The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 92

lhoro is oYory reason to believe thn.t li~ht, festly, though revolving on its axis, the carlh l1ont, nnd electiicily nre only modifications woulcl not experience the vicissitude of cby of the snmo force, we mny be wnrrnnted in and night, which some conjecture was not at embrncing nil the three in its significance, this time established; if the latter, then tl,o Ver. 4.-And God eaw the li!fht, that it same succession of light and rlarkness woul,l wns good. The nnthropomorph1sm of this bo begun as was a fterwarcls rcrnlcrccl per- verso is suggestive, ns tencl1ing that from the manent by the fonl'th day's 1<ork. The chief first the nbsolute and 1111-sufficicnt Elohim rcnrnns for the lnttcl' alternative nre the sup- wns nn intelligent Spectator of the operation posed neces~i ty of understanding the term of Ida own laws nnd forces, and was pro- day as a pc11od of twenty-four homs, and the foundly interested in the results which they apparent impossibility of explaining how tho nchieved-nn nmount nnd degree of inter- light could be divided from the darkness ference with the vast machine of natnre othel"Wisc than by the diu:-ual revolution of which would satisfy any rational theist of to- the earth. The Hiphil of ';,:qi, however, <lo.y. God saw, i. e. examined nnd judged means to disjoin what wns previously mixc,i, the newly-finished product, investigated its nature ancl its properties, contemplated its nnd may simply rcfo1· to the separation ol' the uses, admired its excellences, noted its cor- luminous pnrticlcs from the opaque mass. respondence with l1is own Divine idea; nncl lly that very act the light was divided from in all these respects he pronouncccl it good. the darkness. It was henceforth to be no Afterwards it is the particular arrangement more commingled. "The light denotes all effected, or condition induced, by the crea- that is simply illuminating in it.'I efficacy, tive worcl that evokes the Divine commencla- all the luminons element: the darkness tion; here it is the creature itself-" per- clenotcs all that is untrausparent, dark, haps ns the one object in nature which shadow-casting; both together denote the forms the fittest representation of the Creator polarity of the created world as it exists himself, who is Light, nnd in whom is no between the light-formations ancl the night- darkness at all (I John i. 6), and of the trne formations-the constitution of the clay anJ Light, which lighteth every man (John i. night" (Lange). 9)" (Macdonald). And God divided between Ver. 5.-And God called (literally, calle,l the light and the darkness. The celestial to) the light Day, and (literally, to) the bodies not having been constituted "light- darkness he called Night. "None but holclers" for the earth until the fourth day superficial thinkers,'' says Delitzsch, "can forbids the supposition that the luminous take offence at the i<lea of c~eated things matter, on being eliminated from the chaotic receiving names from God. The name of a mass, was forthwith tmnsportecl·towards ancl thing is the expression of its natnre. If the concentrated in the sun. The sun itself, it name be given by m,m, it fixes in a word the is now well known, is "a solid mass of impression which it makes upon the human highly igneous matter engirt by a becl of mind; but, when given by God, it expresses dense cloucls, on the top of which there lies, the reality, what the thing is in God's cres.- encircling all, n floatin"' phosphorescent or t.ion, nnd the place assigned it there by the luminous atmosphere, U1e lower part of it side of other things." The things name,\ splendicl, but the upper of lustre altogether were the light and the darkness ; not the dazzling, from which streams the floocl of clurntions, but the phenomena. The names light that enlivens all sunouncling spheres" called were clay, yom, nnd night, layela, (Nichol's' Cyclopedia,' nrt. Sun). "If, there- which, again, wero not time-measures, but fore, with Laplace, we may nssume that the character-clescriptions. .Ainsworth suggests physical history of the sun was the archetype that yom was intencled to express " the of that of the various planetary bodies thnt tumult, stir, and business of the day," in all compose our system, we must think of them probability connecting it with yam, which also, in the process of conclel:lsation, develop- ,\epicts the foaming or the boiling of the sea ; ing luminous atmospheres, which would con- an,! that layela, in which he seems to deted tinue encircling them, nncl in fact making the Latin 1il1ilai·e, is indicative of "the them suns, until, through their further con- yelling or the howliug of wild beast'! nt clcnsntion, those phosphorescent bands were night." Gescuius cltrives the former from the bmken up, o.nd, becoming disengaged from uunseJ. root yom, which signifies to glow with their parent globes, were attrnctccl towards, heat, while the latter he associates wilh lul, nm! subsequently centralised in, the ph(lto- nlso unused, to roll up, the iJc~ beiug that the sphere of the sun. So for os our earth is con- night wraps nil things in obscurity. l\Iae- cerned, that happened on the fomth 1lay. On clouald sees in tho naming of the creatures an the first clay the light would either n1sphero expression of soverei~nty and lol'llship, as it in n raclinnl cloud, or exist apart from it, when Adam namccl tne beasts of th~ !id.I. like II sun, though always in the plnne of its And the evening and the morning were the orbit" (Dclitzsch). If the former, then mnni- tl!'st day. Litcmlly, .1ncl evrniwJ was. ancl 12 1•1m TlOOl\ o:F GENf<'.RlS. (, n. I. 3-6.