Light & Dark become “Day” & “Night.”
The waters above becomes the “Sky.”
Gathered waters becomes the “Sea” & dry ground becomes “Land.”
Nothing else is named in this chapter. Everything else springs forth from named things.
God makes mankind. “Adam” also means earth. Perhaps when the sea (representing chaos and death) is removed from us, we also produce good plants. Good fruit.
In Genesis 2, when God splits the woman from the man, the man marvels: “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she is Isha (woman; literally ‘of man’), taken out of Ish (man).”
I think this must have echoed God’s heart in Genesis 1, making us from His image: “Spirit of my Spirit; Life of my Life; this is ha’Adam (the human), made in My Image.”
Adam says “She’s just like me!”
God says “They’re just like me!”
It sounds like adoration to me.
God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
Genesis 1:4 (NIV)
In Genesis 1:4, it is God who separates light from darkness.
God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:16-18 (NIV)
But in Genesis 1:16-18, the ongoing responsibility of keeping darkness separate from light is given to the two great lights and the stars in the sky.
We are the light of the world. It is also our responsibility.
These three distinct titles are given and repeated multiple times in the chapter.
This is probably important.
I think most commentaries point out the history of the Hebrew people. “Livestock” are their own domesticated and known animals, where as the “wild” ones with “life in them” (because they were free) were seen as something different.
Creeping things are always just “icky.”
In Gen 2, Adam will be tasked with naming the “living ones of the field,” and the picture isn’t him naming ALL the animals, but the wild ones and birds that lived nearby.
Perhaps the livestock are already known and named?
And nobody names the creeping icky things. Strange.
The Hebrew word used to describe “livestock” comes from a root word that means mute.
As in, “These are the ones that do not speak.”
As opposed to the “wild animals” or the “creatures that crawl.” Or to a particular serpent.
The “creature that crawl” is a word used for “reptiles.” And “wild animals” is literally “creatures that have life in them.”
This is really wild stuff.
Heaven (masculine word); earth (feminine word). Separate, but perhaps made of the same thing.
It echoes.
“Splitting to create order” is the prevalent theme: heaven/earth, light/dark, waters-above/waters-below, water/dry-land.
I think “in the beginning, God split heaven and earth” can be a reasonable additional view of the text.
Light/Darkness: Good/Evil.
Water below/above: ???
Land/Water: Humanity; God’s work of removing wickedness & chaos from us.
I’m wrestling with the firmament: a vault God put in the water to shove half the sea into the sky. This is what the Hebrews understood. Why?
The ancient people believed that earth had a dome over it, where an uncrossable sky-sea existed, beyond which was God’s realm. The flood waters involved the dome opening and allowing water to fall.
That’s the mythology.
But what is the symbolism? And why is it not “good?”
The dividing of the sea into the “waters below” and “waters above” is on day 2 of the creation story, and it’s the only day where God does not say that He “saw that it was good.”
Is it not good? Is it bad? Does it point to the grief of the Flood story? I don’t know.
The Good News is so simple, a child can understand it.
And God said: let the wriggling, swarming things in the water wriggle and swarm, and let the flying things fly in the expanse of the sky.
It sounds like Dr. Seuss!