Knowing The Word in Genesis 1:14-19, The Fourth Day of Creation

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.

[In the Ancient Near East the sun and moon were the most important in the pantheon of gods as in most primitive cultures around the world, such as the temples of the Sun and the Moon in Teotihuacan, Mexico. Genesis declares they are created by God and are creatures, not gods. They are not named but assigned the task of lighting the earth as God’s surrogates. The stars, widely worshiped and often regarded as controllers of human destiny, are mentioned almost as an afterthought. They too are merely creatures. According to Gordon Wenham, "there is a well-organized concentric structure to this account. Its main elements consist of a list of functions:

A to divide the day from the night (14a)

B for signs, for seasons, for days and years (14b)

C to give light on the earth (15)

D to rule the day (16a) God made the

D’ to rule the night (16b) two lights

C’ to give light on the earth (17)

B’ to rule the day and the night (18a)

A’ to divide the light from the darkness (18b)

The fulfillment of the divine commands in vv 14-15 is recorded in reverse order in vv 17-18 with the creation of the sun and moon recorded at the center of the pattern. The threefold function of the heavenly bodies is to divide, to rule, and to give light."]