Day Begins At Dawn Not Sunset or Midnight
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As seen from Gen 1:4-5, Gen 1:14. Gen 1:16, Gen 1:17-18 & John 11:9-10;
Hebrew days and nights are distinctly separate. The Hebrew day begins with
sunrise, and the Hebrew night begins with sundown.
Beware conflating civil days with actual days. The two kinds of day are
spelled the same but do not represent the same amount of time. Civil days
are typically 24 hours, whereas actual days are substantially less because
they're regulated by sunshine.
_
As seen from Gen 1:4-5, Gen 1:14. Gen 1:16, Gen 1:17-18 & John 11:9-10;
Hebrew days and nights are distinctly separate. The Hebrew day begins with
sunrise, and the Hebrew night begins with sundown.
Beware conflating civil days with actual days. The two kinds of day are
spelled the same but do not represent the same amount of time. Civil days
are typically 24 hours, whereas actual days are substantially less because
they're regulated by sunshine.
_
Four very different commentators (below) say the same thing. We could add many other commentators. The Hebrew day went from sunset to sunset (as noted earlier from the Jewish Encyclopedia), and according to Lange, even the Arabians, Athenians, Germans, and Gauls, used the same mode of reckoning.
So for someone to come along now and claim that the Babylonish reckoning is in the Bible is not only false, but designed to create controversy for no good reason. That's called stirring the pot.
GILL'S COMMENTARY
and the evening and the morning were the first day: the evening, the first part of the night, or darkness, put for the whole night, which might be about the space of twelve hours; and the morning, which was the first part of the day, or light, put also for the whole, which made the same space, and both together one natural day, consisting of twenty four hours; what Daniel calls an "evening morning", Daniel 8:26 and the apostle a "night day", 2 Corinthians 11:25.
JAMIESON, FAUSSET, & BROWN'S COMMENTARY
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
5. first day—a natural day, as the mention of its two parts clearly determines; and Moses reckons, according to Oriental usage, from sunset to sunset, saying not day and night as we do, but evening and morning.
LANGE'S COMMENTARY
Evening and morning denote rather the interval of a creative day, and this is evidently after the Hebrew mode of reckoning; the day is reckoned from sunset. The morning that follows stands for the second half of the day proper. In the same manner was the day reckoned by the Arabians, the Athenians (νυχθήμιρον), the Germans, and the Gauls. It is against the text for Delitzsch to put as the ground here the Babylonish reckoning of the day, namely from the dawning of the morning.
CALVIN'S COMMNETARY
What Moses says however, admits a double interpretation; either that this was the evening and morning belonging to the first day, or that the first day consisted of the evening and the morning. Whichever interpretation be chosen, it makes no difference in the sense, for he simply understands the day to have been made up of two parts. Further, he begins the day, according to the custom of his nation, with the evening. It is to no purpose to dispute whether this be the best and the legitimate order or not.
So for someone to come along now and claim that the Babylonish reckoning is in the Bible is not only false, but designed to create controversy for no good reason. That's called stirring the pot.
GILL'S COMMENTARY
and the evening and the morning were the first day: the evening, the first part of the night, or darkness, put for the whole night, which might be about the space of twelve hours; and the morning, which was the first part of the day, or light, put also for the whole, which made the same space, and both together one natural day, consisting of twenty four hours; what Daniel calls an "evening morning", Daniel 8:26 and the apostle a "night day", 2 Corinthians 11:25.
JAMIESON, FAUSSET, & BROWN'S COMMENTARY
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
5. first day—a natural day, as the mention of its two parts clearly determines; and Moses reckons, according to Oriental usage, from sunset to sunset, saying not day and night as we do, but evening and morning.
LANGE'S COMMENTARY
Evening and morning denote rather the interval of a creative day, and this is evidently after the Hebrew mode of reckoning; the day is reckoned from sunset. The morning that follows stands for the second half of the day proper. In the same manner was the day reckoned by the Arabians, the Athenians (νυχθήμιρον), the Germans, and the Gauls. It is against the text for Delitzsch to put as the ground here the Babylonish reckoning of the day, namely from the dawning of the morning.
CALVIN'S COMMNETARY
What Moses says however, admits a double interpretation; either that this was the evening and morning belonging to the first day, or that the first day consisted of the evening and the morning. Whichever interpretation be chosen, it makes no difference in the sense, for he simply understands the day to have been made up of two parts. Further, he begins the day, according to the custom of his nation, with the evening. It is to no purpose to dispute whether this be the best and the legitimate order or not.
.
FAQ: Why bother defining the boundaries of Day and Night?
A: It's necessary that we nail down both their physical and their official
characteristics because Jewish holy days begin and end at sundown;
resulting in a 24-hour calendar day that too many people have allowed to
blur the distinction between day and night.
Here's another "blur" that pops up now and then.
• Gen 1:5 . . And the evening and the morning were the first day.
Creation's days are very controversial and a special area of study all to
themselves. For example: chronologically evening and morning define
overnight which suggests that God did all of His creative work in the dark. In
order for creation's days to represent a full 24 hours they would have to run
evening to evening instead of evening to morning. (This can be explained,
and I'll get to it; but not in this post.)
I highly recommend analyzing creation's days apart from actual days and
civil days in order to avoid confusion, especially when the preponderance of
evidence testifies that day is a time of light, and night is a time of darkness;
viz: actual days are when the sun is up, and actual nights are when the sun
is down; whereas civil days begin and end in accord with statutes.
The final authority on matters related to day and night is the Lord himself;
whom John 1:1 and John 1:14 testify is the voice of God in human form so
we really ought to listen to him.
When he was here, days in Israel were, at the most, only 12 hours.
• John 11:9-10 . . Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in
the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if
anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.
This world's light is of course the sun as per Gen 1:14-18. So then, when
Jesus was here; day was when the sun is up and night was when the sun is
down; meaning of course that the three days and three nights of Matt 12:40
indicate three times when the sun was up, and three times when the sun
was down; i.e. relative to Christ's crucifixion and resurrection: days began
with sunrise and nights began with sundown.
FYI: Days divided into twelve equal periods of sunlight were regulated by
what's known as temporal hours; which vary in length in accordance with
the time of year. There are times of the year at Jerusalem's latitude when
this world's light consists of less than 12 normal hours of sun, and
sometimes more; but when Jesus was here; the official number of hours was
always twelve regardless.
I don't exactly know why the Jews of that era divided their days into twelve
equal periods of sunlight regardless of the seasons, but I suspect it was just
a convenient way to operate government, commerce, and religion,
especially the routine morning and evening Temple sacrifices required by
Num 28:3-4.
_
FAQ: Why bother defining the boundaries of Day and Night?
A: It's necessary that we nail down both their physical and their official
characteristics because Jewish holy days begin and end at sundown;
resulting in a 24-hour calendar day that too many people have allowed to
blur the distinction between day and night.
Here's another "blur" that pops up now and then.
• Gen 1:5 . . And the evening and the morning were the first day.
Creation's days are very controversial and a special area of study all to
themselves. For example: chronologically evening and morning define
overnight which suggests that God did all of His creative work in the dark. In
order for creation's days to represent a full 24 hours they would have to run
evening to evening instead of evening to morning. (This can be explained,
and I'll get to it; but not in this post.)
I highly recommend analyzing creation's days apart from actual days and
civil days in order to avoid confusion, especially when the preponderance of
evidence testifies that day is a time of light, and night is a time of darkness;
viz: actual days are when the sun is up, and actual nights are when the sun
is down; whereas civil days begin and end in accord with statutes.
The final authority on matters related to day and night is the Lord himself;
whom John 1:1 and John 1:14 testify is the voice of God in human form so
we really ought to listen to him.
When he was here, days in Israel were, at the most, only 12 hours.
• John 11:9-10 . . Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in
the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if
anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.
This world's light is of course the sun as per Gen 1:14-18. So then, when
Jesus was here; day was when the sun is up and night was when the sun is
down; meaning of course that the three days and three nights of Matt 12:40
indicate three times when the sun was up, and three times when the sun
was down; i.e. relative to Christ's crucifixion and resurrection: days began
with sunrise and nights began with sundown.
FYI: Days divided into twelve equal periods of sunlight were regulated by
what's known as temporal hours; which vary in length in accordance with
the time of year. There are times of the year at Jerusalem's latitude when
this world's light consists of less than 12 normal hours of sun, and
sometimes more; but when Jesus was here; the official number of hours was
always twelve regardless.
I don't exactly know why the Jews of that era divided their days into twelve
equal periods of sunlight regardless of the seasons, but I suspect it was just
a convenient way to operate government, commerce, and religion,
especially the routine morning and evening Temple sacrifices required by
Num 28:3-4.
_
From where are you getting this liberal nonsense? The first thing that God did was create light. But the creative day began with darkness.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
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I would live in Alaska and have it be dark 
but who knows how I would feel about the aliens?
but who knows how I would feel about the aliens?
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From my understanding The Jewish people have kept the sabbath Holy for thousands of years and they teach that when you can see the first star the Sabbath has started, and when you can see the first 3 stars 24 hours later the sabbath ends.
"And the evening and the morning were the ..... day", for seven days.
"And the evening and the morning were the ..... day", for seven days.
“And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which veil is done away in Christ.
But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart.”
2 Corinthians 3:13-15 KJV
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.
• Gen 1:2a . . the earth being unformed and void
That statement reveals the earth's condition prior to the creation of an
energy that would make it possible for its matter to coalesce into something
coherent.
• Gen 1:2b . . and darkness was over the surface of the deep
This deep is a curiosity because 2Pet 3:5 says the earth was formed out of
water and by water. So I think it's safe to conclude that every atomic
element that God needed to construct the Earth was in suspension in this
particuar deep; viz: it was more than just H2O; it was a colossal chemical
soup, and apparently God created enough of it to put together everything
else in the cosmos too.
• Gen 1:2c . . and Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
The Hebrew word for "moving" is located in only three places in the entire
Bible. One is here, and the others are at Deut 32:11 and Jer 23:9. The
meaning is ambiguous. It can refer to brooding; i.e. a mother hen using her
wings to keep her chicks together, and it can refer to incubation and/or
quaking, shaking, and fluttering. Take your pick.
I'd guess that the Spirit's movement was sort of like the hen keeping the
colossal chemical soup from running rampant and spreading itself all over
the place before God began putting it to use because up to this point, gravity
didn't exist yet.
• Gen 1:3 . . Then God said: Let there be light; and there was light.
The thing to note is that the Earth unformed and void, and the waters, were
both already in existence before the voice of God said anything about light.
_
• Gen 1:2a . . the earth being unformed and void
That statement reveals the earth's condition prior to the creation of an
energy that would make it possible for its matter to coalesce into something
coherent.
• Gen 1:2b . . and darkness was over the surface of the deep
This deep is a curiosity because 2Pet 3:5 says the earth was formed out of
water and by water. So I think it's safe to conclude that every atomic
element that God needed to construct the Earth was in suspension in this
particuar deep; viz: it was more than just H2O; it was a colossal chemical
soup, and apparently God created enough of it to put together everything
else in the cosmos too.
• Gen 1:2c . . and Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
The Hebrew word for "moving" is located in only three places in the entire
Bible. One is here, and the others are at Deut 32:11 and Jer 23:9. The
meaning is ambiguous. It can refer to brooding; i.e. a mother hen using her
wings to keep her chicks together, and it can refer to incubation and/or
quaking, shaking, and fluttering. Take your pick.
I'd guess that the Spirit's movement was sort of like the hen keeping the
colossal chemical soup from running rampant and spreading itself all over
the place before God began putting it to use because up to this point, gravity
didn't exist yet.
• Gen 1:3 . . Then God said: Let there be light; and there was light.
The thing to note is that the Earth unformed and void, and the waters, were
both already in existence before the voice of God said anything about light.
_
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.
There are at least three different kinds of days introduced in the early
chapters of Genesis.
1» Creation days
2» Natural days
3» Epoch days
It's very important to keep those three kinds of days distinct and separate in
our thinking because they are as unalike as stones, gravel, and sand.
Epoch days are defined by events. For example Gen 2:4 where the entire
creation endeavor is described as one day.
Natural days are defined by solar motion, for example Gen 1:4-5, Gen 1:14.
Gen 1:16, and Gen 1:17-18 where a natural day is defined as when the sun
is up as opposed to down. The length of a natural day varies relative to
one's latitude and the season of the year.
Creation days are a bit of an enigma because there was no Sun to cause
physical evenings and mornings till creation's fourth day so we can safely
assume that the terms are merely index flags indicating the completion of
one of creation's six-step processes and the beginning of another; which is
okay for that but then how do we go about establishing the length of a
creation day?
Galileo believed that science and religion are allies rather than enemies--
two different languages telling the same story. He believed that science and
religion complement each other --science answers questions that religion
doesn't bother to answer, and religion answers questions that science cannot
answer.
For example: theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking understood pretty well
how the cosmos works; but could never scientifically explain why it should
exist at all. Well; in my estimation, the only possible answer to the "why" is
found in intelligent design; which is a religious explanation rather than
scientific. Religion's "why" is satisfactory for most folks. No doubt most
scientists would prefer something a bit more empirical.
Anyway: I sincerely believe that science is our go-to guy for figuring out the
length of a creation day seeing as how the Bible gives us so little to work
with.
According to Gen 1:24-31, God created humans and all terra critters on the
sixth day; which has to include dinosaurs because on no other day but the
sixth did God create beasts
However; the sciences of geology and paleontology, in combination with
radiometric dating, strongly suggest that dinosaurs preceded humans by
several million years. So then, in my estimation, creation days should be
taken to represent eras. That's not an unreasonable estimation; for
example:
"These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were
created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven." (Gen 2:4)
The Hebrew word for "day" in that verse is yowm (yome) which is the very
same word for each of the six days of God's creation labors. Since yowm in
Gen 2:4 refers to a period of time obviously much longer than a 24-hour
calendar day; it justifies suggesting that each of the six days of creation
were longer than 24 hours apiece too. In other words: yowm is ambiguous
and not all that easy to interpret sometimes.
Anyway; this "day" thing has been a stone in the shoe for just about
everybody who takes Genesis seriously. It's typically assumed that the days
of creation consisted of twenty-four hours apiece; so Bible students end up
stumped when trying to figure out how to cope with the 4.5 billion-year age
of the earth, and factor in the various natural eras, e.g. Triassic, Jurassic,
Mesozoic, Cenozoic, Cretaceous, etc, plus the ice ages and the mass extinction
events.
BTW: The era theory is only a second opinion, so to speak. There are other
theories out there to choose from; people aren't stuck with this one as if it's
the only possible explanation.
_
There are at least three different kinds of days introduced in the early
chapters of Genesis.
1» Creation days
2» Natural days
3» Epoch days
It's very important to keep those three kinds of days distinct and separate in
our thinking because they are as unalike as stones, gravel, and sand.
Epoch days are defined by events. For example Gen 2:4 where the entire
creation endeavor is described as one day.
Natural days are defined by solar motion, for example Gen 1:4-5, Gen 1:14.
Gen 1:16, and Gen 1:17-18 where a natural day is defined as when the sun
is up as opposed to down. The length of a natural day varies relative to
one's latitude and the season of the year.
Creation days are a bit of an enigma because there was no Sun to cause
physical evenings and mornings till creation's fourth day so we can safely
assume that the terms are merely index flags indicating the completion of
one of creation's six-step processes and the beginning of another; which is
okay for that but then how do we go about establishing the length of a
creation day?
Galileo believed that science and religion are allies rather than enemies--
two different languages telling the same story. He believed that science and
religion complement each other --science answers questions that religion
doesn't bother to answer, and religion answers questions that science cannot
answer.
For example: theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking understood pretty well
how the cosmos works; but could never scientifically explain why it should
exist at all. Well; in my estimation, the only possible answer to the "why" is
found in intelligent design; which is a religious explanation rather than
scientific. Religion's "why" is satisfactory for most folks. No doubt most
scientists would prefer something a bit more empirical.
Anyway: I sincerely believe that science is our go-to guy for figuring out the
length of a creation day seeing as how the Bible gives us so little to work
with.
According to Gen 1:24-31, God created humans and all terra critters on the
sixth day; which has to include dinosaurs because on no other day but the
sixth did God create beasts
However; the sciences of geology and paleontology, in combination with
radiometric dating, strongly suggest that dinosaurs preceded humans by
several million years. So then, in my estimation, creation days should be
taken to represent eras. That's not an unreasonable estimation; for
example:
"These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were
created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven." (Gen 2:4)
The Hebrew word for "day" in that verse is yowm (yome) which is the very
same word for each of the six days of God's creation labors. Since yowm in
Gen 2:4 refers to a period of time obviously much longer than a 24-hour
calendar day; it justifies suggesting that each of the six days of creation
were longer than 24 hours apiece too. In other words: yowm is ambiguous
and not all that easy to interpret sometimes.
Anyway; this "day" thing has been a stone in the shoe for just about
everybody who takes Genesis seriously. It's typically assumed that the days
of creation consisted of twenty-four hours apiece; so Bible students end up
stumped when trying to figure out how to cope with the 4.5 billion-year age
of the earth, and factor in the various natural eras, e.g. Triassic, Jurassic,
Mesozoic, Cenozoic, Cretaceous, etc, plus the ice ages and the mass extinction
events.
BTW: The era theory is only a second opinion, so to speak. There are other
theories out there to choose from; people aren't stuck with this one as if it's
the only possible explanation.
_
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1
- Show all