3 Elohim said, "Let there be light!" And there was light. 4 Elohim saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 Elohim called the light day and the darkness he called night. Evening and morning of day one came about. (1:3-5)
| Orion Nebula Mosaic, taken by the Hubble orbiting telescope. |
God's work of creating things begins at verse three, and the means turns out not to be manual labor but speech. When God speaks, things happen. This suggests that God was intentionally pictured here as a royal figure--kings are the only beings whose word is law and at whose mere uttering things happen.
The first element God created was light. It is the physical and spiritual precondition of all life. It also has connotations of goodness, warmth, and safety, especially when contrasted with the darkness of chaos.
The first portion of the Priestly creation account of Genesis 1:1-5 can be heard as it is read in Hebrew.
Sun and Light. The creating activity of this day is curious, at least from a modern perspective. First God created light. Only later did he create the sun. We would think that the order should be reversed or that the two events should be simultaneous. Light comes from a sun. It does not exist by itself, so how can there be a first day and night without the sun? This is evidence that the creation story was not designed to be a science textbook. The writer had other intentions. He created a somewhat artificial sequence that highlights the order of God at the expense of technical precision.
