“And God said …” (Genesis 1:1-13)

We talked about how hearing Genesis 1 well means listening to what the ancient Hebrew words meant in their culture. Let’s apply that approach.

Genesis 1:1-5 (NIV)
¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
³ And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

This chapter (like the rest of Scripture) is a revelation of God. In the beginning, God … (verse 1). And God said … (verse 3). The revelation of God is framed in words that meant something to the Hebrews, so we’ll need to understand what they meant by terms like heavens (sky), earth (land), deep (seas), and firmament (vault between the heavens and the earth).

They did not see the earth as a planet orbiting the sun at 30 km/sec. They did not see the sun as a star orbiting the Milky Way galaxy. They did not see the moon as a satellite orbiting the earth. Their perception of the world was something like this:

The world as they saw it consists of the sky and the ground — the heavens and the earth (verse 1). Things that were not limited to the ground were in the heavens. They spoke of the birds of the heavens (Genesis 1:20, 26, 28, 30 ESV) and the stars of the heavens (Genesis 15:5; 22:17; 26:4) because birds and stars pass overhead. They spoke of the God of heaven because God is not limited to living on the ground (Genesis 22:17; 24:3, 7; 28:12, 17).

In addition to the sky and the ground, there was the deep—the waters below us (verse 2). We know the oceans plunge to 11,000 meters, but to them the deep felt threatening and unfathomable (Genesis 7:11; 9:2; Exodus 15:5, 8), like the realm of the dead (Ezekiel 31:15). The deep had a dark face (darkness was over the face of the deep), yet it was not outside God’s control: The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters (verse 2 ESV).

God is sovereign over everything: in the heavens, on the earth, and in the deep. The opening claim of the Jewish Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy) is that creation receives its shape and significance through God’s decrees. And God said — that’s the main point of Genesis 1 (repeated in verses 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 28, and 29).

God’s decrees put everything in their right place:

Genesis 1:6-8 (NIV)
⁶ And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” ⁷ So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. ⁸ God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

Ask a teenager to sort out their room, and they probably start by separating things—like clean clothes from dirty ones. God’s decrees separate things that should be kept separated: the light from the dark (verse 4), the waters above from the waters below (verses 6-7), the day from the night (verse 15), and the light from the dark (verse 18). The Torah continues to separate what is holy from what is unholy, what is common from what is clean. This is central to Israel’s identity:

Leviticus 20:24b-26 (ESV)
²⁴ “I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples. ²⁵ You shall therefore separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the unclean bird from the clean. You shall not make yourselves detestable by … anything … which I have set apart for you to hold unclean. ²⁶ You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.”

This separation results in everything being in its right place:

Genesis 1:9-10 (NIV)
⁹ And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

What God called Day and Night do not encroach on each other (verses 5, 14). The waters in the sky and the waters in the deep are held apart (verses 7-8), so what God called the Seas and the Land do not encroach on each other (verse 9-10). That’s how it remains while the creational order holds. But if the earth was “corrupted” … well, that’s another story (Genesis 6:11-17; 7:10-11).

With everything prepared, God gives life:

Genesis 1:11-13 (NIV)
¹¹ Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. ¹² The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. ¹³ And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

God’s decree enables life on earth. Three times we’re told that God decreed fruitfulness (verses 11-12, 22, 28-29). Every meaningful enterprise on earth — every farm, every business, every family, every nation — ultimately relies on this decree.

As we’ll discover, resisting the order established by God introduces disorder. The earth produces thorns and thistles, and life falls back into the ground (3:17-19). God’s nation will be born because God made Abraham and Sarah fruitful (17:6, 20; 18:10-14; 21:1-7). God-given fruitfulness is crucial to the story (9:7; 28:3; 35:11; 47:27; 48:4; 49:3).

God gives life! That message echoes through the whole Bible.

Related posts

• How to approach Genesis 1
• Who is God? (Gen 1:1-19)