The Fourth Day

Hebrew Without Vowels or Accents

The text of Genesis 1: 14 to 19 appears as follows:

Samaritan Targum Interlinear Translation

Here’s the interlinear translation of Genesis 1:14 to 19 from tanakh.info:

Facts About Hebrew

We can add the following to our facts about Hebrew:

21.          In fact #5, we looked at et את which according to Strong’s and NAS Exhaustive Concordances is not translatable, and up until Gen 1:16 hasn’t been.  In Gen 1:16 there are four occurrences of et את , and the 4^th is translated as “He also made” in NIV and NLT, “He made” in Berean Study Bible, “He made” in NASB and KJB, and is not translated in the Tanakh (see above), ESV, ISV and Christian Standard Bible.

We discussed that in Brown Driver Briggs it states that et is “the mark of the accusative, prefixed as a rule only to nouns that are definite”, which in this verse indicates that “two lights great”,  “the light greater”, “the light lesser”, and “the stars” are direct objects of the verb “made”. 

This is the first instance where the plural gods elohim אלהים is made to appear singular and masculine (male), a false image that permeates organized religion today.

22.          As we discussed in fact #10, Hebrew verb or אור (Strong’s 215) translated as ‘to give light/shine’  in Gen 1:15 is the same word as the noun or (Strong’s 216) translated as ‘light’ in Gen 1: 3 to 5, except for the vowel points.  There is another noun,  or with the prefix mem מ, maor מאור (Strong’s 3974) which means ‘a luminary’, and is translated as ‘lights’ in Gen 1:14 to 16.  In Gen 1:15, maor is preceded by the preposition ל that means ‘to, for’ (fact #15), translated as ‘for’ which makes it function as a noun, ‘for light’, but if translated as ‘to’ would function as a verb, ‘to light’.  This is something to keep in mind as we construct sentences – subject, verb, object, whether or not this methodology captures the meaning of the text, and if not, what the alternatives are.

23.          The Hebrew noun oth translated as ‘sign’ אות (Strong’s 226) and the noun moed מועד (Strong’s 4150) translated as ‘seasons’ in Gen 1:14, fail to capture the full meaning of this verse.  The noun oth more specifically means ‘pledge, oath’, being the same as the verb uth, that means ‘to consent, agree’, except for the vowel points which were added by scribes.  The noun moed is from the verb  יעד meaning ‘to appoint’, and most often translated as ‘appointed time/meeting’.  In the broadest sense, the message of Gen 1:14 is that  the heavenly luminaries allow mankind to track time, to know when the time for fulfillment of God’s ‘pledge, oath’ has arrived.

Constructing The Sentences

Let’s construct the sentences – subject, verb, object:

Gen 1:14 has a major clause, the subject is ‘gods’, the verb ‘said’, and within the object are three subordinate clauses, first – the verb ‘be’, and object ‘light in the firmament of the heavens’, second – the verb ‘to divide’, and object ‘between the day and between the night’, third – the verb ‘be’, and object ‘for pledge and for appointed time, and for days and years’.

Gen 1:15 has a major clause, the subject ‘lights in the firmament of the heavens’, the verb ‘be’, and the object contains a subordinate clause, the verb ‘to light’, and the object ‘upon the earth’.  The sentence ends with a subordinate clause the subject is the major clause, the verb ‘be’, and the object ‘so’.

Gen 1:16 has a major clause, the subject ‘gods’, the verb ‘made’, and the object ‘two the light the great’, and two subordinate clauses – the first with the subject ‘the light greater’, verb ‘to rule’, and object ‘the day’, and the second with the subject ‘the light lesser’, verb ‘to rule’, and object ‘the night and the stars’.

Gen 1:17 has a major clause, the subject ‘gods’, the verb ‘set’, and object ‘them in the firmament of the heavens’, and three subordinate clauses, the first with the verb ‘to light’, and object ‘upon the earth’.

Gen 1:18 the second with the verb ‘to rule’, and object ‘over night’, the third with the verb ‘to divide’, and object ‘between the light and between the darkness’.  Then a major clause, with the subject  ‘gods’, the verb ‘saw’, and the object ‘good’.

Gen 1:19 has a major clause with the subject the ‘fourth day’, the verb ‘be’, and the object ‘evening’, and a sub clause with the verb ‘be’, and object ‘morning’.

Literal and Figurative Translation

The paragraph translates as follows:

And said gods “Be light in the expanse the heavens to divide between the day and between the night and be for pledge and for appointed time and days and years.  And be for lights in firmament the heavens to shine upon the earth and it was so.  And made gods two lights great, the light greater to rule the day and the light lesser to rule the night and the stars.  And set them gods in firmament the heavens to shine upon the earth, and to rule over day and over night and to divide between the light and between the darkness and saw gods that good.  And be evening and be morning day fourth.

Analysis

Tradition would have us believe that creation was perfect ‘in the beginning’, until ‘the fall’ in the garden of Eden in Gen 3, but we know from our study that it was not.  Throughout Genesis 1, God was creating separation between the wicked and righteous, and declaring the separation ‘good’.  In Gen 1:14, God made heavenly luminaries to divide between the day and night, and for tracking time, which is only necessary when life is finite.  The lights illumine the earth Gen 1:15 until all righteous mankind are reunited with God through the Messiah and all evil destroyed, along with death itself, at the final judgment Rev 20:11 to 15 & 21:23 to 25.

God, who knows all things, was preparing for the fall of mankind, and had already planned for their future salvation through the Messiah, which is the ‘pledge for the appointed time’, not ‘seasons’ as translators would have us believe.  Daniel’s 77’s prophecy points to the generation in which the Messiah was born as the decreed time the Messiah would come and rebuild Jerusalem Daniel 9: 24 to 27, which is the heavenly Jerusalem, not the earthly one.  The 77 generations are listed in Luke 3: 23 to 38, from Adam to Yahshua.  Yahshua warned that the ‘appointed time’, the ‘tribulation’, the ‘day of the LORD’ would take place in that ‘generation’ Matthew 24: 1 to 44,  Mark 13: 23 to 33, and Luke 21: 10 to 36. 

The ‘greater light to rule the day’ is the opposite of the ‘lesser light to rule the night’ in Gen 1:16 and they are separated having been created in the ‘day’ and ‘night’ respectively, which were separated on the first day Gen 1: 3 to 5.  As the separation on the first day was declared ‘good’, meaning acceptable for the time being, the creation of the greater and lesser lights in their separate spaces is declared good on the fourth day in Gen 1:17.

The ‘greater light’ that rules the day is the Messiah, the light that shines in the darkness, the darkness did not comprehend John 1:4.  Satan is the ‘lesser light’, the moon, and his angels, the stars who rule over the darkness called night Gen 1:5.  Satan is the ruler of the earth John 14:30 & 16:11 until the Messiah (the archangel Michael who stands guard over God’s people Dan 12:1) wages war with the dragon and his angels, a third of the stars of heaven swept away by his tail, and throws them out of heaven Rev 12: 4, 7 & 8.

In the New Jerusalem the illumination of God and the light of the Messiah will be the only lights Rev 21:23.

In my next article, I will look at Genesis 1: 20 to 23.