Verse 3. "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light."
The sun and moon had not yet appeared, but the dense mass of clouds,
pouring their waters upon the earth, had gradually, as Job expresses
it, "wearied" themselves,--they had grown thin; and the light began
to appear, at least sufficiently to mark the distinction between day
and night.
Verse 4. "And God saw the light: that it was good; and God divided
the light from the darkness."
Verse 5. "And God called the light day, and the darkness be called
night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."
That is to say, in subdividing the phenomena of this dark period,
when there was neither moon nor sun to mark the time, mankind drew
the first line of subdivision, very naturally, at that point of time,
(it may have been weeks, or months, or years,) when first the
distinction between night and day became faintly discernible, and men
could again begin to count time.
But this gain of light had been at the expense of the
{p. 331}
clouds; they had given down their moisture in immense and perpetual
rains; the low-lying lands of the earth were overflowed; the very
mountains, while not under water, were covered by the continual
floods of rain.
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