My Notes Genesis | Genesis 02 →
The First Day
v1
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
v2
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.
v3
God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
v4
God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness.
v5
God called the light “day”, and the darkness he called “night”. There was evening and there was morning, the first day.
The Second Day
v6
God said, “Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.”
v7
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.
v8
God called the expanse “sky”. There was evening and there was morning, a second day.
The Third Day
v9
God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear;” and it was so.
v10
God called the dry land “earth”, and the gathering together of the waters he called “seas”. God saw that it was good.
v11
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.
v12
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.
v13
There was evening and there was morning, a third day.
The Fourth Day
v14
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;
v15
and let them be for lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth;” and it was so.
v16
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.
v17
God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light to the earth,
v18
and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good.
v19
There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
The Fifth Day
v20
God said, “Let the waters abound with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the sky.”
v21
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.
v22
God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”
v23
There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
The Sixth Day
v24
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.
v25
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.
v26
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.”
v27
God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.
v28
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.”
v29
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.
v30
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.
v31
God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.
My Notes
Chronological Or Not
It is worth noting that there is some debate1 on the timing of the first verse of the Bible. I have seen 2 views expressed so far:
- The Chronological View: This view holds that v1 takes place before the rest of the text and that the order of events flows smoothly from beginning to end.
- The Non-Chronological View: This view holds that v1 is actually a sort of summary of all of the events in Genesis 1. Verse 1 basically tells you what happened, and the rest of the chapter tells you how it happened. Currently, I’m more persuaded by the non-chronological view, but I can see merits on either side.
Heavens = Sky
In today’s English, we consider sky to be the physical atmosphere of air above our planet’s surface, and we consider heaven to be some other non-physical place. We think of heaven as a spiritual place, probably in another dimension. Let’s set aside, just for the moment, whether this concept is true or not. Let us just observe that that is most certainly not the concept described in the original text.
For example, in the WEB translation above, we see the word heavens in v1 and sky in v8. Why must they be separate words? In the original Hebrew text they are the same word, shamayim. They are undoubtedly related to each other, and yet the relation is completely lost to us when we relegate them into separate words.
Some will note, rightly so, that throughout the Bible, the concept of heaven is developed into something much more than just a physical sky. For example, Jesus teaches us to store our treasures in heaven. By this, does He simply mean store your treasures in the sky? What would that even mean? Jesus is using the word heaven to mean something more than merely the sky. If we reduce heaven to simply the sky then we lose something, but we also lose something if we do not see that there is in fact a connection.
My point is this. Let’s try to understand the text in the vocabulary that it speaks to us. Instead of mapping on our foreign concepts of heaven and sky, let’s honestly seek to learn what does the text mean when it uses the word shamayim?
God is singular and plural?
The Hebrew word for God is Elohim.
Footnotes
Footnotes
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Debate? In the Bible? No way! ↩