Attributed commentary excerpt
Barnes' Notes on Genesis 1:4
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Notes on the Whole Bible
Albert Barnes (1798–1870) · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
- III. The First Day 3. אמר 'āmar, “say, bid.” After this verb comes the thing said in the words of the speaker, or an equivalent expression. In this respect it corresponds with our English “say.” אור 'ôr, “light.” Light is simply what makes a sensible impression on the organs of vision. It belongs to a class of things which occasionally produce the same effect. ויאמר vayo'mer “then said.” Here we have come to the narrative or the record of a series of events. The conjunction is prefixed to the verb, to indicate the connection of the event it records with what precedes. There is here, therefore, a sequence in the order of time. In a chain of events, the narrative follows the order of occurrence. Collateral chains of events must of necessity be recorded in successive paragraphs. The first paragraph carries on one line of incidents to a fit resting-place. The next may go back to take up the record of another line. Hence, a new paragraph beginning with a conjoined verb is to be connected in time, not with the last sentence of the preceding one, but with some sentence in the preceding narrative more or less distant from its terminating point (see on Genesis 1:5, and Genesis 2:3). Even a single verse may be a paragraph in itself referring to a point of time antecedent to the preceding sentence. A verb so conjoined in narrative is in Hebrew put in the incipient or imperfect form, as the narrator conceives the events to grow each out of that already past. He himself follows the incidents step by step down the pathway of time, and hence the initial aspect of each event is toward him, as it actually comes upon the stage of existence. Since the event now before us belongs to past time, this verb is well enough rendered by the past tense of our English verb. This tense in English is at present indefinite, as it does not determine the state of the event as either beginning, continuing, or concluded. It is not improbable, however, that it originally designated the first of these states, and came by degrees to be indefinite. The English present also may have denoted an incipient, and then an imperfect or indefinite. 3. ראה rā'âh, “see” ὁράω horaō, אור 'ôr, “emit light,” ראה rā'âh, “see by light.” טיב ṭôb, “good.” Opposite is: רע rā‛. 4. קרא qārā', “cry, call.” ערב ‛ereb, “evening, sunset.” A space of time before and after sunset. ערבים ‛arebayı̂m, “two evenings,” a certain time before sunset, and the time between sunset and the end of twilight. הערבים בין bēyn hā‛arbayı̂m “the interval between the two evenings, from sunset to the end of twilight,” according to the Karaites and Samaritans; “from sun declining to sunset,” according to the Pharisees and Rabbinists. It might be the time from the beginning of the one to the beginning of the other, from the end of the one to the end of the other, or from the beginning of the one to the end of the other. The last is the most suitable for all the passages in which it occurs. These are ten in number, all in the law Exodus 12:6; Exodus 16:12; Exodus 29:31, Exodus 29:41; Exodus 30:8; Leviticus 23:5; Numbers 9:3, Numbers 9:5,Numbers 9:8; Numbers 28:4. The slaying of the evening lamb and of the passover lamb, the eating of the latter and the lighting of the lamps, took place in the interval so designated. At the end of this portion of the sacred text we have the first פ (p). This is explained in the Introduction, Section VII. The first day’s work is the calling of light into being. Here the de…
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