What did God create on the third day of creation?

On the third day the separation of the waters from the dry land preceded the latter's being adorned with every kind of tree, herb and grass, each of which should bring forth fruit and seed according to its kind.

Again we find, as that which occupies the third day, that the waters under the heaven are gathered together to one place, and the dry land appears. "And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas." And then the earth is made to bring forth grass — that lovely array, as it were, for the earth — full of beauty as well as beneficence. "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind."

In day third we saw the distinct two-fold energy of the Creator; not only the waters gathered into seas, and the dry land appearing, and this seen to be good; but the earth caused by His word to put forth grass, herb seeding seed after its kind, and tree yielding fruit, with its seed in itself after its kind, upon the earth, and this seen to be good. On the sixth day there is also a double action, and the second still more strikingly distinguished, as human life is brought into being, the highest of earthly natures (not as before vegetable life, the lowest of organised creatures) here below. The spheres had been fitted in divine wisdom and in the unfolding ways of God for the living beings that were to clothe and fill them with beauty, food, and fruit, to be followed duly by higher beings to profit by all that His provident goodness had prepared, all endowed with powers of constant reproduction, whether vegetable or animal. In a general way God had in the vast ages of which geology takes cognisance so wrought in creative energy, but without man as the centre of systems which successively appeared and fell. The days we have seen have special reference to man, who, on the sixth, follows and crowns the highest animals set under his rule.

Then the world had light, but it was still waste, and covered with water. God said: "Let there be a firmament" (air) "in the midst of the waters" to divide the waters into the upper clouds and lower seas. God called the air "Heaven", and we call it the sky. There was evening and there was morning, the second day. The water in the upper part we call clouds. The lower part is called Seas, Rivers, Lakes, and Ponds. As God divided the light from the darkness, so now He divided what was below from what was above, as God always divides good from bad. People do not do that. God tells those who call Him Lord, to go away from what is bad. (2 Tim. 2:19). God said: "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear." God called this land 'Earth' and the mass of waters, 'Sea.' God saw that it was good. God said that grass should come on the earth, and vegetables that have seeds, and also fruit trees, and it was so. God saw that this was good; there was evening and morning, — the third day.

11-13. Plants are now formed; the earth "brings forth" - this first here, and it was so, and good; a third day. The dry land and the seas were the actual forming the habitable earth, and then plants.

Days and weeks and years have to do with the human race and God's moral dealings on earth, after God had created and destroyed — it may be, many times — within those vast periods differently characterised before man was made, though not without a beneficent design for him on God's part. The principle and the fact, first of creation, then of disruption, before the immediate preparation of the world for the race, is the revealed communication of Gen. 1:1-2; the days, 1:3 - 2:3, are the commencement of time as we reckon it, not of creation, but of that later and special form when man was ushered into the earth. On the first, God said, "Light be;" and light was. It is not intimated that light was then first created. The previous ruin may have hindered its action till God uttered this fiat with a view to man's earth. On the second day, with the severing of land and sea, came the expanse as we have it (strangely rendered by the Seventy, whence "firmament" came through the Vulgate into the English version); on the third, the vegetable kingdom, herbage and tree yielding fruit; on the fourth, the luminaries in the expanse, not first created but set to give light night and day on the earth; on the fifth, animal life begun in the waters and for the air.

On the first day light is. Next a firmament is separated in the midst of the waters to divide the waters from the waters. Thirdly the dry land appears, and the earth bringing forth grass, and herb, and fruit-tree. There is the provision of God, not merely for the need of man, but for His own glory; and this in the smallest things as in the greatest. On the fourth day we hear of lights in the firmament. The utmost possible care appears in the statement. They are not said to be created then; but God made two great lights (it is no question of their mass, but of their capacity as light bearers,) for the Adamic earth — the stars also. Then we find the waters caused to bring forth abundantly "the moving creature that has life." Vegetable life was before, animal life now — a very weighty truth, and of the greatest moment too. Life is not the matter out of which animals were formed; nor is it true that matter produces life. God produces life, whether it be for the fish that people the sea, for the birds of the air, or for the beasts, cattle, or reptiles, on the dry land. It is God that does all, whether it be for the earth, the air, or the waters. And here in a secondary sense of the word is the propriety of the phrase "created" in verse 21; and we shall see it also when a new action comes before us in imparting not animal life but a rational soul. (Verse 27.) For as we have on the sixth day the lower creation for the earth, so finally man himself the crown of all.

On the third day (vv. 9-13) God speaks twice in accomplishing two distinct results. First He commands the waters under the heaven to be gathered together unto one place, allowing the dry land to appear. It has been observed that all the seas of the world are connected, while all the land is not. Moses could never have known this apart from God's revealing it to him. In order for the dry land to appear it would have to be raised up above the level of the water. Some land remains covered by great depths of water, for the dry land on this planet occupies less than one-third of its surface.

The third day did not close before the newly revealed earth had brought forth grass and seed-producing herbs and fruit-producing trees. Here we note another step forward in the work of making the earth a fit habitation for man. Vegetable life is perhaps the lowest form of life that is known to us. It has neither the instinct and limited intelligence that animals possess, nor has it their powers of movement, yet we all know the difference between the plant that is dead and the plant that lives. And God saw that even this lowest form of life was good.

But there is a second part of His work to notice: vegetable nature for the earth that now is, that kingdom which mediates between minerals and animals. God commanded the earth to bring forth grass (or, sprout sprouts*), herb seeding seed, fruit trees yielding fruit after its kind, which has its seed in itself after its kind, as is said here most emphatically. This is the true origin of vegetable species for the Adamic earth. And as God pronounced good the dry land and the seas, so now the beautiful clothing of the dry land, and the abundant supplies for man and beast — at first indeed the exclusive food even for man.