Evening and Morning

Part of the foundations presented on this website is that oftentimes we have a greater understanding of Scripture over time. With this understanding, let us examine how light and darkness, day and night are described in the first few verses of Genesis 1.

The first time that the word “darkness” is used is Genesis 1:2.

 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. 

From the scientific perspective, this passage describes the darkness during early chaotic stage of the earth with meteors exploding on their way through earth’s cloud cover. This darkness is then associated with the chaos when the earth is “without form and void”.

Then in verse 3, God had the light appear and then darkness is once again used in verse 4.

And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 

So, here we see that the LORD God saw that the light was good and separated it from the darkness. An implication can be made here that God was moving the stages of the earth from darkness to light, from that which is chaotic to that which is more orderly, from that which is more mysterious to that which is more clear.

Then in the first part of verse 5 is the third use of the word darkness in chapter 1.

God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.

Here there is an analogy made between darkness and Night. Then the last part of verse 5 states the following.

And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Now what can we say about the words “evening” and “morning”? One way to define the evening is that it comes before the night, which was equated by analogy in the first part of the verse to darkness. And darkness was first referenced in Genesis 1 as being associated to a chaotic earth. So, one way to look at this definition of evening is that it is a state that is more chaotic, more full of mystery and potential perhaps. But it is less orderly and clear than is the light.

Similarly, morning is that time which comes before the light of the day. In other words, it is a sign of the more orderly, clear, and defined state of being. So, if we use these analogies then the phrase, “And there was evening and there was morning”, could be understood to mean that there was a state that was more chaotic followed by a state that was more orderly and defined. And then these periods where the Creator God brought order out of chaos were defined as one yom or period of time. This is consistent with each yom or day of creation, because each yom was an example of bringing greater order, light, and even life into existence.

There is another aspect to this to consider as well, and this has to do with day 4 of creation. Day 4 of creation is described as follows.

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, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 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. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

Here we see the last use of the word darkness in Genesis 1. And it could explain why in the previous verses of 1-5 that the notion of evening and morning was set up as possibly being analogous to more chaos and more order, respectively. Because in the passage above for creation day 4, then the familiar use of day and night is now being used. The light of the sun is to rule over the day and the light of the moon is to rule over the night. This becomes analogous to our 24 hour day (although the “days” or the periodic rotation of the earth at this stage of the earth’s development were probably much faster). So, by making the analogy between chaos and evening and then order and morning in verses 1-5, then it can be consistent even for the description of the 4th day of creation. The 4th day of creation was once again following this cycle of going from less order to more order, and in this case literally from less light to more light. So, we can see now from a scientific perspective that all of these words to describe the stages of the earth are consistent and coherent. We can understand them now much better than before when we did not know the scientific parallels.