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THE SECOND CREATION DAY

Genesis 1:6–8 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)

⁶And God went on to say, “Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters and let there be a separation between the waters and the waters.” ⁷And God went on to make the expanse, and make a separation between the waters, which were under the expanse and between the waters, which were above the expanse: and it came to be so. ⁸And God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

רָקִיעַ expanse; στερέωμα, רָקַע spread out by beating, as leaf gold. This expanse was not understood to be solid, as the fowl is said to fly on the face of it (Gen. 1:21). It is also described as luminous (Dan. 12:3), and as a monument of divine power (Ps. 150:1).

Expanse: (רָקִיעַ raqia) The earth is covered with water and a thick blanket (cover) of vapor. These two features are divided, which creates a separation between the watery surface and the cover of vapor. The Bible explains this area as “a separation between the waters and the waters.” The atmosphere surrounding the earth is the space above the earth where the birds fly. God began to call the expanse heaven (or sky). In this atmosphere surrounding the earth, the space above the earth containing clouds, God also placed planets, the moon, sun, and other stars. So, this included more than just the atmosphere surrounding the earth. The Psalmist tells us, ‘The heavens are telling of the glory of God, and the expanse is declaring the work of his hands.’ – Gen. 1:6-8, 14-15, 17, 20; Ps. 19:1; 150:1.

עָשָׂה work on, make out of already existing materials.

The second act of creative power bears upon the deep of waters, over which the darkness had prevailed, and by which the solid crust was still overlaid. This mass of turbid and noisy water must be reduced to order, and confined within certain limits, before the land can be reached. According to the laws of material nature, light or heat must be an essential factor in all physical changes, especially in the production of gases and vapors. Hence, its presence and activity are the first thing required in instituting a new process of nature. Air naturally takes the next place, as it is equally essential to the maintenance of vegetable and animal life. Hence, its adjustment is the second step in this latest effort of creation.

GENESIS Chapters 1-2 OTBDC: Is there a Different order of creation in Genesis 2 than Genesis 1?

6. Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters. For this purpose, God now calls into existence the expanse. This is that interval of space between the earth on the one side and the birds on the wing, the clouds and the heavenly bodies on the other, the lower part of which we know to be occupied by the air. This will appear more clearly from a comparison of other passages in this chapter (Gen. 1:14, 20).

And let there be a separation between the waters and the waters. It appears that the water in a liquid state was in contact with another mass of water, in the shape of dense fogs and vapors; not merely overhanging, but actually resting on the waters beneath. The object of the expanse is to divide the waters which are under it from those which are above it. Hence, it appears that the thing really done is, not to create the space that extends indefinitely above our heads (which, being in itself no thing, but only room for things, requires no creating), but to establish in it the intended disposition of the waters in two separate masses, the one above, and the other below the intervening expanse. This we know is affected by means of the atmosphere, which receives a large body of water in the state of vapor and bears up a visible portion of it in the form of clouds. These ever-returning, and ever-varying piles of mist strike the eye of the unsophisticated spectator; and when the dew is observed on the grass, or the showers of rain, hail, and snow are seen falling on the ground, the conclusion is obvious, that above the expanse, be the distance small or great, is laid up an unseen and inexhaustible treasury of water, by which the earth may be perpetually bedewed and irrigated. The aqueous vapor is itself, as well as the element with which it is mingled, invisible and impalpable; but when condensed by cold it becomes apparent to the eye in the form of mists and clouds, and, at a certain point of coolness, begins to deposit itself in the palpable form of dew, rain, hail, or snow. As soon as it becomes obvious to the sense it receives distinguishing names, according to its varying forms. But the air being invisible, is unnoticed by the primitive observer until it is put in motion when it receives the name of wind. The space it occupies is merely denominated the expanse; that is, the interval between us and the various bodies that float above and hang upon nothing, or nothing perceptible to the eye.

The state of things before this creative movement may be called one of disturbance and disorder, in comparison with the present condition of the atmosphere. This disturbance in the relations of air and water was so great that it could not be reduced to the present order without a supernatural cause. Whether any other gases, noxious or innocuous, entered into the constitution of the previous atmosphere, or whether any other ingredients were once held in solution by the watery deep, we are not informed. Whether any volcanic or plutonic violence had disturbed the scene and raised a dense mass of gaseous damp and fuliginous matter into the airy region, is not stated. How far the disorder extended we cannot tell. We are merely certain that it reached over all the land known to man during the interval between this creation and the deluge. Whether this disorder was temporary or of long-standing, and whether the change was affected by altering the axis of the earth’s rotation, and thereby the climate of the land of primeval man, or by a less extensive movement confined to the region under consideration, are questions on which we receive no instruction because the solution does not concern our well-being. As soon as human welfare comes to be in any way connected with such knowledge, it will by some means be made attainable.

GENESIS 1 AND 2: Are There Two Creation Accounts?

The introduction of the expanse produced a vast change for the better on the surface of the earth. The heavy mass of murky damp and aqueous steam commingling with the abyss of waters beneath is cleared away. The fogs are lifted up to the higher regions of the sky or attenuated into an invisible vapor. A leaden mass of clouds still overshadows the heavens. But a breathing space of pure pellucid air now intervenes between the upper and lower waters, enveloping the surface of the earth, and fitted for the respiration of the flora and fauna of a new world.

Let it be noted that the word be is here again employed to denote the commencement of a new adjustment of the atmosphere. This, accordingly, does not imply the absolute creation on the second day of our present atmosphere: it merely indicates the constitution of it out of the materials already at hand,—the selecting and due apportionment of the proper elements; the relegation of all now foreign elements to their own places; the dissipation of the lazy, deadening damps, and the establishment of a clear and pure air fit for the use of the future man. Any or all of these alterations will satisfy the form of expression here adopted.

Genesis 7:11 BDC: Where did the water come from that caused the flood in Noah’s day?

7. And God went on to make the expanse. Here the distinction between command and execution is made still more prominent than in the third verse. For the word of command stands in one verse, and the effect realized is related in the next. Nay, we have the doing of the thing and the thing done separately expressed. For, after stating that God made the expanse, it is added, “and it was so.” The work accomplished took a permanent form, in which it remained a standing monument of divine wisdom and power.

8. And God called the expanse heaven. This expanse is, then, the proper and original skies. We have here an interesting and instructive example of the way in which words expand in their significance from the near, the simple, the obvious, to the far and wide, the complex, and the inferential. The heaven, in the first instance, meant the open space above the surface in which we breathe and move, in which the birds fly and the clouds float. This is the atmosphere. Then it stretches away into the seemingly boundless regions of space, in which the countless orbs of luminous and of opaque surfaces circumambulate. Then the heavens come to signify the contents of this indefinitely augmented expanse,—the celestial luminaries themselves. Then, by a still further enlargement of its meaning, we rise to the heaven of heavens, the inexpressibly grand and august presence-chamber of the Most High, where the cherubim and seraphim, the innumerable company of angels, the myriads of saints, move in their several grades and spheres, keeping the charge of their Maker, and realizing the joy of their being. This is the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:2) to the conception of which the imaginative capacity of the human mind rises by an easy gradation. Having once attained to this majestic conception, man is so far prepared to conceive and compose that sublime sentence with which the book of God opens,—“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

The expanse, or aerial space, in which this arrangement of things has been affected, having received its appropriate name, is recognized as an accomplished fact, and the second day is closed.

GENESIS 1:1 OTBDC: Is the earth only 6,000 to 10,000 years old? Are the creative days, literally, only 24 hours long?

By James G. Murphy and Edward D. Andrews

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