Genesis 1 (KJV) - Bible Truth Library

• The first four days, God brings light and order out of darkness and confusion: light, the first day; the expanse as a scene of heavenly power over the earth, the second day; then He divided what was formed and orderly, on the one hand, from the moving powerful but shapeless mass of waters, on the other, and then ornamented the ordered habitable scene with beauty and fruitfulness on the third. The symbols of directing power were set visibly in their places on the fourth. (“Genesis 1” by J.N. Darby)

• Neither verse 1 nor verse 2 is a summary of the Adamic earth, which only begins to be got ready from verse 3. There are, accordingly, three states with the most marked distinction: original creation of the universe; the earth passed into a state of waste and emptiness; and the renovation of the earth, etc. for man its new inhabitant and ruler. (“Genesis 1:2” by W. Kelly)

• But there is not a word in scripture to warrant the strange and hasty assumption that the universe was brought into being in the six days of Genesis 1:3-31, so often referred to throughout the Bible. Construe the six days as men will, it is out of the power of any on just principles of interpretation to deny that the first day begins with light, and that the first two verses are marked off in their nature, as well as by their expression, from the work of the six days. Nothing indeed but prepossession can account for the mistake, which the record itself corrects. “In the beginning” has its own proper significance, and is in no way connected with “the days,” save as the revealed start of divine creation, and in due time (however probably immense the interval) leading to that measure of time only when the constitution of things was made for Adam, for the race. (“Genesis 1:1” by W. Kelly)

• But he who is assured of revealed truth can afford to hear all that experts assert even when based on a partial induction of facts, as is not seldom the case. If outside scripture, there is nothing a believer has to contend for; if scripture speaks, he believes, no matter what science declares to the contrary; if science confirms it, so much the better for science. Assuredly God's word needs no imprimatur from men. (“Genesis 1:3-5” by W. Kelly)

• living man, had he judged from universally known phenomena, had ever regarded the sun as the great source of light; so that if the writing had been his, he must naturally have spoken first of that bright orb: In other words, the work of the fourth day would more reasonably have taken the place of the first. That the philosophers taught for ages afterward. But not so the truth; and, whatever the seeming and striking difficulty, especially then, Moses was given to write the truth. As the apostle says some fifteen centuries after, God spoke light to shine out of darkness (2 Cor. 4:6). The darkness is not said to have been everywhere, but “on the face of the deep”, and now that an earth for the human race was in question, there it was that God commanded light to shine. That it was “created” now is not said. (“Genesis 1:3-5” by W. Kelly)

• God interposed and said, Light be; and light was. As far as the Adamic earth was concerned, the light-hearers were not yet set in their functions as now: this was the fourth-day work. (“Genesis 1:3-5” by W. Kelly)

• On the plain face of the record, after the mighty work of the universe, and after a disruption that befell the earth with most marked consequences, God puts forth His word to form the Adamic earth with its due accompaniments. Hence we may notice anticipatively that on the fourth day not a hint is given of creating the physical masses of the sun, moon, and stars. It is there and then no more than setting them in their declared and existing relations to the earth. Their creation belongs in time to Gen. 1:1; but of the rest more fully in its place. (“Genesis 1:3-5” by W. Kelly)

• "For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath, shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ " (2 Cor. 4:6). Here we have the warrant for considering God's command, " Let light be " in Gen. 1, as typical of God's gracious dealings with the souls of men, illuminating them with Divine light. Further, without straining in any way, it will be seen that there lies enshrined typically in Gen. 1 the sovereign actions of God in this world from the spiritual point of view. (“Genesis 1 and 2 Typically Considered: Genesis 1-2” by A.J. Pollock)

• Just as God commanded the light to dispel the darkness of a chaotic earth, so God by His Spirit hath shined into the hearts of the believers, in order that the light should shine out-the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Cor. 4:6. (“Light and Darkness: Genesis 1:3-4” by A.J. Pollock)

• Perhaps the most satisfactory answer a seeking sinner can make is, "I see." For that presupposes two things--light and eyesight. Light is of no use to a blind man {1 Cor. 2:14}, and eyesight is of no use in total darkness. Divine and spiritual light has come through the Lord Jesus. The new birth carries with it spiritual eyesight. (“Light and Darkness: Genesis 1:3-4” by A.J. Pollock)

J. N. Darby Translation

And God said, Let there be light. And there was light.

W. Kelly Translation

And God said, Light be: and light was.