Genesis 1
What's the first thing God said
after creating people?
Psalm 1:1-3 Who Gets Blessed?
1."Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand on the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers;2.but his delight is in law of the Lord and on His law he meditates day and night.3.He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season/proper time, whose leaf also does not wither. Whatever he does shall prosper."Observation
1:1-3 Wisdom literature marks out two paths: one that leads to blessings and good times, the other, a shriveled sad soul. Your desires determine the difference. In what do you delight? Are you blessable?
Application
Meditation is thinking through Implications for Applications. Think about it. What should you do and what should you not do? See Joshua 1:8 for more.
Prayer
God, help me draw my delight and strength from Your Word rather than the world. Amen
Proverbs 1:7 How Do We Become Wise?
7.”The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge; but the foolish despise wisdom and instruction.Observation
1:7.Wisdom is choosing the right objectives and the right means of attaining them. You need both. If you don't care what God thinks, to the extent that it controls your actions (Proverbs 14:27), you are foolish.
Prayer
Lord, help me know and do Your will. Amen.
Genesis 1 What's the First Thing God Said After He Created People?
1."In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.2.Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep. God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.3.God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.4.God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness... 26.God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”27.God created man in His own image. In God’s image He created him; male and female He created them.28.God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”31.God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.Observations
1:1-25.Everything is based upon what God says. Creation starts with light (synonymous with glory, power, energy, dominion, etc, in the Bible), which is good. After we were created, it was very good.
1:26.
Our understanding of being made in the image of God has to start with God as seen in Genesis 1:1-25 (He speaks; it happens; exercising dominion).
1:28.
Blessing is in the intensive, intentional Hebrew verb form (Piel). Our God is the One Who Loves to Bless (see Genesis 12). All we have to do is be in a place where He can bless us.
Question
From Genesis 1, can you figure out why we were created?
Application
What do you have to do to be in a position where God can bless you?
(Hint: Bruce Wilkinson's “Prayer of Jabez” is good. Psalm 1 is very good, and Proverbs 1:7 isn't a bad idea.)
Prayer
My Creator and God, I praise You for revealing Yourself to be a God who does what is good, and loves to bless. Thank You for giving me life. Help me use it to know and please You. Amen.
Digging Deeper
You want to learn to read the Scriptures as written to the original audience. Genesis isn't a chronicle of creation, but... ...a preface to giving the basis of blessing (God's Revelation), in the promised land, to the Israelites, after the exit from Egypt (Exodus). As we read, we want to emphasize what God emphasizes. You want to ask three questions:
- What does this passage reveal about God?
- What does it reveal about myself?
- What does it tell me about the relationship between the two (God and me)?
These questions lead to two more:
- What can I expect of God?
- What does He expect of me?
God in a nutshell: Powerful, good, creator, makes things happen, has a deliberate purposeful plan, sets up order, evaluates and judges (good/very good), communicates His will, blesses, and is a corporate transcendent personal being (sorry to go theological on you; this means that He has multiple dimensions to His personality, goes beyond the universe, being separate from the material world which we sense, yet, since we are reflective of Him, He has a personal identity to which we can relate). For more of God's characteristics see: “Is There A Supernatural Being, And Can He Walk And Talk?” in the 7 Questions on Truthbase.net.
Us in a nutshell: We are created, not self-caused, therefore we are dependent beings; reflective of God, having worth and value and placed on earth with a purpose; created as distinctly male and female; a cut above evolved pond scum; blessed, etc.
Structure
Note the order and progressions; repeated words and concepts (said, light, bless, etc).
Observation
Genesis 1:1 Contrary to what some baseball fans believe, "In the beginning" cannot be translated "In the big inning."
Lexical Light
v1 The Hebrew word for God ‘elohiym (which emphasizes might and power) is in the plural. Hebrews used the plural sometimes to intensify a concept. However you can find a number of other clues in Genesis 1 that the God who is One, has multiple aspects. Hmmm.
Questions
What defines a day?
When does it become 24 hours?
How would the original audience have understood a “day”?
How do you separate light from darkness?
Why the difference between the sea or earth “bringing things forth” (vv 11,12,20,24) and specific objects of creation (vv 21,25,27)? Is it just a structural progression from general to specific?
Where to go for more
- “Answers in Genesis” has some great research (although their apologetics is a little too presuppositional for me).
- “Creation and Blessing” by Allen Ross (my former Hebrew professor) is my favorite commentary on Genesis. Ross wrote the Genesis Section of the concise and accessible “Bible Knowledge Commentary”.
- Gerald Schroeder, former MIT physicist, will give you a big-brain-bang as he looks at Genesis 1 from a pre-Renaissance rabbinical perspective. See “The Age of the Universe” and “The Hidden Face of God”.
- This quote from Schroeder is too good to miss: "How do we have a concept of evening and morning for the first three days if the sun is only mentioned on Day Four? There is a purpose for the sun appearing only on Day Four, so that as time goes by and people understand more about the universe, you can dig deeper into the text. Nachmanides says the text uses the words "Vayehi Erev" ― but it doesn't mean "there was evening." He explains that the Hebrew letters Ayin, Resh, Bet ― the root of "erev" ― is chaos. Mixture, disorder. That's why evening is called "erev", because when the sun goes down, vision becomes blurry. The literal meaning is "there was disorder." The Torah's word for "morning" ― "boker" ― is the absolute opposite. When the sun rises, the world becomes "bikoret", orderly, able to be discerned. That's why the sun needn't be mentioned until Day Four. Because from erev to boker is a flow from disorder to order, from chaos to cosmos. That's something any scientist will testify never happens in an unguided system. Order never arises from disorder spontaneously and remains orderly. Order always degrades to chaos unless the environment recognizes the order and locks it in to preserve it. There must be a guide to the system. That's an unequivocal statement. The Torah wants us to be amazed by this flow, starting from a chaotic plasma and ending up with a symphony of life. Day-by-day the world progresses to higher and higher levels. Order out of disorder. It's pure thermodynamics. And it's stated in terminology of 3000 years ago." (source of quote)