One in every of the lesser-known facts about Genesis 1-2:4a, the story of the seven days of creation, is that it was written in response to a disaster. Judah, the southern kingdom of the Israelite people, had been invaded by Babylon. Jerusalem was destroyed, the Temple razed to the bottom and far of its population scattered.
That event shook the very foundations of the people’s faith; how could they be beloved by God in the event that they had been so completely destroyed?
Within the midst of that spiritual chaos, the author of Genesis 1 offered this story, wherein God, step-by-step, creates every aspect of existence. The story actually begins from a spot of chaos. “To start with when God created the heavens and the earth,” we’re told, “the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters” (Gen 1:1-2). It’d sound odd to explain water as present in a “formless void,” but in the traditional Near East, water often represented chaos and even evil; it was something that would not be contained or controlled.
If he has such power, why doesn’t he stop terrible things like hurricanes and floods from happening?
On this context, to write down that God was capable of create light within the midst of that chaos on the primary day shouldn’t be just an imaginative anecdote; it’s a occupation of how powerful God is. Likewise on the second day, to see God actually manipulating the waters of the void, making a secure space for all times and order inside it, is meant as a daring faith-filled proclamation that God has mastery over chaos. He’s its master.
God doesn’t wipe out the chaos, though, which seems puzzling and upsetting. If he has such power, why doesn’t he stop terrible things like hurricanes and floods from happening? But for the author of that story, to have God destroy the water can be to disregard the continuing experience of his people. They were suffering, intensely so; due to this fact, God clearly didn’t end chaos.
However the chapter goes on to explain God constructing our world. And because it touches every aspect of our existence, from the creation of the sun and the moon to the trees and living creatures and at last our humanity, the author is emphasizing many times God’s significance. God has ordered each aspect of our creation, and all of it, to the nice. Subsequently, irrespective of what suffering the people of God were currently enduring, the author implies, they’d not been abandoned. God was exactly who they believed God to be, he was on top of things, and they might know rescue.
As so many struggle within the wake of Hurricane Ian, perhaps we, too, can look to Genesis 1 for help. Reading through it slowly line by line, may we draw strength from absolutely the certainty of its faith.
To start with when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.
Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
And God saw that the sunshine was good; and God separated the sunshine from the darkness.
God called the sunshine Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the primary day.
And God said, “Let there be a dome within the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”
So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome.
And it was so.
God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.”
And it was so.
God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas.
And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of all types on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.”
And it was so.
The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of all types, and trees of all types bearing fruit with the seed in it.
