Creation from nothing, and then ...

[Collier]

Verse 2: And the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.

This describes for us the newly created earth.
1. It was featureless, totally covered by “the deep”. (The land did not appear until the third day.) No place to stand.
2. It was empty. No life.
3. It was dark. No light.
4. BUT- the Spirit of God was there, brooding over the waters.

“The deep,” wherever the term is used in a literal sense, means deep water, such as the Israelites were familiar with. And that’s where the Spirit of God was: on the surface of those deep waters, bringing hope for the future.

But that surface was dark. Why?

Job 38:9 is a help here. God is telling Job about the creation of the earth (vv. 4-9). And He tells Job that He made cloud its garment, and darkness its swaddling band.

That is an arresting statement. We can understand (so could the Israelites) that heavy cloud will produce darkness; but this cloud was so huge it produced total darkness on the “skin” of the earth.

The darkness acted as a “swaddling band ” - something a mother wraps around her new-born infant. Poetic language, certainly; but it describes reality.

However, the earth was now ready for some light. And God’s first act in changing this empty, dark earth into a place full of light and life was to bring light to the surface of the deep.

[Collier]

Verse 3: God said, "Let light be," and light was.

The text is very specific about the location of the darkness. It was on THE FACE OF THE DEEP. We have no justification for thinking it was anywhere else.

So when God said, "Let light be," light reached the surface of the waters. There was no longer total darkness, all the time. Darkness still was there, but it was separated from the light. God called the light DAY, and he called the darkness NIGHT. Familiar terms for familiar things.

It's worth noticing that God defined “day” right at the beginning of the narrative. We have no excuse for not understanding it. Day means LIGHT, not a combination of light and darkness. To combine the two is to join together things that God specifically separated. Day is followed by night, but it does not include night.

I find it ironic that Exodus 20:11 is used as evidence for a 24-hour day. Men did not work 24 hours a day in Moses' day, any more than they do in our day. Instead, man's work begins in the morning and ends in the evening (Psalm 104:22-23). Sola scriptura.

In John 11:9 the Lord said, "Are there not twelve hours in the day?" And He told his hearers to walk in the day, when they had light to see. He was obviously teaching a spiritual lesson, but it was based on what they already knew: a natural day is a twelve-hour day.

But the Lord also used the word “day” as a period of time marked by divine light. “Abraham rejoiced to see my day,” he said in John 8:56. And again, “I must work the works of him that sent me while it is still day” (John 9:4). Why? “The night is coming, when no man can work.”

As before, he was using the word “day” in a way that his hearers understood. They were familiar with “the day of temptation in the wilderness,” a day that lasted forty years (Psalm 95:8). So are we. They knew that “the day of visitation” was a period of “time” (Jeremiah 50:27). We know that “the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2) is with us still. And so on.

They knew (and so do we) that such “days” have nothing to do with the earthly days of sunlight, followed by nights of darkness. Instead, they were periods of time marked by some particular characteristic, some particular divine purpose. There is no night involved in such a day. God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.

The evidence seems conclusive. The definition for “day” given by God in Genesis 1:5 holds true throughout the entire Bible, whether it means a normal 12-hour day of sunlight, or a long period of divine activity. It means LIGHT, not darkness; DAY, not day/night combined.

[oxmixmudd]

Verse 3: God said, "Let light be," and light was.

The text is very specific about the location of the darkness. It was on THE FACE OF THE DEEP. We have no justification for thinking it was anywhere else.

So when God said, "Let light be," light reached the surface of the waters. There was no longer total darkness, all the time. Darkness still was there, but it was separated from the light. God called the light DAY, and he called the darkness NIGHT. Familiar terms for familiar things.

It's worth noticing that God defined “day” right at the beginning of the narrative. We have no excuse for not understanding it. Day means LIGHT, not a combination of light and darkness. To combine the two is to join together things that God specifically separated. Day is followed by night, but it does not include night.

I find it ironic that Exodus 20:11 is used as evidence for a 24-hour day. Men did not work 24 hours a day in Moses' day, any more than they do in our day. Instead, man's work begins in the morning and ends in the evening (Psalm 104:22-23). Sola scriptura.

In John 11:9 the Lord said, "Are there not twelve hours in the day?" And He told his hearers to walk in the day, when they had light to see. He was obviously teaching a spiritual lesson, but it was based on what they already knew: a natural day is a twelve-hour day.

But the Lord also used the word “day” as a period of time marked by divine light. “Abraham rejoiced to see my day,” he said in John 8:56. And again, “I must work the works of him that sent me while it is still day” (John 9:4). Why? “The night is coming, when no man can work.”

As before, he was using the word “day” in a way that his hearers understood. They were familiar with “the day of temptation in the wilderness,” a day that lasted forty years (Psalm 95:8). So are we. They knew that “the day of visitation” was a period of “time” (Jeremiah 50:27). We know that “the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2) is with us still. And so on.

They knew (and so do we) that such “days” have nothing to do with the earthly days of sunlight, followed by nights of darkness. Instead, they were periods of time marked by some particular characteristic, some particular divine purpose. There is no night involved in such a day. God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.

The evidence seems conclusive. The definition for “day” given by God in Genesis 1:5 holds true throughout the entire Bible, whether it means a normal 12-hour day of sunlight, or a long period of divine activity. It means LIGHT, not darkness; DAY, not day/night combined.

I feel I should point out that Collier is absolutely on his own here. This is a redifinition of Yom relative to every Hebrew authority I know of, and is in direct contradiction to the scriptures use of the word itself, where there are examples of yom being used to directly refer to both day and night. One being Genesis 7:17, where the flood is upon the Earth 40 days, in direct reference to the 40 days and nights of rain in 7:12. Clearly here yom refers to night+day, for the flood did not come and go, existing on the earth only during the day(light).


Jim

[Collier]

V. 5 – And was evening and was morning, day one.

This phrase, we’ve been told, indicates that the days of Genesis 1 were 24 hour days. But when you look at all of the verses cited as evidence for this, you find they all fit into one of four categories:

1. "morning to evening" - referring to a whole natural twelve-hour day (e.g. Exodus 18:13 - Moses sat and administered justice all day).
2. "evening to morning" - referring to a whole night (e.g. Leviticus 24:3 - the lamps were to burn in the tabernacle all night).
3. "morning and evening" - referring to specific activities that occurred at the beginning and at the end of the day [e.g. morning and evening sacrifices].
4. "evening and morning" - referring to specific activities that occurred at the beginning and the end of the night [e.g. the priests had to light the lamps in the evening and trim them in the morning].

The only place in the Bible (please test this statement) where "evening and morning" refers to a period of time is Daniel 8:26, which begins with, "The vision of the evening and the morning" [both words are singular in Hebrew].

That vision covers a large chunk of history, judging from the context (read the preceding verses). And I find myself wondering: Does this seventh biblical reference to "evening and morning" complete the Genesis story of the seventh day (ch. 2:2)? I don't know, Zechariah 14 makes me wonder.

The morning is the beginning of the day, and the evening is the end of the day. Work begins in the morning and ends in the evening (Psalm 104:22-23). If the days of Genesis are days of divine activity, uninterrupted by night, then the evening of one day merges with the morning of the next. So at the end of the day, "evening was," and "morning [ALSO] was". Day one [yohm echad] is over, but the second day has begun. God does not rest until the whole job is finished.

The same pattern can be seen in Zechariah 14:7, where the same Hebrew words [yohm echad] are found, translated “one day”. That chapter is all about the day of the Lord, a long day. It is a dark day, with “no light” (v. 6). But in the evening – when you would expect darkness – “there shall be light”. There is no night between the evening and the light. They occur together.

This light in the evening appears to be the beginning of a new day. It is the end of the dark day of Yahweh, and the beginning of a brighter day for Israel. It is the end of their long rejection of the Messiah and the beginning of his reign. (See ch. 9:9, which alludes to both.)
The similarities between this passage and Genesis 1:5 are remarkable – even though one is past and the other is future. In both cases, there is light in the evening. In both cases (I believe), that light in the evening is actually the beginning of a new day, with no “night” between. And in both cases, the Hebrew words for “day one,” or “one day,” are identical: yohm echad.

The harmony that exists in the Word of God is awesome.

[oxmixmudd]

V. 5 – And was evening and was morning, day one.

This phrase, we’ve been told, indicates that the days of Genesis 1 were 24 hour days. But when you look at all of the verses cited as evidence for this, you find they all fit into one of four categories:

1. "morning to evening" - referring to a whole natural twelve-hour day (e.g. Exodus 18:13 - Moses sat and administered justice all day).
2. "evening to morning" - referring to a whole night (e.g. Leviticus 24:3 - the lamps were to burn in the tabernacle all night).
3. "morning and evening" - referring to specific activities that occurred at the beginning and at the end of the day [e.g. morning and evening sacrifices].
4. "evening and morning" - referring to specific activities that occurred at the beginning and the end of the night [e.g. the priests had to light the lamps in the evening and trim them in the morning].

The only place in the Bible (please test this statement) where "evening and morning" refers to a period of time is Daniel 8:26, which begins with, "The vision of the evening and the morning" [both words are singular in Hebrew].

That vision covers a large chunk of history, judging from the context (read the preceding verses). And I find myself wondering: Does this seventh biblical reference to "evening and morning" complete the Genesis story of the seventh day (ch. 2:2)? I don't know, Zechariah 14 makes me wonder.

The morning is the beginning of the day, and the evening is the end of the day. Work begins in the morning and ends in the evening (Psalm 104:22-23). If the days of Genesis are days of divine activity, uninterrupted by night, then the evening of one day merges with the morning of the next. So at the end of the day, "evening was," and "morning [ALSO] was". Day one [yohm echad] is over, but the second day has begun. God does not rest until the whole job is finished.

The same pattern can be seen in Zechariah 14:7, where the same Hebrew words [yohm echad] are found, translated “one day”. That chapter is all about the day of the Lord, a long day. It is a dark day, with “no light” (v. 6). But in the evening – when you would expect darkness – “there shall be light”. There is no night between the evening and the light. They occur together.

This light in the evening appears to be the beginning of a new day. It is the end of the dark day of Yahweh, and the beginning of a brighter day for Israel. It is the end of their long rejection of the Messiah and the beginning of his reign. (See ch. 9:9, which alludes to both.)
The similarities between this passage and Genesis 1:5 are remarkable – even though one is past and the other is future. In both cases, there is light in the evening. In both cases (I believe), that light in the evening is actually the beginning of a new day, with no “night” between. And in both cases, the Hebrew words for “day one,” or “one day,” are identical: yohm echad.

The harmony that exists in the Word of God is awesome.

No - this just is not correct:

The evening is followed by night. The evening is not the end of the day, but the beginning of the night (which is also the beginning of the Jewish day and all Jewish holy day celebrations - honoring the erev/boker phrase from Genesis). The morning is followed by day and is the beginning of the daylight. The passage begins in the dark and ends in the light. The writer is saying that this first dark to light cycle was the first day, this establishes the form of day, not its physical time. The pattern continues throughout. The verb forms are all with the vav (or waw depending on pronunciation) consecutive. These are consecutive 'days' one after the other, with evening and morning marking of the beginning of each cycle.

Further, contextual usage of the word yom show it has three possible meanings in scripture: daylight, day (night+day), or unspecified period of time. All three are used in Genesis 1 and 2. I gave you several clear example of day used as the entire period of night + day outside of Genesis 1, one of the more obvious being Genesis 7:12 contrasted with 7:17.

One does not need to corrupt the Hebrew or the contextual intent of the text to deal with the issue of the YEC demand for literal 24 hour days. One only needs to understand that day here in Genesis 1 is a phenomenal use of the term in a time where the mechanism controlling the actual physical time period of a day was unknown. We need only apply Psalm 90:4

"For a thousand years in thy sight are as but yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night"

IOW, time is not for God like it is for us. This is said in the context of the age of the mountains and creation. The implication is clear - these days in Genesis 1 do not need to be literal in terms of their physical time value, nor do they need to conform to the current period of the Earth's rotation. They are descriptive terms - and especially on day one are only concerned with the form of a day - darkness followed by light (the first 3 'days' of Genesis are about giving creation form, the second 3 'days' are about filling it), not its physical time parameters. Since contextually they do not have to have a fixed meaning, to determine if God intended them to be taken as physically identical to the current 24 hour period, we must look to the actual history of the Earth - which shows clearly they are not.

As for how evening and morning are used in the remainder of scripture - you are left (without some real logical twists and turns) with the phrase evening and morning being only the night - which makes no sense at all since it calls that phrase day 1! To assume there was no night at all is to contradict the opening passage in which there is first darkness, then light which is immediately followed by the phrase 'and evening and morning were day one'. Again, this gives us the form of what day is, and the first 'day'.

Your comment about Daniel is an excellent way to back up the idea the 'day' (evening + morning/erev+boker) does NOT have to be a single 24 hour period, but it does nothing to help with the idea that yom itself can't mean night+day.


Jim

[Sokratic]

Hello from a newcomer who has read quite a few comments about Genesis 1, but who wants to add another line of thought [if it hasn't already been flogged to death under another title.]

The two alternative translations for the first two verses of Genesis are: “In [the] beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” implying that God’s first act was to create the universe out of nothing [“ex nihilo”]; and “When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void,” implying that when God began to create, the material was already there [creation "ex materia"].

IF the first translation is correct, then we have THE BEGINNING, during which God created [ex nihilo] everything in the universe, and then SIX DAYS, during which God worked on that material and made [ex materia] the sky, the dry land and the seas, and everything in them, as described in Exodus 20:11 and Genesis 1:26. That, it seems to me, makes the literal reading of Genesis 1 perfectly compatible with modern astronomical observations.

I am glad that today’s scientists have finally had to acknowledge that matter is NOT eternal. It had a beginning. And Genesis 1:1 tells us who created it.

Whichever way we understand it, it is all "to the glory of God."

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[Collier]

Verse 6 – And God said, “Let be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it divide between waters and waters.”

Even though day and night were discernable at the end of the first (and beginning of the second) day, there was no sky. The “garment of cloud” was still in contact with the deep waters below. But during the second day, God separated the two and made a sky between them.

The sky is everything we can see when we look up. Sometimes we see "the birds of the heavens". Sometimes we see fluffy clouds building up, and we can see they are three-dimensional. Sometimes the sky is overcast with heavy cloud, and what we see is two-dimensional. The bottom of the cloud is earth's sky. The dome above our heads is not blue but grey, or even black.

That seems to be the case by the end of the second day. On day one, the “garment of cloud” had lightened sufficiently to allow perception of day and night. Now the same cloud was lifted to form a sky, earth’s ceiling, and above that were “the waters above the firmament”.

That agrees with what the ancients could observe. The heavens that poured out heavy rain in answer to Elijah’s prayer were "black with thick clouds" (1 Kings 18:45). That’s where rain comes from. There is water in the clouds. Asaph (Psalm 77:17), and Elihu and Job (Job 37:11) understood the same thing. For them, "clouds without water" were not to be trusted (Proverbs 15:14; Jude 12).

By the way, if you want an eye-opener as to what Elihu understood about the power of God in nature, read Job 36:27-28. God "draws up the drops of water; they distil rain into mist, which drip rain down the clouds and drop upon man" (literal translation). Poetic language, yes, but describing reality, just the same.

[Collier]

Thank you, Aegis, for pointing out that in ancient mythologies, most of the deities do not create anything 'ex-nihilo,' but from some existing materials in the universe. That makes Yahweh unique.

It certainly does. For someone who reveres both God and His Word, that makes Genesis 1:1 a delight. The whole story is wonderful.

I intend to work on through the chapter, staying within the guidlelines Jim so helpfully laid down in his thread. The evidence will be from Scripture only, interpreted only on the basis of what the ancients could have observed.

By the way, I have considerable sympathy for non-theists who are turned off by the imaginative and non-scientific theories that are sometimes blamed on the Bible. Granted, the Bible is not a science text-book; but what it does teach agrees with modern scientific observations. As it SHOULD.

That is what I hope this thread can confirm.

[oxmixmudd]

Verse 6 – And God said, “Let be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it divide between waters and waters.”

Even though day and night were discernable at the end of the first (and beginning of the second) day, there was no sky. The “garment of cloud” was still in contact with the deep waters below. But during the second day, God separated the two and made a sky between them.

The sky is everything we can see when we look up. Sometimes we see "the birds of the heavens". Sometimes we see fluffy clouds building up, and we can see they are three-dimensional. Sometimes the sky is overcast with heavy cloud, and what we see is two-dimensional. The bottom of the cloud is earth's sky. The dome above our heads is not blue but grey, or even black.

This just doesn't wash. The 'expanse', as you translate it (raqia), contained the stars ,sun, and moon, which are clearly above the clouds. The clouds are below this 'expanse', the waters above it, the stars, moon , and sun in it. What the scripture refer to clouds as are containers for water, or curtains that God can hide behind (again recognizing they are between the Earth and the firmament) or even ride upon.

Job 22:12-14

… Clouds are a hiding place for Him, so that He cannot see; And He walks on the vault of heaven.

Psalm 148:8 “Who covers the heavens with clouds …

That seems to be the case by the end of the second day. On day one, the “garment of cloud” had lightened sufficiently to allow perception of day and night. Now the same cloud was lifted to form a sky, earth’s ceiling, and above that were “the waters above the firmament”.

That agrees with what the ancients could observe. The heavens that poured out heavy rain in answer to Elijah’s prayer were "black with thick clouds" (1 Kings 18:45). That’s where rain comes from. There is water in the clouds. Asaph (Psalm 77:17), and Elihu and Job (Job 37:11) understood the same thing. For them, "clouds without water" were not to be trusted (Proverbs 15:14; Jude 12).

By the way, if you want an eye-opener as to what Elihu understood about the power of God in nature, read Job 36:27-28. God "draws up the drops of water; they distil rain into mist, which drip rain down the clouds and drop upon man" (literal translation). Poetic language, yes, but describing reality, just the same.

This reference, though intriguing, when read in the Hebrew, most likely refers to God drawing up the waters out of the waters of heaven, distilling the drawn water into a mist which the clouds then rain down upon man. It is easy to read it as a 21st century reader and see the real water cycle (and I believe it is possible, perhaps even likely, this word choice was divinely inspired), but it would be a mistake to think that the writer understood exactly how the water cycle works. The poetic rendering fits just as well into what they understood to be the case - that the source of rain was the waters above the raqia.

2 Chronicles 6:26 “When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain …(1 Kings 8:35 also)
2 Chronicles 7:13 “If I shut up the heavens so there is no rain …
Deuteronomy 11:17 “Or the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and He will shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain.

Indeed, more that water was sent to earth through the openings in the raqia:

Psalm 78:23 “Yet He commanded the clouds above, and opened the doors of heaven; and He rained down manna upon them to eat, and gave them food from heaven. Man did eat the bread of angels.”

Notice also that the clouds here apparently are brought in place to hide the doors of heaven.

What really is the case is that the ancient writers understood the clouds may or may not contain water, but they did not understand they were water. The water was held back above the firmament in the waters above, and there were window or sluices that allowed God to load the clouds with water. The likely source of water from which to draw up was the waters of heaven, not the waters here on the Earth.


Jim

[shunyadragon]

Thank you, Aegis, for pointing out that in ancient mythologies, most of the deities do not create anything 'ex-nihilo,' but from some existing materials in the universe. That makes Yahweh unique.

Actually, this is not accurate. Some ancient mythologies simply create without reference to creating from existing whatever, and Biblically it is not clear that the Biblical God(s) created from nothing or something.

Vedic traditions describe Creation as originating from the being of the one 'Source' some call God.

[shunyadragon]

As a newcomer I appreciate reading the posts .They are very educational and I learned a lot. I support the stand that the Bible passage in Genesis 1 supports the concept of 'creation ex nihilo'. It is also the idea throughout the OT that God is the creator of heaven and earth. It is often the distinction between God of Yahweh and the other pagan gods that Yahweh is the creator of the universe whereas other gods are just gods of a local region or domains. In other ancient mythologies, most of their deities are not creator of universe 'ex-nihilo' but from some existing materials in the universe. Yahweh is quite unique in this. I did not look up sources on this , but please correct me if I am wrong.

Not correct, the two major examples that come to mind are Vedic traditions describe the origin from the being of the one 'Source' some call God. In Taoism as the origin is from the Tao and returns to the Tao, there is no preexisting materials.

In terms of the scientific model of the origin of universe, I agree that it did not signify a 'god' or 'creator'. What the Big Bang Model signifies is that the universe began from a singularity and before singularity there is nothing. The singularity just appeared out of nowhere. We do not know how or why or what made it appear. But all the known universe and materials in it all was contained in the singularity. I do not buy the idea of quantum fluctuation as a cause of the singularity as quantum fluctuation and quantum energies are still part of this universe and was contained within the singularity and cannot be the cause of the singularity. There has to be something else that caused the singularity.

Only true,
from your point of view.

Science does not remotely consider the singualrity the beginning of everything, it only reflects the theoretical beginning of our universe,

One can by faith, or speculation, say that there is another universe that caused the singularity, or posit that there are multiple universes, or multiple Big Bangs, or any million theories of speculations but those are only speculations without rational proofs or evidences to support it. Only our imagination sets the boundary of such speculations.

In science these are not speculations, but with wheter Gods are responsible or whether Gods are responsible for the creation of Gods, well that may be considered speculation of the highest order. There are not any scientific basis or evidence of this.

[Collier]

Verse 11 – And God said, “Let the earth sprout tender sprouts, etc.”

This is a good time to look back at our “frame of reference”.

The entire account of Genesis 1 is told for the benefit of earthbound observers, without the aid of microscopes or telescopes or modern Bible expositors. It deals with things that a man upon earth could understand, because they matched what he could actually SEE. So, although science tells me [correctly, I have no doubt] that bacteria EXISTED before “tender sprouts” appeared, bacteria are something that the ancients could not have observed. So it is no surprise that they are not mentioned. Plants are the first kind of life that men would be able to observe

Several different kinds of vegetation are listed. I don’t understand all that the Hebrew words imply, but I have no difficulty recognizing them all as green plants. All of them were able to reproduce, according to their kind. That is something the ancients had certainly observed.

The sky was still the kind of sky that has water above it. There must have been enough sunlight getting through to support the plants. Did the ancients know that plants need sunlight in order to live? Maybe not, but I suspect they made the connection.

This finishes the activities of the third day. “And was evening and was morning, day third.”

Once again, this was a day of divine activity, not human activity. Men need a night of rest after a day’s work. God does not. So the clear and specific definition God gave us before He used the word “day” should surely be the definition He expects us to apply. It was “light” – divine light – SEPARATED from darkness. Natural days and nights went on, just as they did during other divine days; but LIGHT defines God’s days of work (see John 9:4).

The work of the third day ends: “evening was”. The work of the next day begins: “morning was”. The work is constant, uninterrupted by night.

[Collier]

Verse 14 – And God said, “Let luminaries be in the expanse of the heavens, to divide between the day and the night.”

In verse 4, God separated between light and darkness. Now He proposes to set luminaries in the sky to do the job of dividing between day and night.

The differences are obvious. God separated between light and darkness when that was all that could be detected. Now the luminaries are going to do the job of dividing between day and night. Day will no longer be just the diffused light that comes through a cloud. It will have a visible luminary to “rule” it. Now the beginning of the day can be fixed by the rising of the sun, and the end of the day by the setting of the sun.

Night will no longer be total darkness. Now there will be luminaries to “rule” it. The moon, with its monthly cycle, will govern the months in the Jewish calendar; and the stars, with their annual cycle [parallel to that of the sun] will determine the years. These luminaries will be “for times and for seasons and for months and for years”. They will be for luminaries in the dome of the sky [where they have not been until now] to give light on the earth (v. 15).

So God made two great luminaries to rule the day and the night. He made the sun to rule by day and the moon and the stars to rule by night (Ps. 136:7-9). They were to act as SIGNS for seasons and days and years. He set them in the sky, where they had not been before.

How would ancient earth-dwellers understand this? What had they seen that would help them?

Paul and his companions knew what it was to be at sea when “neither sun nor stars appeared for many days” (Acts 27:20). They “wished for the day,” even though they could not see the sun rise. All they saw was the light that came through the dark clouds. There were no luminaries in the sky until the storm was over.

The same thing happened after every rainy season, when the clouds dispersed. The sky was no longer the grey underside of the clouds. It was the blue dome where the sun travels day by day, the same dome where the stars and the moon travel at night.

So God set the luminaries in the sky. He made (caused) them to rule over the day and the night. He gave them a job to do.

The difference between “created” and “made” has already been dealt with, but maybe it’s worthwhile going over it again.

[Collier]

Contrasts between the Hebrew words BARA (“create”) and ASAH (usually translated “do” or “make”).

[Note: the concordances used in this study are based on the King James Version of the Bible.]

BARA is found 50 times in the Bible. Easy to count.
ASAH – takes up 31 columns of the Hebrew concordance. Counting them all would give me a headache. But each column has about 80 entries, giving an approximate total of 2500 uses of the word.

BARA is translated, almost without exception, by the English word “create”.
ASAH is translated by 75 different English words, the most common being “do” and “make”.

Conversely, the English word “create” never translates any word except BARA, while the English words that translate BARA also translate several other Hebrew words.

So Strong defines ASAH as “to do or to make in the broadest sense and widest application”. The word is enormously flexible. BARA, on the other hand, is not.

The first use of either word is found in Genesis 1:1. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

“Create” is not found again until verse 21. Then God created living animals to inhabit the seas and the sky. Something significantly new.

In between, several different verbs are used in the narrative.
“Let be light,” and light was.
“Let be an expanse… Let it divide the waters …” And God made the expanse and divided the waters.
“Let the waters under the heavens be collected … and let the dry ground appear.”
“Let the earth yield tender sprouts …” And the earth brought forth …”
“Let be luminaries in the expanse of the heavens, to divide between the day and the night; and let them be for signs and seasons and days and years; and let them be for luminaries in the expanse of the heavens, to give light on the earth.”
And God made ... luminaries, the sun to rule the day, the moon and stars to rule the night (Ps. 136:7-9). God set them in the expanse of the heavens, to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night; and to divide between the light and the darkness. (Literal translation)

It would be interesting to look carefully ALL those verbs, but the two that describe God’s work with the sun moon and stars are made and set.

Our English words “do” and “make” are almost as flexible as ASAH. We make meals; we make mistakes; we made Godzilla president of our club. So “make” can mean “appointed” - among other things.

ASAH can mean the same thing. That’s the way it is translated in Ps. 104:19. The next post will give a list of verses where “made” is used in that sense.

[Collier]

The verb ASAH is translated “appointed” in Ps. 104:19. It is used the same way in 2 Kings 17:32 and in 1 Kings 12:31 – “they ... made the lowest of them priests,” and “he [Jeroboam] made priests of the lowest of the people.”

Here are some similar sentences:
- The people made [Jehoahaz] king (2 Kings 23:30)
- [Potiphar] made [Joseph] overseer over his house (Gen. 39:4).
- [Pharaoh] made him ruler over all the land of Egypt (ch. 41:43).

Please notice that neither Potiphar nor Pharaoh created Joseph. They gave him a job to do. They appointed him to rule over something.

Then there is Acts 2:36, where God made Jesus both Lord and Christ. It would be wrong to quote that verse as, “God made Jesus.” It would be even worse to say, “God created Jesus.”

The lesson is clear. If you leave out part of the sentence, you lose the meaning entirely.

That is the problem in Genesis 1:16. When we paraphrase the passage by saying, “God created the sun moon and stars on the fourth day,” we miss the meaning entirely. We leave out part of the sentence, and change the verb to “create,” even though ASAH is never translated that way - at least in the KJV.

God DID create the sun and the moon and the stars. But that is not what this passage is saying. It says he made them rulers of the day and the night. Just as Pharaoh made (caused) Joseph to be ruler over Egypt, and as God made (caused) Jesus to be both Lord and Christ, so God made (caused) the luminaries to rule over the day and the night.

How? By setting them in the sky, where they could be seen by an observer on the ground.