Genesis 1:15

1:14-19 In the fourth day's work, the creation of the sun, moon, and stars is accounted for. All these are the works of God. The stars are spoken of as they appear to our eyes, without telling their number, nature, place, size, or motions; for the Scriptures were written, not to gratify curiosity, or make us astronomers, but to lead us to God, and make us saints. The lights of heaven are made to serve him; they do it faithfully, and shine in their season without fail. We are set as lights in this world to serve God; but do we in like manner answer the end of our creation? We do not: our light does not shine before God, as his lights shine before us. We burn our Master's candles, but do not mind our Master's work.

And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven,.... To continue there as luminous bodies; as enlighteners, as the word signifies, causing light, or as being the instruments of conveying it, particularly to the earth, as follows: to give light upon the earth; and the inhabitants of it, when formed: and it was so: these lights were formed and placed in the firmament of the heaven for such uses, and served such purposes as God willed and ordered they should.

(15) To give light. —This was to be henceforward the permanent arrangement for the bestowal of that which is an essential condition for all life, vegetable and animal. As day and night began on the first day, it is evident that very soon there was a concentrating mass of light and heat outside the earth, and as the expanse grew clear its effects must have become more powerful. There was daylight, then, long before the fourth day; but it was only then that the sun and moon became fully formed and constituted as they are at present, and shone regularly and clearly in the bright sky.

Ge 1:14-19. Fourth Day. 14. let there be lights in the firmament—The atmosphere being completely purified, the sun, moon, and stars were for the first time unveiled in all their glory in the cloudless sky; and they are described as "in the firmament" which to the eye they appear to be, though we know they are really at vast distances from it.

To shine upon the earth. - The first day spreads the shaded gleam of light over the face of the deep. The fourth day unfolds to the eye the lamps of heaven, hanging in the expanse of the skies, and assigns to them the office of "shining upon the earth." A threefold function is thus attributed to the celestial orbs - to divide day from night, to define time and place, and to shine on the earth. The word of command is here very full, running over two verses, with the exception of the little clause, "and it was so," stating the result.

The Fourth Day. - After the earth had been clothed with vegetation, and fitted to be the abode of living beings, there were created on the fourth day the sun, moon, and stars, heavenly bodies in which the elementary light was concentrated, in order that its influence upon the earthly globe might be sufficiently modified and regulated for living beings to exist and thrive beneath its rays, in the water, in the air, and upon the dry land. At the creative word of God the bodies of light came into existence in the firmament, as lamps. On יהי, the singular of the predicate before the plural of the subject, in Genesis 1:14 ; Genesis 5:23 ; Genesis 9:29 , etc., vid., Gesenius, Heb. Gr. 147. מאורת, bodies of light, light-bearers, then lamps.

These bodies of light received a threefold appointment: (1) They were "to divide between the day and the night," of, according to Genesis 1:18 , between the light and the darkness, in other words, to regulate from that time forward the difference, which had existed ever since the creation of light, between the night and the day. (2) They were to be (or serve: והיוּ after an imperative has the force of a command) - (a) for signs (sc., for the earth), partly as portents of extraordinary events ( Matthew 2:2 ; Luke 21:25 ) and divine judgments ( Joel 2:30 ; Jeremiah 10:2 ; Matthew 24:29 ), partly as showing the different quarters of the heavens, and as prognosticating the changes in the weather; - (b) for seasons, or for fixed, definite times (מועדים, from יעד to fix, establish), - not for festal seasons merely, but "to regulate definite points and periods of time, by virtue of their periodical influence upon agriculture, navigation, and other human occupations, as well as upon the course of human, animal, and vegetable life (e.g., the breeding time of animals, and the migrations of birds, Jeremiah 8:7 , etc.); - (c) for days and years, i.e., for the division and calculation of days and years.