Restoration of the Earth – Lesson 11
Genesis 1:14-19 is the account of day 4. “And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs (of God’s provision), and to mark seasons, days and years. And let them be lights in the sky to give light on the earth. And it was so. And God made two great lights, the greater to rule the day and the lesser to rule the night. Then He also made the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the sky to provide light to the earth, the one to rule over the day, the other over the night, to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it suited His purpose. And there was evening and then morning, a fourth day.”
In verse 14, “lights” is maowr, containers or reflectors of light, sometimes translated “lamp”. This is different from the “light” of Genesis 1:3, owr is brightness or light that comes from God. Now, the passage from verse 14 to 18 gives us the 7fold purpose of these lights.
- To cause a separation. The KJV uses the word “divide” where I have “separate” above. The word is badhal, and means, “to cause a separation or make a distinction”. Remember, we have already discussed God’s purpose in separating the light from the darkness – to illustrate the ongoing battle between good and evil. However, here we have an additional promise. In verse 16 the lesser light (the moon) is put in place to provide a little light during the daily period of darkness. This is God’s promise that there will never again be a time on the earth when total darkness (evil) will dominate as it did following the destruction of the original earth. (Psalm 72:7 describes Christ’s rule of righteousness and justice during the millennium “until there is a moon no longer”. At that point in time the earth is renovated a second time in preparation for the eternal state, as described in II Peter 3:10. The result of this renovation is the new sky and new earth mentioned in II Peter 3:13, Isaiah 65:17 and Revelation 21:1. Then, neither the sun nor the moon will exist to provide light to the earth. As explained in Revelation 21:23, God will again be the constant source of light to the earth.)
- To serve as “signs”. The word is oth, and means “mark” or “standard”. Here, the reference is to the marking of time that can be tracked, history. This word, interestingly, is also used to mark significant, miraculous events (things of which there is never a natural explanation, but are proof of God’s existence); which many times in Scripture involve the sun or the moon. Just to mention a few: thick darkness for 3 days in Exodus 10:21-22; the sun going backwards in Isaiah 38:8 and the sun standing still in Joshua 10:12-13 (computer models at NASA actually confirm these two events); the sun darkened for 3 hours at mid-day in Matthew 27:45; and yet future at the second coming of Christ, the sun will be darkened and the moon turned to blood, as in Joel 2:31, Matthew 24:29 and Revelation 6:12. Well, enough of that for now.
- To mark “seasons”. Here, the word is mowed and is used to establish intervals of time between festivals, celebrations and observances that would later be commanded to teach men about God and keep Him in their remembrance. The first instance of this is found in Genesis 4:3-4 where the phrase “in the course of time” tells us they had been instructed by the Lord to bring offerings to Him at certain intervals of time. Another good example would be Zechariah 8:19. In Scripture “seasons” were marked by new moons (as in I Chronicles 23:31) and this was the beginning of what we now understand as a yearly calendar.
- The next word, yom, translated “days”. This word always represents linear time and is usually used to describe the successive events that take place along that line. It is commonly used to define a life, as in Genesis 10:25 referring to Peleg, “in his days (yom) was the earth divided”. Again, this is just another way to define and understand time.
- Then the original text duplicates yom. When this word is used in this way, it describes cumulative time that elapses between certain events. Such as is found in Genesis 25:7, “And these are the days (yom) of the years (yom) of Abraham’s life which he lived, one hundred and seventy-five years.” If you remember in a previous lesson I mentioned that God was making preparation for the man by starting to name things, creating vocabulary. The man was going to have the ability to reason and a free will, giving him the ability to make his own choices. Both of these are essential to relationship and God was preparing to have relationship with the man. In this verse God is preparing the earth to operate in such a way that man will be able to both understand time and use this understanding in a practical way with reference to his relationship with God.
- Verses 15 and 17 tell us that the next purpose is to provide light to the earth. We know that this light also provides both the heat and energy that is essential to support the life forms that will exist on the now habitable earth. Deuteronomy 33:14 talks about “the precious fruits that are brought forth by the sun”.
- The last of the seven purposes outlined in this passage is found in verses 16 and 18. In verse 16 we see the word “rule”, translated from memshalah, meaning, “to dominate”. So, the sun will dominate the day, providing light, heat and energy to all living things; then the moon dominates the night, providing just a faint light during the time of rest from the light, heat and energy of the day. And in verse 18 we see the word “rule” again, only this time it is from the word mashal, “to prevail”. This is yet another example of God’s mercy and faithfulness. He wants to comfort us with His covenant promise one more time: light will always prevail over darkness; good (God) will always prevail over evil.
There are several other things related to this passage I want to mention just for fun. In verse 14, “to divide” is badhal, mentioned earlier, it means, “to cause a separation”. Now while one location on the earth’s surface experiences a period of light, another is experiencing a period of darkness. One is caused by exposure to the sun, while the other is shielded from it. This indicates movement, the rotation of the earth on its axis. This movement started on day one, when God originally separated the light from the darkness. This set things in motion so far as what was necessary for the events that would follow in the preparation of the earth to be inhabited again (the dry land, etc.). But now the earth is established in a solar system that determines its rotation (once every 24 hours, actually, every 23 hours, 56 minutes to be exact).
The last phrase found in verse 14, “let them be for signs and for seasons and days and years”, is again, hajah in the qal imperfect, a simple command to establish another kind of movement – the earth’s orbit around the sun in one year (actually, in 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds, but who’s counting?). The key to understanding this is found in verse 17, “and God set them in the firmament”. “Set” is nathan, meaning, “to put in motion for a specific purpose”. This is the initiation of solar regulation: the rotation and gravitational pull in our solar system necessary to regulate time and provide seasonal changes in the two hemispheres.
And at the end of verse 16, “He made the stars also”. Here, He sets the other planets in our solar system in place, some of which are visible to the naked eye as stars. And the other innumerable solar systems as well that are such great distances away from the earth that the distance between them is measured in light years (the distance light travels in a year, being 186, 324 miles per second or 5,800,000,000,000 miles in a year). So, just to give you an idea of the vastness of space, the North Star is visible to the naked eye. But if you go outside tonight and look up into the sky and see the North Star, the light that reaches your eye enabling you to see it took 400 years to get here. Want to do the math?
