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Day four. With this day begins the second half of the creative week, whose works have a striking correspondence with the labors of the first. Having perfected the main structural arrangements of the globe by the elimination from primeval chaos of the four fundamental elements of light, air, water, and land, the formative energy of the Divine word reverts to its initial point of departure, and, in a second series of operations, carries each of these forward to completion—the light by permanently settling it in the sun, the air and water by filling therewith fowl and fish, and the land by making animals and man. The first of these engaged the Divine Artificer's attention on the fourth creative day. And God said, Let there be lights (literally, places where light is, light-holders, Psa_64:1-10 :16; φωστῆρες , LXX.; luminaria, Vulgate; spoken of lamps and candlesticks, Exo_25:6 : Num_4:9, Num_4:16) in the firmament (literally the expanse) of the heaven. éÄäÄé in the singular with îÀàÉøÉú in the plural is explained by Gesenius on the ground that the predicate precedes the subject (vid. 'Gram.,' §147). The scientific accuracy of the language here used to describe the celestial luminaries relieves the Mosaic cosmogony of at least one supposed irreconcilable contradiction, that of representing light as having an existence independent of the sun. Equally does it dispense exegesis from the necessity of accounting for what appears a threefold creation of the heavenly bodies—in the beginning (Gen_1:1), on the first day (Gen_1:3), and again on the fourth (Gen_1:14). The reference in the last of these verses is not to the original creation of the matter of the supra mundane spheres (Gerlach), which was performed in the beginning, nor to the first production of light, which was the specific work of day one; but to the permanent appointment of the former to be the place, or center of radiation, for the latter. The purpose for which this arrangement was designed, so far, at least, as the earth was concerned, was threefold:—
1. To divide the day from the night. Literally, between the day and the night; or, as in Gen_1:18, to divide the light from the darkness to continue and render permanent the separation and distinction which was effected on the first day.
2. And let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years. The celestial lights were to serve—
(1) For signs. Othoth, from oth, anything engraved, hence a mark (Gen_4:15; 2Ki_20:8), is employed to designate a portent, or sign of wanting or instruction (Psa_61:8; Isa_8:18; Isa_20:1-6. g; LXX; σημεῖον ; cf. Luk_21:25; Acts if. 19), and here probably refers to the subsequent employment of the heavenly bodies "as marks or signs of important changes and occurrences in the kingdom of Providence" (Macdonald). "That they may have been designed also to subserve important purposes in the -various economy of human life, as in affording signs to the mariner and husbandman, is not improbable, though this is not so strictly the import of the original" (Bush). Still less, of course, does the word refer to mediaeval astrology or to modern meteorology.
(2) For seasons. Moradhim, set times, from ya'ad, to indicate, define, fix, is used of yearly returning periods (Gen_17:21; Gen_18:14)—the time of the migration of birds (Jer_8:7), the time of festivals (Psa_104:19; Zec_8:19).
(3) For days and years, i.e. for the calculation of time. Luther, Calvin, Mercer, Piscator, Delitzsch, Murphy, Macdonald, et alii regard the three phrases as co-ordinate; Rosenmüller, Gesenius, Do Wette, Baumgarten take the first two as a hendiadys for "signs of the seasons;" Kalisch considers the second to be in opposition to the first; Tuch translates, "for signs, as well for the times as also for the days and years." The first, which accords with the English version, is the simplest, and, most probably, the correct interpretation.
3. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. Not to introduce light for the first time to this lower world, but to serve as a new and permanent arrangement for the distribution of the light already called into existence. And it was so. Like every other command which Elohim issued, this was in due time followed by complete realization.
Gen_1:16
And God made two great lights. Perhaps no part of the material universe more irresistibly demands a supreme Intelligence as its only proper origin and cause. "Elegantissima haecce solis, planetarum et cometarum compages non nisi consilio et domino entis intelligentis et potentis oriri potuit". The greater light to rule (literally, to make like; hence to judge; then to rule. Mashal; cf. âáóéëåõ ì ù —Gesenius) the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. The greater light is obviously the sun, which is sometimes denominated chammah, "the warm" (Psa_19:7; Isa_30:26); sometimes there, "the glistering" (Job_9:7); but usually shemesh, "the minister (Deu_4:19; Deu_33:14). Here it is described by its bulk or magnitude, which is larger than that of the moon, the second of the two luminaries, which is also spoken of as great relatively to the stars, which, though in reality immensely exceeding it in size, yet appear like little bails of light (kokhavim) bestudding the blue canopy of night, and are so depicted—the Biblical narrative being geocentric and phenomenal, not heliocentric or scientific. How the work of this day was effected does not fall within the writer's scope to declare, the precise object of revelation being to teach not astronomy, or any other merely human gnosis, but religion. Accepting, however, the guidance of physical astronomy, we may imagine that the cosmical light of day one, which had up to this point continued either encompassing our globe like a luminous atmosphere, or existing at a distance from it, but in the plane of the earth's orbit, was now, if in the first of these positions, gradually broken up, doubtless through the shrinking of the earth's mass and the consequent lessening of its power Of attraction, and slowly drawn off towards, and finally concentrated, as a photosphere round the sun, which was thereby constituted chief luminary or "light-holder" the system, the moon and planets becoming, as a necessary consequence, "light-holders" in the secondary sense of "light-reflectors." It is interesting to note that some such explanation as this appears to have suggested itself to Willet, who wrote before the birth of Newton, and at a time when solar physics and spectrum analysis were things of the remote future. It m not unlike, says he, "but that this light (of the first day), after the creation of the celestial bodies, might be drawn upward and have his reflection upon the beame of the sunne and of other starres" And again, "Whereas the light created the first day is called or, but the starres (meaning the heavenly bodies) are called meoroth, as of the light, hence it may appear that these lightsome (i.e. luminous) bodies were made the receptacles of that light thou created, which was now increased and united to these lights"; an explanation which, though certainly hypothetical, must be regarded as much more in accordance with the requirements of the sacred text than that which discovers in the making of the lights only a further dissipation of terrestrial mists so as to admit not the light-bringing beams of the celestial bodies alone, but the forms of those shining orbs themselves ('Speaker's Commentary'). He made the stars also. Though the stars are introduced solely because of their relation to the earth as dispensers of light, and no account is taken of their constitution as suns and planets, it is admissible to entertain the opinion that, in their case, as in that of the chief luminary of our tellurian heavens, the process of "sun" making reached its culmination on the fourth day. Perhaps the chief reason for their parenthetical introduction in this place was to guard against the notion that there were any luminaries which were not the work of Elohim, and in particular to prevent the Hebrews, for whom the work was written, from yielding to the heathen practices of star-gazing and star-worship. "The superstition of reading the destiny of man in the stars never took root among the Israelites; astrology is excluded by the first principle of Mosaism—the belief in one all-ruling God, who is subject to no necessity, no fate, no other will. Jeremiah warns the Hebrews not to be afraid of the 'signs of heaven,' before which the heathen tremble in vain terror (Jer_10:2); and Isaiah speaks with taunting irony against the astrologers, star-gazers, and monthly prognosticators, in whose counsel it is folly and wickedness to rely (Isa_47:13). But the Israelites had not moral strength enough to resist the example of star-worship in general; they could not keep aloof from an aberration which formed the very focus of the principal Eastern religions; they yielded to that tempting influence, and ignominious incense rose profusely in honor of the sun and the hosts of heaven—Jer_19:13; Eze_8:16; Zep_1:5; Wis. 13:2" (Kalisch).
Gen_1:17, Gen_1:18
And God set (literally, gave) them (i.e. sun, moon, and stars) in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and ever the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. An intimation that on this day the astronomical arrangements for the illumination of the globe and the measurement of time were permanently settled. And God saw that it was good. Laplace was inclined to question the Divine verdict with regard at least to the moon, which he thought might have been so placed as to be always full, whereas, at its present distance from the earth, we are sometimes deprived of both its light and the sun's together. But not to dwell upon the fact that to remove the moon four times its present distance from the earth, which it would require to be in order to be always full, would necessitate important changes in the other members of the solar system which might not be for the earth's advantage, the immediate effect of such a disposition of the lunar orb would be to give us a moon of only one sixteenth the size of that which now dispenses its silver beams upon our darkened globe (Job_11:12).
Gen_1:19
And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. The Scripture references to this day's work are both numerous and instructive. The Hebrew writers supply no information as to the astronomical theories which were prevalent in their time; yet "from other sources we have facts leading to the belief that even in the time of Moses there was not a little practical astronomy in the East, and some good theory. The Chaldeans at a very early period had ascertained the principal circles of the sphere, the position of the poles, and the nature of the apparent motions of the heavens as the results of revolution on an inclined axis. The Egyptian astronomers, whom we know through Thales, 640 B.C; taught the true nature of the moon's light, the sphericity of the earth, and the position of its five zones. Pythagoras, 580 B.C; knew, in addition, the obliquity of the ecliptic, the identity of the evening and morning star, and the earth's revolution round the sun". Modern astronomy, though possessed of highly probable theories as to the formation of the universe, is still unable to speak with absolute precision with regard to this fourth day's work. Yet them are not wanting indirect corroborations of the truth of the Mosaic narrative from both it and geology. According to the sacred writer, the presently existing atmosphere, the distribution of land and water, the succession of day and night, and the regular alternation of the seasons, were established prior to the introduction of animal life upon the earth; and Sir Charles Lyell has demonstrated nothing more successfully than the dominion of "existing causes" from the Eozoic era downwards, and the sufficiency of these causes to account for all the changes which have taken place in the earth's crust. Again, geology attests the prevalence on our globe in prehistoric times of a much more uniform and high temperature than it now possesses, so late as the Miocene era a genial tropical climate having extended up beyond the Arctic circle, and in the earliest eras of the history of the globe, in all probability, the entire sphere bring so favored with excessive heat. Different causes have been suggested for this phenomenon; as, e.g; the greater heat of the cooling globe (the earliest geologists), a different distribution of land and water (Lyell), variations in the eccentricity of the earth's orbit (Herschell and. Croll), changes in the earth's axis (Evans, Drayson, Bell), and the greater intensity of the sun's heat; Sir W Thomson, 'Trans. Geolog. Soc.,' Glasgow, 1877). The Biblical narrative, by distinctly teaching that the sun was perfected on the fourth day, renders it intelligible that his influence on the surface of the earth was then at its greatest, causing tropical climates to prevail and tropical vegetation to abound, both of which have gradually disappeared from the polar regions in consequence of the sun's diminished heat. It remains only to note that the Chaldean Genesis preserves a striking reminiscence of this day's work; the obverse of the fifth creation tablet reading—
1. It was delightful, all that was fixed by the great gods,
2. Stars, their appearance (in figures) of animals he arranged.
3. To fix the year through the observation of their constellations.
4. Twelve months (or signs) of stars in three rows he arranged.
5. From the day when the year commences unto the close.
6. He marked the positions of the wandering stars (planets) to shine in their courses.
12. The god Uru (the moon) he caused to rise out, the night he overshadowed,
13. To fix it also for the light of the night, until the shining of the day.
19. When the god Shamas (the sun) in the horizon of heaven in the east.
20. formed beautifully and
21. to the orbit Shamas was perfected. "It appears that the Chaldean record con talus the review and expression of satisfaction at the head of each tablet, while the Hebrew has it at the close of each act".
The celestial luminaries.
I. Display the DIVINE WISDOM. "The heavens declare the glory of God" (Psa_19:1). M. Comte believed they declared no other glory than that of Hipparchus, Kepler, Newton, and their successors. Newton agreed with the Hebrew poet (vid. Expos. on Gen_1:16). The astronomical argument in behalf of theism has always been impressive, if not absolutely conclusive. Certainly, granting the Divine existence, nowhere does God's glory shine out more conspicuously; and perhaps the attribute which most imperiously arrests attention is that of wisdom. This would seem to be the aspect of the Divine glory which a contemplation of the midnight heavens discovered to the writer of Psa_104:1-35. (vid. Psa_104:24, which is introduced after a poetic version of the fourth day's work) and of Psa_136:1-26. (vid. Psa_136:7 in the same connection; cf. Pro_3:19; Pro_8:27; Jer_51:15). Many things about the orbs of heaven evince their Creator's wisdom: these specially—
1. Their formation, as explained by the highly credible teachings of physical astronomy.
2. Their varieties—consisting of sun, moon, planets, comets, nebulas.
3. Their motions: in elliptical and parabolic orbits.
4. Their dispositions: the suns, moons, and planets in systems; the stars in constellations, clusters, galaxies.
II. Attest the DIVINE GOODNESS. Displayed chiefly by the threefold purpose the celestial orbs were designed to serve:—
1. To give light upon the earth. Even the stars could scarcely be dispensed with without a sense of loss. Feeble as their light is, owing to their immense distance from the earth, they are yet invaluable to voyagers and travelers (Act_27:20). Still less could the moon's light, so pale and silvery in its whiteness, be spared. The night without its chaste beams would be shrouded in thick gloom, while with them an air of cheerfulness is imparted to the darkened earth. And, of course, least of all could the sun be wanted.
2. To distinguish day and night. The beneficence of this arrangement appears by reflecting on the inconvenience of either of the other two alternatives, perpetual day and perpetual night. The disadvantages of the latter have been indicated; those of the former are scarcely less numerous. The alternation of darkness—
(1) Introduces variety in nature, which is always pleasing. Continuous day would be in danger of becoming monotonous, at least in this mundane world, if not in the celestial (Isa_60:20; Rev_22:5).
(2) Meets the necessities of creature life, by supplying constantly-recurring periods of repose, which are eminently beneficial for the growth of plants, animals, and man. "Vegetable sleep is that relaxation of the vital processes which is indicated by the folding together and drooping of the leaves as night approaches". The animal tribes generally, with the exception of the wild beasts (Psa_104:20), seek repose with the shades of evening. And man, without the recuperative slumber which darkness brings, would speedily exhaust his energies.
(3) Solemnizes the mind of man, by suggesting thoughts of his frailty, of his end in the sleep of death, but also of his resurrection to the light of a better morning.
3. To mark times and seasons. That the different seasons of the year are somehow connected with the celestial bodies is perhaps all that the Mosaic narrative can be made to teach. But we know them to be dependent on the earth's revolution round the sun. And the fact that God has so arranged the earth's relation to the sun as to produce these seasons is a signal proof of the Divine goodness. Another is that God has so fixed and determined their movements as to enable man to measure time by their means. Without the help of sun, moon, and stars chronology would be impossible.
III. Proclaim the DIVINE POWER. More than any other science, astronomy enables us to realize the physical omnipotence of the Deity. Imagination becomes bewildered by the effort to represent the quantity of force required to propel a globe like our earth through the depths of splice at the immense velocity of 65,000 miles an hour. What, then, must be the strength of that arm which, in addition, hurls Jupiter, equal in weight to 1400 earths, along his orbit with a velocity of 29,000 miles an hour? And not Jupiter alone, but suns immensely greater, at rates of motion that transcend conception. Well said Job (Gen_26:14). Yet, perhaps, the Divine power is as much evinced by the perpetuation of these celestial masses and movements as by their first production. Not only has God made the sidereal firmament, with its stupendous globes and amazing velocities, but he has so established them that since the beginning they have kept on their mystic paths without rebellion and without confusion (Psa_147:5).
IV. Reflect the DIVINE BEAUTY. Perhaps glory is the better word. The counterpart of glory in the Creator is beauty in the creature. The celestial luminaries were approved as good, doubtless, for their uses, but likewise for themselves, as being of incomparable splendor. "God hath made everything beautiful in his time" (Ecc_3:11). Nothing that God does make can be otherwise than beautiful; and by their splendor, their order, their unity, they seem to mirror forth the majesty, and purity, and oneness of him to whom they owe their being.
The fourth day.
Notice—
I. GOD PREPARES HEAVEN AND EARTH FOR MAN. Light needed for the vegetable world. But when the higher life is introduced, then there is an order which implies intelligence and active rational existence. The signs are for those that can observe the signs. The seasons, days, and years for the being who consciously divides his life.
II. THE LUMINARIES ARE SAID TO RULE THE DAY AND NIGHT. The concentration of light is the appointed method of its diffusion, and adaptation to the purposes of man's existence. So in the moral world and in the spiritual world. There must be rule, system, diversities of gifts, diversities of operations. Distinctions of glory—of the sun, moon, stars. As the light, so is the rule. Those possessed of much power to enlighten others ought to be rulers by their Divinely-appointed place and work. But all the light which flows from heavenly bodies has first been communicated to them. We give out to others what we receive.
III. This setting out of time reminds us that THE EARTHLY EXISTENCE IS NOT SUPREME, but ruled over until it is itself lifted up into the higher state where day and night and diurnal changes are no more. The life of man is governed here largely by the order of the material universe. But as he grows into the true child of God he rises to a dominion over sun, moon, and stars.
1. Intellectual. By becoming master of many of the secrets of nature.
2. Moral. The consciousness of fellowship with God is a sense of moral superiority to material things. The sanctified will and affections have a sphere of rule wider than the physical universe, outlasting the perishable earth and sky.
3. Spiritual. Man is earthly first, and then heavenly. Human nature is developed under the rule of sun, moon, and stars. In the world where there shall be no more night the consciousness of man will be that of a spirit, not unwitting of the material, but ruling it with angelic freedom and power.—R.