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And God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place,.... Which are before called the waters under the firmament; and which were either on the surface of the earth, or in the bowels of it, or mixed with it, which by the compressure of the expanse or air were separated from it and these, by apertures and channels made, were caused to flow as by a straight line, as the word (e) used signifies, unto the decreed place that was broke up for them, the great hollow or channel which now contains the waters of the ocean: this was done by the word of the Lord, at his rebuke; and when it seems there was a clap thunder, and perhaps an earthquake, which made the vast cavity for the sea, as well as threw up the hills and mountains, and made the valleys; seeJob 38:10, and let the dry land appear: clear of the waters, dried by the expanded air, hardened by the fiery light, and as yet without any herb or tree upon it: and it was so; immediately done, the waters were drained off the earth, directed to their proper channels, and caused to run as by line to their appointed place; and the solid parts of the earth became dry, and appeared in sight. (e) "congregentur tanquam ad amussim et regulam", Fagius; "recto et equabili cursu contendant et collineant", Junius.

The waters under the heaven; both the great abyss, or deep of water which is shut up in the bowels of the earth, Gen 7:11 Psa 24:2 Psa 33:7 Psa 136:6; as also the sea and rivers, all which are here said to be gathered together into one place, because of their communication and mixture one with another.

Let the dry land appear; for hitherto it was covered with water, Gen 1:2 2Pe 3:5.

Verse 9. - Day three. The distribution of land and water and the production of vegetation on this day engaged the formative energy of the word of Elohim. And God said, Let the waters under heaven be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear. To explain the second part of this phenomenon as a consequence of the first, the disclosure of the solid ground by the retirement of the waters from its surface, and not rather vice versa, is to reverse the ordinary processes of nature. Modern analogy suggests that the breaking up of the hitherto universal ocean into seas, lakes, and rivers was effected by the upheaval of the land through the action of subterranean fires, or the subsidence of the earth's crust in consequence of the cooling and shrinking of the interior mass. Psalm 104:7 hints at electric agency in connection with the elevation of the mountains and the sinking of the ocean beds. "At thy rebuke they (the waters) fled: at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away (were scattered). The mountains rose, the valleys sank (ἀναβαίνουσιν ὄρη καὶ καταβαίνουσι πεδία ( LXX.; ascendunt montes, et descendunt campi - Jerome) to the place which thou hadst established for them" (Perowne). The gathering of the waters into one place implies no more than that they were, from this day forward, to be collected into one vast body, and restrained within bounds in a place by themselves, so as to admit of the exposure of the earth's soil. The "place founded for them" was, of course, the depths and hollows in the earth's crust, into which they were immediately withdrawn, not through direct supernatural agency, but by their own natural gravitation. The configuration of the dry land is not described; but there is reason to believe that the original distribution of land and water was the same, or nearly the same, as it is at present. Physical geographers have observed that the coast lines of the great continents and the mountain ranges generally run from north-east to south-west, and that these lines are in reality parts of great circles, tangent to the polar circle, and at right angles to a line drawn from the sun's center to the moon's, when these bodies are either in conjunction or in opposition. These circles, it has further been remarked, are "the lines on which the thin crust of a cooling globe would be most likely to be ruptured by its internal tidal wave." Hence, though considerably modified by the mighty revolutions through which at successive periods the earth has passed, "these, with certain subordinate lines of fracture, have determined the forms of continents from the beginning" (Dawson, 'O.W.,' p. 184; cf. 'Green's Geology,' p. 512). And it was so. Though the separation of the dry land from the waters and the distribution of both were effected by Divine agency, nothing in the Mosaic narrative obliges us to think that these works were instantaneously completed. "There is truly no difficulty in supposing that the formation of the hills kept on through the succeeding creative days" (Lange). "Generally the works of the single creative days consist only in laying foundations; the birth process that is introduced in each extends its efficacy be, yond it" (Delitzsch). "Not how long, but how many times, God created is the thing intended to be set forth" by the creative days (Hoffman). Scripture habitually represents the world in an aspect at once natural and supernatural, speaking of it as natura and creatura, φύσις and κτίσις (cf. Marten, sen's 'Dogmatics,' § 63); and although the latter is the view exhibited with greatest prominence, indeed exclusively, in the Mosaic cosmogony, vet the frowner is not thereby denied, Not immediateness, but certainty of execution, is implied in the "it was so" appended to the creative fiat.

(9) Let the waters be gathered together.—The verb, as Gesenius shows, refers rather to the condensation of water, which, as we have seen, was impossible till the surface of the earth was made cool by the radiation of heat into the open expanse around it.

Unto one place.—The ocean bed. We must add the vast depth of the ocean to the height of the mountains before we can rightly estimate the intensity of the forces at work on the third day. Vast, too, as the surface of the ocean may appear compared with the dry land, it is evidently only just sufficient to supply the rain necessary for vegetation. Were it less, either the laws of evaporation must be altered, with painful and injurious effects, or much of the earth’s surface would be barren.

Let the dry land appear.—Simple as this might appear, it yet required special provision on the part of the Creator; for otherwise the various materials of the earth would have arranged themselves in concentric strata, according to their density, and upon them the water would have reposed evenly, and above it the air. But geologists tell us that these strata have been broken up and distorted from below by volcanic agencies, while the surface has been furrowed and worn by the denuding power of water. This was the third day’s work. By the cooling of the crust of the earth the vast mass of waters, which now covers two-thirds of its surface, and which hitherto had existed only as vapour, began to condense, and pour down upon the earth as rain. Meanwhile the earth parted with its internal heat but slowly, and thus, while its crust grew stiff, there was within a mass of molten fluid. As this would be acted upon by the gravity of the sun and moon, in just the same way as the ocean is now, this inner tidal wave would rupture the thin crust above, generally in lines trending from northeast to south-west. Hence mountain ranges and deep sea beds, modified by many changes since, but all having the same final object of providing dry land for man’s abode.

9–13. The Third Day—Two Creative Acts. (1) The Separation of Sea and Earth (Genesis 1:9-10). (2) The Creation of the Vegetable World (Genesis 1:11-13)

9. Let the waters … appear] In this verse the dry land is rendered visible by the removal of the waters, that were under the Heaven, into their special place. The account reads as if the Earth had existed previously, but had been submerged in the water. It is not stated that God made the earth at this juncture; but only that He now caused it to become visible. The description of the formation of the earth, like other details of the old Hebrew cosmogony, has been omitted either for the sake of brevity, or in order to free the account from materials which were out of harmony with its general religious teaching.

unto one place] According to the Hebrew conception the Earth was supposed to have a flat surface, surrounded on all sides by the ocean; while the ocean was connected by subterranean channels with vast reservoirs of water that lay under the earth and fed the springs and rivers. Cf. Psalm 24:2, “for he hath founded it (the world) upon the seas, and established it upon the floods”; Psalm 139:9, “if I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea.” In the story of the Flood we read that “all the fountains of the great deep” (Genesis 7:11 P) were broken up.

Instead of “place,” the LXX reads “gathering,” συναγωγήν, the word which is reproduced in the familiar term “synagogue.” It has been suggested that this may very possibly represent the original reading; and that, at any rate, the less usual word מִקְוֶה, miqveh = “gathering,” was more likely to be altered in transcription into the common word מָקוֹם, maqom = “place,” than vice versa. On the other hand, the word מִקְוֶה, miqveh, occurs in the following verse (Genesis 1:10), “the gathering together of the waters” (τὰ συστέματα τῶν ὑδάτων), in a slightly different sense, and a copyist may have introduced the word here by accident and given rise to the LXX rendering.

the dry land] That is, the surface, or crust, as it would now be called, of the earth, consisting of soil, sand, and rock. Christian tradition, until the beginning of the 19th or the end of the 18th century, was satisfied that the Hebrew narrative, attributing the origin of the earth’s crust to the work of a single day, adequately met the requirements of terrestrial phenomena, and did justice to the conception of Divine omnipotence. The rise of the science of Geology, in the last century and a half, has totally transformed educated opinion. It is recognized that the Hebrew cosmogony is devoid of scientific value (see p. 4). Geologists are agreed that the cooling process, by which the surface of the glowing and molten body of our planet came to be sufficiently solidified to support the weight of vast seas, must have extended over long ages to be reckoned by millions and millions of years. The subsequent geological ages, Palaeozoic, Mesozoic, Cainozoic, and Quaternary, which account for the gradual formation of the rocks as we know them, have been demonstrated to have covered a similarly stupendous length of time. The thicknesses of the successive geological strata furnish the means of estimating the relative durations of the periods. The infinite tracts of time and space, which modern science has in an increasing degree revealed to be in relation to one supreme and all embracing harmony, testify to the omnipotence of the Divine Will and Wisdom even more impressively than did the brief and intermittent acts of Creative Power, which in the legends of the ancient world accounted for the origin of earth and sea and stars.

The LXX adds at the end of the verse, “And the water that was under the heaven was gathered together into their gatherings (συναγωγὰς αὐτῶν), and the dry land appeared,” which looks like a gloss. But αὐτῶν implies a Heb. original (i.e. the plural form הַמַּיִם, “the waters,” not the sing. τὸ ὕδωρ).

Genesis 1:9-10. God said, &c. — From the production, or separation from gross matter, of light and air, and the assigning them their proper places and uses in the creation, God proceeds, on the third day, to separate, put in order, and control the clement nearest to them in quality and use, fluid like them, comparatively simple, and pure, and although not elastic, yet of great power. Let the waters be gathered into one place — The abyss in the bowels of the earth, Genesis 7:11, and the hollows connected therewith. Thus, instead of the confusion which existed when the earth and the water were mixed in one great mass, there was now order; and by such a separation, both were rendered useful: the earth was prepared for the habitation and support of man, and various orders of land animals, and the waters for the still more numerous tribes of living creatures, formed to abide and seek their sustenance in the seas, lakes, and rivers.

Genesis 1:9. And God said, Let the waters be gathered together— After the elements of light and air were appointed to their proper places, the next in density, the water, i.e.. the lower water, or that under the air, is separated, by the divine direction; and thus, at length, the earth, or dry land, emerges and appears. It is to be observed, that Moses introduces every mutation with the words God said; intimating, that the power and energy of the Divinity over-ruled and conducted each operation; and, however natural causes might work, was the primum mobile, or the first great Mover throughout the whole formation.

Unto one place— All the waters of the world have one general communication. The rivers and the fountains all return themselves into the sea; and all seas have either a visible or secret communication with each other. I have no doubt but the Caspian sea disgorges itself, by subterraneous passages, into the Euxine, or the Ocean, which may be considered as the grand reservoir (the ONE PLACE) of all the waters of the earth. This observation is confirmed by the name given Gen 1:10 to this one place, this conflux, or great receptacle, of all the congregated waters, seas, or ocean. All the waters make, in this sense, but one ocean, as all the dry land makes but one earth. How all this was brought about, how the channels were hollowed, the rocks and mountains formed, &c. it is impossible for us to determine! Only this we know, that the Divine Power continued his interposition, and by his omnipotent energy, to which all things are easy, directed the whole!

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And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry [land] appear: and it was so.

Ver. 9,10. Let the waters under the heaven be gathered, … — The water, they say, is ten times greater than the earth, as is the air ten times greater than the water, and the fire than the air. Sure it is, that the proper place of the water is to be "above the earth". Psalms 104:6 Sailors tell us that as they draw nigh to shore, when they enter into the haven, they run as it were downhill. "The waters stood above the mountain," till (at God’s rebuke here) they "fled, and hasted away at the voice of his thunder, to the place which he had founded for them". Psalms 104:6-8 This drew from Aristotle, in one place, Lib. De Mirabil. a testimony of God’s providence, which elsewhere he denies. And David, in the 104th Psalm, which one calleth his Physics, tells us that till the word of command, "Let the waters," …, God "had covered the earth with the deep as with a garment." For as the garment, in the proper use of it, is above the body, so is the sea above the land. And such a garment, saith the divine cosmographer, would it have been to the earth, but for God’s providence towards us, as the shirt made for the murdering of Agamemnon, where he had no issue out. But "thou hast set a bound," saith the psalmist, "that they may not pass over, that they turn not again to cover the earth". Psalms 104:9 God had set the solid earth upon and above the liquid waters for our conveniency; so that men are said "to go down" (not up) "to the sea in ships". Psalms 107:23 See his mercy herein, as in a mirror, and believe that God, whose work it is still to "appoint us the bounds of our habitation," Acts 17:26 will not fail to provide us a hospitium , a place to reside in, when cast out of all, as he did David, Psalms 27:10 and David’s parents, 1 Samuel 22:4 and the apostles, 2 Corinthians 6:10 and the English exiles in Queen Mary’s days, and, before them, Luther, who, being asked where he thought to be safe, answered Under Heaven , Sub caelo Scultet. Annal. and yet before him, those persecuted Waldenses, after whom the Romish dragon cast out so much water as a flood, but the earth swallowed it; Revelation 12:15 and God so provided that they could travel from Cullen in Germany to Milan in Italy, and every night lodge with hosts of their own profession. Cade. Of the Church , p. 180. The waters of affliction are often gathered together against the godly, but, by God’s gracious appointment, ever under the heaven, - where our conversation is, Philippians 3:20 though our commoration be a while upon earth, - and unto one place, as the text here has it. Pareus, in loc. The dry land will appear, and we shall come safe to shore, be sure of it. The rock of eternity, Isaiah 26:4 whereupon we are set, is above all billows. Washed we may be, as Paul was in the shipwreck; drowned we cannot be, because in the same bottom with Christ, and "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." 1 Peter 1:5

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