Print

The word 'morning' in Genesis 1 is defined as being sunrise, or day. Isn’t it obvious that Yahuwah is declaring the order of a day when He says, 'the evening and the morning were the first day', second day, etc?

Question: It appears that the word "morning" in Genesis 1 is defined as being dawn, morning, sunrise, or day.  Isn’t it obvious that Yahuwah is declaring the order of a day by stating that “evening” comes first in order, when He says, “the evening and the morning were the first day”, second day, etc?  In other words isn’t Yahuwah ordaining the morning to follow the night in a 24 hour period?  Don’t you see this to be a critical foundational point?

Answer: By His grace Yahuwah is calling His faithful out of doctrinal error and instructing in truth.  All have held to error of one kind or another and new concepts can run contrary to our preconceived views, culture or traditions. Sometimes it is difficult to see the error, and even more difficult to walk in the “new light”.  Please allow me a moment to explain.  It is imperative to verify each and every Hebrew word with regard to its original intent and context using as many Concordance’s and lexicons as may be useful.  In a Strong's Word Study it has come to light that Genesis 1:1-5 clarifies that -- ". . . The evening and the morning became ordained as the “first day, the warm hours from sunrise to sunset”. Therefore the Creator was making a verbal clarification that both evening and morning make up the "light” part of the day, as opposed to “evening” being any portion of the "darkness and night". The terms evening and morning are simply clarifying the parameters of "daylight".  Therefore daylight stretches from the beginning of morning to the end of evening.  The night is simply not being described here in reference to evening.  While it is true that Yahuwah states evening prior to morning in that order in verse 5, in the previous verse Yahuwah names the daylight first in order by calling it "day", following this He named the darkness by calling it "night", not evening.  Clearly, day came into existence first, followed by night.  I believe that a more adequate rendering of Genesis 1:5 is as follows:

Therefore it came to pass that the evening (ending at dusk) added to the morning became ordained as the “first day”, the hot period from dawn to dusk.  Genesis 1:1-5

A primary principle of Scripture is that the "words of the Yahuwah" trump all other words.  Therefore if there is confusion over the meaning of a text, you will never err by going with the words of what the Yahuwah said.

"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of Yahuwah." Matthew 4:4  KJV

In Gen. 1:4-5, Yahuwah distinctly separated by name and time the LIGHT called DAY and the DARKNESS called "night."  Nowhere does it say He called the darkness "evening."  This is a key point.

NOTE: This simple misunderstanding is with the word "evening" which does not mean "night."  It is the 2nd part of the '12 hour day' from noon to dusk.  This should not be confused with the calendar DATE which is the full 24-hour period consisting of both DAY and NIGHT, or LIGHT and DARK.

ALSO: This is a writing style seen elsewhere in Scripture.  When Moses wrote the Genesis account, he was looking back at what happened, so his perspective was in reverse, it is just a style of writing.  John uses the same approach in describing the "beasts" in the book of Revelation (Revelation 13); when compared with Daniel's account (Daniel 7), the same "beasts" are listed in the reverse order.  Daniel looked forward to the sequence; John looked back at them.