Genesis 1:9, commentary and pictures

God spoke and the waters under the sky were gathered together to one place and the dry land appeared, formed by the Father and the Son into an exceedingly beautiful and diversified world of hills, mountains, plains, rivers and other waters. This was one act of the literal six-day making of heaven and earth and all in them, pronounced very good by the sixth day and followed by rest on the seventh day that was blessed and sanctified. Its day is not a vast indefinite period of thousands or millions of years of evolution from chaos, and stretching the days to accommodate geology creates only a supposed conflict and undermines the force of the word of God and of the fourth commandment. That first week of six days of work and a seventh day of rest, blessing and setting apart was measured off as the sample and origin of the weekly cycle to the close of time, founding the holy seventh-day Sabbath as a perpetual covenant sign and the foundation of the fourth commandment. The same command that gathered the waters and made the dry land appear still imparts power and begets life, bringing the life of the Infinite One to transform the nature and recreate the soul in the image of God, and it stands in the authentic account that came fresh from the fountain of eternal truth to shine light where human research seeks vainly to penetrate.

Gathering Waters, Forming Land

The heaven under which the waters were gathered is the starry region of the sun, moon, and stars. This is one of four scriptural uses of heaven, distinct from Paradise, from the air around the earth where birds fly, and from the church of God on earth. It is not the heaven that will be shaken and depart as a scroll rolled together.

The gathering of the waters and appearing of dry land was the work of the Father and the Son together forming the earth into an exceedingly beautiful world. It did not produce one extensive plain but a diversified surface of hills, mountains, and plains, with rivers and other bodies of water regularly dispersed among them. The hills and mountains then formed were regular and beautiful in shape, not high and ragged as they now are. Bare high rocks were never seen upon them but lay beneath the surface as bones to the earth. The land thus formed was adorned with plants and flowers and tall majestic trees many times larger and much more beautiful than trees now are, and the air was pure and healthful, so that the earth seemed like a noble palace at which angels beheld and rejoiced.

Literal Week and Sabbath

The gathering of the waters and appearing of dry land was one act by which heaven and earth and all in them were made in six literal days, with the heavens and earth and all their host finished by the sixth day when everything made was very good, after which work ended with rest on the seventh day that was blessed and sanctified. That first week was only seven literal days, and its days were not six vast indefinite periods with the day of rest another indefinite period. Each day that generated some new portion of the work, including the gathering of the waters, was just like every other day in an ordinary week.

The record belongs to the literal Mosaic account and must be read literally. It does not describe an evolution of the earth from chaos over millions of years, and its day is not a vast indefinite period covering thousands or even millions of years. The events of the first week did not require seven vast indefinite periods, but were seven literal days made very plain.

Stretching the days into long periods to accommodate the Bible to geology rests on inferences erroneously drawn from facts observed in nature. It creates only a supposed conflict between science and revelation. It undermines and destroys the force of the word of God and of the fourth commandment, freeing men from its claims upon them.

The world is now only about six thousand years old. Wonderful things and relics found in the earth are not evidence that the world existed tens of thousands of years. They are accounted for by the much larger size of men, animals, and trees before the Flood and by the great changes that then took place in the earth, including much larger bones of men and animals, instruments of warfare, and petrified wood found in mountains and valleys. Those relics do give evidence of a state of things differing in many respects from the present.

Just how God accomplished that six-day work has never been revealed to mortals. His creative works are as incomprehensible as His existence and cannot be accounted for or explained upon natural principles or from natural causes, and human science cannot search out the secrets of the God of Heaven. Without Bible history geology can prove nothing about their time, which can be learned only from the inspired record. God has given sufficient evidence for faith in plain Scripture fact, yet His ways are not as man's ways and His thoughts are not as man's thoughts.

That first week with its six days in which God made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and its seventh day of rest, blessing, and setting apart for the use of man, was measured off as the sample and origin of the weekly cycle to the close of time. Each successive week consists of seven literal days. Because God employed the six days in the work of creation, the first six days of each week are given to man for labor, while the seventh day is to be kept from labor in commemoration of the Creator's creation and rest.

The seventh-day Sabbath thus founded is holy and a perpetual covenant sign between Him and His people, thereby proclaiming His will to all the earth. It is the foundation of the fourth commandment commanding observance of seven literal days in commemoration of that first week. To say the days were indefinite periods makes indefinite and obscure what was made plain. It charges Him with commanding observance of seven literal days in commemoration of seven indefinite periods, which is unlike His dealings with mortals and impeaches His wisdom, and it is infidelity in disguise even with profession of belief in the record of creation.

God deliberately took six days for making the world when He could have spoken it into existence in one day.

Trustworthy Word for Life

Genesis 1:9 belongs to the authentic account of creation found alone in the word of God, preserved in its purity through all ages by the divine mind and hand. It comes fresh from the fountain of eternal truth, and its light shines into the far distant past where human research seeks vainly to penetrate. In it is beheld the power that laid the foundation of the earth and stretched out the heavens by the spoken word. It belongs to the most comprehensive and most instructive history possessed by men, an unsullied history of the human race untouched by human prejudice or pride.

That creation record is to be the chief study in schools and the basis of true education. There students hold converse with patriarchs and prophets and learn what redemption cost the One who was equal with the Father from the beginning, who sacrificed His life that a people might stand before Him redeemed from every common, earthly thing and renewed in the image of God. True education fails unless the understanding grasps its truths of divine revelation and the heart accepts the gospel of Christ. Heart and mind must be trained to keep purity by daily supplies from the fountain of eternal truth, to be carried higher than common ideas and trivial matters that dwarf and enfeeble, and to comprehend the important truths that concern eternal life.

The gathering of the waters and appearing of dry land is plain Scripture fact to be believed over human reasoning, explanations of creation by natural causes, and suppositions of geologists that contradict it. Those great facts of Genesis 1:1-31 are pillars of Christian faith given in the holy Word as the guide of life. Yet they are practically rejected, either wholly or in part, by a large share of the professedly Christian world through unbelief, caviling at Scripture, spiritualizing away its most important truths, rebellion against God's government, and receiving infidel fables while counting His word unreliable upon the merest pretense. For this reason in the last days the earth will be almost destitute of true faith.

The creative energy that called the world into existence is in the word of God. The command that gathered the waters and made dry land appear imparts power and begets life. Every such command is a promise which, accepted by the will and received into the soul, brings with it the life of the Infinite One, transforms the nature, and recreates the soul in the image of God. God spoke and His words created His works, making creation a reservoir of means made ready for Him to employ instantly to do His pleasure, with nothing He made useless. The tares came afterward through the curse sown by the enemy, and rational beings should not alone cause confusion in the world but should live to God and honor Him as all-wise and all-sufficient, whose perfection was to come to this world to be revealed in human beings.

God did His work of making the world through six days when He could have spoken it into existence in one, and His unhurried pace sets the pattern against extremes of working day and night and then breaking down. It calls for regular hours for sleep and work, for stopping when nature says stop, for preserving health and strength in order to do double-good labor, and for letting the rest go undone until it can be done without exhaustion. This great work of creation is to be described to children outdoors on Sabbath afternoons as the reason for the institution of the Sabbath. When the earth came from His hand it was holy and beautiful, with every flower, shrub, and tree answering the purpose of its Creator, everything lovely filling the mind with thoughts of the love of God, and every sound music in harmony with the voice of God. That perfect work was later marred by sin, with thorns and thistles, sorrow and pain and death coming as the result of disobedience, yet even marred the earth still reveals His goodness, forbearance, and love in green fields, lofty trees, glad sunshine, clouds, dew, solemn stillness of night, glory of starry heavens, beauty of the moon, falling rain, and shed light.