Genesis 1
What's the first thing God said
after creating people?
0 MIN READ
Psalm 1:1-3 Who Gets Blessed?
The Two Paths
1 Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
Application
Meditation is thinking through Implications for Applications. Think about it. What should you do and what should you not do? See Joshua 1:8 for more.
Prayer
God, help me draw my delight and strength from Your Word rather than the world. Amen
Proverbs 1:7 How Do We Become Wise?
7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Prayer
Lord, help me know and do Your will. Amen.
Genesis 1 What's the First Thing God Said After He Created People?
The Beginning
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.The First Day: Light
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.The Second Day: Firmament
6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. 8 And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.The Third Day: Dry Ground
9 And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11 And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.The Fourth Day: Sun, Moon, Stars
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16 And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.The Fifth Day: Fish and Birds
20 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” 21 So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.The Sixth Day: Creatures on Land
24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Question
From Genesis 1, can you figure out why we were created?
Application
What do you have to do to be in a position where God can bless you?
(Hint: Bruce Wilkinson's “Prayer of Jabez” is good. Psalm 1 is very good, and Proverbs 1:7 isn't a bad idea.)
Prayer
My Creator and God, I praise You for revealing Yourself to be a God who does what is good, and loves to bless. Thank You for giving me life. Help me use it to know and please You. Amen.
Digging Deeper
You want to learn to read the Scriptures as written to the original audience. Genesis isn't a chronicle of creation, but... ...a preface to giving the basis of blessing (God's Revelation), in the promised land, to the Israelites, after the exit from Egypt (Exodus). As we read, we want to emphasize what God emphasizes. You want to ask three questions:
- What does this passage reveal about God?
- What does it reveal about myself?
- What does it tell me about the relationship between the two (God and me)?
These questions lead to two more:
- What can I expect of God?
- What does He expect of me?
God in a nutshell: Powerful, good, creator, makes things happen, has a deliberate purposeful plan, sets up order, evaluates and judges (good/very good), communicates His will, blesses, and is a corporate transcendent personal being (sorry to go theological on you; this means that He has multiple dimensions to His personality, goes beyond the universe, being separate from the material world which we sense, yet, since we are reflective of Him, He has a personal identity to which we can relate). For more of God's characteristics see: “Is There A Supernatural Being, And Can He Walk And Talk?” in the 7 Questions on Truthbase.net.
Us in a nutshell: We are created, not self-caused, therefore we are dependent beings; reflective of God, having worth and value and placed on earth with a purpose; created as distinctly male and female; a cut above evolved pond scum; blessed, etc.
Structure
Note the order and progressions; repeated words and concepts (said, light, bless, etc).
Observation
Genesis 1:1 Contrary to what some baseball fans believe, "In the beginning" cannot be translated "In the big inning."
Lexical Light
v1 The Hebrew word for God ‘elohiym (which emphasizes might and power) is in the plural. Hebrews used the plural sometimes to intensify a concept. However you can find a number of other clues in Genesis 1 that the God who is One, has multiple aspects. Hmmm.
Questions
What defines a day?
When does it become 24 hours?
How would the original audience have understood a “day”?
How do you separate light from darkness?
Why the difference between the sea or earth “bringing things forth” (vv 11,12,20,24) and specific objects of creation (vv 21,25,27)? Is it just a structural progression from general to specific?
Where to go for more
“Answers in Genesis” has some great research (although their apologetics is a little too presuppositional for me).
“Creation and Blessing” by Allen Ross (my former Hebrew professor) is my favorite commentary on Genesis. Ross wrote the Genesis Section of the concise and accessible “Bible Knowledge Commentary”.
Gerald Schroeder, former MIT physicist, will give you a big-brain-bang as he looks at Genesis 1 from a pre-Renaissance rabbinical perspective. See “The Age of the Universe” and “The Hidden Face of God”.
This quote from Schroeder is too good to miss: "How do we have a concept of evening and morning for the first three days if the sun is only mentioned on Day Four? There is a purpose for the sun appearing only on Day Four, so that as time goes by and people understand more about the universe, you can dig deeper into the text. Nachmanides says the text uses the words "Vayehi Erev" ― but it doesn't mean "there was evening." He explains that the Hebrew letters Ayin, Resh, Bet ― the root of "erev" ― is chaos. Mixture, disorder. That's why evening is called "erev", because when the sun goes down, vision becomes blurry. The literal meaning is "there was disorder." The Torah's word for "morning" ― "boker" ― is the absolute opposite. When the sun rises, the world becomes "bikoret", orderly, able to be discerned. That's why the sun needn't be mentioned until Day Four. Because from erev to boker is a flow from disorder to order, from chaos to cosmos. That's something any scientist will testify never happens in an unguided system. Order never arises from disorder spontaneously and remains orderly. Order always degrades to chaos unless the environment recognizes the order and locks it in to preserve it. There must be a guide to the system. That's an unequivocal statement. The Torah wants us to be amazed by this flow, starting from a chaotic plasma and ending up with a symphony of life. Day-by-day the world progresses to higher and higher levels. Order out of disorder. It's pure thermodynamics. And it's stated in terminology of 3000 years ago." (source of quote)
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