The Prophetic Telegraph - No.17
Hidden Treasures
of Genesis
Hello John! Here's my
second article about Genesis. You may remember me saying that we should leave
the first TOLEDOTH for another time - in other words, the first chapter of
Genesis, down to the first four verses of chapter two. I think the time's right
to consider it now. It's a very interesting passage, one that has been a bone
of contention to some, but the source of stability to others.
So where do we start? I'll
repeat what I said last time, in that this is the ONLY toledoth that doesn't
have a NAME attached. It just says, "This is the record of the
heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day when the Lord God made
the earth and the heavens." But as you begin reading it you
keep coming across the expression "And God said - -."
To whom was He speaking? To Himself? Surely not. The most sensible suggestion
is that He was speaking to Adam. And then we read "And God
called the darkness 'night' and the light 'day.'" For whose
sake was He giving these names? It must have been for Adam. There could have
been no other reason why He should have wanted to speak thus. Wiseman argued
the matter out in this manner in his book, and I agree with his conclusions. He
suggested that the six days of 'making' were in reality six days of God
revealing to Adam what He had already done. And of course, it must have been
that way, because Adam was there to receive the information. God was speaking
to him, even though Adam wasn't mentioned until the sixth day. Likewise both
Adam AND Eve were mentioned on the sixth day, but in fact Eve was not created
till some time after Adam. So the six days are days of revelation, rather than
creation.
Wiseman suggests that the
time element involved in God's acts of creation doesn't appear at all in the
record, other than in the
One point at a time. First
of all, "days." The days are numbered simply from one to seven. But in
the Hebrew a little more information is available that doesn't come over in
translation. Numbers can be presented as either CARDINAL,
(one, two, three etc.) or ORDINAL (first second, third, etc.).
And we find "day one" (Cardinal), "day
second," to "day seventh",
(all Ordinal). Also, the "definite article" is found attached to the
last two numbers, making them read "THE sixth day" and "THE
seventh day." And when we find this little word, it usually carries a
slight emphasis with it, making the 6th and the 7th days rather special.
Now why did the author of
the record use the CARDINAL number for "day one", but the ORDINAL for
the rest? Can there be any logical reason, or are we looking for something
unnecessarily? I think there may be a reason, and so I'll suggest it. Wiseman
overlooked this point. In Hebrew "day one" is
YOM ECHAD. But if it had been "first day"
it would have been YOM HA-RISHON. It's a different word.
Likewise in English, "one" and "first" have no likeness to
each other. RISHON comes from the word ROSH meaning "Head". And what
is more, it is the very first word of Genesis. IN THE BEGINNING is
B'RESHITH, meaning "At the head"
or "At the very first". It was then that God
created "the heavens and the earth". But when
we read about "day one" it represents, not
the "first" day, but "day one" of a series of seven days
which the Lord wanted to use to convey to Adam what He had accomplished. I
think that's a reasonable assumption, and one that augments Wiseman's thesis.
Now what about the use of
the definite article "the" for the 6th and 7th days? The sixth day
was the final day of God's revelation to man about His creation. Hence it was
picked out by this slight emphasis. Likewise, the seventh day was a special
day, and so had to be picked out in like manner. Wiseman made this point, and I
don't think it's splitting hairs. I'm sure there was a good reason for the use
of the article.
Point number two. The
expression "And the evening and the morning"
needs examination. "Evening" is EREV, and
"morning" is BOQER in Hebrew. EREV comes from a verb
meaning "to become dark." (Hence OREV means a
raven, which is black.) Hence EREV means darkness, or night-time, even though
it comes from a word that speaks about the BEGINNING of night. BOQER comes from
a verb meaning "to break forth" into light.
Hence it is the opposite of EREV. It speaks about the END of the night, and
hence takes on the meaning of daytime. Wiseman believed that the expression
ONLY signified the hours of darkness, the time between when it BEGAN to get
dark, to when it BEGAN to get light. Strictly speaking of course, this would be
true. But as is often the case, language is not quite so exact as that. My own
understanding comes from Daniel
Now this expression "evening
and morning" has something to tell us. Surely the rotation of
the earth, and the advent of night, was not holding up the process of creation?
The Almighty God was not tied down to the daylight hours for His great works?
We are told in Psalm 139:12, "Darkness hides not from Thee, but
the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to
Thee." How different to man's lot, declared in Psalm 104:23 "Man
goes forth unto his work and to his labour until evening." In
other words, the expression "evening and morning" was related SOLELY
to the man, Adam, to whom God was revealing His great works. Each day the Lord
revealed something extra to him, and at sundown it could be said, "evening
and morning were day one, second, third" etc. when Adam would
stop, and await the Lord's presence the following morning.
And so we can rebuild the
scene as it was. God speaks, and Adam listens. God tells Adam what He has done,
but He also decides on a scheme, not to reveal it all at one time, but over a
period of seven days. Why was this? Why wasn't it all written down in a single
day? Undoubtedly it could have been conveyed quite simply in a day. After all
it doesn't take a whole day to write down Genesis 1:1 - 2:4. So there must have
been a purpose. And I think the answer is two-fold. In the first place, man
needed rest each night because it was dark, and in the second place, he needed
every seventh day as a complete rest from his labour, or his business, or his
regular activity. It couldn't have had anything to do with being tired at the
end of a day. Neither can I imagine Adam and Eve being exhausted at the end of
each week. But God had another purpose in view. He intended the seventh day to
be a "holy" day, in other words a day set apart for Himself, a day in
which His man and woman might give themselves more specifically to Him, a time
when they might "walk and talk" with their Creator, and learn lessons
for life, find out God's purpose in their existence, expand their God-given
minds, and so on. (I also see a generous provision being made here for man's lot
after the fall.)
Our Lord made a valuable
and instructive comment about the Sabbath. In Mark's gospel (
But I believe there is much
more to the basic pattern of seven days. Although the Sabbath Day was made for
man, for his health, his well-being, for his contemplation of divine things and
so on, the Bible shows that God also has a Sabbath. In Hebrews 4:9-10 we read "There
remains therefore a Sabbath-Rest for the people of God, and he who has entered
into His Rest has ceased from his own works, even as God ceased from His."
But others fail in their endeavour, because the Lord says to them, "They
shall not enter into My Rest." (Heb.4:3) What then is God's
Rest, His Sabbatism? I believe this to be the period of time mentioned in
Revelation 20, and called the "thousand years", or the Millennium. In
that day those who are deemed worthy will reign with Christ for a thousand
years. They will have entered into God's Sabbath Rest. And I believe this to be
so very important in regard to the seven days of Genesis, because it gives us
an understanding of WHY God should have chosen the pattern of the week. Not
only is it a present to man, but it is a type of the future Millennium. Man's
weekly rest typifies God's Millennial Rest.
Although some may wish to
disagree with me here, having a different understanding of time-periods in
history, I am of the opinion that the Bible covers roughly four thousand years
of human history on earth. And since then there have been two thousand more
years. Our Lord entered the arena of this world after about 4000 years had
passed. Paul called it the "fullness of time",
and it was related to "the Lamb that was slain from the
foundation of the world." The instructions God gave Moses
about the Passover Lamb contained this truth. The Lamb had to be CHOSEN
on the 10th day, and SLAIN on the 14th day of Nisan.
Hence there was a FOUR DAY gap, representing the 4000 years from Adam to
Christ. Since then we have had another 2000 years, and counting on this time
scale, we are about to enter the seventh millennial day of earth-history.
This fills me with
excitement and awe. Excitement, because I believe God is about to inaugurate
His Sabbath-Rest, and awe, because of the great responsibility that we have to
be ready for His coming. I am indebted to two dear friends for the
understanding contained in the previous paragraph. First of all Eustace
J. Mills, the author of "Sabbatical Typology",
and secondly, Charles Ozanne, whom I have known and had
fellowship with for more than thirty years. And his book, "The
First Seven Thousand Years" has been a great stabilising
influence to my understanding of chronology. And lest the Millennial concept
should be considered a recent invention, I should mention that it is found in
an ancient apocryphal work known as "The Epistle of
Barnabas," in which we read the words, "God made in
the six days the works of His hands, and He finished them on the seventh day
and sanctified it. Consider my children what that signifies, He finished them
in six days. The meaning of it is this: that in six thousand years the Lord God
will bring all things to an end. For with Him one day is a thousand
years." (12:4-5) Apparently this tradition was very widespread in
the early church, as may be see from Coteler's works, page 90, in his Oxford
Edition.
Point number three. Several
times through Genesis One we read "And God called - -."
I have briefly mentioned this already. The darkness was called night, the light
was called day, the firmament was called heaven, the dry land was called earth,
the waters were called seas. I repeat, God was not giving names to these things
for His own benefit, but to instruct Adam in the art of naming things. How
important it is to have names for things. Let us go out into the garden and
look at the summer flowers. We could walk round and say "Look at
this bright orange flower with many petals." But it is so much
easier to say, "Look at this Marigold," (or "Calendula",
if you want to impress your friends!) You see, everyone else refers to this
orange flower by its commonly accepted name, and without the use of NOUNS in
our language, we should spend half our time engaged in lengthy, and very
tiresome descriptive speech.
Now in Genesis chapter two
we learn that at some later time, the Lord asked Adam to do the same himself.
He brought the various species of animals and birds to him, and Adam gave them
names. It is valuable to understand that God had already instructed Adam in the
art of naming things. It was a lesson for him. This also shows that quite a
time must have passed before Eve was created, thereby substantiating what I
said before about the days being of "revelation" rather than "creation."
Point number four. Over the years I have often been puzzled as to why the sun,
moon and stars are not mentioned until the fourth day. Surely they must have
been created right at the start? Do they not constitute "the heavens"
mentioned in the first verse? If we insist on making these six days the actual
days of creation, then we shall have a great problem before us. On the first
day we are told of light and darkness, and God called them day and night. Day
and night are the result of a rotating earth facing the sun, and when the sun
is finally mentioned in the fourth day, God said that part of its purpose was
to distinguish days from nights. Hence this proves that the heavenly orbs were
created RIGHT AT THE START, when the earth was created. Why
then do we not have them mentioned earlier than the fourth day? The reason can
only be in respect of the typical and prophetic meaning contained in these
days. But as Wiseman so ably pointed out, the six days are very simply divided
into two groups of three, like this -
1. LIGHT
4. LIGHTS. Light and darkness, Great light, lesser light,
stars day and night. Dividing day from night, Signs, seasons, days, years.
2. WATER AND
ATMOSPHERE
5. WATER AND ATMOSPHERE. Atmosphere separating the waters
Fish life in the waters below from those above. Bird life in the atmosphere.
3. LAND AND
VEGETATION
6. LAND AND VEGETATION. Land produced Land animals and Man
Green vegetation and trees Green vegetation and trees assigned to animals and
man.
Because of this division,
it is reasonable to assume that in fact the progress of God's creation took
place in a progression of steps only partially paralleled by the six days. We
should not try to envisage just how or in what sequence the creation occurred,
because the "days of revelation" served an altogether different
purpose. It would of course have been totally adequate for God to say to Adam,
"I created everything you see in this world in which you find yourself.
And the heavens are the work of my hands as well." But He wrapped it up in
a mystery, the meaning of which is only being unveiled in these later times,
after six Millennial Days have rolled by.
At this stage John, (and I
hope you have been able to follow me so far,) I should like to discuss a
popular interpretation of Genesis One, known as "The Gap Theory." It
was introduced in 1833 by a Christian expositor by the name of Dr Chalmers. And
I have a feeling that the theory was born of an attempt to equate the Bible
with the growing understanding of science in those days, that the earth was a
great deal older than Genesis One seemed to allow. This date (1833) was 26
years before
Many years ago, when I
first became a Christian, I was drawn to this theory, believing it to have all
the answers to Geology and Palaeontology, but I was advised of its obvious
errors in the mid-nineteen-sixties, and for reasons which I must now spell out.
1. Hebrew scholars, and
Jewish friends I have spoken to, all declare that it is impossible to read such
a break into the text of Genesis 1:1-2. The presence of the figure POLYSYNDETON
(or many "ands") precludes it. The narrative reads "and - - and
- - and - - and - -" without a break from verse one to the end of the
story in 2:4. In other words, from a literary point of view, it is just one
continuous story without any possibility of a break of this sort.
2. If there was an earlier
catastrophe, then there must have been an earlier race of men who must have
sinned and brought the wrath of God upon the world in a fashion similar to the
Flood of Noah's day. But Paul declares in 1 Cor.15:45 "The
first man Adam was made a living soul." And in Romans
3. Some say that Satan fell
long before Genesis 3. But the account suggests quite clearly that it was AT
THAT TIME that Satan was cursed, not before. Even if sin had been developing in
his heart, it had not produced fruit until he acted upon it, and deceived Eve.
God doesn't condemn people for having doubts or asking questions. As James said
in his letter (
4. About Isaiah 45:18
"God did not create it 'without form'; He created it to be
inhabited." The meaning of this statement seems to demand the
simplest possible understanding, in other words, "God didn't
intend the world to REMAIN in that original state of formlessness. Rather did
He create it to be inhabited."
5. The "Gap
Theorists" find it very difficult to explain the creation of the sun, moon
and stars on the fourth day of the "Restoration", and for obvious
reasons. They have to assume that such heavenly bodies existed in the
pre-adamic world. It would be equally difficult to envisage such an
interpretation by combining the Gap Theory with the "Revelation in Six
Days" outlined above.
6. "Without form and
void" in Hebrew is TOHO VA-VOHU, which even sounds "empty"! And
that is what is meant. There is nothing basically suggesting a catastrophe in
these words, but exactly what the A.V. says, "without form and void".
Days 1-3 showed the creation of "form", and days 4-6 filled the void
by the creation of livestock.
7. "Was" or
"Became"? Of course the verb means "became" sometimes, as
in Genesis 19:26, when
Years ago, whilst still
living in
I have introduced this
little historical snatch for a reason. In these days much scorn is poured upon
those who take the Genesis Days as literal periods of 24 hours. But I fail to
see how, if they are any longer, the SEVENTH DAY can be understood as a weekly
Sabbath with any sense attached. In fact, when the Sabbath Day is introduced in
the Ten Commandments (see Exodus 20), there is even less doubt about the days
being limited to 24-hour periods. And if Wiseman's assertion is correct, and I
for one believe it is, then there is no puzzle attached to the days at all.
They were seven actual days during which the Lord spoke to Adam, and gave him
all the information he needed about creation. They gave no indication at all as
to how long God took in creating the world in which Adam found himself. This to
me does NOT allow for great ages, for the same reason I gave the Jehovah's
Witnesses, but I no longer seek to know the answer to the question "how
long?" I am satisfied that God took as long as He needed, and as long as
He wanted. It could have been accomplished in a few minutes, so great is the
ability of our God. "For He spoke, and it was done."
If I believe in a God Who is capable of creating the Universe as we know it
today, then the time factor fades into insignificance. It becomes pointless
asking "how long"?
Large numbers of clay
tablets have been unearthed in the
I accept Wiseman's
conclusion here. He believed that Adam received the creation record from God,
written on six tablets. Likewise Moses received the Ten Commandments from God
written upon TWO TABLETS of stone. But Adam received a SEVENTH TABLET, giving
details of what came to be called the SABBATH DAY. It was not given that title
in the beginning, but contained the idea of "rest" clearly enough.
The Babylonians were not so keen on the idea of the "rest day". They
treated it as an "unlucky day." They had a law which commanded people
(from the King down to the merest slave) to stop all work on the 7th, 14th,
19th, 21st and 28th days of the month. Regardless of it being a defiled system,
it does at least show the evidence of Sabbath observance from the very earliest
days. Incidentally, the 19th day is 49 days (i.e. 7 X 7) from the beginning of
the previous month, presumably a "doubly-unlucky day" for doing work.
They had the idea that to work on such days meant that you might get clobbered
by the gods. It was superstition rather than true Sabbath observance. The first
two lines of the Creation Epic are as follows- "When on high the
heaven had not been named, Firm ground below had not been called by name,"
See how the importance of NAMING was in the minds of those who wrote the Epic.
This is yet another remembrance of the Genesis Creation story, and how God told
Adam the names of certain things from the beginning.
And that must be enough
John! I'm sure you'll find this number a bit difficult to get through, but if
you persevere, I think you'll find the whole concept fascinating and enjoyable.
Remember, Genesis One is from the hands of God Himself. No wonder it is such an
important document for everyone.