Genesis 1

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

• The Bible always assumes, and never argues, God`s existence. Although everything else had a beginning, God has always been.
• The word «God» renders the common Hebrew noun Elohim. It is plural but the verb is singular, nominal usage in the Old Testament when reference is to the one true God. This use of the plural expresses intensification rather than number and has been called the plural of majesty, or of potentiality.
• God is the perfect and all-powerful Spirit or Being that is worshipped especially by believers as the One Who created and rules the universe. Throughout the pages of the Bible, the character of God pours forth. Starting with the beginning of creation and ending with John`s prophetic vision concerning the end times and the ultimate defeat of Satan, God reveals Himself. His personality is as wide, varied and complex as history itself. Ultimately, He lowered Himself to become a man made manifest through the person of Jesus Christ. The complete personality of God cannot be encapsulated in a sound bite and it cannot be captured in a book; however, three traits or characteristics universally associated with God are omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence.
• There are different interpretations of the notions «the heavens» and «the earth»:
  1. the atmosphere and the ground
  2. our planet and the cosmos
  3. the spiritual (non-molecular) and the molecular world
  4. all things, everything

The earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep and God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.

• Why was God`s Spirit hovering over the dark waters of the earth like an eagle that hovers over its young when they are learning to fly? To preserve that which had been created up to this point and to prepare it for the further activity of God. The Holy Spirit was just as much a participant in the creation as the other two persons of the Godhead. This verse celebrates the Spirit`s role in that process. He was active in creation, and his creative power continues today.

God said, «Let there be light,» and there was light.

• Merely by issuing His royal decree, God brought all things into being.
• God`s first creative word called forth light in the midst of the primeval darkness.
• What could be that light? Could it be the electromagnetic spectrum? The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of all possible frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. The electromagnetic spectrum extends from below the low frequencies used for modern radio communication to gamma radiation at the short-wavelength (high-frequency) end, thereby covering wavelengths from thousands of kilometers down to a fraction of the size of an atom. The limit for long wavelengths is the size of the universe itself, while it is thought that the short wavelength limit is in the vicinity of the Planck length (1.6 x 10 _-35 meters).
• One of the difficulties found in the first chapter of Genesis is the mention of light-apparently before the creation of the sun. On the first day we are told that God created light. The sun, it seems, was not created until the fourth day. How could such a thing be? How could there have been day and night without the sun? Were plants and vegetation (created on the third day) done so without the existence of the sun? There are a number of different possible ways to explain how there could have been light before the sun. They include the following:
  1. Some Bible students believe the sun was begun on the first day but not completed until the fourth. The idea behind this view is that God's creation was a process. The problem with this view is that there is no evidence to indicate that this is what happened. In the Genesis account there is no indication of a process of creation that overlapped the days.
  2. It has been suggested that the sun was created the first day but did not appear until the fourth.
  3. There are many who believe that God created another light source before He created the sun on the fourth day. This was some sort of cosmic light that is different from the light given by the sun, moon, and stars. It was a special creation of God.
  4. Even modern science has theorized that light can come from empty space such as black holes. One of the effects of black holes is that they emit light.
  5. There is one other possible solution to this problem-the Bible doesn't say there was light before the sun. It is quite possible that when the author of Genesis 1:1 said «In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth» the phrase «heaven and earth» included the sun. The Bible consistently uses the phrase, heaven and earth, to refer to the universe or cosmos. Thus it is not necessary to assume the sun was not part of the heaven and the earth created on the first day.
  6. We must also note that the Bible says there will be light without the sun in the future New Jerusalem. Since there will be no need for the sun as a light source in the future, it is certainly possible that there was no need for the sun as a light source in the beginning.
  There is no reason to assume the Bible is in error when it seems to say that God created the light before He made the sun. There are a number of satisfactory explanations to this question.

God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness.

• Everything God created is very good. The creation, as fashioned and odered by God, had no lingering traces of disorder and no dark and threatening forces arrayed against God or people. Even darkness and the deep were given benevolent functions in a world fashioned to bless and sustain life.

• What does it mean when God separated light from darkness? This is one of the possible explanations: It wasn't God's intention that everything should be dark or everything should be light. Instead light and darkness must both coexist and therefore the two must be separated and designated to its own domain. The creation of light did not extinguish all darkness in all places, but rather that there were places for both light and darkness, just as day does not annihilate all night.

God called the light «day», and the darkness he called «night». There was evening and there was morning, the first day.

• This verse is evidence of that God has his divine language. Consequently, God is an intelligent Being but neither the universe itself nor just someone`s idea.
• In the ancient Near East, for a king to name people or things was an act of claiming dominion over them. In this creation account, God named the great cosmic realities of day, night, sky, land and seas. He left to human beings the naming of the creatures they were given dominion over.
• Some say that the creation days were 24-hour days, other that they were indefinite periodes or even millenniums.

God said, «Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.»

God made the expanse, and divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.

• The term «firmament» has been one of the greatest puzzles concerning the Creation account, mostly because of its Hebrew definition. Most people interpret this to mean just the expanse of the sky (the atmosphere) or outer space, or both (which it is), but the full meaning goes «dome» or «vault» in some modern Bibles. It is rendered as «firmament» in the KJV. The problem that puzzles people is the implication in the Hebrew language of the firmament being a firm, fixed structure. Creationists have interpreted the «waters above the firmament» as a theoretical «water canopy» which once surrounded the Earth but no longer exists. They cite this as their source for the waters of Noah`s flood.

God called the expanse «sky». There was evening and there was morning, a second day.

• One of the most common theories among young earth creationists is that the original earth possessed a water canopy consisting of vapor or ice that surrounded the earth above the troposphere and potentially up through the stratosphere. The canopy is used to explain the long lifespans of pre-flood humanity, along with the source of all the water required to explain a global flood. Isaac Vail (1840 –1912) first proposed the canopy theory in 1874. He believed a canopy formed millions of years ago as the earth evolved from a molten state. Here is the scientific rebuttal of vapor canopy: «Air can hold, at most, 55 grams of water vapor per cubic meter. In contrast, liquid water is at a density of 1,000,000 grams per cubic meter. The ratio of the two numbers is 1:18,000. Therefore, a flood of 1 mile thickness (which would cover only 1/5 of Mount Everest), would require 18,000 miles of canopy. Besides the problem of gravity (which would bring the whole thing down), such a thick layer of water vapor would completely block any light from the Sun from reaching the earth.»

God said, «Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear;» and it was so.

God called the dry land «earth», and the gathering together of the waters he called «seas». God saw that it was good.

God said, «Let the earth yield grass, herbs yielding seeds, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with their seeds in it, on the earth» and it was so.

The earth yielded grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with their seeds in it, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.

There was evening and there was morning, a third day.

God said, «Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs to mark seasons, days, and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth;» and it was so.

God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars.

The words «sun» and «moon» seem to be avoided deliberately here, since both were used as proper names for the pagan deities associated with these heavenly bodies. They are light-givers to be appreciated, not powers to be feared, because the one true God made them. Since the emphasis is on the greater light and lesser light, the stars seem to be mentioned almost as an afterthought. But the psalm 136:9 indicates that the stars help the moon «govern the night». The great Creator-King assigns subordinate regulating roles to certain of His creatures.

God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light to the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good.

There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

God said, «Let the waters abound with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the sky.»

God created the large sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God saw that it was good.

God blessed them, saying, «Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.»

There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

God said, «Let the earth produce living creatures after their kind, livestock, creeping things, and animals of the earth after their kind» and it was so.

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 kind. God saw that it was good.

God said, «Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.»

God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.

God blessed them. God said to them, «Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.»

God said, «Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food. 30 To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;» and it was so.

God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.