Leupold Genesis part 31 verse 3 Light

3. And God said: Let there be light! and there was light.

Nothing could be more uncalled for and unnatural than to try to make this verse a part of a complicated sentence structure. The simple statement wayyo'mer, "and He said," is apt to be estimated too lightly in this connection. It shows the manner in which God worked--by His Word. Heb. 11:3 gives the clearest expression of this fact. That in reality this creation was in and through the Son .of God, who is also called the Word, appears from (Col 1:16; Joh 1:3; 1Co 8:6); so that the second Person of the Holy Trinity is seen to be involved in the work of creation. True, this is but obscurely taught at this point, but it becomes a matter that is clearly confirmed by the New Testament. In the light of these later passages we must admit that the truth itself is provided for by the nature of the statements found in this basic record. All this serves to explain and to confirm more fully what we said above on v. 1 as conveying a reference to the Holy Trinity.

But besides it is here very clearly taught in what manner the creative work proceeded. It was all wrought by God's omnipotent word, not by mysterious emanations from the divine being, not by natural processes, not by self-causation, but in a manner worthy of God and revealing the character of God. He is at once discerned to be divinely powerful, intelligent, and far above the level of His poor creatures: "He speaks and it is done; He commands and it stands fast" (Ps 33:9). Nothing is altered in reference to this fact if it be pointed out that as we now read the record the primal substance, "heaven and earth," was not said (v. 1) to have been made by a divine word. To argue that it was not is to use the poor argument from silence. We do not know how this was made. But that for all the works that follow God is said to have spoken simply aims to bring that mode of the process more strongly to our attention.

After the primary substance on the first day the most ethereal of all things is brought into being, "light." It is at the same time the most essential prerequisite for life and existence. Since God proceeds in an orderly fashion, He begins at the natural starting point. We may not be shooting wide of the mark if we infer, that with light that other form of energy, heat, must have sprung into being. How inextricably both are interwoven in the sun we all clearly see.

The Hebrew is really more expressive than the English for the word spoken by God which we render: "Let there be light." It is a vigorous imperative of the verb hayah, "to become": "Become light" and "became light." The German comes closer to the original: Es werde Licht und es ward Licht. He who notices at once that there, was no sun to serve as a vehicle for the light observes the truth. But it ill behooves man to speak an apodictic word at this point and to claim that light apart from the sun is unthinkable. Why should it be? If scientists now often regard light as merely enveloping the sun but not as an intrinsic part of it, why could it not have existed by itself without being localized in any heavenly body? If, then, another hasty deduction is based upon this observation in reference to the length of the first three days, as though they could not have been twenty-four hour days because they were not regulated by the sun, the serious limitations of this argument are palpably apparent. The last three days are clearly controlled by the sun, which is created on the fourth day, and all of them are described in the same terms used for indicating the nature, and the course of the first three--a strong argument that the first six days were alike in length and in nature and normal days of twenty-four hours.

No one need think it strange that an inanimate object is addressed as animate when God speaks to the light. The situation is really even stranger: God speaks to the things that are not that they might be. The nature of creation requires just that. K.C. need hardly list instances where inanimate objects are addressed; they do not constitute real parallels, for in-every case objects already in existence are referred to: (Isa 43:6; Am 9:3; Na 1:4; Hag 1:11).

So of the four deficiencies listed above one has been removed, "darkness."

A certain order prevails in regard to significant terms employed in this account. Delitzsch first drew attention to it. He finds ten creative words introduced by "and He said." Seven times the expression "and there was" is found, chronicling the result. "And He called" is found three times; "And He blessed," three times; "good" is used seven times. Whether these numbers were designed and counted by the author we cannot say. In any case, they tally with reality as it actually appears in the account: just so many times God spoke, blessed, etc. Even as in the world of nature certain things now appear in stated sequence or Uniformity according to regular patterns, so God Himself, being a God of order, operates after a pattern of order in harmony with His own being. For seven is the number of divine works and operations; three, the mark of the divine person; ten, the mark of completeness. In God there is nothing that is accidental. Even the number of steps taken by Him in His work are in fullest harmony with His nature and being.