Kejadian 1:5-8

1:5 God called ¹  the light “day” and the darkness ²  “night.” There was evening, and there was morning, marking the first day. ³ 

1:6 God said, “Let there be an expanse ⁴  in the midst of the waters and let it separate water ⁵  from water. 1:7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. ⁶  It was so. ⁷  1:8 God called the expanse “sky.” ⁸  There was evening, and there was morning, a second day.

Kejadian 1:15-17

1:15 and let them serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” It was so. 1:16 God made two great lights ⁹  – the greater light to rule over the day and the lesser light to rule over the night. He made the stars also. ¹⁰  1:17 God placed the lights ¹¹  in the expanse of the sky to shine on the earth,

[1:5]  ¹ tn Heb “he called to,” meaning “he named.”

[1:5]  sn God called. Seven times in this chapter naming or blessing follows some act of creation. There is clearly a point being made beyond the obvious idea of naming. In the Babylonian creation story Enuma Elish, naming is equal to creating. In the Bible the act of naming, like creating, can be an indication of sovereignty (see 2 Kgs 23:34). In this verse God is sovereign even over the darkness.

[1:5]  ² tn Heb “and the darkness he called night.” The words “he called” have not been repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[1:5]  ³ tn Another option is to translate, “Evening came, and then morning came.” This formula closes the six days of creation. It seems to follow the Jewish order of reckoning time: from evening to morning. Day one started with the dark, continued through the creation of light, and ended with nightfall. Another alternative would be to translate, “There was night and then there was day, one day.”

[1:5]  sn The first day. The exegetical evidence suggests the word “day” in this chapter refers to a literal twenty-four hour day. It is true that the word can refer to a longer period of time (see Isa 61:2, or the idiom in 2:4, “in the day,” that is, “when”). But this chapter uses “day,” “night,” “morning,” “evening,” “years,” and “seasons.” Consistency would require sorting out how all these terms could be used to express ages. Also, when the Hebrew word יוֹם (yom) is used with a numerical adjective, it refers to a literal day. Furthermore, the commandment to keep the sabbath clearly favors this interpretation. One is to work for six days and then rest on the seventh, just as God did when he worked at creation.

[1:6]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew word refers to an expanse of air pressure between the surface of the sea and the clouds, separating water below from water above. In v. 8 it is called “sky.”

[1:6]  sn An expanse. In the poetic texts the writers envision, among other things, something rather strong and shiny, no doubt influencing the traditional translation “firmament” (cf. NRSV “dome”). Job 37:18 refers to the skies poured out like a molten mirror. Dan 12:3 and Ezek 1:22 portray it as shiny. The sky or atmosphere may have seemed like a glass dome. For a detailed study of the Hebrew conception of the heavens and sky, see L. I. J. Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of the World (AnBib), 37-60.

[1:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “the waters from the waters.”

[1:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “the expanse.”

[1:7]  ⁷ tn This statement indicates that it happened the way God designed it, underscoring the connection between word and event.

[1:8]  ⁸ tn Though the Hebrew word can mean “heaven,” it refers in this context to “the sky.”

[1:16]  ⁹ sn Two great lights. The text goes to great length to discuss the creation of these lights, suggesting that the subject was very important to the ancients. Since these “lights” were considered deities in the ancient world, the section serves as a strong polemic (see G. Hasel, “The Polemical Nature of the Genesis Cosmology,” EvQ 46 [1974]: 81-102). The Book of Genesis is affirming they are created entities, not deities. To underscore this the text does not even give them names. If used here, the usual names for the sun and moon [Shemesh and Yarih, respectively] might have carried pagan connotations, so they are simply described as greater and lesser lights. Moreover, they serve in the capacity that God gives them, which would not be the normal function the pagans ascribed to them. They merely divide, govern, and give light in God’s creation.

[1:16]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and the stars.” Now the term “stars” is added as a third object of the verb “made.” Perhaps the language is phenomenological, meaning that the stars appeared in the sky from this time forward.

[1:17]  ¹¹ tn Heb “them”; the referent (the lights mentioned in the preceding verses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.