Sunday Recap

Our study of Day 7 of Creation Week provides the perfect opportunity to consider some questions which I purposely set aside until now. For example, what exactly is meant by the word "day" as it is used throughout the account given in Genesis 1 and 2? Does the word "day" mean "solar day"; in other words, a literal day consisting of 24 hours? Or does it mean something else, perhaps a much longer period of time of unknown duration?

I believe the word "day" in Genesis 1 and 2 refers to literal solar days consisting of 24 hours. I know there are good people who love the Lord and his Word who disagree with this. So I'd like to share some of the thinking behind the literal-day interpretation.

First, the use of "evening and morning" appears in the text to describe each of the first six "days" of Creation Week. This seems to be a clear indication of how we are to interpret the length of each of those days. Secondly, ordinals are used in conjunction with "evening and morning" for each of the days. An ordinal is a number like first, second, third...et. Al, indicating a position or rank. Henry Morris wrote this about the use of ordinals in The Biblical Basis of Modern Science (p. 117): "The use of a numeral or ordinal to modify 'day' occurs over one hundred times in the Pentateuch alone and always indicates a real solar day."

To be fair, some people who hold to a different view argue that the original word for "day" can mean "a long period of time". They also point out that the words "evening and morning" can be interpreted respectively as "ending and beginning". Based on this, the use of ordinals with each of the "days" would simply be indicating the first "period of time", which had an "ending and beginning"; followed by the second "long period of time", which had an "ending and beginning"; etc.

In response to the above, I think it's interesting that so many non-literal interpretations of words are needed to combine with each other in order to establish that the word "day" shouldn't be taken literally. That kind of literary complexity, where the plain meanings of several key words have to be set aside in combination with one another in order to arrive at a certain conclusion, would be a pretty rare occurrence in the Bible.

I believe the most compelling reason for understanding the days of Creation Week as literal 24-hour days is found on the 7th Day. By the time Moses wrote the Book of Genesis, the people of Israel were already in possession of the Ten Commandments, and they were already practicing Sabbath rest. The reason why they rested on the Sabbath was because of its connection to the rest of God on Day 7 of Creation Week. Exodus 20:8-11 makes this clear: "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God...For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy."

So the time frame for Creation Week served as an analog generally for organizing days into weeks and specifically for setting aside the 7th day each week for rest. I believe this is a strong argument for understanding the days of Creation week as literal 24-hour, solar days.

More tomorrow on Day 7 of Creation Week...