Kalev Creative

 September 13, 2026

We read Genesis 1:1-2:4 and discussed some housekeeping for the new start to class for the Fall.

For the foreseeable future, we’ll consider the passage verse by verse, so we started again at the beginning.

For word searches, we used Step Bible, looking at NASB (which I use because it is close to a word for word translation) and Hebrew. By mousing over a word, we can see a definition. By clicking on the word we can get additional information including the number of occurrences of that word. By clicking on the occurrences, we can see all the passages in which it appears.

Pre-creation

We looked at the first word/phrase in the Bible “In the beginning,” which in Hebrew sounds like “b’reshit.” In his book Genesis Unbound, John Sailhamer writes about how it appears elsewhere in the Bible to get an idea of how we can interpret it here:

In Job 8:7 the word reshit refers to the early part of Job’s life, before his misfortunes overtook him. During this time Job grew into full maturity, raised his family, and gained renown for his great wisdom and prosperity. It was an unspecified, but lengthy, period in Job’s life.

Within the Book of Genesis itself, the author uses the term reshit to refer to the early part of Nimrod’s kingdom (Genesis 10:10). The NIV translates reshit in that verse as “the first centers [reshit] of his kingdom were Babylon, Erech, Adda, and Calneh ...”

When the Bible speaks of the reigns of Israel’s kings, the word reshit is used in a unique reckoning system. The first period of a king’s reign usually was not counted as part of the official length of his reign. An unspecified period was allowed during which the king actually reigned, but it was not officially counted as part of his reign. After that period—whatever its duration—the years of the king’s reign were counted in consecutive order. No one knows for certain the origin of this system of reckoning, but we know it was practiced throughout the ancient Near East.

To calculate the duration of a king’s reign, scribes started to count years only after an initial period of time, which sometimes was only a few months and at other times was several years. This indeterminate period of time before the official reckoning of a king’s reign was called “the beginning [reshit] of his reign.”

It was common in ancient Israel to begin counting the years of a king’s reign from the first of the year—that is, the first day of the month of Nisan. If the king assumed office prior to that day, as was frequently the case, the time which preceded the first of the year was not reckoned as part of his reign. That time was called “the beginning” (reshit).

In a few biblical cases “the beginning” of a king’s reign amounted to several years. According to Jeremiah 28:1, for example, the “beginning” of King Zedekiah’s reign included events which happened four years after he had assumed the throne. In this case the NIV translated the word “beginning” simply as “early in the reign of Zedekiah.”

For Sailhamer, the beginning is an indeterminate period of time during which God was at work prior to the seven days we learn about in the rest of Genesis 1. He further cites the immediate existence of the land and the ocean in Genesis 1:2 as evidence some creation has already occurred. We previously discussed that other cultures’ creation stories assumed the existence of the ocean at the start of creation, so, from an ancient perspective, they likely did not require an explanation like Sailhamer’s more modern view.

John Walton has a recent book on Genesis that, among other things, examines how Ancient Near Eastern ideas compare and contrast with biblical accounts. He has written extensively on the subject over his career. I should clarify – I’m not advocating for positions Walton, Sailhamer, and other scholars we sometimes reference or read have taken in attempt to explain Genesis 1. I hope we can take ideas from their scholarship to help us understand what the biblical authors have written.

The heavens and the earth can be received as a merism – a figure of speech that refers to something as a whole by mentioning two contrasting parts (i.e. “he searched high and low”), but even if we view it that way, the choice of “the heavens and the earth” remains significant. The author could have discussed creation in the east and the west, for instance, but chose to emphasize the two concepts of the heavens and the land (shammayim and eretz), which also close out the passage and are the subject of the middle days, day 3 revealing the dry land, and day 4, populating the heavens. When a passage shows us concepts at the beginning, middle, and twice at the end, it seems likely we should view them as significant.

Verse 2 tells us the land was “formless and empty,” which in Hebrew sounds like “tohu va vohu,” a memorable rhyming phrase that only occurs a few times in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. Vohu occurs in just those three places, always with tohu, so it is likely a modifier or intensifier of tohu. Tohu, which occurs far more frequently, most often means “wasteland,” “empty place,” “chaos,” “desolation,” and similar ideas.

The translation “formless and empty” along with the darkness over the deep identifies three problems that God subsequently solves by speaking light into being, by separating for three days to define form, and by populating the newly created domains over the next three days. So, “formless and empty” makes sense as a translation. Nearly every translation does something similar, but it’s also important to recognize that a literal translation from the Hebrew is something like “the land was a deserted desert,” “desolate wasteland,” or “wild wilderness.” Perceiving this is important, in my opinion, because the wilderness is a key element in an ongoing cycle of relationship between God and people. The presence of the wilderness and the sea right at the beginning emphasizes their role as foundational, meaningful components of many biblical stories to follow.

Genesis 1 uses “Elohim” as the name for God, so the Hebrew for “Spirit of God” here sounds like “ruach Elohim.” We looked at the many instances of ruach to find it has several meanings, including “wind,” “breath,” “grief” (as Brad pointed out, possibly related to sighing), and “spirit.” Recognizing these several meanings is important because translators sometimes obscure what we might otherwise perceive as literary connections. For instance, the second appearance of ruach is in Genesis 3, where God walks in the garden in the ruach part of the day. A literal translation might be “windy part of the day,” but we often see “cool of the day,” which would give most English readers no hint of the same concept that appeared in the phrase “Spirit of God.”

The multiple meanings are especially significant as we arrive at the Flood story. There, following the central phrase, “And God remembered Noah,” the ruach/wind blows over the face of the water beginning a kind of re-creation, containing a lot of shared vocabulary with Genesis 1. The vocabulary helps us recognize the Flood as a reenactment of creation following a judgment via the de-creation/un-separation of the waters as the floodgates of the heavens and fountains of the deep open. If we don’t recognize Spirit and wind as the same word, we’ll miss some elements of these parallel stories.

Day 1

God speaks light into being and separates it from the darkness. We get the first instance of the phrase “there was evening and there was morning,” but this one is different than the others in that it says “day one,” rather than the “first day,” as all the others say, “the second day,” “the third day,” etc. “Day one” sounds like “yom echad,” which we’ll come back to later.

Day 2

The Hebrew word often translated “expanse,” “firmament,” or “dome” sounds like “raqia.” It is a difficult concept for many modern readers to understand. We looked at its occurences in the Hebrew Bible, many of which are similar, but in Ezekiel, we find cherubim just below it and God’s throne just above. Exodus 24:10 is suggestive of it – Moses and seventy elders ascend Mount Sinai, “and they saw the God of Israel; and under His feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself.” In Revelation, we find similar imagery in God’s throne room including a sea.

The raqia functions to separate the waters above from waters below. God speaks about it, makes it, then, confusingly, names it “heavens.” Uniquely among the days, God does not call this work good.

In attempt to understand the raqia better, we looked at this graphic from Andrew Teeter’s presentation “The World Seen”:

The image below includes the sea before God’s throne room and Sheol opposite God’s throne, continuing the symmetry/correspondence for an additional level.

September 28, 2026

Tonya Slaubaugh:

We talked about all of the cultural differences and how we are not trying to say they are real or you have to change your view of the world (because you don’t). We just want to encourage you to hold a different category in your head for how someone else was viewing the world to help you understand the passage. So for example, we looked at the stars in Genesis 1 and other passages in the Bible with stars and talked about how in the Hebrew culture and Canaanite culture, the word and concept of “stars” included spiritual beings, some of which were worshipped as gods by both the Canaanites and some wayward Israelites. I also answered questions that people had and used an example of the color wheel – different languages have words that mean different colors or ranges of color on the color wheel. One language’s word for red may cover red and orange while another may have words for many gradations of red.

The main thing to keep in mind when doing this is that we are not saying your own worldview is wrong. Or that the Hebrew worldview is right or better because it’s not. It’s just how they viewed the world which is so exciting to learn because it helps us understand the truths God was communicating to them, and THEN we can apply those truths to our worldview too.

October 25, 2026

We read Genesis 1:1 – 2:4

Day 3

We began looking closely at Genesis 1:9. We sometimes talk about Genesis 1 as three days of separating and three days of populating. On day three, unlike day one, it doesn’t actually say God separated the land from the water, rather God says, “Let the waters be gathered into one place,” and the dry land is the result. As with light, darkness, and the raqia, God first makes (or in this case, reveals) something then names it. He reveals dry land and calls it earth/land (in Hebrew it sounds like “eretz”). The gathered waters he calls “seas” (yamim).

On day one, when God saw the light was good, that was the end of the day. On day three, we get a bonus, a second set of things God sees as good – plants and trees, specifically trees that bear fruit.

We’ll look at structure more later, but it’s worth mentioning now that this first three days has a symmetrical/chiastic structure.

We previously discussed that the biblical author uses the phrase “day one,” when on all the other days, he uses “second day,” “third day,” “fourth day,” etc. In Hebrew, “day one” sounds like “yom echad.”

On day three, he gathers the waters into “place one,” which sounds like “maqom echad.” Andrew Teeter proposes this unusual phrase on day one alerts us to a relationship with day three:

On day one, God creates light and calls it day, day one. (yom echad)

On day three, God gathers the waters into place one. (maqom echad)

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On day one, God calls the light “day” and the darkness “night”

On day three, God calls the dry land “earth” (eretz) and the gathered waters “seas” (yamim)

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God sees the outcome of his work as good in each

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This symmetrical structure suggests a relationship between light in the heavens and seed on the land, which will develop later in the passage.

Recognizing the structure gives us hints about how to interpret, how to understand the elements of the passage, including the raqia, which appears to be at its center.

The biblical authors tend to give sparse detail except when detail has significance in the story. They could have told us directly that God gathered the waters into seas (yamim) and revealed the land (eretz), but they make a point of saying he revealed the dry land (yabbashah) and named it land/earth (eretz). He names the gathered waters (mayim), seas (yamim).

On day one, he calls light (oor) “day” (yom) and darkness (choshekh) “night” (layla)

This making then naming provides special emphasis on the element named and also demonstrates an aspect of God’s character – he names things.

Day 4

On day one, God said, “Let there be light.” On day four he says, “Let there be lights.”

They are to be in the “expanse of the heavens” (raqia ha shamayim). Having named the raqia “the heavens,” the passage refers to it from then on as “raqia the heavens.”

On day one, God separated the light from the darkness and calls the light “day” and the darkness “night.” On day four, he appoints these lights to separate the day from the night. They perform the function God first performed. They also serve as signs and to delineate days, seasons, and years.

“Season” may not be the best translation choice here, because the Hebrew word encompasses a lot more than the English word for season:

מוֹעֵד (mo.ed) meeting: time appointed(H4150G)

(noun common plural masculine absolute)
This word occurs about 278 x

Meaning

: time appointed

1) appointed place, appointed time, meeting

1a) appointed time

1a1) appointed time (general)

1a2) sacred season, set feast, appointed season

1b) appointed meeting

1c) appointed place

1d) appointed sign or signal

1e) tent of meeting

It includes the idea of festivals, holy days, like the Feast of Firstfruits, Feast of Weeks, Passover, Feast of Booths, etc, some of which later become Christian holidays like Pentecost.

God makes a “greater light” to govern the day and a lesser one to govern the night. Some commentators suggest that the biblical authors use this unusual terminology rather than “Sun” and “Moon” because the Hebrew words for Sun and Moon were also the names of Canaanite gods. They worshipped a sun god and a moon god, so this is the biblical authors’ way of avoiding the appearance of endorsing the worship of other gods.

The greater is given authority (memshalah) over the day, the lesser authority over the night.

God places them in raqia the heavens to give light on the land – Here again, we have heavens and land juxtaposed.

If we remember Teeter’s “sky plate” and “land plate,” these lights are in the sky plate, shining down on the land plate. On the next day, we’ll see a similar relationship identified.

The next line repeats concepts from earlier in the day – that the lights are to govern and to separate, but here instead of separating day and night, they separate light from darkness, making their function the same as God’s act on day one.

The repetition is not just redundancy. This day appears to be written as a chiasm:

Then God said,

·      “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, 

·      and they shall serve as signs and for seasons, and for days and years;  

·      and they shall serve as lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 

·      God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.  

·      God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth,  

·      and to govern the day and the night,  

·      and to separate the light from the darkness;  

and God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

So, God says “Let there be lights,” who have authority in the raqia/sky plate, function as signs, and perform the God-like function of separating light from darkness.

Day 5

On day five, we find God addressing water creatures and birds. He begins by saying something like, “swarm the waters living swarms.”

Then “birds, fly on the land, on the face of raqia the heavens.” So, we have heavens, land, and waters populated, in a sense, on this one day, central to the three days of populating.  

NASB translates the passage “let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens,” yet the Hebrew for “above” and for “in the open” is the same word, which sounds like “al.” The birds are doing the same thing toward the land plate as they’re doing toward the sky plate. They live in the in-between (or to use a now-popular term in Christian circles, liminal) space.

Later, we find them performing functions in the land on behalf of God, for instance by feeding Elijah in the wilderness (1 Kings 17).

Like the lights in the sky plate that gave light on the land plate, the birds fly on the land plate and on the face of the sky plate. Each has a relationship with the heavens and the land.

We didn’t make it to the great sea creatures this week, so we’ll start with them next time.