How 1:2-31 is put together

1:2-31 - the account of the Six Days of Divine Work - is a carefully crafted piece of narrative, and is composed of two basic sections:

The first section - consisting of the three short sentences in v2 - sets out the disorganized chaotic state of things the earth was in at some point in the establishment of the cosmos.

The second section consists of the six days of divine work that brings the mess of the earth into an organized "paradise" that God could declare to be "very good" at the end of it (v31). These six days, however, are set out in two panels of three days each, with the creative work of God on each day of one panel (Days 1-3) filled in and completed by the divine acts of the corresponding days of the other panel (Days 4-6):

Day 1 Commanding Light into existence & Separation of Light from Darkness, and Day from Night, vv3-5.		Day 4 Commanding Lights (sun, moon, and stars) into the heaven to Separate Day from Night and to rule them, vv14-19.
Day 2 Separation of Waters under (sea) from the Waters above (Sky), vv6-8.		Day 5 Commanding the Creatures of the Sea and the Creatures of the Sky into existence, vv20-23.
Day 3 Separation of Dry Land from the sea, vv9-10.		Day 6 Commanding into existence the Land-Dwelling Creatures and the Making of Human in God's image, vv24-28.
Commanding of Vegetation to grow upon the Land, vv11-13.		Provision of Vegetation as food for all the Land-Dwelling creatures, vv29-31.

Download Power-Point

The goodness and wholeness of what God had done in the six days contrast sharply with the darkness and desolation of the earth portrayed in v2. This fact and the artistry reflected in the balance and symmetry of this account suggests that the concern of the chapter is to portray the majestic power and intelligent purposefulness of the God behind all creation, rather than to archive for us the biological details of nature's creation.

The question of whether the days in Gen 1 are chronological or not has generated a considerable volume of literature. You may find the following articles useful to help you think through the issue:

David A. Sterchi, "Does Genesis 1 Provide a Chronological Sequence?" Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 39/4 (1996) 529-536. Pdf N 8-9 (Open on Phone). Sterchi's conclusion is that "the seven days of creation have a special syntactical pattern hat does not require chronology. The seven days are more like a numbered list. To claim that the text requires us to read it chronologically is to err by exceeding the plain presentation in the text. Each day was apparently numbered on the basis of its content, not its order in time. This may have allowed the author the freedom to arrange the list of days in an order that better suited his compositional strategy than the actual chronology. It also avoided misrepresenting the true order of events by not using the syntax of chronology."

Previous Next