7-Day Commentary Challenge - Genesis 1-3Sample

The Seventh Day, 2:1–3

Having completed the work of creation, God “rested” or “ceased from work.” Then He determined to set aside that seventh day as a special day for Himself. His resting became the basis for the commandment to man to observe the Sabbath (Ex. 20:8–11). “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27–28). God does not need it, for “the Creator of the ends of the earth faints not, neither is weary” (Isa. 40:28). Thus the creation week, whatever its length, became a prototype of a division of time not suggested by nature; rather it is of divine appointment. By contrast, the day, month, and year result from the dictates of nature. 

Length of Creative Days

But immediately a question arises concerning the length of the creative days. Various answers have been given.

1. Literalists down through the millennia have assumed that they were approximately twenty-four hours in length and have supported their conclusions with an appeal to an apparent twenty-four hour cycle in the passage (day and night, evening and morning). Such references as Exodus 20:11 also have been used to uphold that position. Such views are maintained even though the sun is not mentioned until the fourth day.

2. Especially as a result of geological studies and acceptance of a belief in the great age of the earth, many have espoused a day-age theory: that the days were extended periods of time. It is argued that even in the Genesis narrative “day” may be variously construed: (a) daylight as opposed to night (1:5, 14–16), (b) a solar day of twenty-four hours (1:14), (c) or the entire six-day creative period (2:4).

3. Literal days with gaps. This theory preserves the creation days as twenty-four hour periods but holds that the days need not be stacked one against the other. Between the creative intervention of God extended periods of time may have elapsed.

4. The Revelatory Day theory, or Days of Dramatic Vision, holds that God over a period of six days revealed His creative work in a series of visions; the account is not a record of what He performed in six days. Few have espoused this position. What appears in Genesis 1 is not in the language of vision but historical narration.

Historicity of the Creation Account

Evolutionary and humanistic influences have encouraged a tendency to view the early chapters of Genesis as allegorical and poetic. That approach especially has been taken toward chapter 1. But it should be noted that the poetic parallelism of Hebrew poetry is missing from chapter 1 (except for vv. 26–27), and the rest of the early part of Genesis for that matter. And Genesis 2:4a connects the first verses of the book with the later genealogical orientation and presupposes the contents of chapter 1. As the reader proceeds through the early chapters of Genesis, he does not sense a change of pace or literary structure that would give any hint that he was passing from allegory or poetry or myth to history. Moreover, the New Testament treats the creation as a historical process. Paul taught that God created the world (Acts 17:24) and that man was made in the image of God (1 Cor. 11:7); Hebrews attributed creation to the “word of God” (Heb. 11:3).

The Creation Week

The creation narrative is brief and concise. No doubt much more happened on each creative day than is reported in Scripture; evidently in each case only the major categories of activity are reported. Thus, the fact that plant life appeared especially on the third day is no clear-cut evidence that some new forms of plant life did not appear on the fourth or a later day, or that some primitive forms of life such as algae did not appear on the second day. That is an important point to keep in mind when seeking to equate the creative days of Genesis with geologic ages or geologic information. There is remarkable general agreement between the two as currently understood. That agreement may increase with new discoveries and modifications of geologic scholarship. At least there is no scientific evidence that proves the general order of creative events in Genesis to be in error.