day and night, as we learn from the following verse:
Gen 1:5
Called to the light, day, ... - After separating the light and the darkness, he gives them the new names of day and night, according to the limitations under which they were now placed. Before this epoch in the history of the earth there was no rational inhabitant, and therefore no use of naming. The assigning of names, therefore, is an indication that we have arrived at that stage in which names for things will be necessary, because a rational creature is about to appear on the scene.
Naming seems to be designating according to the specific mode in which the general notion is realized in the thing named. This is illustrated by several instances which occur in the following part of the chapter. It is the right of the maker, owner, or other superior to give a name; and hence, the receiving of a name indicates the subordination of the thing named to the namer. Name and thing correspond: the former is the sign of the latter; hence, in the concrete matter-of-fact style of Scripture the name is often put for the thing, quality, person, or authority it represents.
The designations of day and night explain to us what is the meaning of dividing the light from the darkness. It is the separation of the one from the other, and the orderly distribution of each over the different parts of the earth’s surface in the course of a night and a day. This could only be effected in the space of a diurnal revolution of the earth on its axis. Accordingly, if light were radiated from a particular region in the sky, and thus separated from darkness at a certain meridian, while the earth performed its daily round, the successive changes of evening, night, morning, day, would naturally present themselves in slow and stately progress during that first great act of creation.
Thus, we have evidence that the diurnal revolution of the earth took place on the first day of the last creation. We are not told whether it occurred before that time. If there ever was a time when the earth did not revolve, or revolved on a different axis or according to a different law from the present, the first revolution or change of revolution must have produced a vast change in the face of things, the marks of which would remain to this day, whether the impulse was communicated to the solid mass alone, or simultaneously to all the loose matter resting on its surface. But the text gives no intimation of such a change.
At present, however, let us recollect we have only to do with the land known to antediluvian man, and the coming of light into existence over that region, according to the existing arrangement of day and night. How far the breaking forth of the light may have extended beyond the land known to the writer, the present narrative does not enable us to determine.
We are now prepared to conclude that the entrance of light into this darkened region was effected by such a change in its position or in its superincumbent atmosphere as allowed the interchange of night and day to become discernible, while at the same time so much obscurity still remained as to exclude the heavenly bodies from view. We have learned from the first verse that these heavenly orbs were already created. The luminous element that plays so conspicuous and essential a part in the process of nature, must have formed a part of that original creation. The removal of darkness, therefore, from the locality mentioned, is merely owing to a new adjustment by which the pre-existent light was made to visit the surface of the abyss with its cheering and enlivening beams.
In this case, indeed, the real change is effected, not in the light itself, but in the intervening medium which was impervious to its rays. But it is to be remembered, on the other hand, that the actual result of the divine interposition is still the diffusion of light over the face of the watery deep, and that the actual phenomena of the change, as they would strike an onlooker, and not the invisible springs of the six days’ creation, are described in the chapter before us.
Then was evening, then was morning, day one. - The last clause of the verse is a resumption of the whole process of time during this first work of creation. This is accordingly a simple and striking example of two lines of narrative parallel to each other and exactly coinciding in respect of time. In general we find the one line overlapping only a part of the other.
The day is described, according to the Hebrew mode of narrative, by its starting-point, “the evening.” The first half of its course is run out during the night. The next half in like manner commences with “the morning,” and goes through its round in the proper day. Then the whole period is described as “one day.” The point of termination for the day is thus the evening again, which agrees with the Hebrew division of time Lev 23:32.
To make “the evening” here the end of the first day, and so “the morning” the end of the first night, as is done by some interpreters, is therefore equally inconsistent with the grammar of the Hebrews and with their mode of reckoning time. It also defines the diurnal period, by noting first its middle point and then its termination, which does not seem to be natural. It further defines the period of sunshine, or the day proper, by “the evening,” and the night by the morning; a proceeding equally unnatural. It has not even the advantage of making the event of the latter clause subsequent to that of the former. For the day of twenty-four hours is wholly spent in dividing the light from the darkness; and the self-same day is described again in this clause, take it how we will. This interpretation of the clause is therefore to be rejected.
The days of this creation are natural days of twenty-four hours each. We may not depart from the ordinary meaning of the word without a sufficient warrant either in the text of Scripture or in the law of nature. But we have not yet found any such warrant. Only necessity can force us to such an expedient. Scripture, on the other hand, warrants us in retaining the common meaning by yielding no hint of another, and by introducing “evening, night, morning, day,” as its ordinary divisions. Nature favors the same interpretation. All geological changes are of course subsequent to the great event recorded in the first verse, which is the beginning of things. All such changes, except the one recorded in the six days’ creation, are with equal certainty antecedent to the state of things described in the second verse. Hence, no lengthened period is required for this last creative interposition.
Day one - is used here for the first day, the cardinal one being not usually employed for the ordinal in Hebrew Gen 8:13; Exo 10:1-2. It cannot indicate any emphasis or singularity in the day, as it is in no respect different from the other days of creation. It implies that the two parts before mentioned make up one day. But this is equally implied by all the ordinals on the other days.
This day is in many ways interesting to us. It is the first day of the last creation; it is the first day of the week; it is the day of the resurrection of the Messiah; and it has become the Christian Sabbath.
The first five verses form the first parashah (פרשׁ pārāsh) or “section” of the Hebrew text. If this division come from the author, it indicates that he regarded the first day’s work as the body of the narrative, and the creation of the universe, in the first verse, and the condition of the earth, in the second, as mere preliminaries to introduce and elucidate his main statement. If, on the contrary, it proceeds from some transcriber of a subsequent period, it may indicate that he considered the creative work of the first day to consist of two parts, - first, an absolute creation; and, second, a supplementary act, by which the primary universe was first enlightened.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv3–4 . Light. The sun was made on the fourth…
. Light. The sun was made on the fourth day, and placed in the firmament to distinguish the seasons, &c.; but the particles of fire were created on the first day, and by their, or the earth’s motion, served to discriminate day from the preceding night, or darkness, which was upon the face of the deep. (Haydock) --- Perhaps this body of light might resemble the bright cloud which accompanied the Israelites, Exodus xiv. 19, or the three first days might have a kind of imperfect sun, or be like one of our cloudy days. Nothing can be defined with certainty respecting the nature of this primeval light. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv3–5 THE FIRST DAY. (Gen 1:3-5)
THE FIRST DAY. (Gen 1:3-5)
God said--This phrase, which occurs so repeatedly in the account means: willed, decreed, appointed; and the determining will of God was followed in every instance by an immediate result. Whether the sun was created at the same time with, or long before, the earth, the dense accumulation of fogs and vapors which enveloped the chaos had covered the globe with a settled gloom. But by the command of God, light was rendered visible; the thick murky clouds were dispersed, broken, or rarefied, and light diffused over the expanse of waters. The effect is described in the name "day," which in Hebrew signifies "warmth," "heat"; while the name "night" signifies a "rolling up," as night wraps all things in a shady mantle.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv3, 5 3. And God said — Or, Then says God.…
3. And God said — Or, Then says God. Having stated the condition of things at the time and place of the fiat of the “omnific word,” the writer now denotes a sequence by introducing the future or imperfect tense-form of the verb. The perfect tense of the preceding verbs, ברא(Gen_1:1) and היתה, (Gen_1:2,) puts the reader back to an ideal standpoint — the beginning; the future tense of ויאמרdenotes a point of time future from that standpoint, though really in the past. Every creation of this chapter is preceded by these words, God said, from which doubtless arose the sublime New Testament conception that the worlds (ages) were made by the WORD of God. Heb_11:3. Hence, too, the doctrine of the Logos in Joh_1:1-3.
Let there be light: and there was light — Well might Longinus and others call attention to the sublimity of this passage. The natural meaning is, that at the fiat of the Almighty light supernaturally broke in upon the confused deep, and revealed its desolate and empty condition. Whence the light proceeded, by what means it was produced, and how large an area it illumined, are questions as idle to essay to answer as, Of what did God create the great sea monsters, (of Gen_1:21,) and how many of them did he make? We are told in the verses next following that “God divided the light from the darkness, and called the light Day and the darkness Night.” The old question, Why this production of light on the first day, when the luminaries first appear on the fourth day? may be anticipated here. The making of an expanse to divide the waters above and the waters below, (Gen_1:6-7,) and the chaotic condition of the land and waters as previously described, warrant the conclusion that the atmosphere far into the upper heavens was filled with impenetrable mist, utterly shutting out the light of the sun and moon and stars. These luminaries were, of course, in existence, but at the time of this “beginning,” and from that portion of the earth’s surface here described, they were concealed. We know what it is now to have an impenetrable fog settle upon a region and abide for days. Comp. Act_27:20. The plague of darkness which covered Egypt for three days was such as could be felt, and prevented any one from moving from place to place. Exo_10:21-23. Is it, then, difficult to conceive a darkness covering all that region where God planted the garden of Eden, so dense as utterly to shut the celestial luminaries from view? We may, indeed, suppose that the light produced by this word of God was the light of the sun, forced through the intervening clouds and mist without dispelling them for three days. The sun would, in such a case, have been invisible. But as the earth continued its axial revolution, day and night were alternately produced, and thus God divided between the light and the darkness. Nothing hinders our supposing such a mode of producing the light, and dividing the light from the darkness.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv3–5 3. The First Day
3. The First Day
3. And God said] Observe here that the spoken Word is the only means employed throughout the six days’ Creation, cf. Psa_33:6; Psa_33:9, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made.… For he spake, and it was done: he commanded, and it stood fast.” Creation by a word combines the idea of perfect facility with that of absolute power.
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It is only through the Revelation of the N.T. that we learn to identify the work of Creation with the operation of the Personal Word (Joh_1:3): “All things were made through him (ὁ Λόγος); and without him was not anything made that hath been made,” cf. Col_1:16, “For in him [the Son] were all things created … all things have been created through him, and unto him.” Heb_1:2, “through whom [his Son] also he made the worlds.”
Let there be light] This command, in the Hebrew, consists of two short words, y’hi ’ôr. Light is the first created thing, that upon which depends all life and growth known to us on earth.
For “light” as the symbol of the Divine presence in the Revelation of the N.T., cf. Joh_1:4, “in him was life; and the life was the light of men,” cf. Gen_1:9, and Gen_8:12, “I am the light of the world.”
and there was light] Literally, “and light came into existence.” Apparently the primitive conception of the Hebrews was that light and darkness were separate things, incomprehensible indeed, but independent of the sun, cf. Job_26:10; Job_38:19, “where is the way to the dwelling of light, and as for darkness, where is the place thereof?” The unscientific notions of the Israelite have received in regard to light an unexpected illustration from modern discovery; but we must be careful not to suppose that there is any resemblance between the Hebrew picture of the creation of light, and modern theories respecting light and the ether of infinite space. The Hebrew view of the universe was (cf. Gen_1:6-8) extremely limited; the modern scientific view of the universe is practically infinite in its capacity for development, and is continually being enlarged. There is little room for comparison between them.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv3–5 (3) And God said.—Voice and sound there could be…
THE CREATIVE DAYS.
(3) And God said.—Voice and sound there could be none, nor was there any person to whom God addressed this word of power. The phrase, then, is metaphorical, and means that God enacted for the universe a law; and ten times we find the command similarly given. The beauty and sublimity of the language here used has often been noticed: God makes no preparation, He employs no means, needs no secondary agency. He speaks, and it is done. His word alone contains all things necessary for the fulfilment of His will. So in the cognate languages the word Emir, ruler, is literally, speaker. The Supreme One speaks: with the rest, of hear is to obey. God, then, by speaking, gives to nature a universal and enduring law. His commands are not temporary, but eternal; and whatever secondary causes were called into existence when the Elohim, by a word, created light, those same causes produce it now, and will produce it until God recalls His word. We have, then, here nature’s first universal law. What is it?
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Let there be light: and there was light.—The sublimity of the original is lost in our language by the cumbrous multiplication of particles. The Hebrew is Yhi ôr wayhi ôr. Light is not itself a substance, but is a condition or state of matter; and this primæval light was probably electric, arising from the condensation and friction of the elements as they began to arrange themselves in order. And this, again, was due to what is commonly called the law of gravitation, or of the attraction of matter. If on the first day electricity and magnetism were generated, and the laws given which create and control them, we have in them the two most powerful and active energies of the present and of all time—or possibly two forms of one and the same busy and restless force. And the law thus given was that of gravitation, of which light was the immediate result.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv3–5 Vers. 3-5. The evolution of the cosmos was accomplished…
Vers. 3-5. The evolution of the cosmos was accomplished by a series of Divine formative works which extended over a period of six successive days. In the character of those cosmic labors a progression is distinctly visible, though not continuous throughout Unless, with Aristotle, the celestial luminaries are regarded as zwa logika, and so classed in the category of organized and living beings, it is impossible to find in their production an advance upon the preceding vegetation. Arbitrary transpositions of the days, as of the third and fourth, in order to make the first half of the creative week an inorganic, and the second half an organic, era, are inadmissible. The arrangement of the days that accords most exactly with the requirements of the case, and most successfully preserves the order and connection of the record, is that which divides them into two triads (Lange, Kalisch, Dana, &c.), as exhibited underneath:;
1. Light.
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2. Air, Water.
3. Dry Land and Plants.
4. Lights.
5. Fowl, Fish.
6. Animals and Man
each triad beginning with the making of light, and ending with a doublecreation, and the works performed on the second having each a definite relation to the labors executed on the first On the first creative day the formative energy of the Divine word, operating through the agency of the Ruach Elohim, eliminates the light from the dark chaotic mass of earth, on the second uplifts the atmosphere above the waters, and on the third distinguishes the dry land from the sea at a later period in this same day clothing the dry land with vegetation, as if to prophesy some correspondingly higher advance in the creation work at the close of the second series. At this stage, instead of pressing forward with its operations, the demiurgic potency of the invisible Artificer appears to pause, and, reverting to the point from which it started, enters on its second course of labors. On the fourth day the light developed on the first is concentrated and permanently fixed in the celestial luminaries; on the fifth the air and waters, which were separated on the second, are filled with fowl and fish, their respective inhabitants; and on the sixth the dry land of the third day is occupied by animals, the mute prediction of the third day"s vegetation being fulfilled by the creation of man.
Day one. And God said. This phrase, which is ten times repeated in the narrative of the six days" work, is commonly regarded as an instance of anthropomorphism, a peculiarity of revelation, and of this chapter in particular, at which rationalism affects to be offended. But any other mode of representing the Deity would have failed to convey to finite minds an intelligent idea of his nature. Touching the Almighty, who can find him out?" The most that God himself could do in communicating to his creature man a conception of his ineffable and unapproachable Godhead was to supply him with an anthropomorphic image of himself Word made flesh." Deeper insight, however, into this sublime statement discerns that "anthropomorphism" does not exhaust its significance. God spoke; but to whom? "This was an omnipotent word," says Luther, "spoken in the Divine essence. No one heard this word uttered but God himself... The Father spoke within." It is observable too that every time the word goes forth from Elohim it is followed by instantaneous movement in the chaos, as if the word itself were inherently creative. Remembering, then, that the doctrine of a personal Loges was not unknown to the later theology of the Old Testament (cf., Psa_33:6 Psa_148:5) and is clearly revealed in the (Joh_1:1; Heb_11:3) it is difficult to resist the inference that here we have its roots, and that a correct exegesis should find in the creative word of Elohim an adumbration of the Devar Jehovah of the Hebrew Psalter, the Loges of John"s Gospel, and the Rema Theou of the writer to the Hebrews. Let there be light: and there was light. The sublimity of these words, which arrested the attention of the heathen Longinus ("De Sublimitate," 9.), and which Milton ("Paradise Lost," 7.) and Du Bartas, an elder poet (viz. Kitto in loco), have tried to reproduce, is in great measure lost in our English version. Genhqhtw fwv kainetw fwv (LXX) and sit lux et fuit lux (Vulg.) are superior translations of dwaAyhiyw rwaAyhiy which might be rendered, Light be, and light was.
With reference to their import, the least satisfactory explanation, notwithstanding the eminent names that have lent it their support (Bush, Kitto, Murphy, Wordsworth), is that which understands the sun to have been created a perfectly finished luminous body from the first, though hitherto its light had been intercepted by the earth"s vapors, which were now dispersed by Divine command. But the language of Elohim is too exalted to be applied to so familiar a phenomenon as the dissipation of terrestrial mists, and, besides, expressly negatives the hypothesis in question by affirming that the light was summoned into being, and not simply into appearance. The historian, too, explicitly asserts that the light was, i.e. began to be, and not merely to be visible. A modification of this view, viz., that the sun and moon were now created, but did not become visible until the fourth day (Inglis), must likewise be rejected, as according neither with ver. 1, which says that the heavenly bodies were created in the beginning, nor with vers. 16, 17, which declare that not until the fourth day were they constituted sources of light for the earth. The exigencies of the text, as well as the ascertained facts of physical science, require the first day"s work to be the original production of light throughout the universe, and in particular throughout our planetary system (Kalisch, Lange, Delitzsch, Dawson). Calvin, though much more deeply concerned about the refutation of Servetus, who maintained that the Word only began to be with the creation of light, was able to perceive that this light was independent of the sun and moon; in this agreeing with Augustine, who, however, conjectured it to be not material, but spiritual in its nature ("De Genesi ad Literam," lib. 1, 100. 3). Nor does it in the slightest conflict with ver. 1 to suppose that light was now for the first time produced, light being a mode or condition of matter, and not a distinct element or substance, as was at one time believed. Luminosity is simply the result of incandescence, although what specific change is effected on the constitutions or adjustments of the molecules of a body by the process of heating which renders it luminous science is unable to explain. Any solid body can be rendered incandescent by being heated up to between 700 and 800 Fahrenheit. Any liquid that can absorb as great a quantity of heat likewise emits light. Gases do not appear to be capable of incandescence, though the phenomena attending their sudden condensation discover light-producing properties in their composition. As to how the light of incandescent bodies is transmitted to the eye, the Pythagorean and Newtonian theory of small, impalpable particles of luminous matter being constantly emitted from their surfaces towards the eye may be said to have been successfully displaced by that of Descartes, Huygens, and Euler, which accounts for the phenomena of vision by the existence throughout space, and in the interstitial spaces of bodies, of an infinitely attenuated ether, which is thrown into undulations by luminous bodies precisely as the atmosphere is made to vibrate by bodies which are sonorous. But whichever theory be adopted to solve the mystery of its transmission, that of emanation or of undulation, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that the creation of light, which formed the opus operatum of the first day, was in reality the evolution from the dark-robed, seething mass of our condensing planet (and probably from the other bodies in our solar system) of that luminous matter which supplies the light. It seems unnecessary to add that it could not have been either the subterranean fire which produced the igneous rocks of geology (Tayler) or caloric (Clarke); though, as aor is used in Scripture for heat, (Isa_44:16) fire (Isa_31:9; Eze_5:2) the sun, (Job_31:26) lightning, (Job_37:3) andthere is every reason to believe that light, heat, and electricity are only modifications of the same force, we may be warranted in embracing all the three in its significance.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv3, 5 Let there be light
Gen_1:3-4
Let there be light
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The creation of light
I.
DIVINELY PRODUCED.
1. For the protection of life. Plants could not live without light; without it, the flowers would soon wither. Even in a brief night they close their petals, and will only open them again at the gentle approach of the morning light. Nor could man survive in continued darkness. A sad depression would rest upon his soul.
2. For the enjoyment of life. Light is one of Gods best gifts to the world.
(1) It is inexpensive. The world has to pay for the light produced by man; that created by God, we get for nothing. Man has limitations; God has none. Man is selfish; God is beneficent.
(2) It is extensive. It floods the universe. It is the heritage of the poor equally with the rich; it enters the hut as well as the palace.
(3) It is welcome.
3. For the instruction of life. Light is not merely a protection. It is also an instructor. It is an emblem. It is an emblem of God, the Eternal Light. It is an emblem of truth. It is an emblem of goodness. It is an emblem of heaven. It is an emblem of beneficence.
II. DIVINELY APPROVED. And God saw the light, that it was good.
1. It was good in itself. The light was pure. It was clear. It was not so fierce as to injure. It was not so weak as to be ineffectual. It was not so loud in its advent as to disturb.
2. It was good because adapted to the purpose contemplated by it. Nothing else could more efficiently have accomplished its purpose toward the life of man. Hence it is good because adapted to its purpose, deep in its meaning, wide in its realm, happy in its influence, and educational in its tendency.
3. We see here that the Divine Being carefully scrutinises the work of His hands. When He had created light, He saw that it was good. May we not learn a lesson here, to pause after our daily toil, to inspect and review its worth. Every act of life should be followed by contemplation.
III. DIVINELY PROPORTIONED. And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night.
1. The light was indicative of day. In this light man was to work. The light ever active would rebuke indolence. By this light man was to read. In this light man was to order his moral conduct.
2. The removal of light was indicative of night. In this night man was to rest from the excitement of pleasure, and the anxiety of toil. Its darkness was to make him feel the need of a Divine protection. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Light and the gospel compared
I. THE APPROPRIATENESS OF THE METAPHOR.
1. Light and the gospel resemble each other in their source and Divine resemblance.
2. Light and the gospel resemble each other in their adaptation to the end designed.
3. Light and the gospel resemble each other in their purity.
4. Light and the gospel resemble each other in their inseparable connection with joy and happiness.
II. THE WILL OF GOD RESPECTING IT.
1. That man should have the light of salvation.
2. That His Church should be the light of the world.
3. That the world should be filled with the light of the gospel of Christ.
(1) Now the gospel is adapted to all the world. It is as much suited to one part of it as to another.
(2) It is expressly said that it is designed for the whole world. I am the light of the world. Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
(3) The whole world shall finally enjoy its saving rays. This gospel of the kingdom, etc. (See Isa_11:9; Isa_60:19, and Hab_2:14.)
APPLICATION.
1. Have you the light of Divine grace in your hearts?
2. Have you this light in your families?
3. Have you this light in your neighbourhood?
4. Are you assisting to enlighten the world? (J. Burns, D. D.)
Genesis of light
I. EXPLANATION OF THE PASSAGE.
1. God said: an anthropomorphism.
2. The God-said of Moses the God-word of John.
3. The first light chemical.
4. And God saw the light, that it was good. It is to light that the cloud, the sunset, the rainbow, the diamond, the violet, owe their exquisite hues. Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the Ecc_11:7). Nay, more: Light is one of the essential conditions of all life itself--alike vegetal, animal, human, and, doubtless, angelic. Yes, there is a better curative than allopathy or homeopathy, hydropathy or aeropathy; it is heliopathy, or light of the sun. Physicians understand this, and so seek for their patients the sunny side of hospitals. And so they unconsciously confirm the holy saying, To you that fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings Mal_4:2).
5. Evening: Morning. Observe the order of the words: It is not first morning, and then evening; it is first evening, then morning: And there was evening, and there was morning, day one.
II. MORAL MEANING OF THE STORY.
1. God is light (1Jn_1:5). For aught I know, the apostles message is literally true. Remember that when we are talking of light we are moving in presence of a very subtile mystery. The origin and nature of light is still a profound problem. True, we talk learnedly and correctly about the laws of light; its laws of reflection, refraction, absorption, dispersion, polarization, etc. But these are only phenomena; they tell us nothing about the nature or origin of light itself. All we know of light is merely a knowledge of the mode and laws of its motion. We do not know the essence of light itself. One thing is certain: light is the nearest known, sensible approach to immateriality, being classed with its apparent kindred--heat, electricity, magnetism--among the imponderables. Indeed, the modern magnificent undulatory theory denies that light is material, and affirms that it is but a mode of motion. We are accustomed to say that there are but two things in the universe--spirit and matter--and that the chasm between these is infinite. Possibly this is one of those assumptions which, did we know more, we would affirm less. Possibly light is an instance of what the philosophers call tertium quid--a third something, intermediate between spirit and matter, ethereally bridging the measureless chasm. Possibly light is Gods natural expression, outflow, radiation, manifestation, vestment Psa_104:1-2). Possibly, when the Creator moves in that finite world we call time, He leaves light as His personal vestige and train. His mantle ripples into light, is light itself. In view of this possibility, how natural as well as fitting that the ancient token of Gods personal presence among the Hebrews should have been the shechinah, or dazzling glory cloud.
2. And as God is light, so also are His children light. Expressly are they called Sons of Light (Luk_16:8). Expressly is He called Father of Lights (Jam_1:17). We know that light is latent in every form of matter; for, when sufficiently heated, it becomes incandescent--that is to say, self-luminous. What is flame but a mass of heated, visibly glowing gas? True, it doth not yet appear what we shall be (1Jn_3:2). Nevertheless, I believe that light is latent within us all, and that by-and-by, at least in the case of Gods saintly children, it will stream forth; not that it will be evolved by the action of any heat or chemical force, but that, under the free, transcendent conditions of the heavenly estate, it will ray forth spontaneously.
3. Jesus Christ Himself, as Incarnate, is the shadow of Gods light. Infinite God, Deity as unconditioned and absolute, no man hath ever seen or can ever see, and live (Exo_33:20). He dwelleth in light which no man can approach unto (1Ti_6:15), is light itself. Dark with excess of light, we poor finite beings cannot behold Him except through the softening intervention of some medium. Therefore the Son of God, brightness of His glory and express image of His person (Heb_1:3), radiance of His effulgence and character, or impress of His substance, became incarnate, that in the softer morning star and suffused dayspring of the Incarnation we might be able to look on the dazzling Father of Lights, and not be dazed into blindness.
4. Jesus Christ is not only the shadow or tempered image of God: in the very act of becoming that shadow Jesus Christ also became the Light of the Joh_8:12). Ah, how much the world needed His illumination!
5. As Jesus Christ is the Light of the World, so also is His Church. He, clear as the sun, she, fair as the moon, both together resplendent as an army with banners (Son_6:10).
In conclusion:
1. A word of cheer for the saint. Ye are sons of light. Recall now how much light means. It means all that is most bright and clean, and direct, and open, and unselfish, and spotless, and lovely, and healthful, and true, and Divine. How exceedingly great, then, your wealth! Oh, live worthily of your rich estate.
2. A word of entreaty to the sinner. Of what use is the most abounding light if we persist in keeping our eyes closed? As there is an eternal day for the sons of light, so there is an eternal night for the sons of darkness. (G. D.Boardman.)
Light and life
I. THE UPWARD PROGRESS OF NATURE, as created by God.
II. THE ORDERLY ARRANGEMENT OF NATURE, as settled by God.
III. THE VARIETY OF LIFE IN NATURE, as filled by God. LESSONS:
1. Trust in Gods overruling providence.
2. The study of nature should not be separated from religion. (W. S. Smith, B. D.)
Light
I. Light is PURE. Its property repels defilement. It traverses unstained each medium of uncleanness.
II. Light is BRIGHT. Indeed, what is brightness but lights clear shining.
III. Light is LOVELY. Beauty cannot live without it. So Christ decks all on whom His beams descend.
IV. Light is FREE. The wealth of the wealthy cannot purchase, nor the poverty of the poor debar from it. Waste not time in seeking a price for Him, compared with whom an angels worth is nothing worth.
V. Light is ALL-REVEALING. By Christs rays, sin is detected, as lurking in every corner of the heart; and the world, which we so fondled, is unmasked, as a monster whose embrace is filth, and in whose hand is the cup of death.
VI. Light is the PARENT OF FRUITFULNESS. In Christs absence, the heart is rank with every weed, and every noxious berry. But when His beams enliven, the seeds of grace bud forth, the tree of faith pours down its golden fruit.
VII. Light is the chariot which CONVEYS HEAT. Without Christ, the heart is ice. But when He enters, a glow is kindled, which can never die.
VIII. Light is the HARBINGER OF JOY. Heaven is a cloudless God. (Dean Law.)
The Word of God
Let there be.
1. How the growth of the world points back to the eternal existence of the Word.
2. How the eternal Word is the foundation for the growth of the world. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)
Light, a source of life
1. Its good, as existing in its ground.
2. Its beauty, as disclosed in its appearing. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)
The creation of light a days work of God
1. The first days work.
2. A whole days work.
3. A continuous days work.
4. A days work rich in its consequences. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)
All the blessings of the light
We, who worship the Father of lights, have reason every day that we live to thank God for life and health, for countless blessings. And not least among these may be reckoned the free gift of, and the many blessings of the light. For in many ways that we can tell off, at once, upon our fingers, and in very many more ways that we neither dream of nor think of, does light minister to our health, wealth, and comfort.
1. The very birds sing at daybreak their glad welcome to the dawn, and the rising sun. And we all know and feel how cheering is the power of light. In the sunlight rivers flash, and nature rejoices, and our hearts are light, and we take a bright view of things.
2. So, too, light comes to revive and restore us. Darkness is oppressive. In it we are apt to lose heart. We grow anxious, and full of fears. With the first glimmer of light in the distance, hope awakens, and we feel a load lifted off our minds.
3. Again, we have often felt the reassuring power of light. In the darkness, objects that are perfectly harmless take threatening shapes; the imagination distorts them, and our fancy creates dangers. Light shows us that we have been alarmed at shadows: quiets and reassures us.
4. Once again, the light comes to us, often, as nothing less than a deliverer. It reveals dangers hidden and unsuspected; the deadly reptile; the yawning precipice; the lurking foe.
5. And when, over and above all this, we remember that light is absolutely essential, not to health only, but to life in every form, animal and vegetable alike, we shall heartily echo the words of the wise king in Ecclesiastes: Truly the light is sweet; and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. (J. B. C. Murphy, B. A.)
The first day
The work begins with light, God said, Let there be light, and at once light shone where all before was dark. God says, Repent ye--the kingdom of heaven is at hand: then our darkness displeases us, and we are turned to light. Thus of all those blessings hid in Christ from everlasting, and which are predestinated to be accomplished in the creature, light is the first that is bestowed: God shines in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But the heaven announced at hand is yet unformed. No sun yet shines, no fruits adorn the creature. Many steps remain before the image of God will come, the man created in righteousness, to rule all things. Then at once comes a division between what is of God and what is not; between the natural darkness in the creature and the light which God has made. The light shines in darkness, but the darkness comprehends it not. Two conflicting powers are striving each to gain the day, making the old domain of darkness a continually shifting but ceaseless battle field. Then a name is given by God both to light and darkness; that is, the character of each is learnt according to the mind of God. Now the darkness has a name. What God calls it, we call it. His thoughts are not altogether strange to us. Natural as the darkness may seem to the creature, God calls it night, or deviation. It is a turning from the right or straight line. The light is day, or movement: there is a disturbance of the darkness. Death rules no longer; life with light is come. Besides, in this name there is a form given to both. Until now light and darkness were unformed, but day and night intimate order and distribution. Night is darkness put within limits. So with light; it is not day till it is arranged and put in form and order. (A. Jukes.)
Light, natural and spiritual
Every saved man is a new creation.
I. THE DIVINE FIAT. Let there be light. The work of grace by which light enters the soul is--
1. A needful work. No heart can be saved without spiritual light, to reveal self and Jesus Christ.
2. An early work. First day.
3. A Divine work.
4. Wrought by the Word. God spake.
5. Unaided by the darkness itself. Darkness cannot help to bring day.
6. It was unsolicited.
7. Instantaneous.
8. Irresistible.
II. DIVINE OBSERVATION.
III. DIVINE APPROBATION. Natural light is good. Gospel light is good. Spiritual light is good.
1. Because of its source.
2. Because of its likeness. God is light.
3. Because of its effects.
4. It glorifies God.
IV. DIVINE SEPARATION. The Christian man has light and darkness contending within him; also contending forces without him.
V. DIVINE NOMINATION. We must call things by their right names. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Light and its laws
I. The light God has made, and His mind concerning it.
1. Physical light--good; light, sweet; pleasant. Sun, the emblem of many things; cheerful revealing.
2. Mental light--good. Hence in some parts an idiot is called dark.
3. Gospel light--good; the light of the story of God; light that shined out of darkness to enlighten Gentiles; Christ, the Light of the world, the Sun of Righteousness.
4. Spiritual light--good.
5. Essential light--light of heaven from the Father of lights.
II. The law by which it is governed.
1. Not mixed, but separated.
2. Sons of light must have no communion with darkness.
3. Churches should be lights in the world.
4. Truth not to be mixed with error.
Learn:
1. Love the light.
2. Walk in it.
3. Enforce the law concerning it. (J. C. Gray.)
The ceaseless act of the Almighty
I. THE THINGS SPOKEN OF IN THE TEXT, LIGHT AND DARKNESS. To each of these terms there are different significations. There is what we term natural light; there are also mental and moral light (the illumination of the understanding and of the heart); there are also providential, spiritual, and eternal light: each of these has its opposite state of darkness. It is true that our text speaks only of light natural; yet, as the works of God in nature are often typical of His works of grace, we may follow the example of Scripture, and in tracing out the truths it teaches, may endeavour to prove, that in the whole economy of nature, providence, and grace, it is the practice and prerogative of God to divide the light from the darkness. Is it darkness with any of the Lords people present? Are His dealings mysterious? Are their state and prospects full of gloom and obscurity? Child of sorrow, strive to bow with submission to the will of your Heavenly Father. Let patience have her perfect work. Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. Why art thou cast down, oh my soul! and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope in God, for thou shalt yet praise Him who is the health of thy countenance. At evening time it shall be light. Yes, then, when you are expecting the darkness to increase--when the sun of enjoyment seems to have set forever,--then, at evening time it shall be light. Who is among you that feareth the Lord and obeyeth the voice of His servant: that walketh in darkness and hath no light; let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God. Unto the upright there ariseth light in darkness. There are also spiritual and eternal lights, with their opposite states of darkness. With Thee is the fountain of life, said the sacred writer, and in Thy light shall we see light. While we are in the darkness of natural corruption and alienation from God, we know nothing aright, nothing of the evils of sin, nothing of the astonishing love of Jesus, we have no just conceptions of the amazing and stupendous work of redemption, or of the work of the Holy Spirit upon the soul of man. But when in infinite compassion Jehovah enlightens the understanding and touches the heart, we see and feel the reality and vast importance of eternal things--we see at what an awful distance sin has placed us from a God of spotless purity--we feel how deeply we are steeped in the poison and pollution of iniquity--we adore the infinite wisdom manifested in the plan of redemption, that stupendous plan, which while it redeems, pardons, and sanctifies the sinner, satisfies also the high claims of Divine justice, magnifies the Divine perfections, and brings Glory to God in the highest.
II. We have now to consider WHAT MAY BE AFFIRMED CONCERNING THE OBJECTS HERE SET BEFORE US: GOD DIVIDES THE LIGHT FROM THE DARKNESS. He is accomplishing this upon earth by a mysterious but infinitely wise process. Much light and darkness dwells in the minds of individuals--in the various religious sects throughout the land, and among the different nations of the world. Whatever true light is in the world, it is of God. He is its Author. By nature all are under the dominion of the prince of darkness, and are enslaved by Him. But a stronger than he comes upon him, and delivers the captive from the dark dungeons of iniquity. Jesus came to be a light to them that sit in darkness; He sends His Spirit with His Word to subdue the rebellious heart, to awaken the insensible heart--to pour the light of celestial day upon the benighted spirit--to show the sinner to himself, and to reveal the saving mercy, of God in Christ--to reveal the dangers that lie in his pathway to eternity--to give him right views of every essential truth connected with salvation and eternal life--to teach him everything it is requisite he should know and experience ere he can inhabit the realms of light above--in short, to separate the light from the darkness. Hitherto the very light had been darkness; there had been light in the intellect perhaps, but darkness in the soul (for in many an unrenewed character the one is strangely mixed with the other). There may even possibly exist a theoretic knowledge of Divine things where blackest crimes dwell in the heart and are perpetrated in the life. But where Jesus shines forth in mercy--where the Holy Spirit exerts His power, the light is separated from the darkness: there is no longer that heterogeneous mixture of knowledge and sin, of Divine truth in the intellect and sin in the life, which formerly existed. Jehovah has wrought His wondrous work, has divided the light from the darkness, has separated the sinner from his sins, and behold all things become new. To conclude: The day of final separation is hastening on, then, forever and at once, God will divide the light from the darkness, truth from error, holiness from iniquity, the righteous from the wicked. Truth and righteousness shall dwell in heaven, error and iniquity shall sink to hell. The wicked will then be all darkness, the righteous will then be all light. (W. Burgess.)
Darkness before light
And do you think, children, that you were first light and then became dark? or that you were first dark and then became light? Because when you were a baby boy or girl you did not know much; it was very dark: now I hope that the light of the Sun of Righteousness is upon you, that the evening has become the morning. The morning star has risen, I hope. It is light! light! (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Night a necessity
A remarkable effect was mentioned by Mr. Robert Hunt (to whom the public are indebted for much valuable information on solar and other phenomena) to the present writer. In the course of his early experiments on the active power of the suns rays, he subjected a metal plate to its operation, and, of course, received upon it a picture of the objects within its range. He now rubbed this off, making the surface clear and fresh as at first; photographed a different picture, and then effaced this as he had done the former. In this way he proceeded some ten or twelve times, now receiving, and now rubbing off the traces of the sunlight, when the question arose in his mind, What would be the result were I to transmit an electrical current through this plate? To determine it, he caused a current to pass through it diagonally, when, to his astonishment, the various objects that had been, as he supposed, effaced from the surface, rushed to it confusedly together, so that he could detect there a medley of them all; thus proving that there had not been merely a superficial action of the light, but that it had produced a molecular disturbance throughout the plate. Only let, therefore, the sunbeams play uninterruptedly on the iron, the brass, or the granite, and they will crumble into dust under an irresistible power; the falling over them of the mantle of night alone prevents the occurrence of a catastrophe. (C. Williams.)
It was good
The first day of creation
1. Mans fallen nature is a very chaos, without form and void, with darkness thick and sevenfold covering all. The Lord begins His work upon man by the visitation of the Spirit, who enters the soul mysteriously, and broods over it, even as of old He moved upon the face of the waters. He is the quickener of the dead soul.
2. In connection with the presence of the Holy Spirit the Lord sends into the soul, as His first blessing, light. The Lord appeals to mans understanding and enlightens it by the gospel.
3. If you keep your eye upon the chapter you will observe that the light came into the world at first by the Word God said, Let there be light. It is through the Word of God contained in this book, the Bible, that light comes into the soul. This is that true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
4. The light which broke in upon the primeval darkness was of a very mysterious kind, and came not according to ordinary laws, for as yet neither sun nor moon had been set as lights in the firmament. Can we tell how spiritual light first dawns on natures night? How He removes darkness from the understanding, and illuminates the intellect, is a secret reserved for Himself alone.
5. The light came instantaneously. Six days were occupied in furnishing the earth, but a moment sufficed for illuminating it. God works rapidly in the operation of regeneration: as with a flash He darts light and life into the soul. The operations of grace are gradual, but its entrance is instantaneous. Although instantaneous, it is not, however, shallow and short lived.
I. THE LORD SEES WHATEVER HE CREATES. The Lord saw the light.
1. He was the sole observer of it. Neither eye of man, nor bird, nor beast was there to behold the golden glory; but God saw the light. Newly enlightened one, it may be you are pained because you have no Christian companion to observe your change of heart: cease from your sorrow, for God beholds you.
2. That light had come into the world in a noiseless manner, yet the Lord saw it. The entrance of Gods Word which giveth light is effected in solemn silence of the mind. If men make an illumination, we can hear the crackling of their fireworks over all the city; but when God illuminates the earth with the sun, the orb of day arises without a sound. Although the work in your soul has been so quiet, so hidden from the eyes of men, so unremarkable and commonplace, yet take comfort from the text, The Lord saw the light. No trumpet proclaimed it, but the Lord saw it; no voice went forth concerning it, but the Lord saw it and it was enough; and in your case it is the same.
3. The earth itself could not recognize the light, yet the Lord saw it. How often do we mourn that we have scarcely more light than suffices to reveal our darkness and make us pine for more. Oh, troubled one, lay this home to your soul, the Lord saw the light when earth herself could not perceive it.
4. Let us not forget that besides the light there was no other beauty. The earth, according to the Hebrew, was tohu and bohu, which, in order to come near both to the sense and sound at the same time, I will render anyhow and nohow. Even so your experience may seem to be a chaos, nohow and anyhow, exactly what it should not be, a mass of unformed conceptions, and half-formed desires, and ill-formed prayers, but yet there is grace in you, and God sees it, even amid the dire confusion and huge uproar of your spirit.
5. Remember, too, that when the light came it had to contend with darkness, but God saw it none the less. So, also, in your soul there still remains the darkness of inbred corruption, ignorance, infirmity, and tendency to sin, and these cause a conflict, but the light is not thereby hidden from the eyes of God.
6. For many reasons the Lord sees the light, but chiefly He sees it because He made it, and He forsakes not the work of His own hands.
II. THE LORD APPROVES OF WHAT HE CREATES. God saw the light that it was good. He took pleasure in it.
1. Now, as far as this world was concerned, light was but young and new: and so in some of you grace is quite a novelty. You were only converted a very little while ago, and you have had no time to try yourselves or to develope graces, yet the Lord delights in your newborn life. Light is good at dawn as well as at noon: the grace of God is good though but newly received; it will work out for you greater things by-and-by, and make you more happy and more holy, but even now all the elements of excellence are in it, and its first day has the Divine blessing upon it.
2. Here we must mention again that it was struggling light, yet none the less for that approved of by the Lord. We do not understand how it was that the light and the darkness were together until God divided them, as this verse intimates; but as John Bunyan says, No doubt darkness and light here began their quarrel, for what communion hath light with darkness. My brethren, I am sure you are no strangers to this conflict, nor is it to you altogether a thing of the past. You are in the conflict still. Still grace and sin are warring in you, and will do so till you are taken home. Let this help you, O ye who are perplexed; remember that struggling as the light is, God approves of it, and calls it good.
3. As yet the light had not been divided from the darkness, and the bounds of day and night were not fixed. And so in young beginners; they hardly know which is grace and which is nature, what is of themselves and what is of Christ, and they make a great many mistakes. Yet the Lord does not mistake, but approves of that which His grace has placed in them.
4. As yet the light and darkness had not been named: it was afterwards that the Lord called the light day, and the darkness night, yet He saw the light that it was good. And so, though you do not know the names of things, God knows your name.
5. The light of the first day could not reveal much of beauty, for there was none, and so the light within does not yet reveal much to you; and what it, does reveal is uncomely, but the light itself is good, whatever it may make manifest.
6. But why did God say that light was good?
(1) I suppose it was because its creation displayed His attributes.
(2) He loves the light, too, because it is like Himself, for God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
(3) Light is eminently good, for the Lord spent a whole day in creating and arranging it--a whole day out of six. This shows that He attaches great importance to it. Moreover, he gave it the front rank by occupying the first day of creations week upon it. Even thus the plan of grace was early in the mind of God; it was and is His masterpiece, and He has never yet placed it in the background.
(4) I suppose that the Lord approved of the light because it was a seasonable thing. It was what was wanted to begin with. Not but what God could work in the dark, for, as to natural light, in that respect darkness and light are both alike to Him; but we can all see that the works of His creating skill needed light, for how could plants, animals, and men live without it?
III. THE LORD QUICKLY DISCERNS ALL THE GOODNESS AND BEAUTY WHICH EXISTS IN WHAT HE CREATES. The Lord did not merely feel approbation for the light, but He perceived reason for it: He saw that it was good. He could see goodness in it where, perhaps, no one else would have been able to do so.
1. Let us note, then, that light is good in itself; and so is Divine grace. What a wonderful thing light is! Just think of it! How simple it is, and yet how complex. Light, too, how common it is! We see it everywhere, and all the year round. Light, too, how feeble and yet how strong! Its beams would not detain us one-half so forcibly as a cobweb; yet how mighty it is, and how supreme! Scarcely is there a force in the universe of God which is more potent. The grace of God in the same manner is contemptible in the eyes of man, and yet the majesty of omnipotence is in it, and it is more than conqueror.
2. Light is good, not only in itself, but in its warfare. The light contended with darkness, and it was good for darkness to be battled with. Grace has come unto you, and it will fight with your sin, and it ought to be fought with, and to be overcome.
3. The light which came from God was good in its measure. There was neither too much of it nor too little. If the Lord had sent a little more light into the world we might all have been dazzled into blindness, and if He had sent less we might have groped in gloom. God sends into the newborn Christian just as much grace as he can bear; He does not give him the maturity of after years, for it would be out of place.
4. Light was good as a preparation for Gods other works. He knew that light, though it was but the beginning, was necessary to the completion of His work. Light was needful, that the eye of man might rejoice in the works of God, and so God saw the light that it was good, in connection with what was to be. And, oh, I charge you who have to deal with young people, look at the grace they have in them in relation to what will be in them.
5. What a mass of thought one might raise from this one truth of the goodness of light and the goodness of grace, as to their results. Light produces the beauty which adorns the world, for without it all the world were uncomely blackness. Lights pencil paints the whole, and even so all beauty of character is the result of grace. Light sustains life, for life in due time would dwindle and die out without it, and thus grace alone sustains the virtues and graces of the believer; without daily grace we should be spiritually dead. Light heals many sicknesses, and grace brings healing in its wings. Light is comfort, light is joy, the prisoner in his darkness knows it to be so; and so the grace of God produces joy and peace wherever it is shed abroad. Light reveals and so does grace, for without it we could not see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
IV. GOD RECORDED HIS ESTIMATE OF THIS FIRST DAYS PRODUCT. God saw the light that it was good.
1. This leads me to say to the young Christian, the Lord would have you encouraged.
2. My last word is to older Christian people. If the Lord says that His work in the first day is good, I want you to say so too. Do not wait till you see the second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth day before you feel confidence in the convert and offer Him fellowship. If God speaks encouragingly so soon, I want you to do the same. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v3 Gen_1:3. And God said] Better (because of the strong…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Gen_1:3. And God said] Better (because of the strong waw, and position of verb): “Then said God” = “the state of things being as just described.” From this point the drama is unfolded to the eye. Light] The orig. is indeed inimitable: Yehi’ôr, wá-yehi ʼôr. The nearest approach in Eng. is perh: “Exist, light!—then exists light”
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Gen_1:4. Good] Also: “fair,” “fine,” “beautiful;” Sept. Kalon.
Gen_1:5. And the e. and the m. were] A dull rendering. The Heb. marks sequence, with some latitude of application, “And so”—or—“And then it became e … became m. one day.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Gen_1:3-5
THE CREATION OF LIGHT
I. Divinely produced. “And God said, Let there be light.”
1. For the protection of life. The Divine Being is gradually preparing the infant world for the habitation of living things. Hence, prior to their creation, He beneficently makes everything ready for their advent. Plants could not live without light; without it, the flowers would soon wither. Even in a brief night they close their petals, and will only open them again at the gentle approach of the morning light. Nor could man survive in continued darkness. A sad depression would rest upon his soul. A weird monotony would come upon his life. He would long for the grave, and soon would his longings be at rest, as life under such conditions would be impossible, and certainly unbearable.
2. For the enjoyment of life. Even if man was permitted to live for a short space of time in a dark world, what practical use could he make of life, and what enjoyment could he have in it? He would not be able to pursue any commercial enterprise. He could not spend his time in study. He would not be able to read. He would not be able to write. For if darkness had remained upon the earth from its creation, an invention for the giving of light would have been impossible, nor would men have been favoured with the artificial advantages now possessed by the blind. It is light that makes the world so beautiful, and that enables the artist to perceive its grandeur, and reproduce it on his canvas. Light is one of God’s best gifts to the world.
(1.) It is inexpensive. The world has to pay for the light produced by man; that created by God, we get for nothing. Man has limitations; God has none. Man is selfish; God is beneficent.
(2.) It is extensive. It floods the universe. It is the heritage of the poor equally with the rich; it enters the hut as well as the palace.
(3.) It is welcome. The light of morning is welcome to the mariner, who has been tossed on the great deep through the dark and stormy night; to the weary sufferer, whose pain has rendered sleep impossible; and how often has the morning dawn over the distant hills awakened the rapture of poetic souls as they have been watching from an eminence the outgoings of the morning.
3. For the instruction of life. Light is not merely a protection. It is not only an enjoyment. It is also an instructor. It is an emblem. It is an emblem of God, it’s Author, who is the Eternal Light. It is an emblem of truth. It is an emblem of goodness. It is an emblem of heaven. It is an emblem of beneficence. It is calculated to teach the world the most important lessons it can possibly learn. All the gifts of God are teachers as well as benefactors. He leads men through enjoyment into instruction.
II. Divinely approved. “And God saw the light, that it was good.”
1. It was good in itself. The light was pure. It was clear. It was not so fierce as to injure. It was not so weak as to be ineffectual. It was not so loud in its advent as to disturb. It was noiseless. It was abundant. There is a great force in light, and yet nothing is more gentle; hence it was as the offspring of Divine power.
2. It was good because adapted to the purpose contemplated by it. Nothing else could more efficiently have accomplished its purpose toward the life of man. Nothing else could have supplied its place in the universe. It is allied to religious ideas. It is allied to scientific investigation. It is allied to every practical subject of life. Hence it is good because adapted to its purpose, deep in its meaning, wide in its realm, happy in its influence, and educational in its tendency.
3. We see here that the Divine Being carefully scrutinises the work of his hands. When He had created light, He saw that it was good. May we not learn a lesson here, to pause after our daily toil, to inspect and review its worth. Every act of life should be followed by contemplation. It is criminal folly to allow years to pass without inquiry into the moral quality of our work. He who makes a daily survey of his toil will be able to make a daily improvement, and secure the daily approval of his conscience.
III. Divinely proportioned. “And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.”
1. The light was indicative of day. In this light man was to work. The light ever active would rebuke indolence. By this light man was to read. In this light man was to order his moral conduct. Through this light man was to walk to the eternal light.
2. The removal of light was indicative of night. In this night man was to rest from the excitement of pleasure, and the anxiety of toil. Its darkness was to make him feel the need of a Divine protection. Let no man seek to reverse the order of God’s universe, by turning day into night, or night into day, if he does, a sure retribution will follow him. Some preachers say that they can study better at night. If they can, it is the result of habit, and not the natural outcome of their physical constitution. God evidently thinks that men can rest better at night, and work better in the day-time. Hence He puts out the great light, and bids the world repose under the care of Him who neither slumbereth or sleepeth.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Verse 3. Light is the first of all creatures that God makes, as being itself most generally useful, especially to the end which God principally aimed at, which was to make all the rest of his works visible.
God loves to do all His works in the light.
1. He dwells in the light (1Ti_6:16).
2. Because His works are perfect, and therefore, able to endure the light (Joh_3:21).
3. In order that He may be seen in His works.
The study of God’s work is:—
1. Pleasant.
2. Profitable.
3. Necessary. Light is an emblem of God:—
1. Glorious.
2. Pure.
3. Diffused in an instant.
4. Searching all places.
5. Useful for direction and comfort. How much more is God the author of wisdom, and understanding, the inward light of the soul.
There was nothing but deformity till God brought beauty into the world.
God often brings light out of darkness:—
1. The light of day from the darkness of night.
2. The light of prosperity from the darkness of affliction.
3. The light of knowledge from the darkness of ignorance.
4. The light of peace from the darkness of strife.
Was light created before the creation of the sun, and other luminous bodies? That this is possible has been shown by Dr. McCaul, “Aids to Faith,” p. 210; but very probably the creation of the sun is related in Gen_1:1, where under the word heaven (or heavens), may be comprehended the whole visible universe of sun, moon, and stars. Now, the history is going on to the adaptation of the earth for man’s abode. In Gen_1:2, a thick darkness had enveloped it. In this 3rd verse the darkness is dispelled by the word of God, the light is separated from the darkness, and the regular succession of day and night is established. Still, probably, there remains a clouded atmosphere, or other obstacle to the full vision of sun and sky. It is not till the fourth day that their impediments are removed, and the sun appears to the earth as the great luminary of the day, the moon and the stars as ruling the night. Light may, perhaps, have been created before the sun. Yet the statement, that on the first day, not only was there light, but the succession of day and night, seems to prove that the creation of the sun was “in the beginning,” though its visible manifestation in the firmament was not till the fourth day [Speaker’s Commentary].
One or two facts may be mentioned, as confirming the more recent elucidation of this Scripture statement. Humboldt, in describing the beauty of the Zodiacal light, has said—“The Zodiacal light, which rises in a pyramidal form, and constantly contributes by its mild radiance to the external beauty of the tropical nights, is either a vast nebulous ring, rotating between the Earth and Mars, or less probably, the exterior stratum of the solar atmosphere.” “For the last three or four nights, between 10° and 14° of north latitude, the Zodiacal light has appeared with a magnificence which I have never before seen. Long narrow clouds, scattered over the lovely azure of the sky, appeared low down in the horizon, as if in front of a golden curtain, while bright varied tints played from time to time on the higher clouds; it seemed a second sunset. Towards that side of the heavens, the diffused light appeared almost equal to that of the moon in her first quarter.” Not less striking is his description, in another passage, of a cloud well known to astronomers, passing over the heavens luminously and with great rapidity: “The light of the stars being thus utterly shut out, one might suppose that surrounding objects would become, if possible, more indistinct. But no: what was formerly invisible can now be clearly seen; not because of lights from the earth being reflected back by a cloud—for very often there are none,—but in virtue of the light of the cloud itself, which, however faint, is yet a similitude of the dazzling light of the sun. The existence of this illuminating power, though apparently in its debilitude, we discover also—by appearance, at least—among other orbs.” While these facts prove the existence of light without the sun being visible, it may be urged that the light spoken of in Genesis not only made day and night, but it must have been sufficient to sustain life. To suppose that it was adequate to this end involves no violent hypothesis, for neither plant nor animal life is spoken of until there has been a separation of land and water. In the earlier and more recent geological ages the heat was doubtless greater than it is now; and this, taken in connection with a surrounding vapourous atmosphere, and with such light as existed, may have conduced to the development of whatever plant-forms then prevailed. Difficulty in entertaining this view has been greatly lessened by the fact, that not only plant, but animal life may be sustained under conditions of feeble light, great pressure, and intense heat, which were not long ago deemed incredible [Dr. W. Fraser].
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. But Gen_1:16 reads, “God made two great lights.” In the one, we have “bara,” create; in the other, asáh, He made or fashioned, or appointed, of materials or objects already created, or existent, the sun to be a light-bearer; and so also the moon, which is known not to have light either in itself or immediately surrounding it. The Creator adopted and employed for this purpose the sun and moon, and may have introduced, for the first time, such relations as now exist between them and our atmosphere. Adopting the latitude of interpretation, which is warranted by the use of the distinct terms, bara and asáh, we suggest another view. When, after the deluge, God “Set His bow in the cloud to be a token that the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy the earth,” it is not necessarily an inference that the rainbow had never before appeared. As all the physical conditions, on which it depends had existed during man’s history, it may have been visible; and, assuming that it was so, it only received a new historical connection when it was made a token of the covenant. In the same manner the sun and moon and stars may have been visible long before they were appointed to be “for signs and for seasons,” and to fulfil a new historical relation to man, as they ever afterward rule his day and night [Dr. W. Fraser].
Gen_1:4. God’s view of His works:—
1. To rejoice in them.
2. To support them.
3. To direct them.
Let us review the works of God:—
1. As a good employment for our minds.
2. As a comfort to our souls.
3. As increasing our love for Him.
4. As inspiring us with praise.
The work of God is good:—
1. Because it must answer to the workman.
2. Because no one else can augment its perfection.
3. Because it is the vehicle of truth.
4. If it proves not so to us it is because we are out of harmony with it.
5. Let us try to imitate God in his method of works as far as possible.
Light is good:—
1. Therefore thank God for it.
2. Therefore use it well.
3. Therefore strive to reflect it.
Light and darkness succeed each:—
1. Each useful in its turn.
2. We should prepare for darkness.
3. We may anticipate heaven where there is no night.
Gen_1:5. All light is not day, nor all darkness night; but light and darkness alternating in a regular order constitute day and night [Augustine].
None but superficial thinkers can take offence at the idea of created things receiving names from God. The name of a thing is the expression of its nature. If the name be given by man, it fixes, in a word, the impression which it makes upon the human mind; but when given by God, it expresses the reality, what the thing is in God’s creation, and the place assigned it there by the side of other things [Keil & Delitzsch].
In what sense is the word “day” to be understood in this narrative? To simplify the subject I make the single issue—is it a period of twenty-four hours, or a period of special character, indefinitely long? The latter theory supposes the word to refer here not so much to duration as to special character—the sort of work done and the changes produced during the period contemplated. Turning our attention to this latter theory, we raise these inquiries:
1. Do the laws of language and especially does the usage of the word “day” permit it? Beyond all question the word “day” is used abundantly (and therefore admits of being used) to denote a period of special character, with no particular reference to its duration. We have a case in this immediate connection (Gen_2:4) where it is used of the whole creative period; “In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.” (See 1Th_5:2; 2Pe_3:12; 2Co_6:2; Eph_4:30, Joe_2:2; Ecc_7:14.) To set aside this testimony from usage as being inapplicable to the present case, it has been said—i. That here is a succession of days, “first day,” “second day,” and that this requires the usual sense of days of the week. To which the answer is that here are six special periods succeeding each other—a sufficient reason for using the word in the peculiar sense of a period of special character. Each of these periods is distinct from any and all the rest in the character of the work wrought in it. The reason for dividing the creative work into six periods—“days,” rather than into more or fewer, lies in the Divine wisdom as to the best proportion of days of man’s labour to the one day of his rest, the Sabbath. ii. It will also be urged that each of these days is said to be made up of evening and of morning—“The evening and the morning were the first day.” But the strength of this objection comes mainly from mis-translation. The precise thought is not that evening and morning composed or made up one full day; but rather this: There was evening and there was morning—day one, i.e., day number one. There was darkness, and there was light, indicating one of the great creative periods. It is one thing to say, There were alternations of evening and morning—i.e., dark scenes and bright scenes—marking the successive periods of creation, first, second, third; and another to affirm that each of these evenings and mornings made up a day. Let it be considered, moreover, that while in Hebrew, as in English, night and day are often used for the average twelve hours duration of darkness and of light respectively in each twenty-four hours, yet in neither language are the words evening and morning used in this sense, as synonymous both night and day. Indeed, “evening” and “morning” are rather points than periods of time; certainly do not indicate any definite amount of time—any precise number of hours; but are used to denote the two great changes—i.e., from light to darkness, and from darkness to light; in other words, from day to night, and from night to day. Therefore, to make evening and morning, added together, constitute one day is entirely without warrant in either Hebrew or English usage, and cannot be the meaning of these passages in Genesis.
2. Apart from the bearing of geological facts, are there points in the narrative itself which demand or even favour this sense of the word? i. Throughout at least, the first three of these creative epochs, there was no sun-rising and setting to mark off the ordinary day. These, therefore, were not the common human day; but, as Augustine long ago said, these are the days of God—Divine days—measuring off His great creative periods. ii. In some, at least, of these creative epochs, the work done demands more than twenty-four hours. For example, the gathering of the waters from under the heavens into one place, to constitute the seas or oceans, and leave portions of the earth’s surface dry land. Nothing short of absolute miracle could effect this in one human day. But miracle should not be assumed here, the rule of reason and the normal law of God’s operations being never to work a miracle in a case where the ordinary course of nature will accomplish the same results equally well. We must the more surely exclude miracle, and assume the action of natural law only throughout these processes of the creative work, because the very purpose of a protracted, rather than an instantaneous creation, looked manifestly to the enlightenment and joy of those “morning stars,” the “sons of God,” who beheld the scene, then, “sang together and shouted for joy” (Job_38:7.) We may say moreover, in regard to each and all of these six creative periods, that if the holy angels were indeed spectators of these scenes, and if God adjusted His methods of creation to the pupils—these admiring students of His glorious work—then surely we must not think of His compressing them within the period of six human days. Divine days they certainly must have been, sufficiently protracted to afford finite minds scope for intelligent study, admiring contemplation, and as the Bible indicates, most rapturous shouts of joy. In this case, should geology make large demands for time far beyond the ordinary human day, we shall have no occasion to strain the laws of interpretation to bring the record into harmony with such demands [Dr. Cowles].
Arguments for the literal interpretation of the Mosaic day:—“It was evening, and it was morning, the first day,” or, “evening came and morning came, one day,” are terms which can never be made to comport with the theory of indefinite periods; and especially when there follows God’s resting from His works, and hallowing the seventh day, as a day of sabbatical commemorative celebration of the work of the other six. Was that, too, an indefinite period [Dr. Wardlaw].
It is certain that in the fourth commandment, where the days of creation are referred to (Exo_20:9-11), the six days’ labour and the sabbath spoken of in the ninth and tenth verses, are literal days. By what rule of interpretation can the same word in the next verse be made to mean indefinite periods? Moreover, it seems from Gen_2:5, compared with Gen_1:11-12, that it had not rained on the earth until the third day; a fact altogether probable, if the days were of twenty-four hours, but absurd if they were long periods [Hitchcock].
On the supposition that geological discoveries necessitate the admission of a more remote origin and a longer existence to our globe than a few thousands of years, the true explanation lies in the first verse of Genesis, which leaves an undefined interval between the creation of matter and the six days’ work. Why, then, should we not regard the days described by Moses as natural days? Chalmers, Buckland, Sedgwick, Dr. Kurtz, and Archdeacon Pratt and many other writers of eminence, adhere to this view, “that the days of Genesis are literal days; that the ages of geology are passed over silently in the second verse, and that the passage describes a great work of God at the close of the ‘Tertiary Period,’ by which our planet, after long ages, was finally prepared to be the habitation of man.” [Birks].
Again, let it be observed that the whole notion of equality of endurance, or of close succession, of these “days” of Creation, is imaginary, and imported into the narrative. The story of Creation is arranged in these periods, familiar to us; the great personal cause of every step in it is God, and God’s will. But it is as irrevelant and as foolish to inquire minutely into the lower details following on a literal acceptance of the terms used in conveying this great truth to our minds, as it would be to take the same course with the words, “God said,” to inquire in what language He spoke, and to whom. It never can be too much impressed upon the reader that we are, while perusing this account, in a realm separated by a gulf, impassable for human thought, from the matter-of-fact revelations which our senses make to us. We are listening to Him who made the world, as He explains to us in words; the imperfect instruments of our limited thoughts. His, to us, inscrutable procedure [Alford].
SUGGESTIVE ILLUSTRATIONS
Gen_1:3-5
And God said. How long did the spirit brood over chaos? When did God say, “Let there be light?” Moses does not tell us. He states results, not processes. He brings the thing produced into close proximity with the producing cause. The instrumentality employed, as well as the time engaged, are not mentioned. Man is not forbidden to enquire concerning these; but Moses did not write to gratify such a spirit. He wrote to teach that it was at the bidding of the Almighty that light dawned—that the waters retired within the limits assigned to them—that the vast continents and mountain chains lifted their heads—that the flowers looked forth in beauty in the valley; and that the great lights of the firmament took each its station on high, and began to run its appointed course in the heavens. It was by this word—in fine—that the world passed through all its various stages of progress from chaos to the wondrous scene of order and beauty which filled the eye of Adam; and the first of these stages of progress was the call to light.
“Let there be light,” said God—and forthwith light,
Ethereal first—of things—quintessence pure—
Sprang from the deep, and from her native east
To journey the airy gloom began,
Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun
Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle
Sojourned the while [Milton].
All Nature, (says a thoughtful mind) is one storehouse of parables to the thoughtful mind. Science, even when most careless, can hardly help stumbling on some of them in its way. But the more carefully we weigh its discourses, the richer we shall find them to be in lessons of wisdom. The links which bind the planets to their sun are not so firm as those which bind the outward world of sense and matter to the higher and nobler truths of the spiritual world. Nature is one vast mirror in which we may see the dim reflection of a nobler field of thought than the conflict of jarring atoms, or integrels of atomic force can ever supply. We need first to gaze downward that presently we may look upward; and turning (says Birks) from the shadows to the substance—from things seen and temporal to the unseen and eternal—may veil our faces before the mission of a greatness that is unsearchable and a goodness that is unspeakable, and in the spirit of Christian faith and hope may gaze on the uncreated light, and rejoice with trembling while we adore.
Light! There is more than sublimity in these words; there is prophecy. As it was in the beginning, so shall it be once again before time shall close. The scene here is a predictive type—a germinal budding (to use Bacon’s expression) of the earth’s moral regeneration in a future age, both
(1.) as to the order in which it was done, and
(2.) as to the time it occupied. At present the waters of superstition lie deep on the face of the earth while the spirit has been moving on the space of those waters—the great moral chaos for 6,000 years. The Divine voice shall again be heard saying, “Let there be light;” and the light, which has struggled ineffectually with the darkness for 6,000 years, shall break forth on all sides, and with boundless brilliancy and prevailing power dart its rays to the very ends of the earth, so that the magnificent appeal of the seraphic Isaiah will receive its full consummation: Arise, shine! for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.
Of old,
Messiah—riding on the heavens serene—
Sent forth His omnipresent Spirit to brood
Over the troubled deep: then spake aloud,
“Let there be light!”
So shall it as certainly be when the reign of grace has closed—when the brooding of the spirit—for regenerative purposes has ceased. The Divine Word shall send forth His eternal fiat over the moral and spiritual chaos; and straightway shall at His command,
Light pierce the canopy of surging clouds,
And shoot its penetrative influence through
Their masses. Then shall the broken clouds
Melt into colours as a dream.
Creation! Here we have:—
1. The Author;
2. The Order;
3. The Purpose; and
4. The Period of Creation! In all times, and in every heathen land, people have had their thoughts and dreams about the way in which this fair world and yonder bright heavens came to be. One asserts the eternity of matter, another argues that they originated in chance; and both of these rank in wisdom with the quaint explanation of Topsy—that they grew. The Bible clears up all obscurity by declaring that whatever wonders Science may reveal in heaven and earth, the simple truth remains that God created all—not at once, but gradually and progressively: i.e.,
(1.) from the lowest to the most perfect forms of being, and
(2.) during unknown and indefinite periods of time:—
God is a God of Order, though to scan
His works may pose the feeble powers of man.
Nowhere do we meet with conflicting plans. All is created in the order of progression. Throughout all Nature, from the earliest zoophyte and seaweed of the Silurian rocks, to the young animals and plants that came into existence to-day—and from the choice gems that were produced when the earth was without form and void, to the crystals which are now forming—one golden chain of harmony links all together, and identifies all as the work of the same Infinite Mind. As Paley says: “We never find traces of a different creator, or the direction of a different will. All appears to have been the work of ONE, more so than appearances in the most finished machine of human construction; for—
In human works—though laboured on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce one object gain:
In God’s, one single can its end produce,
Yet serves to second, too, some other use.
Darkness and Light! How great is this mystery! And, as the light cast upon a diamond only brings out its beauties, so the light of Science only reveals more and more the mysteries of darkness and light. The prism of late has been unusually rich in new discoveries. The pathway in which Newton took the first main step has been explored anew, and secret marvels have been disclosed in every step of the progress, opening up a wondrous field of beauty in the Divine enquiry: “Knowest thou the pathway of light?” The waves of light, from 4,000 to 6,000 in one inch—these swift undulations, hundreds of millions of millions in one second, baffle and confound the mind. The beautiful gradation of tint and shade deduced from the pure white of the sunbeam—the strange fusion with heat at one end of the scale, the passage into magnetic force at the other—the dark lines that take their stations, like sentinels, in the midst of LIGHT itself, and turn in other cases into lines of double brightness—all stimulate the curiosity of Science, while they disclose depths of mystery in the Scripture flat: “Let there be light!”
“Let there be light!” O’er heaven and earth,
The God, Who first the day-beams poured,
Uttered again His fiat forth,
And shed the Gospel’s light abroad—
And like the dawn, its cheering rays
On rich and poor were meant to fall,
Inspiring their Redeemer’s praise,
In lowly cot and lordly hall.
Light! Biblical criticism and scientific research are more in harmony than ever on the great questions and problems of Genesis. It is McCosh who says that Science and Religion are not opposing citadels, frowning defiance on each other, and their troops brandishing armour in hostile attitude. There was a time when that fratricidal strife was indulged in; but, happily, a change has taken place. Men of science now agree with Herschel that the creation of the world is a subject beyond the range of science; while some are prepared to follow Hugh Miller, when he says that even its present formation is beyond that range. The greater number readily accept the definition of Chalmers—that Nature is the handmaid of Revelation, and that it is for Nature’s students to aid her in washing the hands and feet of Revelation as she struggles against principles of atheism and sin. As the students of Nature, men of science, while maintaining that the truths of Revelation do not inform them of the deductions of Physical Science, as strongly assert
(1.) that the study of Nature teaches not the truths of Revelation; though
(2.) that it does confirm and illustrate those truths. This is especially the case with reference to Genesis 1, and notably of the statements as to “LIGHT.” These statements have been held up to ridicule—have been treated with contempt—have been pounded with the scientific mortar mercilessly—have been flung into the crucible of human intellect, set over a fire of scientific knowledge, heated sevenfold; with what result? The account as to “light” has been found to harmonize in every point with the ascertained deductions of Natural Science. The great difficulty was: “How could light be before the sun?” All perplexity has disappeared, as autumn mists before the glorious orb of day. Science has discovered that light is not conditioned by perfected luminous bodies, but that light bodies are conditions of a preceding luminous element: i.e., that light could exist before the sun. Did it so exist in Genesis 1?—Revelation alone can tell. Some assert
(1.) that the sun did not exist till the fourth day, and that the light sufficed for all plants previously formed; others declare
(2.) that the sun did exist, but that his light was retarded by the mists and exhalations. It matters not, therefore, whether that light
(1.) emanated from a luminous element—a sea of subtle and elastic ether—
“Immense, imponderable, luminous,
Which—while revealing other things—remains
Itself invisible, impalpable,
Pervading space;”
or
(2.) undulated from a luminous body; whether that light
(1.) was independent of the sun, or
(2.) came through mists from the sun. It is, however, worthy of notice that the Hebrew makes a definite distinction between the light of the first and that of the fourth day, from which distinction it is not unreasonable to infer that there is no necessary connection between light and luminousness! i.e., that luminaries are after all only a concentration of particles of light previously existing as light.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv3, 5 Let there be light
Let there be light
Neither here nor in Gen 1:14-18 is an original creative act implied. A different word is used. The sense is, made to appear; made visible. The sun and moon were created "in the beginning." The "light" of course came from the sun, but the vapour diffused the light. Later the sun appeared in an unclouded sky.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v3 Let there be light
Let there be light
This is a command. By commanding that light should exist, God made it exist. (See: Imperatives - Other Uses)
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God saw the light, that it was good
"God considered the light and was pleased with it." "Good" here means "pleasing" or "suitable."
divided the light from the darkness
"separated the light and the darkness" or "made it light at one time and dark at another." This refers to God creating the daytime and the night time.
This was evening and morning, the first day
God did these things on the first day that the universe existed.
evening and morning
This refers to the whole day. The writer speaks of the whole day as if it were these two parts. In the Jewish culture, a day begins when the sun sets. (See: Merism)
translationWords
good
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv3–5 1:3-13 In the first three days, God formed the…
1:3-13 In the first three days, God formed the chaos into a habitable world.
1:3 Then God said: Nothing in ch 1 is created apart from God’s powerful word (cp. Ps 33:6, 9). • “Let there be . . .” and there was: God’s command enacted his will to create the world. God is not a part of creation or limited by it; he is the supreme ruler over everything (cp. Neh 9:6).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.