1. Numbers in most languages are expressed either as cardinals, which tell us the amount (thus, 1, 5, 20, etc) or as ordinals, which tell us the order (first, fifth, twentieth, etc). Though most modern English translations translate yom ‘echat as "the first day," the Hebrew number here is a cardinal and is more accurately rendered "one day," as in the older translations such as KJV, NASB, RSV. The second to the seventh days are, in the Hebrew text, ordinals, thus providing an ordered list for them. Viewed from this perspective it makes sense to translate yom ‘ as "the first day." But the cardinal of yom ‘ may, in fact, serve to indicate what defines a day (i.e., the rhythm of evening and morning) rather the order of the day.
2. B. R. Reichenbach, "Genesis 1 as a Theological-Political Narrative of Kingdom Establishment," Bulletin for Biblical Research 13.1 (2003) 59. Gerhard von Rad (Genesis A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961) 53) seems to have started this way of understanding the significance of naming, and most scholars seem just to hitch on the wagon.
3. Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 2 vols (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965) 1:181.
Low, C. H.
©ALBERITH, 2016.