Before there were mountains, before the oceans gained their names, before a single eye could open and see, there was darkness on the deep. This is how the Bible chooses to begin its story, with something even more intimidating than a battle. There is no cosmic war in this opening chapter of Genesis. There is only darkness and water plus, according to the Bible, the Spirit of God hovering over the water like a bird, maybe looking for a nest. Then a voice speaks into that darkness, saying, in four very short words, "Let there be light." And that is how the story of the universe begins.
Beginning Unlike Any Other
To begin the story this way, as it does, suggests to the reader that the author has not been influenced by the other creation myths of the time which were, in fact, wildly popular. In Babylon, a god named Marduk had split the body of a slain sea monster and used the pieces to make the sky and the earth. In Egypt, creation had come from the warring powers of gods who made chaos fight their way out of the deep. In most ancient cultures, creation was the aftermath of a celestial battle. In all these accounts there are giants, monsters, and more than one god. In Genesis there is none of this. There is no rival power to the creator god. There are no monstrous foes. There is only a voice speaking and things happening, including the appearance of the sun and the moon as gods, and the stars as lesser gods. What that suggests, very quietly, is that all those other warring gods and monsters are simply decorations in the cosmic house of God. That kind of theological subtlety made this creation story revolutionary in its day. It was still early in the history of the Hebrews who would one day write this account, and having only one god at the beginning of the story rather than many was certainly subversive in a region where those other gods had more influence. But the most astonishing thing about this beginning is the power and control it implies for the one God. It is not just that other gods have lost out, it is that the one true God has so much power that it is entirely effortless to create a universe for him. That, too, is revolutionary.
Three Days of Shaping
The account proceeds with a cadence that suggests a liturgy, a kind of call-and-response pattern. God speaks, and things happen. God looks at what has happened, and it is all good. There is evening, there is morning, and then a day is declared, and the whole cycle begins again. This is the story structure that people could carry with them long after most of them could read, and it is easy to see why. If you read it out loud you can almost hear someone else listening and adding their voice at the familiar line, and God saw that it was good. Day one begins with light being called out of the darkness. On day two, space is made between the waters, and the sky is named. On day three, the waters below are gathered together and the dry land is made, and it immediately begins to produce food. There is no wasted motion in this account. This is why Genesis has remained so remarkable and influential for so long.
On the first day, God spoke light into a world that was empty and dark.
Three Days of Filling
Something interesting happens in the pattern of these next few verses. As days one, two, and three create rooms in the house of God, so do days four, five, and six fill those rooms with furnishings. On day four the lights from day one are brought in to hang in the sky, along with stars strewn out like scattered jewelry, to give the sky its measure. On day five the fish and birds fill the house as its furniture, and on day six the cattle fill the room created on day three. Over this growing menagerie of creation, God speaks his very first blessing in the entire Bible, saying that they should be fruitful and multiply. Life is holy, and it is meant to thrive.
Made in His Image
Then, on day six, the rhythm of the verse shifts subtly once more. Up until now God has been simply speaking the world into existence, but now he stops to take a closer look. "Let us make mankind in our image," he says, and then he makes them, men and women. Then the verses repeat this instruction three times so that no one misses it: in the image of God he created them. Ancient kings had statues of themselves made and placed around their empires so that everyone who saw them would know who ruled there. Genesis turns this practice back on the universe itself, saying that every human being is the living statue of the king who made them. All things in God's kingdom were made for God, but humanity was made in his image to rule over the earth as his representatives. In this way all people are both privileged and tasked with something greater than themselves. They are to care for the earth and all who dwell in it as a king might care for his kingdom and his possessions. And so when God looks over his handiwork at the end of day six, he sees something different than he has seen before. "Very good," he says, and it is clear that this life is not just good, but fruitful. The whole world has been made for God, but it has been made through humanity, who bear his image.
On the sixth day, God made human beings and gave them charge over the earth.
The Seventh Day: The First Rest
By day seven all this work has been done, and it is apparently exhausting. God stops to rest, and he will return to this habit of pausing to enjoy the fruits of his own labor again and again throughout history. It is significant, for people who have labored and struggled to understand this chapter, that it takes place in the seventh day. God has made the world and its furniture, and now he rests. It is a holy rest, and it becomes the prototype for the day of rest all people should follow. By declaring the seventh day both blessed and holy, God builds into the pattern of existence for his creations the expectation of a regular day off. This was an astonishing gift, in a world where slaves and servants and even animals were forced to work every day of the week. This rest day belonged to the workers, and this was almost as radical as the rest of this statement. In fact, it is a curious observation to note that the day follows the sun, the month follows the moon, the year follows the seasons, but the seven-day week follows no celestial pattern whatsoever. It is an inheritance, and this story is the reason why.
One Story, Many Readings
Different readers have found different things in this chapter, and that has happened for a very long time. It began almost as soon as Saint Augustine was writing his Confessions in the fourth century, when he declared that the "days" described by Moses might very well not be days at all. Some readers want to see this as a description of how the world was actually made, while others want to hear the theological poetry in the carefully constructed language. What most readers can agree on is that this is not really a chapter about physics. Even the defenders of the geocentric view of the solar system can hardly argue with the way the author clearly states that the sun was created to mark time. Both kinds of readers have been sitting in the same pews for centuries, and what neither one of them will deny is the power of the message these verses deliver. The world was not made accidentally, and it has not been made in vain. It has been made good by God's design, and the most important part of it, the part made in his image, should never be treated as something less than sacred.
On the fourth day, the lights of heaven were set in place to mark seasons and years.
Spoken Into Being
One thing that makes this account stand out in comparison with many of the ancient creation myths is the ease with which it takes place. There is no battle, and there is no contest between gods. There is not even the need to wrest creation from an unwilling source. God speaks, and things are done, and then he looks at them all and calls them good. It is the simplicity of this that lends the whole account its power, and the very first line seems to say it all. It was not always this way, because before there were mountains and oceans and eyes there was only water and darkness. But then there was a voice, speaking into the water and the darkness, and saying, "Let there be light." God had not existed before he brought creation into existence, but now God is present everywhere, and his word carries as much power as a god's breath. This gives the account its peculiar combination of simplicity and majesty. The creation story describes a creator of immeasurable power and authority, and the effortless creation of the universe suggests that this power is not something that can be achieved or earned. It also imbues every part of creation with value and significance because it all comes from and reflects God's word.
The Legacy of Seven Days
Few chapters in history have resonated as broadly and deeply as this one. It inspired Michelangelo to stretch his genius across the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, capturing in paint the moment when God laid his hand upon Adam and his world began. It inspired the composer Haydn to set the text to music, and poets, painters, and legislators continued to return to it for centuries. Even the phrase "let there be light" has entered the popular lexicon as a way of capturing that very special moment when an idea is born. But its most significant legacy may well lie in the way this story has reinforced the value of human life. The idea that every person, made in the image of God, has immeasurable worth has inspired reformers of all kinds to demand better treatment of slaves, the poor, and the most vulnerable. The story begins in darkness and ends in blessing. In between these opening and closing lines it answers, in its own special way, the most fundamental questions that people have asked for millennia. Where did we come from, and what is our place in the universe? How good is the world, and is there a God who made it? What is the value of human life, and are we meant to be here?
