Genesis 1:3

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

THE CREATIVE DAYS.

(3) And God said.—Voice and sound there could be none, nor was there any person to whom God addressed this word of power. The phrase, then, is metaphorical, and means that God enacted for the universe a law; and ten times we find the command similarly given. The beauty and sublimity of the language here used has often been noticed: God makes no preparation, He employs no means, needs no secondary agency. He speaks, and it is done. His word alone contains all things necessary for the fulfilment of His will. So in the cognate languages the word Emir, ruler, is literally, speaker. The Supreme One speaks: with the rest, of hear is to obey. God, then, by speaking, gives to nature a universal and enduring law. His commands are not temporary, but eternal; and whatever secondary causes were called into existence when the Elohim, by a word, created light, those same causes produce it now, and will produce it until God recalls His word. We have, then, here nature’s first universal law. What is it?

Let there be light: and there was light.—The sublimity of the original is lost in our language by the cumbrous multiplication of particles. The Hebrew is Yhi ôr wayhi ôr. Light is not itself a substance, but is a condition or state of matter; and this primæval light was probably electric, arising from the condensation and friction of the elements as they began to arrange themselves in order. And this, again, was due to what is commonly called the law of gravitation, or of the attraction of matter. If on the first day electricity and magnetism were generated, and the laws given which create and control them, we have in them the two most powerful and active energies of the present and of all time—or possibly two forms of one and the same busy and restless force. And the law thus given was that of gravitation, of which light was the immediate result.

Benson Commentary

Genesis 1:3. God said — Not by an articulate voice; for to whom should he speak? but in his own eternal mind. He willed that the effect here mentioned should be produced, and it was produced. This act of his almighty will is termed, Hebrews 1:3, the word of his power. Perhaps, however, his substantial Word, his Son, by whom he made the worlds, Hebrews 1:2, and Psalm 33:6; Psalm 33:9, is here intended, and whom the ancient fathers of the Christian Church thought to be termed the Word, John 1:1, chiefly for this reason. Let there be light, &c. — The noted critic, Longinus, in his celebrated Treatise on the Sublime, expresses his admiration of this sentence, as giving a most just and striking idea of the power of God. In bringing order out of confusion, and forming the sundry parts of the universe, God first gave birth to those that are the most simple, pure, active, and powerful; which he, probably, afterward used as agents or instruments in forming some other parts. Light is the great beauty and blessing of the universe; and as it was the first of all visible things, so, as the firstborn, it most resembles its great parent in purity and power, in brightness and beneficence. Probably the light was at first impressed on some part of the heavens, or collected in some lucid body, the revolution of which distinguished the three first days. On the fourth it was condensed, increased, perfected, and placed in the body of the sun and other luminaries.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:3-5 God said, Let there be light; he willed it, and at once there was light. Oh, the power of the word of God! And in the new creation, the first thing that is wrought in the soul is light: the blessed Spirit works upon the will and affections by enlightening the understanding. Those who by sin were darkness, by grace become light in the Lord. Darkness would have been always upon fallen man, if the Son of God had not come and given us understanding, 1Jo 5:20. The light which God willed, he approved of. God divided the light from the darkness; for what fellowship has light with darkness? In heaven there is perfect light, and no darkness at all; in hell, utter darkness, and no gleam of light. The day and the night are the Lord's; let us use both to his honour, by working for him every day, and resting in him every night, meditating in his law both day and night.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

- III. The First Day

3. אמר 'āmar, "say, bid." After this verb comes the thing said in the words of the speaker, or an equivalent expression. In this respect it corresponds with our English "say."

אור 'ôr, "light." Light is simply what makes a sensible impression on the organs of vision. It belongs to a class of things which occasionally produce the same effect.

ויאמר vayo'mer "then said." Here we have come to the narrative or the record of a series of events. The conjunction is prefixed to the verb, to indicate the connection of the event it records with what precedes. There is here, therefore, a sequence in the order of time. In a chain of events, the narrative follows the order of occurrence. Collateral chains of events must of necessity be recorded in successive paragraphs. The first paragraph carries on one line of incidents to a fit resting-place. The next may go back to take up the record of another line. Hence, a new paragraph beginning with a conjoined verb is to be connected in time, not with the last sentence of the preceding one, but with some sentence in the preceding narrative more or less distant from its terminating point (see on Genesis 1:5, and Genesis 2:3). Even a single verse may be a paragraph in itself referring to a point of time antecedent to the preceding sentence.

A verb so conjoined in narrative is in Hebrew put in the incipient or imperfect form, as the narrator conceives the events to grow each out of that already past. He himself follows the incidents step by step down the pathway of time, and hence the initial aspect of each event is toward him, as it actually comes upon the stage of existence.

Since the event now before us belongs to past time, this verb is well enough rendered by the past tense of our English verb. This tense in English is at present indefinite, as it does not determine the state of the event as either beginning, continuing, or concluded. It is not improbable, however, that it originally designated the first of these states, and came by degrees to be indefinite. The English present also may have denoted an incipient, and then an imperfect or indefinite.

3. ראה rā'âh, "see" ὁράω horaō, אור 'ôr, "emit light," ראה rā'âh, "see by light."

טיב ṭôb, "good." Opposite is: רע rā‛.

4. קרא qārā', "cry, call."

ערב ‛ereb, "evening, sunset." A space of time before and after sunset. ערבים ‛arebayı̂m, "two evenings," a certain time before sunset, and the time between sunset and the end of twilight. הערבים בין bēyn hā‛arbayı̂m "the interval between the two evenings, from sunset to the end of twilight," according to the Karaites and Samaritans; "from sun declining to sunset," according to the Pharisees and Rabbinists. It might be the time from the beginning of the one to the beginning of the other, from the end of the one to the end of the other, or from the beginning of the one to the end of the other. The last is the most suitable for all the passages in which it occurs. These are ten in number, all in the law Exodus 12:6; Exodus 16:12; Exodus 29:31, Exodus 29:41; Exodus 30:8; Leviticus 23:5; Numbers 9:3, Numbers 9:5,Numbers 9:8; Numbers 28:4. The slaying of the evening lamb and of the passover lamb, the eating of the latter and the lighting of the lamps, took place in the interval so designated.

At the end of this portion of the sacred text we have the first פ (p). This is explained in the Introduction, Section VII.

The first day's work is the calling of light into being. Here the design is evidently to remove one of the defects mentioned in the preceding verse, - "and darkness was upon the face of the deep." The scene of this creative act is therefore coincident with that of the darkness it is intended to displace. The interference of supernatural power to cause the presence of light in this region, intimates that the powers of nature were inadequate to this effect. But it does not determine whether or not light had already existed elsewhere, and had even at one time penetrated into this now darkened region, and was still prevailing in the other realms of space beyond the face of the deep. Nor does it determine whether by a change of the polar axis, by the rarefaction of the gaseous medium above, or by what other means, light was made to visit this region of the globe with its agreeable and quickening influences. We only read that it did not then illuminate the deep of waters, and that by the potent word of God it was then summoned into being. This is an act of creative power, for it is a calling into existence what had previously no existence in that place, and was not owing to the mere development of nature. Hence, the act of omnipotence here recorded is not at variance with the existence of light among the elements of that universe of nature, the absolute creation of which is affirmed in the first verse.

Genesis 1:3

Then said God. - In Genesis 1:3, God speaks. From this we learn that He not only is, but is such that He can express His will and commune with His intelligent creatures. He is manifest not only by His creation, but by Himself. If light had come into existence without a perceptible cause, we should still have inferred a first Causer by an intuitive principle which demands an adequate cause for anything making its appearance which was not before. But when God says, "Be light," in the audience of His intelligent creatures, and light forthwith comes into view, they perceive God commanding, as well as light appearing.

continued...

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Ge 1:3-5. The First Day.

3. God said—This phrase, which occurs so repeatedly in the account means: willed, decreed, appointed; and the determining will of God was followed in every instance by an immediate result. Whether the sun was created at the same time with, or long before, the earth, the dense accumulation of fogs and vapors which enveloped the chaos had covered the globe with a settled gloom. But by the command of God, light was rendered visible; the thick murky clouds were dispersed, broken, or rarefied, and light diffused over the expanse of waters. The effect is described in the name "day," which in Hebrew signifies "warmth," "heat"; while the name "night" signifies a "rolling up," as night wraps all things in a shady mantle.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

He commanded, not by such a word or speech as we use, which agreeth not with the spiritual nature of God; but either by an act of his powerful will, called the word of his power, Heb 1:3 or, by his substantial Word, his Son, by whom he made the worlds, Heb 1:2 Psa 33:6, who is called: The Word, partly, if not principally, for this reason,

Joh 1:1-3, Joh 1:10.

There was light; which was some bright and lucid body, peradventure like the fiery cloud in the wilderness, giving a small and imperfect light, successively moving over the several parts of the earth; and afterwards condensed, increased, perfected, and gathered together in the sun.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And God said,.... This phrase is used, nine times in this account of the creation; it is admired by Longinus the Heathen in his treatise "of the Sublime", as a noble instance of it; and it is most beautifully paraphrased and explained in Psalm 33:6 as expressive of the will, power, authority, and efficacy of the divine Being; whose word is clothed with power, and who can do, and does whatever he will, and as soon as he pleases; his orders are always obeyed. Perhaps the divine Person speaking here is the Logos or Word of God, which was in the beginning with God, and was God, and who himself is the light that lightens every creature. The words spoke were,

let there be light, and there was light: it at once appeared; "God commanded light to shine out of darkness"; as the apostle says, 2 Corinthians 4:6 this was the first thing made out of the dark chaos; as in the new creation, or work of grace in the heart, light is the first thing produced there: what this light was is not easy to say. Some of the Jewish Rabbins, and also some Christian writers, think the angels are designed by it, which is not at all probable, as the ends and use of this light show: others of them are of opinion, that it is the same with the sun, of which a repetition is made on the fourth day, because of its use and efficacy to the earth, and its plants; but others more rightly take it to be different from the sun, and a more glimmering light, which afterwards was gathered into and perfected in the body of the sun (f). It is the opinion of Zanchius (g), and which is approved of by our countryman, Mr. Fuller (h), that it was a lucid body, or a small lucid cloud, which by its circular motion from east to west made day and night (i); perhaps somewhat like the cloudy pillar of fire that guided the Israelites in the wilderness, and had no doubt heat as well as light; and which two indeed, more or less, go together; and of such fiery particles this body may well be thought to consist. The word "Ur" signifies both fire and light.

(f) Vid. Menasseh ben Israel conciliator in Gen. qu. 2.((g) De Operibus Dei, par. 3. l. 1. c. 2. col. 239. and l. 2. c. 1.((h) Miscell. Sacr. l. 1. c. 12. (i) Milton seems to be of the same mind:----- -----and forthwith light. Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure, Sprung from the deep, and from her native east To journey thro' the airy gloom began, Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle Sojourned the while.----- Paradise Lost, B. 7. l. 243, &c.

Geneva Study Bible

And God said, Let there be light: and there was {e} light.

(e) The light was made before either Sun or Moon was created: therefore we must not attribute that to the creatures that are God's instruments, which only belong to God.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. The First Day

3. And God said] Observe here that the spoken Word is the only means employed throughout the six days’ Creation, cf. Psalm 33:6; Psalm 33:9, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made.… For he spake, and it was done: he commanded, and it stood fast.” Creation by a word combines the idea of perfect facility with that of absolute power.

It is only through the Revelation of the N.T. that we learn to identify the work of Creation with the operation of the Personal Word (John 1:3): “All things were made through him (ὁ Λόγος); and without him was not anything made that hath been made,” cf. Colossians 1:16, “For in him [the Son] were all things created … all things have been created through him, and unto him.” Hebrews 1:2, “through whom [his Son] also he made the worlds.”

Let there be light] This command, in the Hebrew, consists of two short words, y’hi ’ôr. Light is the first created thing, that upon which depends all life and growth known to us on earth.

For “light” as the symbol of the Divine presence in the Revelation of the N.T., cf. John 1:4, “in him was life; and the life was the light of men,” cf. Genesis 1:9, and Genesis 8:12, “I am the light of the world.”

and there was light] Literally, “and light came into existence.” Apparently the primitive conception of the Hebrews was that light and darkness were separate things, incomprehensible indeed, but independent of the sun, cf. Job 26:10; Job 38:19, “where is the way to the dwelling of light, and as for darkness, where is the place thereof?” The unscientific notions of the Israelite have received in regard to light an unexpected illustration from modern discovery; but we must be careful not to suppose that there is any resemblance between the Hebrew picture of the creation of light, and modern theories respecting light and the ether of infinite space. The Hebrew view of the universe was (cf. Genesis 1:6-8) extremely limited; the modern scientific view of the universe is practically infinite in its capacity for development, and is continually being enlarged. There is little room for comparison between them.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 3-5. - The evolution of the cosmos was accomplished by a series of Divine formative works which extended over a period of six successive days. In the character of those cosmic labors a progression is distinctly visible, though not continuous throughout Unless, with Aristotle, the celestial luminaries are regarded as ζῶα λογικά, and so classed in the category of organized and living beings, it is impossible to find in their production an advance upon the preceding vegetation. Arbitrary transpositions of the days, as of the third and fourth, in order to make the first half of the creative week an inorganic, and the second half an organic, era, are inadmissible. The arrangement of the days that accords most exactly with the requirements of the case, and most successfully preserves the order and connection of the record, is that which divides them into two triads (Lange, Kalisch, Dana, &c.), as exhibited underneath: -

1. Light.

2. Air, Water.

3. Dry Land and Plants.

4. Lights.

5. Fowl, Fish.

6. Animals and Man = - each triad Beginning with the Making of Light, and ending with a double creation, and the works performed On the Second having each a definite Relation to the labors executed On the First On the First creative Day the formative energy of the Divine Word, eliminates the light from the dark chaotic mass of earth, on the second uplifts the atmosphere above the waters, and on the third distinguishes the dry land from the sea - at a later period in this same day clothing the dry land with vegetation, as if to prophesy some correspondingly higher advance in the creation work at the close of the second series. At this stage, instead of pressing forward with its operations, the demiurgic potency of the invisible Artificer appears to pause, and, reverting to the point from which it started, enters on its second course of labors. On the fourth day the light developed on the first is concentrated and permanently fixed in the celestial luminaries; on the fifth the air and waters, which were separated on the second, are filled with fowl and fish, their respective inhabitants; and on the sixth the dry land of the third day is occupied by animals, the mute prediction of the third day's vegetation being fulfilled by the creation of man. Verse 3. - Day one. And God said. This phrase, which is ten times repeated in the narrative of the six days' work, is commonly regarded as an instance of anthropomorphism, a peculiarity of revelation, and of this chapter in particular, at which rationalism affects to be offended. But any other mode of representing the Deity would have failed to convey to finite minds an intelligent idea of his nature. "Touching the Almighty, who can find him out?" The most that God himself could do in communicating to his creature man a conception of his ineffable and unapproachable Godhead was to supply him with an anthropomorphic image of himself - "the Word made flesh." Deeper insight, however, into this sublime statement discerns that "anthropomorphism" does not exhaust its significance. God spoke; but to whom? "This was an omnipotent word," says Luther, "spoken in the Divine essence. No one heard this word uttered but God himself... The Father spoke within." It is observable too that every time the word goes forth from Elohim it is followed by instantaneous movement in the chaos, as if the word itself were inherently creative. Remembering, then, that the doctrine of a personal Logos was not unknown to the later theology of the Old Testament (cf. Psalm 33:6; Psalm 148:5), and is clearly revealed in the New (John 1:1; Hebrews 11:3), it is difficult to resist the inference that here we have its roots, and that a correct exegesis should find in the creative word of Elohim an adumbration of the Devar Jehovah of the Hebrew Psalter, the Logos of John's Gospel, and the Rema Theou of the writer to the Hebrews. Let there be light: and there was light. The sublimity of these words, which arrested the attention of the heathen Longinus ('De Sublimitate,' 9.), and which Milton ('Paradise Lost,' 7.) and Du Bartas, an elder poet (viz. Kitto in loco), have tried to reproduce, is in great measure lost in our English version. Γενηθήτω φῶς καὶ ἐγένετω φῶς (LXX.) and sit lux et fuit lux (Vulg.) are superior translations of יְהִי־אור וַיְהִי־אוד which might be rendered, "Light be, and light was."' With reference to their import, the least satisfactory explanation, notwithstanding the eminent names that have lent it their support (Bush, Kitto, Murphy, Wordsworth), is that which understands the sun to have been created a perfectly finished luminous body from the first, though hitherto its light had been intercepted by the earth's vapors, which were now dispersed by Divine command. But the language of Elohim is too exalted to be applied to so familiar a phenomenon as the dissipation of terrestrial mists, and, besides, expressly negatives the hypothesis in question by affirming that the light was summoned into being, and not simply into appearance. The historian, too, explicitly asserts that the light was, i.e. began to be, and not merely to be visible. A modification of this view, viz., that the sun and moon were now created, but did not become visible until the fourth day (Inglis), must likewise be rejected, as according neither with ver. 1, which says that the heavenly bodies were created in the beginning, nor with vers. 16, 17, which declare that not until the fourth day were they constituted sources of light for the earth. The exigencies of the text, as well as the ascertained facts of physical science, require the first day's work to be the original production of light throughout the universe, and in particular throughout our planetary system (Kalisch, Lange, Delitzsch, Dawson). Calvin, though much more deeply concerned about the refutation of Servetus, who maintained that the Word only began to be with the creation of light, was able to perceive that this light was independent of the sun and moon; in this agreeing with Augustine, who, however, conjectured it to be not material, but spiritual in its nature ('De Genesi ad Literam,' lib. 1, 100. 3). Nor does it in the slightest conflict with ver. 1 to suppose that light was now for the first time produced, light being a mode or condition of matter, and not a distinct element or substance, as was at one time believed. Luminosity is simply the result of incandescence, although what specific change is effected on the constitutions or adjustments of the molecules of a body by the process of heating which renders it luminous science is unable to explain. Any solid body can be rendered incandescent by being heated up to between 700° and 800° Fahrenheit. Any liquid that can absorb as great a quantity of heat likewise emits light. Gases do not appear to be capable of incandescence, though the phenomena attending their sudden condensation discover light-producing properties in their composition. As to how the light of incandescent bodies is transmitted to the eye, the Pythagorean and Newtonian theory of small, impalpable particles of luminous matter being constantly emitted from their surfaces towards the eye may be said to have been successfully displaced by that of Descartes, Huygens, and Euler, which accounts for the phenomena of vision by the existence throughout space, and in the interstitial spaces of bodies, of an infinitely attenuated ether, which is thrown into undulations by luminous bodies precisely as the atmosphere is made to vibrate by bodies which are sonorous. But whichever theory be adopted to solve the mystery of its transmission, that of emanation or of undulation, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that the creation of light, which formed the opus operatum of the first day, was in reality the evolution from the dark-robed, seething mass of our condensing planet (and probably from the other bodies in our solar system) of that luminous matter which supplies the light. It seems unnecessary to add that it could not have been either the subterranean fire which produced the igneous rocks of geology (Tayler) or caloric (Clarke); though, as aor is used in Scripture for heat (Isaiah 44:16), fire (Isaiah 31:9; Ezekiel 5:2), the sun (Job 31:26), lightning (Job 37:3), and there is every reason to believe that light, heat, and electricity are only modifications of the same force, we may be warranted in embracing all the three in its significance. Genesis 1:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The word of God then went forth to the primary material of the world, now filled with creative powers of vitality, to call into being, out of the germs of organization and life which it contained, and in the order pre-ordained by His wisdom, those creatures of the world, which proclaim, as they live and move, the glory of their Creator (Psalm 8:1-9). The work of creation commences with the words, "and God said." The words which God speaks are existing things. "He speaks, and it is done; He commands, and it stands fast." These words are deeds of the essential Word, the λόγος, by which "all things were made." Speaking is the revelation of thought; the creation, the realization of the thoughts of God, a freely accomplished act of the absolute Spirit, and not an emanation of creatures from the divine essence. The first thing created by the divine Word was "light," the elementary light, or light-material, in distinction from the "lights," or light-bearers, bodies of light, as the sun, moon, and stars, created on the fourth day, are called. It is now a generally accepted truth of natural science, that the light does not spring from the sun and stars, but that the sun itself is a dark body, and the light proceeds from an atmosphere which surrounds it. Light was the first thing called forth, and separated from the dark chaos by the creative mandate, "Let there be," - the first radiation of the life breathed into it by the Spirit of God, inasmuch as it is the fundamental condition of all organic life in the world, and without light and the warmth which flows from it no plant or animal could thrive.