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Verse 12. - And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind. It is noticeable that the vegetation of the third day sprang from the soil in the same natural manner in which all subsequent vegetation has done, viz., by growth, which seems to resolve the well-known problem of whether the tree was before the seed, or the seed before the tree, in favor of the latter alternative, although in the order of nature the parent is always before the offspring. In all probability the seed forms were in the soil from the first, only waiting to be vitalized by the Ruach Elohim - The Spirit of God; or they may have been then created. Certainly they were not evolved from the dead matter of the dry land. Scripture, no more than science, is acquainted with Abiogenesis. Believing that "if it were given to her to- look beyond the abyss of geologically recorded time, she might "witness the evolution of living protoplasm from not living matter," science yet honestly affirms "that she sees no reason for believing that the feat (of vitalizing dead matter) has been performed yet" (Huxley's 'Brit. Association Address, 1871); and Scripture is emphatic that, if it is protoplasm which makes organized beings, the power which manufactures protoplasm is the Ruach Elohim, acting in obedience to the Divine Logos. The time when the earth put forth its verdure, viz., towards the close of the third day, after light, air, earth, and water had been prepared and so adjusted as to minister to the life of plants, was a signal proof of the wisdom of the Creator and of the naturalness of his working.

And the earth brought forth grass, [and] herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed [was] in itself, after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.

And the earth brought forth, … — Augustine Augustine, De Gen. ad Literam , l. iii. c. 18. thinks that thorns and thistles, brambles and briers were before the fall, though not in the same abundance as now. Basil thinks otherwise, and that till sin came in, the rose was without prickles. It is likely there were such shrubs at first created, non ut loederent hominem non peccantem, sed peccaturum, saith Pareus. Now since the fall, all creatures are armed against man: as that sword which Hector gave Ajax, which, so long as he used against men, his enemies, served for help and defence; but after he began to abuse it to the hurt of haemless beasts, it turned into his own bowels.

Yielding fruit after his kind. — So that men do not "gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles". Luke 6:44 "Can a fig tree," saith James, "bear olive berries? or a vine, figs?"; James 3:12 that were monstrous. And should not every man in like manner bear his own fruit, proper to his kind, to his calling? do his own work? weed his own gardens. "walk within his own house with a perfect heart," Psalms 101:2 till God come unto him? Come he will, and look for fruit in its season. When he comes, he will turn up your leaves; and look that, like the tree of life, Revelation 22:21 we bear fruit every month: or that we be like the lemon tree, which ever and anon sendeth forth new lemons as soon as the former are fallen down with ripeness; or the Egyptian fig tree, which, saith Solinus, Unde pomum decerpseris, alterum sine mora protuberat - Sol. in Polyhist. , c. 45. beareth fruit seven times a year; pull off a fig, and another breaks forth in the place shortly after. Now if we be found like the barren fig tree, Luke 13:6-9 that had leaves only; or the cypress tree, which is said to be fair and tall, but altogether fruitless; or the cyparittree, of which Pliny Pliny, l. x. affirms, that it is always fruitless; natu morosa, fructu supervacanea, baccis parva, foliis amara, odore violenta, ac ne umbra quidem gratiosa what can we expect, but that he should set down his basket, and taking up his axe, hew us down as fuel for the fire of hell? Spain is said to have nothing barren in it, or not some way useful; In Hispania nihil ignavum, nihil sterile. - Solin and why should Christ’s orchard, the Church? He pares and prunes αιρει χαηαιρει , John 15:2 his leaves and luxuriancies; yea, cuts and slashes where need requires; and all that we may bear more fruit. Sincerity alone will not comfort a man, unless it grow up to fruitfulness; which, springing from the exercise of grace, hath a sweet reflection on the soul, as in sick Hezekiah; Isaiah 38:3 and sweetly seals up our "calling to glory and virtue," 2 Peter 1:3 as the budding of Aaron’s rod did his calling to the priesthood: whereupon one well observeth, that not only all the plants of God’s setting, but the very boughs cut off from the body of them will flourish. Here some demand, Were the trees so created at first, that if sin had never entered, they had ever flourished, laden with fruit? Answer is made by a worthy divine, Brightm. On Rev. that the allusion Revelation 22:2 seems to intimate some such matter. And perhaps Christ would else never have cursed the fruitless fig tree, since the time of figs was not yet come. Mark 11:13

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And the evening and the morning were the third day. The space of twenty four hours ran out, and were measured, either by the rotation of the body of light and heat around the earth, or of the earth upon its axis: and this was according to Capellus the twentieth day of April, and, according to Bishop Usher, the twenty fifth of October; though those who suppose the world was created in autumn make the first day to be the first of September, and so this must be the third of that month; the Jews are divided about the season of the creation; some say Nisan or March, others Tisri or September (g). (g) Vid. T. Bab. Roshhashanah, fol. 11. 1.

Verse 13. - And the evening and the morning were the third day. For exposition vid. ver. 5. Has modern geological research any trace of this third day s vegetation? The late Hugh Miller identified the long-continued epoch of profuse vegetation, since then unparalleled in rapidity and luxuriance, which deposited the coal-measures of the carboniferous system, with the latter half of this Mosaic day. Dana, Dawson, and others, rejecting this conclusion of the eminent geologist on the ground that the underlying Devonian, Silurian, and Cambrian systems yield abundant fossiliferous remains of aquatic life, infer that the third day's vegetation is to be sought for among the "unresolved schists" of the Azoic period. The metamorphic rocks, it is true, have not as yet yielded any absolutely certain traces of vegetable life; and. indeed, it is an open question, among geologists whether any of the earliest formed metamorphic rocks now remain (cf. Green's 'Geology,' p. 308); but still it is susceptible of almost perfect demonstration that plants preceded animals upon the earth.

1. Among the hypozoic strata of this early period limestone rocks and graphite have been discovered, both of these being of organic origin.

2. In the process of cooling the earth must have been fitted for vegetable life a long time before animals could have existed.

3. As the luxuriant vegetation of the coal period prepared the way for the subsequent introduction of animal life by ridding the atmosphere of carbonic acid, so by the presence of plants must the ocean have been fitted to be the abode of aquatic life.

4. Vegetation, being directly, or mediately, the food of animals, must have had a previous existence. On these grounds Professor Dana concludes that the latter part of the Azoic age of geology corresponds with the latter half of the third creative day. In the Creation Series of Chaldean tablets are two fragments, which George Smith conjectures have a reference to the first part of the third day's work. The one is -

5. When the foundation of the ground of rock (thou didst make)

6. The foundation of the ground thou didst call...

7. Thou didst beautify the heaven...

8. To the face of the heaven...

9. Thou didst give... The other, which is much more mutilated and obscure, describes the god Sat (or Assur) as saying -

10. Above the sea which is the sea of...

11. In front of the esara (firmament) which I have made.

12. Below the place I strengthen it

13. Let there be made also e-lu (earth?) for the dwelling of [man?] ('Chaldean Genesis,' p. 68. )

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.

• VI. The Fourth Day

14. מאור mā'ôr, "a light, a luminary, a center of radiant light."

מועה mô‛ēd, "set time, season."

Words beginning with a formative מ musually signify that in which the simple quality resides or is realized. Hence, they often denote place.

17. נתן nāthan "give, hold out, show, stretch, hold out." Latin: tendo, teneo; τείνω teinō.

The darkness has been removed from the face of the deep, its waters have been distributed in due proportions above and below the expanse; the lower waters have retired and given place to the emerging land, and the wasteness of the land thus exposed to view has begun to be adorned with the living forms of a new vegetation. It only remains to remove the "void" by peopling this now fair and fertile world with the animal kingdom. For this purpose the Great Designer begins a new cycle of supernatural operations.

Genesis 1:14, Genesis 1:15

Lights. - The work of the fourth day has much in common with that of the first day, which, indeed it continues and completes. Both deal with light, and with dividing between light and darkness, or day and night. "Let there be." They agree also in choosing the word "be," to express the nature of the operation which is here performed. But the fourth day advances on the first day. It brings into view the luminaries, the light radiators, the source, while the first only indicated the stream. It contemplates the far expanse, while the first regards only the near.

For signs and for seasons, and for days and years. - While the first day refers only to the day and its twofold division, the fourth refers to signs, seasons, days, and years. These lights are for "signs." They are to serve as the great natural chronometer of man, having its three units, - the day, the month, and the year - and marking the divisions of time, not only for agricultural and social purposes, but also for meeting out the eras of human history and the cycles of natural science. They are signs of place as well as of time - topometers, if we may use the term. By them the mariner has learned to mark the latitude and longitude of his ship, and the astronomer to determine with any assignable degree of precision the place as well as the time of the planetary orbs of heaven. The "seasons" are the natural seasons of the year, and the set times for civil and sacred purposes which man has attached to special days and years in the revolution of time.

Since the word "day" is a key to the explanation of the first day's work, so is the word "year" to the interpretation of that of the fourth. Since the cause of the distinction of day and night is the diurnal rotation of the earth on its axis in conjunction with a fixed source of light, which streamed in on the scene of creation as soon as the natural hinderance was removed, so the vicissitudes of the year are owing, along with these two conditions, to the annual revolution of the earth in its orbit round the sun, together with the obliquity of the ecliptic. To the phenomena so occasioned are to be added incidental variations arising from the revolution of the moon round the earth, and the small modifications caused by the various other bodies of the solar system. All these celestial phenomena come out from the artless simplicity of the sacred narrative as observable facts on the fourth day of that new creation. From the beginning of the solar system the earth must, from the nature of things, have revolved around the sun. But whether the rate of velocity was ever changed, or the obliquity of the ecliptic was now commenced or altered, we do not learn from this record.

And God said, Let there be lights, etc. - One principal office of these was to divide between day and night. When night is considered a state of comparative darkness, how can lights divide or distinguish it? The answer is easy: The sun is the monarch of the day, which is the state of light; the moon, of the night, the state of darkness. The rays of the sun, falling on the atmosphere, are refracted and diffused over the whole of that hemisphere of the earth immediately under his orb; while those rays of that vast luminary which, because of the earth's smallness in comparison of the sun, are diffused on all sides beyond the earth, falling on the opaque disc of the moon, are reflected back upon what may be called the lower hemisphere, or that part of the earth which is opposite to the part which is illuminated by the sun: and as the earth completes a revolution on its own axis in about twenty-four hours, consequently each hemisphere has alternate day and night. But as the solar light reflected from the face of the moon is computed to be 50,000 times less in intensity and effect than the light of the sun as it comes directly from himself to our earth, (for light decreases in its intensity as the distance it travels from the sun increases), therefore a sufficient distinction is made between day and night, or light and darkness, notwithstanding each is ruled and determined by one of these two great lights; the moon ruling the night, i.e., reflecting from her own surface back on the earth the rays of light which she receives from the sun. Thus both hemispheres are to a certain degree illuminated: the one, on which the sun shines, completely so; this is day: the other, on which the sun's light is reflected by the moon, partially; this is night. It is true that both the planets and fixed stars afford a considerable portion of light during the night, yet they cannot be said to rule or to predominate by their light, because their rays arc quite lost in the superior splendor of the moon's light.

And let them be for signs - לאתת leothoth. Let them ever be considered as continual tokens of God's tender care for man, and as standing proofs of his continual miraculous interference; for so the word את oth is often used. And is it not the almighty energy of God that upholds them in being? The sun and moon also serve as signs of the different changes which take place in the atmosphere, and which are so essential for all purposes of agriculture, commerce, etc.

For seasons - מועדים moadim; For the determination of the times on which the sacred festivals should be held. In this sense the word frequently occurs; and it was right that at the very opening of his revelation God should inform man that there were certain festivals which should be annually celebrated to his glory. Some think we should understand the original word as signifying months, for which purpose we know the moon essentially serves through all the revolutions of time.

For days - Both the hours of the day and night, as well as the different lengths of the days and nights, are distinguished by the longer and shorter spaces of time the sun is above or below the horizon.

And years - That is, those grand divisions of time by which all succession in the vast lapse of duration is distinguished. This refers principally to a complete revolution of the earth round the sun, which is accomplished in 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 48 seconds; for though the revolution is that of the earth, yet it cannot be determined but by the heavenly bodies.

And God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven,.... In the upper part of it, commonly called the starry heaven: some writers, both Jewish and Christian, and even modern astronomers, understand this only of the appearance of them, and not of the formation of them; they suppose they were made on the first day, but did not appear or shine out so clearly and visibly as now on the fourth day: but it seems rather, that the body of fire and light produced on the first day was now distributed and formed into several luminous bodies of sun, moon, and stars, for these were "from light"; lights produced from that light, or made out of it; or were instruments of communicating and letting down that light upon the earth (h), which was collected and put together in them, especially in the sun: and the uses of them wero divide the day from the night; which is the peculiar use of the sun, which by its appearance and continuance makes the day, and by withdrawing itself, or not appearing for a certain time, makes the night; as the light by its circular motion did for the first three days, or the diurnal motion of the earth on its axis, then and now: and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; for "signs" of good and bad weather; for the times of ploughing, sowing, reaping, &c. and for the "seasons" of summer and winter, spring and autumn; for "days" by a circular motion for the space of twenty four hours; and for "years" by annual motion for the space of three hundred sixty five days and odd hours. The Targum of Jonathan is, and let them be for signs and the times of the feasts, and to reckon with them the number of days, and, sanctify the beginnings of the months, and the beginnings of the years, and the intercalations of months and years, the revolutions of the sun, and the new moons, and cycles. And so Jarchi interprets "seasons" of the solemn festivals, that would hereafter be commanded the children of Israel; but those uses were not for a certain people, and for a certain time, but for all mankind, as long as the world should stand. (h) "significat lucem illam primam per sese lucentem"; "vero corpus per quod lux illa prima splendorem suum demittit". Nachmanides, apud Fagium in loc.