Gen 1:1 – 2:3

• Day One – heavens*, earth* , waters*, and light
• Day Two – heaven (or sky), to separate the waters
• Day Three – waters gathered into seas, dry land appears, vegetation
• Day Four – sun, moon, and stars
• Day Five – sea creatures and birds
• Day Six – land animals and humans
• Day Seven – God rests from His work

In the first couple of chapters of the first book of the Bible called Genesis, we find many action words describing God’s work in creation. God created, spoke, saw (or observed, considered), separated, called (or named), gathered, placed, blessed, gave, completed, sanctified, formed, breathed, planted, caused to grow, and commanded.

Some observations:

• God speaks and it is done! The Word of God is powerful!
• As the sun was created on the fourth day, the “light” on the first day was something else. The light in verses three, four, and five, and the darkness in verses two, four, and five was different from the light of the sun and the darkness resulting from the turning of the earth away from the sun. This is something to explore more for sure. I’ve read much in the commentaries, but I think I’ll search out other creation passages before getting back into the commentaries.
• We read that God made separations– light from dark, day from night, waters above the heavens from waters below the heavens, dry ground from waters. Even the repetition of “evening” and “morning” point out a division or separation. Also, the seventh day was “sanctified”, or set apart as holy.
• I find so many terms dealing with life and abundance: sprout, bearing fruit, fruitful, fill, teem, swarms, multiply. God commands fruitfulness, multiplication, and filling.
• We see a pattern of life bringing forth more life, first with the seed bearing plants, then with sea creatures and birds, next with the land animals, and finally with humans.
• On each day of creation except the second day, we are told that “God saw that it was good”. On day one, we’re told specifically “God saw that the light was good”. This wording isn’t used of the second day when he made the vault or expanse of heaven. Gen 1:31 does tell us though that “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.“
• In Gen 2:3, we’re told that God rested on the seventh day and that he blessed that day and sanctified it.

*We read a series of “Let there be…” that doesn’t include the heavens, the physical planet earth, or waters, but before God commanded the light in verse three, we are told he created the heavens and the earth in verse one. Also, water is mentioned in verse two.