VETUS TESTAMENTUM 68 ( 2018 ) 556-580 LIGHT AND SPACE IN GENESIS l 557

Vetus
Testamentum

BRILL brill.com/vt When God began to create the heavens and the earth­
now the earth was unformed and empty,
with darkness on the surface of Deep,

Light and Space in Genesis I the breath' of God agitating2

on the surface of the waters3
4
Cory Crawford -God said, "Let there be light." Then there was light God saw the light,

Ohio University that it was good.

crawfoc1@ohio.edu God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and
the darkness he called Night.
There was evening, and there was morning, Day One.

Abstract

• •

I address here the still-vexing problem of why the Priestly narrator in Genesis
rates the.fiat l-ux that opens the process of creation from the creation of sun, moon,
and stars three days later, on day four. l organize ancient and modem explanations
under four rubrics (polemical; functional; phenomenological; mystical) and find them
relevant but ultimately insufficient to explain the way light operates in the logic of the
Priestly creation narrative. I argue instead that we must attend first to the logic and
narrative irregularity of the text itself in order to discern compositional motivations.
The structure of Genesis 1 points toward an understanding of the nonsolar light (and
its separation from darkness) in spatial terms, analogous to the separation of waters on
day two and dry land on day 3, the sun, moon, and stars populating their spaces as do
the birds, fish, land animals and humans.
Keywords
creation - Priestly source - space - light - Hebrew Bible
...
1 sepa­
The irruption of light onto the dark abyss that opens the first day of creation
continues to vex interpreters, as it has since antiquity; few careful readers miss
the curiosity of day one's .fiat Lux in a narrative that does not see the sun for
three more days. Despite many discussions about the quality and origin of the
light, its presence in the cosmos of Genesis 1 has yet to be fully explained.5 In
l I translate "breath" rather than "wind" or "spirit" given the subsequent emphasis on speaking.
Cf. Ps 33:6: "by the word ofYHWH were the heavens made/ by the breath [rU.•f;.] of his mouth
their host."
2 I translate "agitating" rather than "brooding" or "fluttering" or "hovering" to convey the poten­
tial for threat within the semantic field of {rl1p (cf. Jer 23:9). Further, in a bilingual "histori­
cal-literary" inscription of Nebuchadnezzar I that relates the disappearance and triumph of
Marduk, the deity is described as a vocal master of nature in resonant terms, which G. Frame
translates "at his roaring the seas are agitated; ([a-na u-t]a-zu-me-su i-dr-ru-ra ta-ma-a-ti;
RIMB B.2-4.8 §28). On "fluttering," see W. Propp, Exodus 19-40 (New York, 2006), pp. 677-681.
3 The strophic division follows N. Wyatt, "The Darkness of Genesis i.2; in The Mythic Mind:
Essays on Cosmology and Religion in Ugaritic and Old Testament Literature (London, 2005),
pp. 92-101.

o:oo/iJ ntt D';:i'?� N"')� n'�w:9 4 I do not translate, as some have recently, "'Let light be' and light was," because such a transla­
:n�;;i ntt1
i;i:q mh il.t;i;;;i n�;;i1 tion presumes the ontological introduction of light ex nihilo, whereas the more traditional
rendering preserves an ambiguity that allows a more localized understanding (let light be
DiilI;l 'J�-1,,p -;p,ph1
here, as it were).
n.?,1)"11? t:1'0°?� 111i1 5 Focused treatments, discussed below, include M. Smith, "Light in Gen 1:3-Created or
:0:9;:1 'J�-i,,p Uncreated: A Question of Priestly Mysticism?" in C. Cohen et al. (eds.), Birkat Shalom: Studies
:Jiir'J liNil-nN D'ii'?N Ni'1 :iiW'i1'1- liN 'il' D'ii'?N llJN'1
•
.
T '.' • ·:: :•- • l ' : • ·:: •: • in the Bible, Ancient Near Eastern Literature, and Postbiblicaljudaism Presented to Shalom M.
i17;7 N"')j? lo/h?1 tJi' iiN7 D';:i'?� N"')i?'l :1iphiJ l'�l iiNij l'-i/. D';:i',� '?1'.;l�l Paul (Winona Lake, Ind., 2008), pp. 125-134; E. Noort, "The Creation of Light in Genesis 1:1-5:
:iQtt Di' ij?.j-'iJ;1 '.l]..\:1-'iJ;! Remarks on the Function of Light and Darkness in the Opening Verses of the Hebrew Bible,"

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2018 I 001:10.1163/15685330-12341337 VETUS TESTAMENTUM 68 ( 2018) 556-580
558 CRAWFORD
this paper I explore this question by organizing and summarizing previous at­
tempts to answer it and extend the discussion toward a fuller consideration of
one almost entirely neglected aspect of the nonsolar light, namely, its relation­
ship to space in the context of the whole Priestly creation narrative.
Scholarly explanations of the light can be heuristically grouped in the fol­
lowing categories: polemical, temporal, phenomenological, and mystical. I
hasten to add that these are not necessarily mutually exclusive; some catego­
ries are straddled by a single work. The basic contours can be outlined by a look
at a handful of representative studies.
Polemical Explanations
One of the most common characterizations of the Priestly creation account
derives from its comparison with other ancient Near Eastern cosmogonies and
even with other Israelite creation narratives.6 As opposed to most other nar­
ratives, here the pre-creative state is not obviously inhabited by gods or other
agents; there is only Elohim and a wet, murky wasteland. The traces of ante­
cedent traditions-and therefore of the "demythologizing" transformations of
the Priestly author-are found throughout the text, as even the picture of the
solitary divine is destabilized by the plural forms in vv. 26-27. Some, like Jacob
Milgrom, argue that this demythologization applies also to the "luminaries,"
whose regular Hebrew names are avoided, the argument goes, because of their
similarity to the great Mesopotamian deities, especially to Shamash, who was
"in charge of the entire universe."7 Instead the Priestly writer substituted the
apparent circumlocutions "greater light" and "lesser light." Eibert Tigchelaar
in G. van Kooten (ed.), The Creation of Heaven and Earth: Re-interpretations of Genesis 1 in
the Context ofJudaism, Ancient Philosophy, Christianity, and Modem Physics (Leiden, 2005),
pp. 3-20; J. Milgrom, "The Alleged Hidden Light," in H. Najman and J. Newman (eds.), The
Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Honor ofJames L. Kugel (Leiden, 2004), pp. 41-44;
G. Garbini, "The Creation of Light in the First Chapter of Genesis," in Proceedings ofthe Sixth
World Congress ofJewish Studies (Jerusalem, 1973), pp. 1-4; H. May, "The Creation of Light in
Genesis 1:3-5,"]BL 58 (1939), pp. 203-211.
6 G. Hase), "The Polemic Nature of the Genesis Cosmology," Evangelical Quarterly 46 (1974),
pp. 81-102. This is more fully e>qilored inj. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence ofEvil· The
Jewish Drama ofD ivine Omnipotence (Princeton, 1988).
7 Milgrom, "Alleged Hidden Light," p. 42. See also 4111. 4 for prior bibliography of the polemics
of Gen l; see also E. Tigchelaar, "'Lights Serving as Signs for Festivals' (Genesis i:i4b) in Enuma
Elis and Early Judaism," in van Kooten (ed.), Creation of Heaven m1d Earth (Leiden, 2005),
pp. 31-48; Levenson, Creation and the Persistence ofEvil.
VETUS TESTAMENTUM 68 ( 2018) 556-580
LIGHT AND SPACE IN GENESIS l 559
breaks down the argument into three related points: 1) God explicitly makes
the luminaries in Gen l:i6 (i.e., they are not independent agents); 2) the text
uses 'greater' and 'lesser' light instead of more common terms 'sun' and 'moon';
3) the text ascribes no divine agency to these celestial bodies in determining
the fate o f humans.8 Milgrom argues that the reason for the separation of light
from the luminaries is to deny not only identity to the celestial bodies but also
agency, that the reason for their dissociation is ultimately to locate the source
of the luminaries' power elsewhere, namely, in the nonsolar light of day one,
brought into being by the command ofYHWH. Milgrom supports his argument
by reference to other biblical texts that separate the sun from sky light (Isa
30:26; Amos 8:9; Eccl 12:2; and especially 2 Sam 23:4). He also points out that
the only other time P uses ma'or ("luminary") is in reference to the tabernacle
(e.g. Exod 35:14), in which the ma'or of the tabernacle required a source of fuel
external to itself, and thus, by comparison, "the sun and the moon refracted
this [created] light but added to it no light of their own .... They themselves are
inert and impotent."9
Challenges to this explanation have been mounted. Mark Smith points to
Mesopotamian texts that similarly subordinate the sun, moon, and stars to the
great gods (Anu, Enlil, and Ea), and that even call the astral bodies "signs."10
More germane still is the use in Northwest Semitic literature of phrases "great
light" (nyrrbt) in reference to the sun and possibly the moon.11 There are other
reasons internal to Genesis 1 that avoiding the names sun and moon would
make sense (discussed below) and that the luminaries of day four are not so
impotent as the polemic explanation makes it seem: days four through six
avoid all but the most generic names for the inhabitants of the world, on the
one hand, and on the other these bodies are created not only as passive signs
('otot, v. 14) but are described in terms that verge on making agents of them.
They are created "for ruling" (or "dominating"; Lememselet/lim5ol b- vv. 16, 18)
day and night. To these lights is delegated the responsibility of (actively) di­
.
viding (lehabdfl; v. 18) between day and night, previously the sole prerogative
of God (cf. v. 4). What appears to be polemic may rather be a byproduct of
other Priestly interests, for example to link the me'orot of day 4 to the 'or of
day one in showing an ordered creation, or to emphasize the hierarchy inher­
ent in the created order, neither of which could happen easily with the use
of the common nouns, cognate though they be with names of ancient Near
8 Tigchelaar, "Lights Serving as Signs," p. 32.
9 Milgrom "Alleged Hidden Light," p. 43.
10 M. Smith, The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1 (Minneapolis, 2009), pp. 93-98.
11 Smith, Priestly Vision, pp. 93 and 256nn. 44, 46.
VETUS TESTAMENTUM 68 (2018) 556-580
560 CRAWFORD
Eastern deities. Finally, as William Lambert observes for one of the very ac­
counts Genesis i is supposedly reacting against, when it comes to the ordering
of the celestial bodies in Enuma eliS tablet V, "very little mythology is present.
Somehow, the author managed to deal with the function of the moon without
so much as a mention of the name Sin."12 Thus while P's move away from the
cosmogonic conflict with competing deities is apparent at many points (as it is
for most all biblical creation accounts), there is good reason to doubt this was
the primary objective of the author's separation of light from the sun.
Temporal Explanations
John Walton also doubts the necessity of the polemic explanation, instead opt­
ing to understand the light in what I group with similar understandings under
the heading of temporality. He in fact uses the term "functionality," concluding
that when it comes to acts and works of creation, "we ought to think ... in terms
of functions rather than material objects."13 For Walton, the creation of light is
a metonym for time, or "period of light," since its purpose was to alternate func­
tionally with darkness and to mark the passage of time. Claus Westermann
similarly asserts that "the separation of light from darkness is temporal, not
spatial,''14 as does Smith, who offers the distinction that whereas time was cre­
ated on day one, it was not separated until day four with the markers provided
by the greater and lesser lights.IS
While it is certainly obvious from the naming scheme that light and dark­
ness served to mark the days that structure the creation narrative-and there­
fore would best be established before the end of day one-this explanation
is again limited in our inquiry by the fact that the functional purpose of the
light of day one does not speak to the question of why this light must be sepa­
rated from the heavenly bodies of day four, bodies that also serve explicitly to
mark the passage of time-Milgrom's "cosmic clock.''16 While it is impossible
12 W Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths (Winona Lake, Ind., 2013), p. 172.
13 J. Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology (Winona Lake, Ind., 2011), p. vii. See also pp. 152-
155 on the possibility of reading nonpolemically.
14 C. Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Continental Commentary (trans. J. Scullion; Minneapolis,
1984), p. 112.
15 Smith, Priestly Vision, 91-93.
16 Ancient interpreters argued that the emergence of the earth on day three meant that
now its people would need markers of time, for which the luminaries, whose purpose is
to "shed light on the earth," were apparently created. This is likely the understanding of
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, which also saw the lights of day one and day four as different
VETUS TESTAMENTUM 68 ( 2018 ) 556-580
LIGHT AND SPACE IN GENESIS l 561
to exclude this temporal explanation entirely from consideration, especially
given that the diurnal cycle supplies the primary structure of the rest of the
account, it fails to deal with the need for separating the light from the lights.
Phenomenological Explanations
Those approaches that I call phenomenological attempt to explain the sep­
aration of lights by inhabiting the ancient mind that experiences celestial
phenomena without the vocabulary or knowledge of astrophysics. These ex­
planations target the conceptual logic of the nonsolar light by rooting it in
observations of the natural world. We have already seen Milgrom's appeal to
other biblical narratives that parse light from the sun, so there is some textual
support for this view. Nahum Sarna also takes this position, citing Isa 30:26
and Job 38:i9-20 in rendering the opinion that the nonsolar light "most likely
derives from the simple observation that the sky is illuminated even on cloudy
days when the sun is obscured and that brightness precedes the rising of the
sun."17 Gerhard von Rad likewise opted for reading "realistically,'' relating the
light of creation to the regular diurnal cycle-"the light has poured in and has
removed chaos to a gloomy condition of twilight"-which feeds back into the
present quotidian experience: "every morning ... something of God's first cre­
ation is repeated."18 He goes on to say that in the ancient Near East people "did
in scope, presenting the first light as illuminating the whole cosmos instead of just the
earth: "let there be light to illuminate the world ['lm', as opposed to the earth], and im­
mediately [i.e., not on day 4] there was light." (trans. Maher; Collegeville, 1992). Another
ms. has 'l'h, 'upper regions', which conveys an even more restricted view of the light of
the first day (see ibid., n. 6). The immediately indicates another interpretive move, one
that takes aim at competing understandings of the light in Gen 1 as metaphorical, as in
Jubilees and the Hymn to the Creator from Qumran (uQPs•), which understand the light
to be the metaphorical illumination of the divine mind: "And (he createdJ the abysses and
darkness-both evening and night-and light-both dawn and daylight-which he pre­
pared in the knowledge of his heart.'' (Trans. Wintermute, APOT, p. 55). uQPs• preserves
a very similar conceptualization: "Dividing light from darkness, he established the dawn­
ing in his mind's decision" (trans. Kugel, Traditions ofthe Bible, (Can1bridge, Mass., i998],
p. 49). The notion that all the works were created spiritually, on one day, probably draws
strength from the Neo-Platonism found in Philo as well as from Gen 2:4b, which seemed
to the interpreters to indicate creation happened on a single day. See Kugel's discussion of
platonic influence in Traditions, pp. 63-65. See also Genesis Rabbah l:i4ff.
17 N. Sarna, Genesis/Bereshit (Philadelphia, 1989), p. 7.
18 G. von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary (London, i972), pp. 52-53.
VETUS TESTAMENTUM 68 ( 2018) 556-580
562 CRAWFORD
not consider the remarkable separation of light and stars as something that
could not be performed, because [they] did not think of light and darkness
exclusively in connection with the heavenly bodies."19
As Von Rad's statement indicates, the phenomenological approach also at­
tempts to make sense of the sequence of darkness, followed by the injection of
light apparently to form an admixture, followed by separation. The sequence
has YHWH speaking the light into existence (yeht 'or), judging it good, and only
then dividing it from the dark. Between its creation and separation, then, what
did the creator look at? Some have suggested that the admixture of light and
dark before its separation evokes a kind of literal dawn of creation. This se­
quence, dark-dawn-day may have been the model envisioned in Genesis i. As
Jon Levenson puts it, this sequence writes into quotidian and cultic experience
the cosmic memento of the darkness that obtained before day one: "the prior­
ity of 'evening' over 'day' reminds us of which is primordial and recalls again
that chaos in the form of darkness has not been eliminated, but only confined
to its place through alternation with light."2 0
This explanation likely informs a justification for the presence of nonsolar
light but not its cause, since there is nothing in Genesis I to suggest the author's
desire to rationalize an unexplained natural phenomenon. It seems more like­
ly that the possibility of this dissociation was a means to different exegetical
ends. I will return to this conceptual logic in investigating the structure of the
Priestly creation account below.
Mystical Explanations
The phenomenological explanations of light are in many ways precisely the
opposite of those that understand the light of day one to be categorically, even
metaphysically different from that of day four, explanations I call "mystical."
By mystical I do not intend to signal specific schools of Jewish or Christian
thought, rather I mean to group here explanations that see the light of day one
as somehow transcending the natural world as perceived by humans. This is the
explanatory thread that most ties together ancient and modern interpreters.
The implicit starting point for ancient mystical explanations was always the
observation of the problem under consideration here, the difference of the
nonsolar light from the luminaries and their separation. Although this is not
19 Von Rael, Genesis, p. 5i. Smith also entertains the possibility (Priestly Vision, p. 80). See also
U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, ( Jerusalem, 1961), pp. 43-44.
20 Levenson, Creation and the Persistence ofEvil, p. 123.
VETUS TESTAMENTUM 68 ( 2018 ) 5 56-580
LIGHT AND SPACE IN GENESIS l 563
the occasion to explore the full range of interpretive solutions, their interrela­
tionships, and the various nuances of each, it is possible to point out the main
strands, some of which are woven together in a single source. Operating from
the assumptions that textual oddities were cryptic modes of divine instruction,21
premodern interpreters generally saw the light of day one as indicating some­
thing deeper about the world and the divine creative process.2 2 Some saw in
the text an indication that the first light was that by which God saw in order
to create, the light of the cosmic workshop, as it were.23 This craftsman's lamp
was for others a special dispensation of divine light, not meant for earth, and
restricted to the treasuries of heaven.24 Some understood it, as do a few mod­
ern interpreters, as the luminescent source from which the celestial bodies
drew.25 And some located this light in the divine mind, the mental lightbulb
21 See Kugel, Traditions, pp. 1-41.
22 The main interpretive ideas related to this verse are translated and organized in Kugel,
Traditions, pp. 44-91. See also B. Bakhouche, Science et exegese: Les interpretations antiques
et medievales du recit biblique de la creation des elements (Genese 1,1-8) (Tumhout, 2016),
as well as the second half of Tigchelaar, "Lights Serving as Signs," which treats in detail
Second Temple interpretation of Gen 1:14 on the functions of the celestial luminaries.
23 So Aristobulus (in Eusebius Praep. Evang. 13.12.9); 2 Enoch 25:3; Targum Pseudo-Jonathan
Gen 1:3; b. Hagigah l2a; Ephraem Commentary on Genesis 9:2; Philo On the Creation 31, 55;
4 Ezra 6:40. Von Rad (Genesis, 51) seems to adopt a similar stance: "Without light there
is no creation; only light reveals the contours of the creature blurred in darkness." The
ancient readings were likely aided by the syntax of Gen 1:3, as some rabbinic commenta­
tors reanalyzed the direct-object markers ('et) as the preposition 'with.' The phrase "and
God saw the light ('et hii'or), that it was good," thus becomes "and God saw with the light,
that it (i.e. the earth?) was good." Although this reasoning is not explicit in the rabbis for
this verse (as it is for Gen 1:2), it may inform the many interpretations that understand
the light to be, as it were, the craftsman's lamp. See Genesis Rabbal1 1:14 and especiaJJy
Rashi's extension of this in his comment to Gen n4: "They were created on the first day,
and on the fourth day, He commanded them to be suspended in the sky, and likewise, aJJ
the creations of heaven and earth were created on the first day, and each one was fixed
in its proper place on the day that was decreed upon it That is why it is written: 'with the
heavens ('etlzllSsiimaylm)' to include their products," and 'with the earth (we-'et ha-'are�),'
to include its products."
24 Sob. Hagigah ua; 2 Enoc h 25:1-3; 4 Ezra 6:40. The implication draws its justification partly
from the biblical indication of Gen l:i5 that the luminaries were to give light on the earth.
25 Ephraem, Commentary on Genesis 9:2; Philo On the Creation 31, 55. Cf. Milgrom, "Alleged
Hidden Light."
VETUS TESTAMENTUM 68 ( 2018 ) 556-580
564 CRAWFORD LIGHT AND SPACE IN GENESIS I 565

of knowledge that allowed the rest of creation to unfold.26 A fuller explication Rubio's 2013 edition presented below, which has important implications for
of each of these texts would reveal how thick the tangle of meaning of this the present study.31
verse could be for postbiblical interpreters;27 to pursue each strand sufficiently
would take us too far afield. The themes outlined here indicate the basic an­ Obv. Obv.
2
cient solutions and, more important, the way the problem was perceived. 8 i. Lord Heaven illuminated heaven. 1 . a[n e]n-ne2 an mu-zal[ag]-fge?l
Although between pre- and post-Enlightenment interpretation lies a gulf of Earth bent over and looked at the rki muL[gur]um?-me2 kur-se3 igi
fundamentally different approaches to the biblical text, those modern com­ Netherworld. mu-[gal2?]
mentators who attempt to understand the nonsolar light of day one still seek 2. No water was drawn from the deep, 2. buru a nu-bal nig2 nu-gar ki dagal
3
answers from the immediate context, from elsewhere in the Bible, and also nothing was produced, broad Earth rx xl RI nu-ak
from comparison with ancient Near Eastern cosmologies in attempt to deci­ did not do ...
pher the ontological significance of the light. Central to these modem "mysti­ 3. Enlil's great isib-priest did not yet 3. [i]sib mah den-rtil2Lla2 nu-u3-
cal" interpretations is the recognition that light was commonly perceived as an exist, the sacred purification rites gal2 [s]u-rluh 1 ku3-ge su nu-r u3-
inherent feature of the divine person, as Ps 104:2 and many other biblical and were not performed. ma-ni1-du7
non-biblical texts state explicitly. 29 4. The host? of Heaven was not 4. [er]in2 ? an-na-ke4 Su nu-ru3-tagl
In the search for contextual parallels one finds faint precedent for the pres­ adorned. rx x x xl DI ...
ence of nonsolar light at the beginning of cosmogonic narratives.30 Although
most Mesopotamian texts are entirely unconcerned with the appearance or 5. . .. were mixed together. 5. [ ... ] tes2-bi-a mu-lu
source of light apart from the celestial bodies, an important exception exists in 6 . ... had not taken ... 6. [ ... nu]-f u3 -TUKU1-TUKU
an Ur III tablet (late third millennium BCE) from Nippur which, to my knowl­ 7. Daylight did not yet shine, night 7. ru4 nu-zalag gi61 am3-mu-la2
edge, has not been discussed in relation to Genesis i since the publication of spread,
8.But Heaven had lit up his heavenly 8. an-ne 2 r da 1-ga-an-na-ka-ni mu-ni­
26 So Philo 31, 55; Jubilees 2:2; Josephus Ant Jud i.27; 2 Enoch 25:3; Hymn to the Creator
abode. ib2-kar2
(nQPs•). Rev. Rev.
27 E.g., 2 Enoch 25:1-3: "And I commanded the lowest things: 'Let one o f the invisible things i. The ground could not by itself i. ki-du u2-sim-ma ni2 nu-rmu,_
descend visibly!' And Adoil descended, extremely large. And I looked at him, and behold, make vegetation grow long. gid2-gidz-e
in his belly he had a great light. And I said to him, 'Disintegrate yourself, Adoil, and let 2. Enlil's mes had not (yet) been con­ 2. me den-rliJ2-la2-ke 21 kur-kur-ra rfo
what is born from you become visible.' And he disintegrated himself, and there came out
stituted in all the lands. llU-U3-dU7l
a very great light. And l was in the midst of the light. And light out of light is carried thus.
And the great age came out, and it revealed all the creation which l had thought up to cre­
ate. And I saw that it was good" (trans. Kugel, Traditions of the Bible, p. 73). Here, melded
into one, are the invisible and visible light, divine forethought as illumination, angelic 31 NBC moS. Transliteration and translation of G . Rubio, "Time Before Time: Primeval
partners, luminescent clothing, and the revelatory light of creation. Narratives in Early Mesopotamian Literature", in L. Feliu et al. (eds.), Time and History in
28 We might just point out here other motifs that infonn and are informed by the interpre­ the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 56th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at
tive problems presented by the light of day one: the creation of (heavenly) Torah, the Barcelona, (Winona Lake, Ind., 2013), pp. 3-17 (here, p. 7 and see p. i3 for photographs of the
creation of angels, the participation of Wisdom and Logos in worldcraft, among others. tablet). Clifford (Creation Accounts in the Ancient Near East and in the Bible (Washington,
See discussion in Kugel, Traditions of the Bible, pp. 44-gi. For a fuller narrative of the de­ D.C., i994), pp. 28-29) included this text in his discussion of aJlcient Near Eastern creation
velopment ofJewish interpretation on just the light of day one, see H. Schwartz, The Tree accounts, and his translation differs significantly, especially where the primordial illu­
ofSouls: The Mythology ofJudaism, (Oxford, 2004), pp. lxxi-lxxiv. mination is concerned, perhaps because it is a translation ofJ. Van Dijk's French render­
29 Seel. Winter, "Radiance as an Aesthetic Value in the Art of Mesopotamia," in B. Saraswati, ing in "Existe-t-il un 'Poeme de la Creation' Sumerien?" in Kramer Anniversary Volume:
S. C. Malik, and M. Khruma (eds.), Art: The Integral Vision (New Delhi, 1994), pp. 123-132; Cuneiform Studies in Honor of Samuel Noah Kramer, B. Eichler et al. (eds.); AOAT 25;
also S. Z. Aster, The Unbeatable Light: Melammu and its Biblical Parallels, (Milnster, 2012 ). Kevelaer, 1976), pp. 125-133. See also Walton, Genesis 1, p. 32 n. 47 for discussion. Note that
30 Walton charts the most relevru1t nonbiblical texts for Genesis l (Genesis 1, pp. 18-21) but none of these discussions, including Van Oijk's, assesses the significance of the text for
neglects to include light as a comparative category. understanding the primordial light of Genesis i.

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566 CRAWFORD
3. . .. of Heaven ... 3. rx x x x anl-na-ke4 rx (x) x xl x
4. ... 4. [x (x)] ra-xl-[x] rx x xl-um-sarsa2
5. The gods of Heaven and the gods 5. [ding]ir an_r na dingir ki-al nu-u3-
of Earth were not (yet) performing r ma-su8-su8Lge-es2
their duties.
The text presumes initial darkness, following which (the deity) Heaven illu­
minated (the space of) heaven. It is uncertain whether this illumination al­
lowed (the personified) Earth to look at the Netherworld, but it is tantalizingly
similar to those Second Temple interpretations of Genesis I that cite the pri­
mordial light as that by which God worked. The text is explicit about this first
illumination not being part of the diurnal, solar cycle in ll. 7-8: "Daylight did
not yet shine, night spread, but Heaven had lit up his heavenly abode." Rubio
points out, further, that the emphasis on darkness in I. 7 ("night spread") is a
rhetorical strategy for indicating a "negative ontology", which may be the rea­
son for the prevalence of darkness before creation in so many accounts. In any
case, this text demonstrates precedent for a primordial nonsolar light, though
its relatively early date, coupled with the fact that this notion is to my knowl­
edge unattested elsewhere in Sumerian and Akkadian texts, makes it highly
unlikely that this composition had direct influence in the composition of
Gen 1.32 Further, Rubio noted this text's role in constructing Mesopotamian
conceptions of "time before time," whereas on some level the Priestly invoca­
tion of nonsolar light is the very instantiation of time, as the functional expla­
nations point out.
Moving to the first millennium, the most important Babylonian creation
narrative of this period, Enilma eliS (Ee),33 does not hint at such a light, or even
darkness, during creation; other Mesopotamian creation narratives presume
darkness but no explicit lighting of the cosmos. It does, however, describe the
luminescent body of Marduk. After Marduk slays Tiamat and creates the earth
and sky from her corpse, and after he populates the heavens with the Moon
and constellations (Eev), his face was made to shine (Eev.82) and he donned a
32 The other, earlier text Rubio discusses may have preserved a similar notion, but the begin­
ning of the composition is not preserved enough to tell. In favor of the possibility is the
nearly identical statement that "daylight did not shine / moonlight did not come forth,"
coupled with a hint in the first lines at brightness: "Earth would dazzle ..." (ki-e SAL.KAB­
na dalla ha-mu-ak-e; Rubio, "Time before Time," p. 5).
33 Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths, pp. 439-444, places the composition no earlier than
the late second millennium. All translations of Ee follow Lambert.
VETUS TESTAMENTUM 68 (2018) 556-580
LIGHT A N D SPACE IN GENESIS 1 567
"crown of terror as a royal aura [Akk. melammu]" (Eev.94). At the beginning of
the giving of Marduk's fifty names in tablet VI, which Lambert calls the climax
of the narrative, Marduk is hailed as "the son, the sun-god of the gods, he is
dazzling," and the gods are enjoined to "ever walk in his bright light."34 Thus in
this case the resplendence of Marduk follows his creative acts. Yet the stron­
gest thematic connection between Gen l and Ee is not in primordial light but
in the establishment of celestial markers of time (Gen l:i4; Ee v.1-46).3 5
Egyptian accounts feature similar topoi, where many references to creation
assume the emergence of order from a dark and watery chaos.3 6 The most
common affinities adduced by scholars are attested in Papyrus Leiden 350 I
and in the "Great Hymn to the Aten", which connect light with the beginning
of creation. In the former, a New Kingdom composition, the creator Amun is
described as the one who self-evolved, and that "Light was his evolution on
the first occasion."3 7 Further, he subsumes the sun: "The Sun himself is joined
with his person .... Amun, who emerged from the Waters that he might lead
everyone."38 In the latter, a New Kingdom composition from the latter part
of the second millennium, the beneficence of the Aten is extolled: "Splendid
you rise in heaven's lightland, I 0 living Aten, creator of life! I When you have
dawned in eastern lightland, I You fill every land with your beauty.... When you
set in western lightland, Earth is in darkness as if in death .... Darkness hovers,
earth is silent I As their maker rests in lightland."3 9 This hymn has frequently
been compared to Psalm 104, which extols the creation of Yahweh in similar
34 Ee Vl.127-128; trans. Lambert, Ba/Jylonian Creation Myths, p. 117. Compare 1v.58, in which
Marduk wears an "aura (melammuJ of terror" as he goes out to fight Tiiimat
35 Unfortunately the text is damaged in the latter lines that apparently discuss the forma­
tion of days, although months and years are clearly indicated. Strongly indicative of con­
nection is the concern with sun and moon and almost no discussion of constellations or
planets in both texts. As Lambert puts it for Ee, "the real interest of the author lay in fixing
the calendar rather than in astronomy per se. The stars with which he deals fix the year,
then he passes to the moon, by which the month is fixed, and he concludes this part of his
work by treating the sun, the regulator of the day." (Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths,
p. 172 ). For a detailed discussion and comparison of Gen t:i4 and Ee, see Tigchelaar, "Lights
Serving as Signs."
36 See, for example, cos, texts i.1, i.5, i.6, i.8, uo, u6.
37 All translations ofJ.P. Allen, cos u6. This phrase is in the "goth Chapter" according to its
own numbering.
38 Ibid., "20oth Chapter."
39 Trans. M. Lichtheim Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume Tl: The Nf!W Kingdom (Los
Angeles, 1978), pp. 96-100 cos i.28. See also S. Quirke, "Creation Stories in Ancient
=
Egypt; in M. Geller and M. Schipper (eds.), Imagining Creation (Leiden, 2008), pp. 61-86.
VETUS TESTAMENTUM 68 ( 2018) 556-580
568 CRAWFORD
imagery and sequence, and some even posit a literary relationship between
the two.4o Levenson goes further, to suggest the possible mediated influence
of the Great Hymn to the Aten on Genesis 1 via Psalm 104.41 We find again here
the close association of the creator god with light, and although the Aten is
indistinguishable from the sun's rays, we find the hint of a dissociation of the
sun from light in the expression translated by Lichtheim as 'lightland' (akhet,
more frequently translated 'horizon'), repeated in these lines. We will return to
this later.
Thus while there is some older precedent for divine light associated with cre­
ation, it is usually not characterized as a separate substance but is instead most
frequently attached to the divine body, as in Ps 104:i-2: "You are clothed with
majesty and glory I wrapped in light as with a cloak." This has more in common
with Marduk's melammu than with the.fiat Lux of Genesis i.42 Important here
is the observation of Theodore Lewis, who aptly summarizes the notion that
fiery light was coterminous with the divine person: "The numinous quality of
fire is one of the most (the most?) enduring of images used by the authors of
the Hebrew Bible to depict divine presence. It appears in every literary (i.e.,
Pentateuchal) strand, in most literary genres, and throughout every period."43
One need only think of the burning bush (Exod 3), the pillar of fire (e.g., Exod
13), the kebOdYHWH (e.g., Exod 24:i6), the shining ofYHWH's countenance in
the Priestly blessing (Num 6:24-26 ) , Ezekiel's inaugural vision (Ezek 1-3) among
dozens of other examples.44 More relevant to the light of Genesis 1 are Amos
5:18, in which the prophet reverses the audience's expectation that the day of
YHWH is light; Isa 45:7, where YHWH claims to "form light and create darkness",
40 P. Humbert, "La relation de Genese I et du Psaume 104 avec la liturgie du Nouvel-An is­
raelite," Revue d'Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses 15 ( 1935), pp. l-27.
41 Levenson, Creation and the Persistence o fEvil, pp. 53-65; see also the detailed discussion
and bibliography in B. Schipper, "Egyptian Backgrounds to the Psalms," in W Brown (ed.),
The Oxford Handbook ofthe Psalms, ed. W P. Brown. New York, 2014), pp. 57-75.
42 On the comparison of terms like hOd and hiidiir with Akkadian melammu, see Aster,
Unbeatable Light.
43 Lewis, "Divine Fire in Deut33:2,"JBL 132 (2013), pp. 791-803, here p. 796. He goes on to sup­
port Steiner's argument that 'esdiit in Deut 33:2 is "fire flying forth," connecting the image
to other biblical and ancient Near Eastern representations of the divine presence.
44 See references in Lewis, "Divine Fire." On the Kabod as light, in addition to Aster,
Unbeatable Light, see B. Sommer, "A Little Higher than the Angels: Psalm 29 and the Genre
of Heavenly Praise," in M. Grossmann (ed.), Built by Wisdom, Established by Understanding:
Essays on Biblical and Near Eastern Literature in Honor ofAdele Berlin (Bethesda, 2013),
pp. 129-153, here see pp. 132-135;]. Taylor, Yahweh and the Sun: Biblical and Archaeological
Evidence for Sun Worship in Ancientfsrael (Sheffield, 1993).
VETUS TESTAMENTUM 68 (2018) 556-58 0
LIGHT AND SPACE IN GENESIS I 569
and Isa 60, where the divine effulgence dispels the darkness covering the
earth and YHWH's people.45 This is seen also in the Kuntillet 'Ajrud plaster
inscription fragment: [ bzrh '[ br] ("when El dawned on ... ").46 Perhaps the most
similar in regard to the disbursement of light, although it is not set in the con­
text of creation, is Psalm 43:3 "Send out your light and your truth; let them lead
me, let them bring me to your holy hill, to your dwelling."
Moving past the search for examples of divine radiance at creation, some
modern scholars have similarly described the light of day one in terms of its
qualitative effect on the created universe: since it emanates from God, it im­
plies that divine qualities-a kind of moral order-are woven into the fabric
of creation. This would not be entirely out of place in ancient Near Eastern­
especially Egyptian-cosmogonies, in which the creator establishes order (in­
cluding natural law as well as behavioral decorum) in opposition to darkness
and chaos of the waters. Herbert May connected the light of day one to the
postexilic eschatological hope symbolized by the shining glory of the Day of
YHWH, in which the celestial bodies become irrelevant. More recently, Smith
connected the light to divine speech and from there to the divine instructions
of the Priestly torah, which is made explicit in texts like Prov 6:23: "for the com­
mandment is a lamp (ner) and the torah is a light ('or)." Smith concludes that
"Gen 1:3 captures the notion of a divinely generated light that functions ulti­
mately as the source for both natural light and moral-cultic illumination.''47 He
wonders whether the priests would have also intended the verse to hint at "a
notion of uncreated, divine light that emanates from the heavenly temple."48
Noort argues that in the Hebrew Bible "speaking about God in relation to light
is never a neutral theme," and that the text indicates P attributed a special
status to this light because it is indicative of "the majestic presence of God."49
He goes on to adduce as evidence biblical texts like Ps u2:4, where those who
fear the lord "shine (zarab.) in the darkness as a light ('or) for the upright."50
45 Aster, Unbeatable Lght
i discusses these examples in much greater detail and in the con­
text of Assyrian concepts of divine radiance. For a fuller listing of intertex:tual connec­
tions to the first day (Gen 1:1-5), see S. Giere, A New Glimpse of Day One: Jntertextuality,
History ofInterpretation, and Genesis 1. 1-5 (Berl in, 2009 ) .
46 Lewis, "Divine Fire," p. 792.
47 "Light in Genesis 1:3,'' p. 132. See also Smith, Priestly Vision, pp. 79, 83.
48 "Light in Genesis 1:3," p. 133; cf. Ps. 431 above.
49 Noort, "Creation of Light," p. 17. Noort sees the structure of the text pointing toward a spe­
cial role for the light; I see it rather as evidence of the activities of day one as an innovative
expansion of earlier materials (preserved in vv. i4-19, roughly), and not as P signaling a
special status of the light.
50 Ibid., p. 18.
VETUS TESTAMENTUM 68 (2018) 556-580
570 CRAWFORD
Von Rad called light the "firstborn of creation,"51 possibly informed by the
prologue to the gospel of John and its rereading of Genesis 1 through Philo,
although he also emphasizes its creatureliness as an object distinct from the
divine person.
These observations strengthen the claim that to understand the light of day
one we are justified in turning to biblical and extrabiblical traditions, but in
doing so we cannot forget to attend to the innovations isolated and brought
into sharper focus against the backdrop of the shared features. It thus seems
that, while the common treatment of the divine body as luminescent in the
Hebrew Bible and broader ancient Near East is undeniable, the Priestly au­
thor's understanding of the created light of day one is novel in fundamental
ways, and that therefore to make sense of it we are best served by making re­
course to P itself, asking what the author gained by this innovation. Perhaps the
best way of thinking about these analogies is with Richard Clifford, who sug­
gested Genesis 1 was "eclectic like the one extant Phoenician cosmogony [that
of Philo of Byblos ], ... which seems to be a mixture of Egyptian, Phoenician,
and Greek conceptions."52 As with the phenomenological explanations, these
antecedents help view some of the individual threads used in weaving to­
gether a new tapestry, but they are ultimately of limited value for our specific
question, for although the other creation texts apparently described divine
luminescence emanating from the creator and from other divinities, none of
them makes an equivalent move to depersonalize and reify the light as a cre­
ated substance. More important, any claim to discern mystical qualities of the
light must be inferred by comparison, because nowhere do we find it explicitly
stated in the text. 53 We are ultimately left to explore the nonsolar light within
the logic of the text as it stands.
51 Genesis, p. 5i.
52 R. Clifford, Creation Accounts in the Ancient Near East and in the Bible (Washington, o . c . ,
1994), p. 14i. See the similar conclusions of Wenham, Genesis 1-15, (Waco, 1987), pp. 8-10.
53 The notice that "God saw the light, that it was good" in v. 4 should not automatically be
taken as evidence of an indication of an introduction of moral order any more than the
other similar statements throughout the chapter. The reason that light is here uniquely
singled out is, in my reading, so that the reader not be led to think that the darkness was
included in the evaluation. This itself may be a stronger indication of the relative qualities
of the created light and primordial darkness. Levenson argues that the waters still carry
the negative residue of the Chaoskampf motif from other creation accounts (Creation
and the Persistence ofEvil, pp. 47-50, 127).
VETUS TESTAMENTUM 68 ( 2018 ) 556-580
LIGHT AND SPACE IN GENESIS l 5 71
Light and Space in the Narrative Structure of Genesis i
Our first hint at the nature and function of light came through its connection
with Psalm 104 and other biblical and extrabiblical texts indicating divine radi­
ance. But this light also has a narrative function crucial to the Priestly structure:
it is absolutely essential to the articulation of a seven-day creation period, else
what is a day? As was explored already in the functional explanations above,
the alternation of light and dark, and the naming of this alternation Day and
Night sets in motion a clock by which the omniscient narrator demarcates cre­
ative acts and imposes order on the process. But this still leaves one wondering
why the sun and moon could not have served this purpose since they them­
selves are said to divide day and night on day four.
We can begin to answer that question by attention to the overall structure
of the seven days, a structure which is recognized in virtually every modem
commentary and charted in most treatments of Genesis 1 (see below, Table
2 ) . We can use the deliberate scaffolding and implicit equations of the Priestly
composition to discern clues as to how the author understood the light. This
scaffolding is constructed by repeated verbal formulae (quotation-command;
fulfillment; naming; approbation; day number) as well as by a logically ordered
progression, although sometimes these structures exhibit variation that indi­
cates the reworking or incorporation of earlier traditions. As B. Anderson put
it, most scholars recognize that "traditional materials have been homogenized
in the present account, which compresses eight creative acts into six 'days of
work."'54 Further complicating the issue is the observation, again made by
many, that different elements were marked by a different means of creation,
some by word and others by deed. This alternation led to the dominance of a
theory in the early and middle of the twentieth century that these two process­
es were not originally intertwined, but rather that an original creation-by-deed
account ( Tatbericht) had been reshaped into a seven-day creation-by-word ac­
count (Wortberich t) by the Priestly author.ss Although this has not maintained
54 "The Priestly Creation Story: A Stylistic Study," in From Creation to New Creation
(Minneapolis, 1994; repr. from Canon and Authority, ed. Coats and Long, Philadelphia,
1977 ), p. 43.
55 This was articulated in great detail bySchmidt, Die SchOpfu.ngsgeschichte der Priesterschrift
(Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1964). For histories of and reactions to these attempts see T. Kruger,
"Gen l:i-2:3 and the Development of the Pentateuch;' in T. Dozeman, K. Schmid, and
B. Schwartz (eds.), The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research
(Tiibingen, 2011), pp. 125-138; Wenham, Genesis 1-15, pp. 7-9; Anderson, "Priestly Creation
Story;" see also Smith, Priest!)' Vision, pp. 175ff.
VETUS TESTAMENTUM 68 ( 2018 ) 556-580
572 CRAWFORD LIGHT A N D SPACE I N GENESIS 1 573

consensus, with objections usually advanced on the basis of the fragmentary TABLE I Comparing day four and day one
results of separating the two putative accounts, we do find doublets and seams
that break along the word-deed divide that are best explained by authorial Day Four:vv. l-4-15; Day Four: vv. 16-18a Day One (vv. 3-5 )

supplementation. It may be the case that the earlier tradition is impossible to 18b-19
recover intact,56 but the idea of the introduction of creation by fiat superim­
posed on a prior Tatbericht tradition seems reasonable and explains best the Mode of Let there be lights God made the two Let there be light
irregularities of Genesis i.57 creation great lights
This has implications for understanding the nonsolar light as an interpre­ Completion And it was so. And there was light
tative move on the part of the author, a move that comes into focus by com­ formula (wa-yehi ken) (wa-yehi 'or)
parison with the lights of day four (Gen 1:i4-19).58 These luminaries are both Ruling day Greater light to rule
spoken into existence (vv 14-15) and made (vv. 16-18), which doubling suggests
. and night day I lesser to rule
already the superimposition of a fiat-structure. "And God said, 'Let there be night I (both) to rule
lights in the vault of the sky, to divide day and night, and let them exist for signs over day and night
and for seasons and for days and for years, and let them be lights in the vault of Shedding For shedding light For shedding light
the sky to shed light on the earth. And it was so." Verse
15 ends with the fulfill­ Light on earth on the earth
ment formula, which usually concludes the creation activity (cf. v. 7 ) , and thus Separation lights separate Two great lights God separates light
presents a compositional seam.59 Following this is the Tatbericht: "God made day and night separate light from from dark
(way-ya'ds) the two great lights-the greater light for ruling over (lememselet) dark
the day and the lesser light for ruling over (lememfrlet) the night-and the
stars. God put them (way-yitten) in the vault of the sky to shed light on the
earth, to rule over (limfol) the day and the night, and to separate the light
(lehabdll) from the darkness." Taking v. 15b as a dividing point between two sections, we find they are distinct from each other in modes of creation (speak­
ing vs. making/placing), in function of the luminaries (marking signs, seasons,
days, and years vs. governing day and night), in their precise acts of separating
56 For a recent attempt to reconstruct the penultimate stage, see Kruger, "Gen 1:1-2:3:' (day and night vs. light and darkness), and in the specified hierarchy (generic
57 I use the terms Wortbericht and Tatbericht from here on not to argue for the combina­
"lights" vs. greater and lesser lights). The two sections are united by their ter­
tion of two separate documents, but as shorthand for what I see as traditional material
minology for the lights and in their indication of the place within the vault.
(Tatbericht) and Priestly reworking (Wortbericht), which are defined in part by their de­
Although these are not impossible to reconcile with each other, their redun­
piction of modes of creation.
58 For a more comprehensive treatment of the literary seams of vv. 14-19, see Schmidt, dancy and subtle differences that break across a clear literary seam are strong
SchOpfungsgeschichte, pp. 109-u7. indicators of two literary products. When we compare the two sections with
59 LXX famouslymoves the completion formula ofv. 7 to v. 6 most likely to solve the problem the content of vv . 3-5, the picture becomes clearer.
of v. 15 by understanding it not to be conclusory but introductory, as referring to what Taking vv . 14-19 grosso modo as the combination of an older tradition
follows. ('It happened thus: .. . ' as opposed to 'Thus it was:) See discussion in W Brown,
(vv. 16-18a) and an expansion that reworks the older material (vv. 14-15; 18b-19),
Structure, Role, and Ideology in the Hebrew and Greek Texts ofGenesis 1:1-2:3 (Atlanta, 1993),
we find a telling harmony and dissonance with vv . 3-5. The most pronounced
p. 53 n. 4i. Brown sees the LXX as a fairly straightforward witness to its Hebrew Vorlage
similarities are between vv i4-15 (the expansion) and vv
. . 3-5: "Let there be light"
(VorLXX) and as the earlier text. I find this position w1tenable for the basic reason that it
seems much more likely that LXX smoothed out the structural problems with its Vorlage
(yehl 'or; v. 3) vs. "Let there be lights" (yeh'i me'orot; v. 14); completion formulae:
(as here) than that MT scribes introduced this unevenness; see Hendel, The Text ofGenesis "and there was light" (wa-yeh£ 'or; v. 3) "and it was so" (wa-yeh£ ken; v. 15b ). One
1-11: Textual Studies and Critical Edition (New York, 1998 ) ; cf Kruger, "Genesis 1:1-2:3," also notes that on day one the creation was accomplished purely by fiat, there
pp. 127-28. is no subsequent verb of making as there is in vv. 14-19, suggesting that vv. 3-5

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574 CRAWFORD LIGHT AND SPACE IN GENESIS l 575

are an innovation of the Priestly author as part of his enumeration of a seven­ TABLE 2 Bilateral harmony of diumal triads in Genesis 1
day structure, especially given that both the nonsolar light and the seven-day
structure are unique among ancient Near Eastern cosmogonies.60 Triad l Triad z
There is an important point of dissonance between vv . 3-5 and vv. 14-19 as
well. In the former, after creating the light, God separates light from darkness Day One: Light (separated from Darlmess ) Day Four: 'Greater' and 'Lesser' Lights;
before naming them Day and Night, which accords well with the Wortbericht Name-act: Light = 'Day'; Dark = 'Night' Stars
supplement of vv. 14-15, where now the lights separate day and night as op­ Day Two: Vault to separate Ocean and Sky Day Five: 'Great' Sea monsters, sea
posed to light and darkness. In the probably older Tatbericht, however, the Name-act: Vault = 'Sky' creatures, and birds
lights rule day and night and separate light from darkness, which becomes a Day Three: Subcelestial Waters and Dry land; Day Six: Land animals; Humans
point of tension as the reworking now makes it appear had already been ac­ grain and fruit trees

complished by God on day one (v. 4). This suggests two things. First, in adding Name-act: Land = 'Earth'; Water = 'Seas'

further support to the claim that the Tatbericht is earlier, it indicates that one
of the purposes of the Wortbericht was to accomplish what Sara Milstein calls
"revision by introduction," whereby scribes preserved the old text at the same
time they fronted their own innovations. "Because the new contribution was
at the front, the received work was automatically reread through the lens of
this perspective. The fact that modern exegetes often interpret these works ac­
cording to the logic of their secondary contributors reveals just how effective
this technique could be."61 Second, and related, it indicates that the author was
working with a source (either oral or written) that he could not (or would not)
tamper directly with.62 Thus I proceed with the analysis of the light of day
Day Seven: Rest
formulaic wording and division into days, but also by what Milgrom aptly calls
a "bilateral harmony" of two triads of days.64 As Table 2 shows, the first three
days establish the preconditions for the next three.
These triads are not simply the result of modem exegetical penchant for
structure; the days of each are linked by verbal and conceptual features not
shared by the other triad. Both triads begin with "God said, let there be light( s) "

one on the basis that it is the result of P's expansion of older materials, the
same expansion that introduced the seven-day structure to the narrative and
added material to what became the activities of day four.63 When we look at
the structure of the final form of Gen l:i-2:3 we can begin to make sense of the
(way-yo'mer e'lohlm yehl 'or I me'6rot). In the first triad, as many have noted,
spatial separation dominates the acts of creation. It is twice indicated by the
verb lehabdll, with day and night separated in v. 4, as are the waters above and
below the dome in vv 6-7. In v. g the terrestrial waters were gathered together
.

author's logic, which will help clarify the role of light in day one.
The affinities of day four with day one echo the larger parallel diurnal struc­
ture of Genesis i. Most commentators since at least the late eighteenth century
point out that the orderly progression of creation is defined not only by its
60 This is also the opinion of May, "Creation of Light," among others. Note also the occur­
rence of "signs" ('otot), a well-known Priestly leitwort, in the Wortbericht section of day
four.
61 S. Milstein, "Delusions of Grandeur: Revision through Introduction in Judges 6-9,"
A Life in Parables and Poetry (ed.]. Greene; Berlin, 2014), pp. 210-239, here 211; see also her
Tracking the Master Scribe: Revision through Introduction in Biblical and Mesopotamian
{yiqqiiwu) to reveal dry land. Another marker of the first triad-this one rarely
noted-is the act of naming (see Table 2) that provides the coordinates, as it
were, for locating the creations of the second triad: the sun, moon, and stars
"rule over" day and night (v. 14), the birds and sea creatures are created in sky
and seas (1:20 ), and the birds multiply on the earth, where also the land crea­
tures (including humans) dwell and move. These verses of the second triad
make reference back to the domains created and named in the first.
in
64 "Alleged Hidden Light," p. 43n.8. The earliest observations of this progression an­
tedate H. Gunkel: Ilgen in i798 whom Gunkel cites in his Genesis commentary
,

Literature (Oxford, 2016). Cf Schmidt, Schopfungsgeschichte, pp. 95-100. (Genesis, [Gottingen, i901]: p. u8), and, even earlier, j.G. Herder, Alteste Urkunde des
62 Again, see Milstein, "Delusions of Grandeur," and Tracking the Master Scribe, passim, Menschengeschlechts, 1774, reprinted, with commentary, in Johann Gottfried Herder
on this. Schriften zum Alten Testament (ed. R. Smend; johann Gottfried Herder Werke 5; Frankfurt
63 This is basically the conclusion reached by Schmidt (SchOpfungsgeschichte, pp. 95-100), am Main, 1993), pp. 185-301, see especially pp. 270-271 for his graphic organization of

which he arrives at by slightly different logic. the days.

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57 6 CRAWFORD
Whereas name-acts are distinctive of the first triad, they are studiously
avoided in the second. As noted above, the most glaring are the apparent
circumlocution of "sun" and "moon" by the more generic "greater light" and
"lesser light." This prompts the observation that the other terms of the sec­
ond triad are also collective and categorical: stars, birds, fish, sea monsters,
wildlife, and even humankind. This generic quality is highlighted by (and was
perhaps a response to) the Yahwist's hyperattention to naming the earth's crea­
tures in Gen 2-3. Another distinctive feature of the second triad-and again
rarely noted-is that they are also marked by hierarchical language: the ce­
lestial luminaries are assigned "greater" and "lesser" status and they explicitly
"rnle over" their domains, while the sea includes the "great" sea monsters
(hattannintm haggedollm) singled out among the population, but of course
both earth and sea-everything beneath the sky-are rnled by humans
(vv. 26, 28).
This bilateral structure allows us to understand the Priestly conception of
the light of day one by comparing the other items in its set and the relation­
ship between the first and second triads. The creative acts of days two and
three (sky, seas, earth) clearly establish the spaces or regions that would be
inhabited on days five and six (birds, marine animals, land animals). The fact
that light and dark, day and night are also separated and named using the
same terminology (lehabdll and liqro' l-) suggests we take seriously the pos­
sibility that they were also intended to be understood as spaces. One recalls
that in v. 2 darkness was already anchored spatially ("darkness was on the [ sur]
face [ 'al pene] of Deep"). 65 Further, all spaces of the first triad are populated
in the second with inhabitants that require the corresponding medium for
their existence. Robert Coote and David Ord point out that the populations
of the second triad, including the celestial luminaries, are defined by mobility
within their clomains. 66 In the only study of which I am aware to treat the light
explicitly in spatial terms, Ronald Simkins brings these observations together
in his brief note that "the Priestly writer has ... classified the world according
to a meaningful spatial pattern .... Light and darkness are not a substance but
65 Many ancient cosmogonies couple darkness with the primordial waters, and some also
metaphorize it as clothing. See, for example, the Hymn to the Aten §4, "for darkness is a
blanket." Darkness is also compared to death in §3 ("the land is in darkness in the manner
of death").
66 R. Coote and D. Ord, In the Beginning: Creation and the Priestly History (Minneapolis, i991),
pp. 53-56. See also R. Simkins, Creator and Creation: Nature in the Worldview ofAncient
Israel (Peabody, Mass., 1994), pp. 194-197.
VETUS TESTAMENTUM 68 ( 2018 ) 556-580
LIGHT AND SPACE IN GENESIS l 577
rather an environment or a habitat in which living beings exist. The sun, moon,
and stars are thus presented as the 'beings' of this environment."67
Spatial understandings of light and dark are not unheard of in the Hebrew
Bible. Speaking of the horizon in a text that evokes creation motifs, Job 26:10
reports that YHWH "inscribed a circle on the face of the waters, at the bound­
ary (takllt) of light and darkness."68 Neither is it unheard of in Egyptian texts,
as we have already seen in Lichtheim's translation of the composite word akhet
as "lightland" in the Great Hymn to the Aten. This captures what James Allen
characterized as the Egyptian perception of the horizon: "Between the day and
night skies was a region known as the Akhet, into which the sun set before de­
scending into the Duat, and into which he rose before appearing in the morn­
ing sky."69 He also offers a phenomenological explanation for this, exactly like
that proposed by Milgrom, Sama, and others (above) for the nonsolar light:
"The concept of the Akhet was a practical explanation of why light fades gradu­
ally after sunset and appears gradually before sunrise, instead of disappearing
and reappearing with the sun all at once."70 That created light be understood as
space seems even less unusual when one recalls the profusion of architectural
metaphors in other biblical creation texts. Ps 104;job 38:4-11; Ps 102: 2,3,s; Prov
3:ig-20; Prov 8:22ff.; Isa 40:12-13 all incorporate building motifs in their discus­
sion of the formation of the world.
Seen in this perspective, the light of day one makes sense as the domain
later inhabited and ruled over by the greater light, and darkness by the lesser.
This is not to say that it is not connected to the divine radiance or to polemics
against Babylonian deities or to the marking of time,71 but, at least in its final
67 R. Simkins, Creator and Creation, pp. 196-197. Smith hints at such an w1derst1mding,
but then opts instead for light-dark separation as the instantiation of time: "The verb
[lehabdil] is used for the separation of light from darkness in verse 4-a spatial separa­
tion. In a sense, this might also be considered a temporal act, as it takes place as the first
act of creation at the beginning of creation. Tinle, as known to human beings, begins with
this act." Priestly Vision, p. 91; cf. also his discussion of "lightscapes" although this seems
more a metaphor for a kind of ethical sheen cast over creation (p. 79).
68 See also Job 12:22.
69 J. Allen, Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs
(Cambridge, 1999), p. 2i. See also j. Allen, "The Natural Philosophy of Akhenaten," in
J. Allen et al. (eds.), Religion and Philosophy in Ancient Egypt (New Haven, 1989 ), pp. 89-
101, esp. p. 93.
70 Middle Egyptian, p. 2i.
71 W Mitchell notes the conceptual difficulty and rhetorical impossibility o f separating time
from space: "The fact is that spatial form is the perceptual basis of our notion of time, that
we literally cannot 'tell time' without the mediation of space. All our temporal language
VETUS TESTAMENTUM 68 ( 2018 ) 556-580
57 8 CRAWFORD
formulation in the Priestly creation account, it must be considered primarily
(if not exclusively) in spatial terms, as the dominion populated and presided
over by celestial bodies. It seems likely that Priestly metaphysics made a causal
separation between sun and daylight, and it is not necessary to presume that
the sun merely reflects the light of day one. The phenomenological observa­
tions that biblical metaphysics in several texts allow for the independence of
light from the celestial bodies seem also to be operative here, or at least uti­
lized in the conceptual background informing the author's arrangement of the
creative process.
A final issue to consider is what Smith called the ambiguity inherent in
P's treatment of this nonsolar light, wherein it seems to be both a dissociat­
ed substance of creation and also a mystical light that literally initiates the
Priestly torah.72 As Smith himself points out, deliberate ambiguity in Genesis i
is unusual given the highly structured and methodical style of the Priestly
source in general and the creation account in particular. Understanding the
light (and dark, day and night) in primarily spatial terms provides an alterna­
tive possibility-that the lack of specificity over the ontological quality of the
light is not so much a deliberate ambiguity as it is a side effect of the way the
Priestly writer deployed the existing notion of divine primordial light, fitting
it into the symmetrical scaffolding that prized space above mysticism, though
perhaps only narrowly so. This comes into clearer focus when one considers the
literary operations performed on the likely antecendents (the Tatbericht), dim
as our understanding is of the compositional history. If the common argument
of the Priestly author's dependence on Psalm 104 holds, for example, YHWH's
garment of light (Ps 104:2), already commodified as a fabric as in many other
Semitic texts, is stretched into a kind of celestial canopy. Further, in the Hymn
to the Aten, realized also in Egyptian iconography, there is a subtle distinction
between the Aten himself and his rays: "Though you are far, your rays are on
earth, / Though one sees you, your strides are unseen" (§3). And we have seen
the even older hint of this dissociation in a Sumerian text of the Ur 11 I period.
is contaminated with spatial imagery: we speak of 'long' and 'short' times, of 'intervals'
(literally, 'spaces between'), of 'before' and 'after'-all implicit metaphors which depend
upon a mental picture of time as a linear continuum. If we are going to dismiss these
expressions as mere metaphors, we had better abandon our clocks and their metaphors
of circular time as well. A more sensible solution is to note that we experience time in a
wide variety of ways and that we consistently use spatial imagery to describe these expe­
riences," ("Spatial Form in Literature: Toward a General Theory," Criticallnquiry 6 [1980],
pp. 539-567, here p. 542).
72 Smith, "Light in Gen 1:3."
VETUS TESTAMENTUM 6 8 (2018) 556-580
LIGHT AND SPACE IN GENESIS I 57 9
The Priestly author completes the separation, detaching the light and turning
it and the dark into the medium in which the celestial bodies are suspended,
operate, and have dominion. It was a crucial move that did two things for P: 1)
it allowed the narrator to speak of'day' from the earliest point of creation, even
before the luminaries exist, and 2) it allowed for the triads to be balanced with
named spaces in the first three days and the population of these in the second.
By making "day" and "night" into the first created element, the author was able
to neutralize the apparently anathematic privileging of the celestial bodies as
divine agents as in other Near Eastern and especially Babylonian cultures and
at the same time to create a parallel set of processes that enhanced the notion
of divine procedure and forethought. It fits well within the Priestly predilec­
tion for spatial boundary setting and maintenance.73
If these observations hold, they add further weight to the argument that
behind the Priestly cosmogony lie the notions of the divine sanctuary, either
of the wilderness tabernacle, or the temple of Jerusalem, or both. It at least
manifests a preoccupation with architectural organization and the function­
aries and hierarchies that operated within it. Levenson articulated this, as
have many others,74 in calling attention to the "homology of temple and cre­
ated world."75 Walton summarizes the "temple identity" thus: "the climax of a
temple inauguration is when the deity enters his prepared residence and rests
there, as he assumes rule of the cosmos from his temple-throne .... The entire
cosmos [in Genesis l] is viewed as a temple designed to function on behalf
of humanity; and when God takes up his rest in this cosmic temple, it 'comes
into (functional) existence' ... by virtue of his presence.''76 One might speculate
then that the movement from darkness to light, heaven to earth, seas to land
might also adumbrate the spaces of temple architecture, from YHWH's dwell­
ing shrouded in total darkness in the dabir,77 to the hekal, with its lampstands,
73 On which see. F. Gorman, The Ideology of Ritual· Space, Time, and Status in the Priestly
Theology (Sheffield, i990 ); M. Haran, Temples and Temple Service in Ancient Israel (Winona
Lake, Ind., 1985); M. George, Israel's Tabernacle as Social Space (Atlanta, 2009).
74 See Smith, Priestly Vision, p. 179 and references at pp. 296-297 n.106, as well as discussion
of cosmos as temple in ibid., pp. 11-37. See also V. Hurowitz, I Have Built You a.n Exalted
i
House: Templ.e Building in the Bible in Lght of Mesopotamian and North-West Semitic
Writings (London, 1992), pp. 241-242, who points to the "common idiom" of building in
biblical creation narratives. The theme of temple at creation is found in ancient interpre­
tations, as well, as the place from which God created the world, or the place built with the
created world; see discussion and references in Kugel, Traditions ofthe Bible, pp. 58-59.
75 Levenson, Creation and the Persistence ofEvil, pp. 78-99, here p. 82.
76 Walton, Genesis 1, p. 190. See also discussion in ibid., pp. 178-192.
77 See l Kgs 8:12; see also Wyatt, "Darkness."
VETUS TESTAMENTUM 68 ( 2018) 556-580
580 CRAWFORD VETUS TESTAMENTUM 6 8 ( 2018 ) 581-605
Vetus
Testamentum

to the courtyard and its representation of the sea and land and abundant BRILL briU.com/vt
vegetation.
I propose that, although the other treatments of the problem have pointed

to important and sometimes crucial aspects of the distinction between solar Die Konigsbeurteilungen und die Literargeschichte
and nonsolar light in Genesis i, none has had the power to explain the motiva­
des Deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerks
tion of the Priestly author like the spatial cause. The separation of light from
the celestial bodies allows a clearer view of the Priestly transformation of ante­ Anmerkungen zu einer kontroversen Diskussion
cedent creation narratives in a way that makes a statement about the structure
and spatial quality of creation, one that ultimately seems indissoluble from Sang-Won Lee
temple space that is at the heart of the Priestlywork(s). It is congruent with the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary
many other studies that have detected in Genesis i the allusion to temple mo­ Seoul, Republic of Korea
tifs and hermeneutics and helps to solve many of the narrative and metaphysi­ sangwon83. lee@9mail.com
cal problems surrounding the first day of creation in the Priestly tradition.

Abstract

In der gegenwartigen Forschungsdiskussion um die Literargeschichte des bzw.

Existenz eines Deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerks spielen redaktionsge­
schichtliche Differenzierungen zwischen den Beurteilungskriterien KulteinJ1eit
und Kultreinheit sowie den Beurteilten Konigen und Volk eine grof5e Rolle. Eine
Untersuchung der Konigsbeurteilungen in i-2 Konige zeigt jedoch, <lass sowohl die
Kriterien Kulteinheit und Kultreinheit als auch die Zuweisung der Verantwortlichkeit
an Konige und Volk in komplexer aber systematischer Weise aufeinander bezogen
sind. Eine literargeschichtliche Differenzienmg entlang dieser Linien erweist sich als
schwierig. Zudem !asst der Umgang mit den Kriterien Kulteinheit und Kultreinheit in
der Darstellung der vorstaatlichen Epochen narrative Strategien erkennen, die darauf
zielen, zwischen Idealkonzept und dargestelltem Geschichtsverlauf zu vermitteln. Die
These M. Noths zu einem dtr WerkzusammenJ1ang in Dtn-2Kon ist daher (mit kleine­
rem Modifikationen) keineswegs obsolet

Keywords

1-2 Konige - Deuteronomistisches Geschichtswerk - Kulteinheit - Kultreinheit -

Konigsbeurteilungen

Bis in die zweite Hiilfte des 20.Jh.s stellte dievon Martin Noth vorgetragene These
zu einem von Dtn bis 2Kon reichenden Deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerk

VETUS TESTAMENTUM 6 8 ( 2018 ) 556-580 © KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2018 I DOJ:I0.1163/15685330·12341339