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- Genesis 2:4
- "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens."
- Problem:
- In attempts to make the six days of Genesis 1 into a longer period of time (in keeping with dates currently postulated for life on the earth), the word "day" in Genesis 2:4 is used to support a longer day than the period bounded by the "evening and the morning" of Genesis 2.1
- Solution:
- "Day" in scripture is sometimes used to represent an unspecified length of time.2 The Hebrew word "yom" translated "day" in this passage is translated "time elsewhere. (e.g., Gen. 4:3; 26:8; 38:12). But when second, third, etc., occur as they do in Genesis 1, the word refers to a literal day, defined in Genesis by the "evening and the morning".
- As used in Genesis 2, "yom" covers the whole period when the LORD God "made the earth and the heavens". (Gen. 2:4). Failure to distinguish between these two uses of "day" have led to faulty interpretations of Genesis 1. The days of Genesis 1 are determined by light and darkness, evening and morning.
Footnotes:
- J.W.'s use this argument: " . . . the Bible tells of six 'days' during which life appeared. But the Bible's use of the word "day' here means a period of time and not a twenty-four hour day. Genesis 2:4 indicates this by speaking of the 'day' that Jehovah God made earth and heaven when previously it called each of six periods included in that same time a 'day'." Did Man Get Here By Evolution Or By Creation? (New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc. 1967), p. 97. Return
- For example, "the day of temptation" (Psa. 95:8), "the day of adversity" (Prov. 24:10), "the day of vengeance" (Isa. 61:2), but when Scripture refers to "the fifteenth day of the same month" (Lev. 23:6), the seven days of Unleavened Bread, or the fifty days until Pentecost, the word "day" can mean only a 24 hour period. Return
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