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sabbath is the great culminating point, in which man reaches his real destiny. This view reminds
us rather strongly of the position of some of the early Church Fathers. The arguments adduced
for it are not very convincing, as Aalders has shown in his De Eerste Drie Hoofdstukken van
Genesis.[pp. 232-240.] This Old Testament scholar holds, on the basis of Gen. 1:5, that the term
yom in Gen. 1 denotes simply the period of light, as distinguished from that of darkness; but
this view would seem to involve a rather unnatural interpretation of the repeated expression
“and there was evening and there was morning.” It must then be interpreted to mean, and
there was evening preceded by a morning. According to Dr. Aalders, too, Scripture certainly
favors the idea that the days of creation were ordinary days, though it may not be possible to
determine their exact length, and the first three days may have differed somewhat from the
last three.
The literal interpretation of the term “day” in Gen. 1 is favored by the following considerations:
(a) In its primary meaning the word yom denotes a natural day; and it is a good rule in exegesis,
not to depart from the primary meaning of a word, unless this is required by the context. Dr.
Noortzij stresses the fact that this word simply does not mean anything else than “day,” such as
this is known by man on earth. (b) The author of Genesis would seem to shut us up absolutely
to the literal interpretation by adding in the case of every day the words, “and there was
evening and there was morning.” Each one of the days mentioned has just one evening and
morning, something that would hardly apply to a period of thousands of years. And if it should
be said that the periods of creation were extraordinary days, each one consisting of one long
day and one long night, then the question naturally arises, What would become of all
vegetation during the long, long night? (c) In Ex. 20:9-11 Israel is commanded to labor six days
and to rest on the seventh, because Jehovah made heaven and earth in six days and rested on
the seventh day. Sound exegesis would seem to require that the word “day” be taken in the
same sense in both instances. Moreover the sabbath set aside for rest certainly was a literal
day; and the presumption is that the other days were of the same kind. (d) The last three days
were certainly ordinary days, for they were determined by the sun in the usual way. While we
cannot be absolutely sure that the preceding days did not differ from them at all in length, it is
extremely unlikely that they differed from them, as periods of thousands upon thousands of
years differ from ordinary days. The question may also be asked, why such a long period should
be required, for instance, for the separation of light and darkness.
3. THE WORK OF THE SEPARATE DAYS.
We notice in the work of creation a definite gradation,
the work of each day leads up to and prepares for the work of the next, the whole of it
culminating in the creation of man, the crown of God’s handiwork, entrusted with the
important task of making the whole of creation subservient to the glory of God.