What happened on each of the six days of creation?

The first day--light (1:3-5) The second day--The dividing of the waters (1:6-8) The third day--The earth out of the waters and vegetable life appears (1:9-13) The fourth day--The lights in the heavens (1:14-19) The fifth day--Living creatures in the waters and in the air (1:20-23) The sixth day--Living creatures made and man created in God's image (1:24-31) The seventh day--God's rest (2:1-3)

First day: Light Second day: Dividing of waters Third day: The earth out of the waters and vegetable life Fourth day: Solar system and lights Fifth day: Life in the waters Sixth day: Life on the earth and man created Seventh day: God rests

Psalm 104 — Creation (even the angels are introduced, v. 4) follows, as that on which the blessed and delivered One delights to meditate amid Jehovah's feeble and subject creatures; with testimony, too, to His holy government. The creation-glory of Israel's Jehovah is doubtless celebrated here by Israel, but in the mouth of One who, however identified with them, is omniscient and divine. The order of creation is observed as by One who was by Him, yea, who is the Creator. On the first day there was light (v. 2); then, the second day, the firmament was formed (v. 2); the waters were divided on the third day (v. 3), and the earth laid on its foundations (v. 5), the waters being gathered together, so that the dry land appeared. (vv. 6-9.) Grass also was made to grow for cattle, and herb for the service of man, on the same day, and the trees yielding fruit. (vv. 14-17.) Then the moon for season, and the sun, making darkness and light on the fourth day. (vv. 19-23.) Manifold are Thy works! The sea, too, great and wide, on the fifth day, swarmed with its living creatures, moving things innumerable. (vv. 25, 26.) Man and cattle, and the beasts of the earth and birds, are seen in no special order, but as benefiting generally, by the care of Jehovah, amid the rest of the creatures of His hand. But all is for Jehovah's glory in connection with the earth, for He will rejoice in His works. (v. 31.) For this He governs, and of this Sinai is witness (v. 32); and His kingdom shall establish it, when 'the wicked shall be no more.' (v. 35.) Jehovah, 9; Jah, 1; Elohim, 2; El, 1.

God said, "Let there be lights", to divide day from night, and for signs and seasons, days and years. So God made two great lights, the Great Light, the Sun, for the day; and the Small Light, the Moon, for night. God made the stars also. And He put the lights in the heaven to shine on the earth, to divide the day from the night, and the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good. That was the fourth day. These lights are not God Himself. They are things that God made. If we call them gods, God will not be pleased with us. If you see a table, and you say that is the man who made it, do you think the man would be pleased? No! He would say, 'This is simply wood, a table made by me. It is not I.' So we worship God and not the sun or the moon. Now the earth was beautiful! It had flowers, grass, vegetables, and fruit trees. Then sun, moon and stars were shining. Still there were no living animals. So God said that the waters should bring forth a great many living things. So God created fish, and birds in the air. God saw that all was good and blessed them all on the fifth day. Then God made the wild beasts and the cattle and the creeping things. God saw that it was good. The air, the land, the sea were filled with living things, — birds, animals, fish and creeping things. Everything was beautiful! Yet there was no man on the earth; so God said: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing" … So God created Man and blessed them. God said that He had given them every vegetable bearing seeds, also the fruit trees, for food. And to every animal, and the birds, and the creeping things He gave grass as food. God saw everything that He had made, and it was "very good". There was evening and morning, the sixth day.

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.

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.

But there is another thing to be taken into account also, as yet has not been done. The days being expressly announced in order from the first to the seventh, these numbers must of course, remain for interpretation, as I have elsewhere used them. But besides this, it has been very generally noticed that the six days run into two parallel divisions, according both to subject and mode of arrangement: thus — 1st day — Light. (1) 4th day — Lights. 2nd day — Waters dividing (2) 5th day — Waters producing. 3rd day — Dry Land and vegetation. (3) 6th day — Dry land producing, and man.

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.

"And God said, Let us make men in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over fish of the sea, and over bird of the heavens, and over cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. And God created Man in his image, in God's image created he him; male and female created he them" (vers. 26, 27).

Then He begins to adorn it, and first produces vegetation on the earth; this is another division, and "it is good"; third day. Then He orders the ephemeris of heaven - lights to order seasons, etc.; only declaring therewith that He made the stars. This is the third division - and "it is good" - the fourth day. Next the waters are peopled, and fowl to fly in heaven, and this "is good" - the fourth division - fifth day.

Then beasts and other creatures having life, and this was good" - the fifth division - part of sixth day.

It has been noticed by many that the six days themselves fall into a double parallel series. Arranged thus, we have, as to the parts of creation touched on, these respectively: -