GENESIS 1: CREATION, The SIX DAYS

© 2025.

Introduction to the Six Days:

God’s six workdays and His day of rest afterwards from all the work He did (Genesis 2:2-3) are called "creation week" by theologians.  During six days of the earth’s rotation God made the Earth He had initially created (from nothing) as a barren, rocky planet like Mars appears today into a habitat: It included a watery ocean reservoir and dry land, a suitable gaseous atmosphere that retained water with an evaporation-and-precipitation water cycle, the appearance of celestial luminaries through a global partly cloudy sky, and abundant vegetation!  Then God created living creatures to occupy the sea, the air, and the land, and humans in His image and likeness to rule over it all.  The Genesis 1 creation account described the events as God saw them, but it was written in a literary descriptive style for ancient humans, rather than as a science textbook they weren’t educated to understand, as was explained in Genesis 1: Origin and Authorship.  The sequence of daily events formed a logical progression where each event supported those that followed. These days seem emphasized to be the period of the earth’s rotation by the repeated “there was evening, and there was morning” ending for each day in v2-31. (See also the technical summary of Genesis 1 that introduced the full commentary- Genesis 1: Creation, the Beginning).  This full commentary for the Six Days, covers vv2-31 and includes the science behind the scriptures that explained how the earth was made to be a habitat with life.

Earth’s original atmosphere

Earth’s original atmosphere would have been produced by outgassing from its hot minerals. It was rich in carbon dioxide that would be needed by the early photosynthetic green plants that later consumed it starting on Earth’s 3rd day of creation week.  Then its content of free oxygen gas abruptly increased on the 4th day when both land and underwater vegetation and microbial algae that produced it started to grow abundantly in direct sunlight through Earth’s partly cloudy skies (see commentary for vv11-20 below). Oxygen would be needed for air-breathing creatures and humans starting on the 5th and 6th days (below) that also originally ate only plants.  Today’s fossil fuels came from plants- coal, oil, and natural gas, and plant fossils provide evidence for Earth’s abundant ancient vegetation (Topical note 5). Earth’s modern atmospheric composition is about 20% free oxygen and less than 1% carbon dioxide.  Earth’s original atmosphere can be imagined by considering our barren neighboring planets today. Mars and Venus still have atmospheres of nearly all carbon dioxide (internet source) without any oxygen because of their absence of photosynthetic plants and microbes that consume carbon dioxide to produce oxygen.

Forming "the waters" (vv2-10): 

Genesis 1:2 recorded that before light appeared on Earth’s 1st day it was covered by a global sea (“the deep”) and a totally dark cloud layer (“darkness”) was above it.  Together, God called the sea and the cloud layer “the waters” in vv2-10.  The creation account opened on what God called the “1st day” when the waters covered the earth and it started to become a habitat for future life.  The creation account started after the waters had formed because this was a logical place to begin, and God knew forming them was too technical for ancient humans to understand (see Genesis 1: Origin and Authorship). Although the account didn’t specifically mention rain, torrential rainfall is naturally produced by a totally dark cloud layer that contains heavy water droplets, and in sufficient volume it would cover the earth’s rocky surface with a deep sea (v2) (below).  Filling the sea to a one mile depth (below) from heavy global rainfall would have taken many periods of the earth’s rotation. So, this rain that evidently ended on Earth’s 2nd day when clear sky was made must have started before creation week (see Summarizing Earth’s 3rd Day below).

Modern astronomy teaches the earth originated as a barren, dry rocky planet from the sun’s accretion disk, so where did this great volume of liquid water that comprises today’s ocean ultimately originate? 

Conventional scientists don’t agree on where the water for Earth’s ocean came from{8,9,22}. However, abundant water must have been inherently part of the earth’s structural geochemical composition from its creation in the “beginning” that also included all of the atomic elements that would be needed to make life forms (Genesis 1:2-11,20; Genesis 2:7,19). Water that formed the ocean would have been from non-covalently bonded geochemical water that formed Earth’s hydrated minerals. Only weak hydrogen bonds held this water in place so it vaporized into space with heat from the gravitational compression of its accreted materials and its internal natural radioactivity. Earth’s innate geochemical water {8},{9} would have also formed subterranean pockets of pressurized liquid water throughout the earth’s rocky crust later after it cooled. According to Genesis 2:6 pressurized underground water moistened the ground after the global rain stopped, before vegetation first grew on the land.

A brief period bridged the end of the scriptural “beginning” in v1 and Earth’s 1st day in v2: 

This period that wasn’t mentioned in Genesis 1 (or elsewhere in scripture) prepared the earth to form its watery ocean that was introduced as “the deep” in v2.  Earth’s plentiful geochemical water must have been vaporizing from the hot earth after it was initially created. And it later condensed to pour down as torrential rain that produced its global ocean after the earth and its atmosphere had cooled sufficiently. However, had the earth cooled naturally and slowly, any accumulated surface water would have evaporated from the hot earth into space so a permanent ocean over the earth could not have formed.  Evidently this was the fate of Mars that lost its watery ocean early in its history (internet source) to become the global barren desert that modern studies using telescopic and modern space probes show today (below).  To produce a permanent ocean of liquid water the earth’s surface first had to be cooled quickly by hundreds of degrees Celsius to below water’s boiling temperature of 100 degrees Celsius. As detailed below, the period of abruptly cooling the earth followed by the resulting torrential rain that filled the sea began after the barren earth was initially created in the “beginning (v1). Then it ended on Earth’s 2nd day (vv6-8) when the global rain stopped and clear sky formed, and the sea was filled.  God’s special care was needed to form Earth’s unique permanent surface ocean of liquid water:    

Indeed, v2 recorded “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (above the cloud tops) during the darkness early on Earth’s 1st day while He apparently personally supervised making the newly created barren earth into a habitat. God must have accelerated the natural cooling of the steaming hot earth starting before its 1st day. This condensed the escaping water vapor into torrential rain and trapped it as a liquid ocean reservoir for future life and prevented its loss into space.  His specific method to quickly cool the earth isn’t obvious, but because the events in the early chapters of Genesis are factual they must be consistent with observational science. Scientific reasoning from blackbody theory shows heat loss by thermal radiation from the solid earth into the vacuum of surrounding space was the only physical process to cool the earth that is consistent with God’s physical laws of nature. Barren planets are thermal “graybodies” like Mars and the earth before it had an ocean, that are described by the Stephan-Boltzmann equation{24}. This equation mathematically describes their emitted energy versus surface temperature. Their average emissivity factor (ε) in the equation that models physical properties of a material that transfers energy is less than the ideal 1.0 for a perfect “blackbody” heat radiator and also varies over planetary surfaces.  This suggests the earth's early low graybody emissivity was somehow abruptly increased soon after its creation to accelerate cooling it. Roughened surface topography by low mountainous terrain, and the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and water vapor that were plentiful on the earth before it had a liquid ocean are all known to increase planetary emissivity.  And they might have had a role in the sudden cooling. Thousands of years later, God evidently briefly over-heated Earth’s hot interior that fractured its lithosphere to start Noah’s Flood. (Topical note 4, Earth’s plate tectonics further describes how that overheating began global volcanism, plate tectonics, and continental drift.) So God has had control over earth’s internal thermal processes since its creation. However, the mere existence of Earth’s permanent watery surface ocean that is unique among known planets is the best evidence for the unnatural rapid cooling that was needed to produce it.

The earth’s surface cooled to below the boiling temperature of water and the atmosphere cooled below its dew point then aerosols formed a dense cloud layer around the earth.  It must have been well over 10 miles thick- the elevation limit of modern thunderstorms. Then water condensed into a violent global rainfall until the cloud layer was completely depleted on Earth's “2nd day”. Forming the earth’s original mile-deep global ocean (below) from violent rainfall could have taken over a month of earth rotations so the rain started before creation week. From God’s perspective as He “was hovering over the waters” (v2) above the sunlit cloud tops, Earth would have appeared as a boiling, steaming caldron as the torrential rain poured down on its hot rocky surface!  This produced a warm ocean that completely covered the earth to perhaps half of its average 2-1/2 mile depth today (see Summarizing Earth’s 3rd day, below).

Earth’s water cycle:

After the continuous global rain stopped on Earth’s 2nd day water evaporated from the new ocean reservoir and cooled as it rose to form clouds in Earth’s atmosphere that trapped and returned it as sporadic rainfall to the ocean.  So, no more water was lost into space.  This water cycle would support future life

Summary of Days 1-4:

The effects of rapidly cooling the earth starting before Earth’s 1st day that formed “the waters” evidently continued through early creation week. Although the events on Days 1-4 were described separately in the Genesis 1 account, it appears they may have all resulted from quickly cooling the earth.  These events are explained below in the Genesis 1: Creation, The Six Days commentary separately for each day of creation week with supporting scientific evidence.  But first, the events for Days 1-4 that prepared the earth for living creatures will be briefly summarized to show how each event supported those that followed.

Summarizing Earth’s 1st day: 

Evidently God accelerated cooling the earth to end the earth's evaporative loss of water from its hydrated minerals that would be necessary to support future life.  This rapid cooling formed a thick, dense global cloud layer over the earth that evidently condensed as extraordinarily heavy rainfall starting before the 1st day and produced a warm, shallower global sea than today. The continuous, torrential rainfall thinned the opaque global cloud layer so cloudy daylight appeared on the sea late in the 1st day when God said “Let there be light”. And Earth’s rotation from the beginning “separated the light from the darkness” that He called “day and night” (vv4-5).  

Summarizing Earth’s 2nd day: 

Continued cooling of the sea reduced its evaporation and the depleted cloud layer stopped the steady torrential rain. Stopping the steady rainfall was to “separate [sea] water from [atmospheric] water” (v6) that made a global expanse of clear, dry sky between the sea and the cloud layer above it (v7).

Summarizing Earth’s 3rd Day:

God caused dry ground to rise above the sea as a single continent. This was the previous supercontinent of Pangea according to conventional geology. See (Topical note 3{11}), Pangea interactive map). Although uniformatarian geology claims there were other supercontinents in Earth’s billions-of-years history, Topical note 4, Earth’s plate tectonics explains why Pangea was the only supercontinent in Earth’s past.  It occupied half of the earth’s surface (below) so raising it doubled the depth of the shallow sea to its current average of about 2-1/2 miles to the abyssal plain. 

A small example of dry ground suddenly rising above sea level that shows it can be a natural geologic process was the island of Surtsy south of Iceland in the early 1960s (internet).  Its progress of being populated with life from elsewhere has been extensively studied by scientists since it first appeared and the new island is now covered with vegetation and is home to many species of birds, animals, and insects. However, carefully raising the huge original continent without fragmenting earth’s lithosphere (that happened during Noah’s Flood about two thousand years later) apparently was a substantial feat arranged by God.      

Then the land produced green photosynthetic vegetation from seeds God planted in the soil (see vv9-13 in full commentary below). Much later, during Noah’s Flood (Topical note 4) plate tectonics split the single continent into the several smaller modern ones that maintained the same total land area and ocean depth.

Summarizing Earth’s 4th day: 

The atmospheric clearing that started at the end of the 1st day continued until the thinned clouds scattered that made the sun, moon, and stars appear in Earth’s sky on the 4th day. (See the full commentary for vv14-19 below). Then clear, direct sunlight shone on the earth through its partly cloudy skies and produced an abundance of photosynthetic vegetation and microbes that first appeared on the 3rd day. Seed-bearing plants began growing abundantly everywhere on the land (and under water as well). Oxygen then became an important component of Earth’s atmosphere.  Land plants transpired abundant water vapor into the atmosphere that trapped it as clouds and returned it as sporadic rainfall.  So, vegetation augmented Earth’s atmospheric water cycle that prevented Earth’s water loss into space.       

The single continent that fully occupied only one of Earth’s hemispheres would have made Earth slightly rotationally unbalanced. Date keeping in Noah’s Flood account in Genesis 6-8 correlated (solar) days with (lunar) months. It implied that before the Flood year the solar year was exactly 12 lunar months of 30 days each{18}. Earth’s slight gravitational imbalance evidently adjusted the perfect synch of the moon’s orbit with the solar year. After the Flood, plate tectonics broke up the supercontinent and distributed the smaller land masses all around the globe.  This smoothed out Earth’s land imbalance and apparently disrupted the exact solar-lunar orbital synch, so lunar months are no longer exactly 30 days and monthly dates for its respective phases change throughout the year.

These events during Earth’s first four days prepared earth to be a habitat for living creatures with conscious awareness that were created on the fifth and sixth days that followed.

The uniqueness of planet Earth:

Earth is unique among all known planets because of its permanent surface ocean of liquid water and life.  Presumably water on the other planetary bodies in our solar system also naturally came from their hydrated minerals. Only planets that orbit in the habitable zone fairly close to our sun could have liquid surface water- but only Earth benefited from God’s special care (v2c) so that it did! Today the surfaces of Earth’s neighbors Mars and Venus are barren deserts without liquid water and life. However, ground images of Mars from space probes show dry flow channels that appear to be from an ancient watery global ocean that was lost ({10}, and internet source). Mars is less than half of Earth’s diameter and has only 0.1 its volume and mass and is further from the sun. So, Mars evidently naturally cooled sufficiently rapidly after its creation to form a temporary watery ocean- without God’s supernatural cooling that benefited the earth.  Even then its surface remained warm too long so eventually Mars’ water mostly evaporated into space and the remaining water seeped underground where it formed icy deposits at its frigid high latitudes, as recent discoveries show. Venus is only slightly smaller than Earth and is closer to the sun so it remained too hot and might never have had any liquid surface water.  Earth is a rare planet that has the right mass and is the right distance from its suitable star (our sun) to support life as we know it.  So after the “beginning” God worked for six days to make Earth habitable and to create and make lower life forms to inhabit it, and lastly humans to rule over it all as Genesis 1:2-28 records.  Then He rested from all of His work on the 7th day (Genesis 2:2). An earth-sized planet with a permanent watery surface ocean, in life’s habitable zone near a spectral class G star is unnatural. And such a planet with lower life forms that purposefully support intelligent life is unique {Topical note 9}!  So the bible suggests that finding such a planet with only lower life forms won’t happen {Topical note 6, Did life evolve?}.             

Today some conventional scientists acknowledge that Earth had substantial surface water starting early in its history{8,9}. Space probes recently discovered water geysers on two planetary moons in our solar system, Europa of Jupiter and Enceladas of Saturn, that suggest watery oceans lie below their frozen surfaces{10}. And what appear to be dry flow channels described above are found on Mars which suggests its watery past{10}. NASA’s newest Mars rover, Perseverance is coring what is believed to be an ancient lake bed to cache samples that will be returned to Earth on a future mission and analyze soil for geochemical evidence of previous liquid water, and life's evolution that the creation account in Genesis 1 implies won’t be found (Topical notes 6, 9).   The Perseverance rover has been exploring the floor of Jezero Crater on Mars over two years for chemical evidence of past water and life, and caching rock samples for later return to Earth for analysis. Although spectroscopic signatures of certain minerals were discovered that confirmed the crater’s watery past, so far there is no conclusive evidence for past life there.  Perhaps eventually scientists will find “possible” evidence for ancient life that will justify their mission’s inquiry. Because there is evidence that substantial liquid water was previously on or is currently inside other bodies in our solar system, it’s not hard to understand scientifically that Earth had its home-grown ocean from early on. Some creation geologists claim more water exists in the rocks of Earth’s mantle than is in the surface oceans(27). 

Click live web links to select internet references:

{8} Dorminey, B. Earth Oceans Were Homegrown. Science. Posted on Science.org November 29, 2010. 

{9} Holmes, B. Origin of earth’s water traced back to the birth of our planet. New Scientist. Posted on Newscientist.com, November 12, 2015.

{10} Naeye, Robert, Astronomy magazine, September 2020, "How we'll find life in the universe"; water on Mars, pp20-21, Europa and Enceladas, pp22-23.

{18} Cooper, Bill, June 2009, Acts and Facts, ICR Publ, The calendar and the antiquity of Genesis, p19.

(22) Grossman, Lisa, A meteorite hints how Earth got its water, Science News, December 17 and 31, 2022, p11.

{24} Stephan-Boltzmann equation is: W = εσT4.  W is the radiated energy rate (power) in watts/m2 emitted by a body at a given surface temperature, T in degrees K.  The emissivity is ε and σ is a numeric constant.  Because T is raised to the 4th power, the equation illustrates that even a small temperature decrease requires a very large radiated energy loss. So unnaturally cooling the surface of an earth-sized planet by several hundred degrees in a short period was a major accomplishment.

(27) 2025, Clarey, Tim. Science Scripture and Salvation, Inst. for Creation Research radio broadcast, KWVE FM, January 12. Water in Earth’s mantle rock. 

The Genesis 1 commentary, The six days (vv2-31):

v2. The 1st day-

The first description of Earth in Genesis 1 starts when it was entirely covered with a violent ocean and no dry land, so its surface was FORMLESS.  There was no life so it was EMPTY (or “void”[KJV]), and no sunlight reached the sea (“the deep”) so it was DARK.  The sun (a star) was created as part of the celestial heavens in the “beginning” (v1), but it wasn’t visible from Earth’s surface until the 4th day (see vv14-16 commentary).  Verse 2 stated “darkness was over (Hebrew “ol”) the surface of the deep” that implied Earth had a dark covering.  The simplest natural explanation for the darkness that is consistent with the other events in the 1st and 2nd days was an opaque cloud layer covered the earth{1}. Josephus the first century Jewish historian recorded that then “the earth was hidden in thick darkness”{2} that implied a dense cloud layer blocked the sunlight.  High evaporation from the hot Earth’s hydrated minerals would have formed a thick layer of dense clouds when God accelerated cooling the planet to preserve its water as an ocean reservoir to support future life forms He would create (see “The waters” section above for scientific details). The thick cloud layer condensed and produced a steady global torrential rainfall that filled the sea. This was implied by the 2nd day events when God separated these waters (the clouds and sea) to produce an empty gap He called "sky" between them, (vv6-8). Scripture recorded that God’s Spirit was "hovering over the waters”- above the rain clouds and the sea, at this crucial time when He quickly cooled the earth. This suggested He devoted personal attention to prepare the earth to be a habitat for future life.   

1} Today, most planets in our solar system are covered by a dense cloud layer, including Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Earth uniquely has partly cloudy skies with abundant water clouds. During violent storms they can be ten miles thick and completely block daylight over large areas of the ground below. So, an opaque cloud layer over the early earth is not unimaginable.

{2} Maier, Paul, 1988, Josephus- The Essential Writings, Kregel Publ. p19. (book)

vv3-5. The 1st day, cont-

God said “let there be light”, and there was light (v3). Some bible commentators have devised clever ideas for how God might have “created” this light. However, vv3-5 interestingly omit the usual statement that God created or made it, or that He arranged something else to produce it (vv11,12,24). The written Hebrew word used in the S4A internet interlinear ("iei") means "is becoming", so this light appeared. Verse 1 implies that the distant sun was shining from the "beginning", yet v2 states darkness was over (or covered) the earth. The next day (2nd day, vv6-8) was spent drying Earth’s sky. Together, these scriptural clues and the scientifically logical natural scenario presented in The waters section above provide reasonable evidence that the light was caused when the dense cloud layer became depleted after the huge volume of rainwater it lost filled the sea. So, this light was cloudy daylight that illuminated the sea late on Earth’s 1st day, and Earth’s existing rotation divided it into daily light and dark periods.  Stated in the bible’s majestic literary style, this daily light cycle “separated the light from the darkness” that God called “day” and “night” (vv4-5)[1984 NIV]. It ended Earth’s 1st day, and evening preceded morning because all was dark before light.

vv6-8. The 2nd day- 

Then God apparently carved out a global expanse of clear, dry air in the rainy atmosphere between the sea and the clouds that He called “SKY” [1984 NIV], or atmosphere (Hebrew “rqio”) [S4A Hebrew interlinear bible]. Continued cooling of the warm ocean reduced evaporation so the depleted global cloud layer stopped raining.  This caused a dry zone of clear sky to form between the sea and the clouds above it. Previously, steady rain fell between the cloud layer and the sea so water in different forms extended continuously from the cloud tops to the ocean ottom. As described in majestic literary style this new expanse of “sky” between the sea and the clouds above was to “separate {sea} water from {atmospheric} water” (v6) [1984 NIV].   Names used in other bible translations for this expanse of sky are “dome” and “vault” [NIV], and “firmament” [King James Version, KJV]. Hebrew “iosh” meant that the expanse of clear sky was “made” (or appeared) by removing rainwater from the wet air.

vv9-13. The 3rd day- 

Cloudy daylight illuminated the ocean during daytime hours and the global torrential rainfall had stopped.  God caused DRY LAND to appear as a single continent.  The account describes the seas as being “gathered” to one place to let dry ground appear.  Wording of the bible text suggests geologic processes within the earth lowered the sea floor around where the new continent would be and caused dry ground there to rise above sea level.  God called the water “seas”. The earlier section about “the waters” explained making dry ground appear on the 3rd day could have resulted from God rapidly cooling the earth’s interior early on Day 1 asymmetrically. More is explained about the ancient supercontinent of Pangea that fully occupied one hemisphere of the earth’s surface in Topical note 3, and its breakup into today’s smaller continents by plate tectonics during Noah's Flood is covered in Topical note 4.

After the torrential rain stopped and dry land appeared God had the land produce VEGETATION- seed-bearing plants and trees according to their various kinds*. Notice that previously stopping the continuous heavy rain prevented washing sprouting plants into the ocean! God used a logical event sequence in this creation account. Genesis 2:8 implies these first land plants grew from seeds God planted in the soil, so He made seeds before plants.  Vegetation would provide oxygen, food, and habitat. Land seed plants were recorded because they would be most important as food for humans (v29). Other plants, including fungi that reproduce without “seeds”, and underwater plants (as food for marine and aquatic creatures starting in Day 5) would have also sprouted then.  Microscopic aquatic and marine algae were also made. “Made” was used here and not “created” because these plants grew from nutrients in the soil, water, and air- not from “nothing”. And plants don’t have a consciousness that creatures have that God created in Days 5 and 6 below. Although plants have biological compositions and DNA genomes similar to animals, and they also metabolize, grow, repair damage, and reproduce, Genesis 1 doesn’t refer to plants as “living”, but merely as “vegetation” in vv11,12. God made plants to be things of beauty and food for creatures and humans (Genesis 1:29-30, Genesis 2:9). According to Genesis 2:6 water from pressurized subterranean sources originally watered the land for plant life after the global rain stopped.  Increased light from the brighter sky after Day 2 supported photosynthetic plant growth.  Discussion of plant growth and rain continues after the commentaries on Day 4 (below) and in Genesis 2.

* What is a biblical “kind”? 

“According to their kinds” in Genesis 1:11, 12, 21, and 24 means vegetation (Day 3), sea creatures and birds (Day 5), and land creatures (Day 6) reproduce only their "kind".  For example wheat plants always reproduce wheat, never barley; and elephants always reproduce elephants, never a giraffe. Each “kind” of organism was separately originated by God. A biblical kind is a group of similar-looking* organisms that is broader than the species designation of man’s scientific taxonomy. Each kind has the complete fixed genome to produce all the different varieties of organisms within its “kind”.  Human taxonomic classification was historically based on organism morphology (appearance) and the “species” designation was believed to be the inter-breeding unit.  However, it was recently discovered that many animals of different humanly assigned species can interbreed (but normally don't). So, these organisms have gene pools that can produce wider varieties of themselves than humans expected because interbreeding has been tested on only a tiny fraction of Earth’s organisms. A biblical “kind” is compared to a taxonomic “species” in Topical note 6.

*Note: Calling similar organisms "related" uses evolutionary jargon that Genesis 1 doesn't teach (Topical note 6, Did life evolve?).

vv14-19. The 4th day-

God made the celestial luminaries (SUN, MOON, and STARS) appear in Earth’s sky as signs to mark seasons, days, and years and give their light on the earth.  The planets which look like stars in the sky would have appeared then too.  God later prohibited humans to use celestial luminaries for fortune telling (Isaiah 47:13-15).  Verse 1 in Genesis 1 implies all these luminaries were "created" (from nothing) in the “beginning” as part of the celestial heavens.  This seems to conflict with verse 16 here that states they were "made" (written Hebrew “iosh”) on Day 4.  However, a careful study of these verses (that explains where and how they were made and differs from the traditional interpretation) shows they don’t conflict:

Where were the celestial luminaries “made” on Day 4 (v16)? 

These celestial luminaries were originally created (from nothing) in “outer space”, the celestial heavens (Hebrew “shimim”) as recorded in v1. Evidently their light was originally blocked from Earth by the opaque cloud cover over the sky. Verses 14-15 record on Day 4 the luminaries were set (Hebrew “ithm”) in Earth’s sky or atmosphere (Hebrew “rqio”) of the heavens (Hebrew “shimim”). This makes it mean they were set in Earth’s sky to see in the heavens but were not actually set in the celestial heavens (Hebrew “shimim”) where v1 records they were “created” from nothing and are actually located.  The Hebrew describes the appearance of the sun, moon, and the stars on Day 4 as an atmospheric phenomenon in Earth’s sky. So, they weren’t “formed” in the celestial heavens on the 4th day as many commentators state.

How were the luminaries "made"{1} in Earth’s sky on Day 4 (v16)?

The sun (a star) and the stars (very distant suns) in the celestial heavens are observed to be extremely hot glowing plasmas that astronomers say are certainly powered by nuclear fusion.  They are constructed very differently from the much cooler moon and planets of our solar system which are solid bodies that shine in the sky by reflected sunlight. That these diverse kinds of celestial luminaries all suddenly appeared in earth’s sky fully formed on Day 4 strongly suggests a common cause. The simplest natural explanation that is consistent with the events of Days 1-2 was something above the sky that blocked their light was removed. Presumably Earth’s atmospheric global cloud cover (Genesis 1:7-8) continued to thin after Day 2 until it scattered on Day 4 like it is today, which made these celestial luminaries appear in the sky.   

This use of “made” (Hebrew “iosh”) on Day 4 is like its use on Day 2: In both cases the objects that were "made" (celestial luminaries and clear sky) previously existed but they were obscured by clouds or rainwater.  When the obscuring material was removed the objects appeared.  The meaning of v14 was- let these luminaries (Hebrew “iei”, “become”) or appear in the sky.  This same Hebrew verb “iei” (become) was used in Day 1 v3 to describe the first appearance of light (on the sea), and dry land appearing on Day 4 that rose above the sea.

Verses 14-18 continue the majestic literary descriptions used in Genesis 1.  The English was translated as God “set them in the expanse of the sky” on Day 4.  The account refers to our sun and moon as the greater and lesser lights before humans named them.  Ancient human cultures later named them for pagan deities and worshipped them as explained above, contrary to God’s intention.

Because made (Hebrew “iosh”) was used in v16 many conservative bible commentators interpret the celestial luminaries were formed on the 4th day. That they formed on the 4th day perhaps was the original view of v14, but it begs the question if they were somehow created incomplete on the 1st day. Other religious conservatives believe that the sun, moon, and stars appeared when Earth’s cloud layer scattered fits smoother with the rest of Genesis 1 than in the traditional creation interpretation that describes they formed on Day 4. “Made” in Genesis 1 usually does mean that something was formed (from material God created earlier), but evidence from Hebrew word usage and proven science shows that “appeared” is a more accurate meaning in this case. That the earth was originally covered by darkness (v2) suggests the sudden appearance of the luminaries in the sky was caused by scattering of Earth’s cloud layer on Day 4. So their sudden appearance was consistent with a continued clearing of the initial totally dark atmosphere from the 2nd day{2}. This atmospheric clearing explains the evening-morning daylight cycle that started on the 1st day and how green photosynthetic plants first obtained hazy daylight through thinned cloud cover on Day 3.  And starting on the 4th day, bright direct sunlight illuminated the earth's surface in the daytime through scattered clouds and caused abundant plant growth.  Plants provided the necessary breathable oxygen and food for the creatures and humans starting on Days 5 and 6. 

"The waters” section previously explained the science behind Earth’s gradually clearing sky and the appearance of the sun, moon, and the stars on Day 4. This interpretation of v16 smoothly describes how the luminaries were created in the beginning in v1 and also were made on Day 4 in v16. So apparently God “made them appear” in the sky.

{1} Although English "made" appears twice in these verses, the original Hebrew text uses "iosh" only once, so repetition of "made" in English has no special significance.

{2} Maier, Paul, 1988, Josephus- The Essential Writings, Kregel publ. p19. (book) 

Plant growth, and earth’s water and respiratory gas cycles:

The first plants were watered only from pressurized subterranean sources (Genesis 2:6).  Intense sunlight that started on Day 4 boosted plant growth that began on Day 3.  Then transpiration of water vapor from rapidly growing plants that covered the ground everywhere enhanced clouds and sporadic rainfall that added to Earth’s water cycle that started on the 2nd day. (Genesis 2:5).  Growing land plants require rain and also cause it by enhancing evaporation from the land. Plant growth that began on Day 3 increased rapidly on Day 4 in bright sunlight under Earth’s partly cloudy skies. Luxuriant photosynthetic vegetation would supply air breathing creatures with food, and oxygen from their exhaled carbon dioxide starting on Day 5.    

vv20-23. The 5th day-

After direct daytime sunlight shone on the sea and dry land on Day 4, God created (Hebrew “ibra”) living SEA CREATURES and BIRDS that have a conscious awareness in bodies that had three-dimensional mobility.  Nothing like them existed before so they were totally unique.  The text uses "teem" or in “abundance” which suggests that many mating pairs* of each kind were produced to quickly occupy their environments. God blessed the sea creatures and birds to multiply and fill the earth. According to Jewish historian Josephus, at this time God, humans, and the creatures all spoke a common language so the creatures and humans understood God and obeyed what He told them**.

*The sea creatures and birds as well as the land animals in vv24-25 below were males and females but that was not specifically stated here. Genesis 6:19 records they were separate genders. 

**See the Josephus footnotes after the Genesis 2:18-25 commentary, and Cain’s marriage in Highlights of Genesis 4 and 5, and Introducing Jewish Historian Josephus in Authorship of the Hebrew Law.  

vv24-25. The 6th day-

Then God had the LAND produce other living CREATURES- land animals and creatures that move along the ground.  The consciousness that inhabited their bodies was the same kind as the earlier sea creatures and birds (not like humans that were created in God’s image, below), so it wasn’t uniquely new, and only “made” (Hebrew "ioshe") that referred to their bodies was recorded in the text. 

Letting "the land produce living creatures" (v24) and forming them “out of the ground" as recorded in Genesis 2:19 is a literary style description that might incorrectly produce visual imagery of them crawling out of the ground. Instead, restating this description in scientific terms, the animals’* bodies were made from the ingredients of earth’s soil. Genesis 2:7 records humans were made from earth’s “dust” (Hebrew “ophr”) but some bible versions translate it “soil” or “slime” that includes its water content because the bodies of creatures and humans are mostly water. And God stated in Genesis 3:19 humans would return to the ground (after their deaths) because they were taken from dust and to dust they would return.  Soil consists of Earth’s elemental materials that includes carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and various minerals and water- the basic building blocks of biochemical macro-molecules, cells, and living tissues.  God brilliantly designed the nucleic acids, DNA and RNA within their cells that encodes information to maintain and reproduce all microbes, plants, and the bodies of living creatures and humans. Yet, their genetics is flexible enough to preserve their “kinds” during environmental changes (see Topical note 6, Micro-evolution). And He also had the power to make it all!

* and also the earlier sea creatures and birds.

Early scientists who studied living things noticed that organisms could reproduce and repair themselves, unlike nonliving things. Some theorized unique materials made up their “protoplasm” which followed different natural laws.  However, Genesis had it right- Earth’s same materials form the bodies of organisms that come from the ground and then necessarily decompose and return to it to be recycled after their deaths (Genesis 3:19).  More related details about the 6th day are recorded in Genesis 2:7,15-25.

vv26-27. The 6th day, con’t-

Lastly, God’s plurality (“let us…”) created and made only one pair of HUMANS, male and female in God’s own spiritual image and in his likeness (v27).  The humans were created after God’s "kind".  God is a spirit and is referred to as “He” in the scriptures, however v27 implies God’s image has aspects of both genders.  The humans’ fewness (one pair) suggested that He would give personal attention to them unlike the multitude of pairs of each creature kind.  Note vv26-27 records that God also has both singular and plural natures that was explained in the commentary, Genesis 1: Origin and Authorship. 

Human conscious behavior innately possesses (and normally outwardly shows) nobility and spiritual perception that is beyond animals’ (God’s image). Humans can also reason and choose to respond to God’s revelations and adopt His moral values (God’s likeness).  Illumination for the intended meaning of “image” and “likeness” is provided by similar Hebrew word usage in Genesis 5:3 that describes these spiritual resemblances of Adam and his later son, Seth. 

Humans were created spiritually different from creatures and fit for companionship with God who created (Hebrew “ibra” and “bra”) their consciousness from nothing.  And human bodies were formed (made) from the ground like the creatures’ bodies (Genesis 2:7,19) to live in the physical universe that God created (v1).  However, human bodies were more finely made, also in God's image to function in His likeness (v26) to express their higher consciousness. An example is human hands are innervated by many more muscles than ape hands that give them finer dexterity suitable for use by their higher intellect.  Many biblical anthropomorphisms compare human bodily anatomy with God’s spiritual anatomy: (Genesis 2:7-breath, 6:6-heart; Exodus 24:10-feet, 31:18-finger, 33:20-face, 22-hand, 23-back; Deuteronomy 4:25-eyes, 11:2-arm; Psalm 33:6-mouth). Human consciousness quality innately has God’s “image”. However, when left to themselves humans can choose to become depraved and lose God's likeness.   Therefore, human “likeness” is to God’s same moral values (as described in the books of the Hebrew Law and the New Testament) and is a free-will choice that can be lost by making ungodlike choices (Genesis 2:17, 3:6).

What do humans and creatures have in common?  Humans and creatures both have a consciousness awareness of their physical surroundings as evidenced by reactions to sensory stimuli and memory capacity to learn through experience. They have the ability to reproduce themselves.  They both have a free-will to choose behavior and they sometimes fight and even kill others. God punishes offensive behavior of both humans and animals (Genesis 3:14-19, 9:5-6).  

What makes humans different from creatures?  Humans have the largest brains (in proportion to their body size) which are suited to express their superior consciousness. Their brain is coupled to versatile, uniquely agile prehensile hands fit to build intricate devices to manipulate their environment.  Humans study nature to develop new sophisticated methods to continually improve their living standard and use written language to pass on this knowledge for succeeding generations to build on.  Specifically, they use their technology to make possessions they own including clothing, weapons, implements to prepare and store food, transport themselves, and measure time.  They ponder over events both before and after their lifetimes, even their own death.  Humans have a spiritual perception of the supernatural realm that nearly all human cultures express by worshipping God(s), burying their dead, developing formal religions, and following superstitious practices.

vv28-31. The 6th day, con’t-

God commanded all of the creatures to eat green plants for food (v30), and the humans were to eat from seed-bearing (grain) plants and fruits from trees (v29) because they can't digest whole plants. So, originally all living creatures and humans were vegetarians. God blessed the humans and charged them to populate the earth and rule over the creatures (benevolently, as He surely intended).  

Were dinosaurs contemporaneous with humans?

Dinosaurs were reptile land animals that were created on the 6th day, (the same as the humans) so they were contemporaneous with pre-Flood humans (Topical note 6).  Humans would have avoided these threatening reptiles and kept them away from their settlements especially after some of them later became carnivorous (below). Fossils of the giant theropod dinosaurs, including Tyrannosaurus rex, are found only in the Americas which were in the western Pangea supercontinent before Noah’s Flood (Topical note 3, {11}Pangea interactive map}. So, these carnivorous giants were geographically isolated by thousands of miles from most humans who were concentrated in eastern Pangea near Eden (Genesis 2:8) and closeby pre-Flood Mesopotamia, and their fossils are not found together.  Because of their violent carnivorous habits the giant theropods were not saved on the Noah’s Ark so they all died in the Flood (Topical note 4). No mention of them was made in Genesis. The story in the Book of Job that originated several centuries after the Flood (see Authorship of the Hebrew Law, the Book of Job) described the huge sea serpent, leviathan (41:1-34), and behemoth (40:15-24) that might have been a large herbivorous sauropod dinosaur. Some images of herbivorous dinosaurs also appear in medieval religious art (Topical note 4).         

Why did humans potentially live so long soon after their creation?

Genesis 5 recorded humans before Noah’s Flood lived for nearly 1000 years. The newly created humans had no genetic defects, Earth's stronger magnetic field that on average doubles every 1400 years backwards in time (Topical note 4{49,50}) then better shielded genetic mutation-inducing cosmic rays, and there were no environmental pollutants. Originally humans and creatures ate only green plants and their fruits as recorded in v29 rather than animals and animal products, which hindered later-developing animal pathogens from infecting them.  The worldwide land climate was tropical then- fossil plants and animals that are associated with Earth’s tropical lands today were found at high latitudes of the ancient supercontinent of Pangea (Topical note 5 {1,2}). Topical note 3- Fossil humans, and Topical note 4- Plate tectonics cover more about Pangea. However, humans and animals became increasingly violent during pre-Flood times so many lives were cut short (Genesis 4:10, 23-24, 6:5-6).

Origin of carnivorous and parasitic lifestyles 

All that God had made in these six days was good- it worked together harmoniously as He intended- vv10,12,18,21,25,31). However, both humans and creatures have a free-will. When left to themselves after mankind’s Fall in Genesis 3 God withdrew His fellowship from the ruling humans, and they nearly all chose to become violent. God originally commanded that all creatures and humans eat only from the green plants (vv29-30), but many animals and humans disobeyed. Scripture implied some early humans ate meat (Genesis 4:12,20) and the fossil record has caught pre-Flood animals killing and eating other animals (internet sources). So God was sorry He made them (Genesis 4:8, 6:7). It was not until over 2000 years later, after Noah’s Flood that God specifically allowed Noah’s descendants who were still vegetarians to eat meat (Genesis 9:3). The biological “tools” that many organisms originally inherited from their creation became used for other purposes by their free-will choices that God did not intend. Then genetic mechanisms perfected these tools for their new violent uses (Topical note 6, Micro-evolution within species).

The following partial list shows how some animals learned to live off of other animals and humans: Many animals and sea creatures that inherited long, pointed teeth became monstrous carnivores that killed and fed on other animals as the fossil record and modern life show.  Dentition per se didn’t make these animals obligate carnivores.  Modern animals with sharp teeth including bears, and alligators and crocodiles can eat fruits and veggies.  Giant pandas have sharp teeth, but they eat bamboo almost exclusively.  Otherwise defenseless creatures that used their originally sub-lethal painful bites and stings for self-defense became carnivorous. Micro-evolution developed stronger venoms that killed prey and attackers. Female mosquitoes that originally only sucked plant juices with their piercing mouth parts craved animal blood for their developing eggs.  They target carbon dioxide to locate food that both flowers and animals produce.  Today, female parasitic wasps methodically kill their insect and spider victims as a food source for their developing eggs. The ancestors of microbial parasites and viruses that cause sickness in humans and animals today were originally free-living organisms that infected only plants and other microbes and prevented their overgrowth. Some originally free-living microbes and small invertebrates, especially worms, later became internal parasites in animals and humans, or their reproductive means caused disease or death of their hosts.  Internal parasites developed as opportunists that entered humans and animals when they ingested their eggs in meat and animal products that were not allowed as food by God, and by infected wounds that were caused by violent human and animal lifestyles. 

Conclusion for Genesis 1:

The Genesis 1: Origin and Authorship commentary explained that Genesis 1 was described in non-scientific terms specifically for ancient people who were not scientifically educated. Some supernatural events were necessary to create the universe, make the earth habitable, and to create and make life forms. However, the two Creation commentaries (for v1, and vv2-31) explained the Genesis 1 creation account is rational and understandable when using correct bible verse interpretations and Hebrew word meanings, and it doesn’t conflict with modern observational science and ancient history. Observational science includes the demonstratable laboratory sciences that include physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, and biology, but not the consensus sciences of evolutionary speciation, uniformatarian geology, and astrophysics that depend on “deep time” radiometric dating.       

So, the creation account in Genesis 1 may reasonably be accepted as factual- not a fabricated “myth” or an “allegory” (or a code) as many believe. The commentaries of the next chapters in Genesis and topical notes also provide evidence they are factual.

Topical notes 3,6,7, and 8 explain fossil humans, evolution, scientific dating, and descriptive astrophysics, respectively, that further illuminate the Genesis 1 account with proven modern science and ancient history. An internet video that introduces the Topical notes of this study is recommended viewing{1}. 

Click live web link to view video {1}:

{1} https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM82qxxskZE

(Open link, then click arrow to start the video, and skip ad.)

The creation science organization, Is Genesis History? presents this informative less than 2 hr free video. 

{6} Olsen, Knut, Astronomy magazine, Tale of Two Galaxies, November 2020, p19

{7}https://faculty.wts.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Poythress-Genesis-1.1.pdf  (comparison of “initiation” and “summary” views of Genesis 1)

{8} Dorminey, B. Earth Oceans Were Homegrown. Science. Posted on Science.org November 29, 2010. 

{9} Holmes, B. Origin of earth’s water traced back to the birth of our planet. New Scientist. Posted on Newscientist.com, November 12, 2015.

{10} Naeye, Robert, Astronomy magazine, September 2020, "How we'll find life in the universe"; water on Mars, pp20-21, Europa and Enceladas, pp22-23.

{18} Cooper, Bill, June 2009, Acts and Facts, ICR Publ, The calendar and the antiquity of Genesis, p19.

{24} Stephan-Boltzmann equation is: W = εσT4.  W is the radiated energy rate (power) in watts/m2 emitted by a body at a given surface temperature, T in degrees K.  The emissivity is ε and σ is a numeric constant.  Because T is raised to the 4th power, the equation illustrates that even a small temperature decrease requires a very large radiated energy loss. So unnaturally cooling the surface of an earth-sized planet by several hundred degrees in a short period was a major accomplishment.

March 2025

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