God Divided the Light from the Darkness
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. – Genesis 1:3-4
Here we see God calling light into existence. He saw that it was good and he divided the light from the darkness. He separated the light from the darkness. He distinguished between the light and the darkness. He made a distinction between the light and the darkness. The action described here in Hebrew is “badal beyn”. When we look in Scripture to see what else has been “badal beyn”, we find the following:
>> The waters under the firmament / the waters above the firmament
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. – Genesis 1:6-7
>> The day / the night
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years: – Genesis 1:14
>> The light / the darkness
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. – Genesis 1:4
…and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. – Genesis 1:18
>> The holy place / the most holy
>> That which was holy / that which was common
And thou shalt hang up the veil under the clasps, and shalt bring in thither within the veil the ark of the testimony: and the veil shall separate unto you between the holy place and the most holy. – Exodus 26:33
He measured it on the four sides: it had a wall round about, the length five hundred, and the breadth five hundred, to make a separation between that which was holy and that which was common. – Ezekiel 42:20
>> The holy / the common
>> The unclean / the clean
>> The beast that may be eaten / the beast that may not be eaten
>> Unclean fowl / the clean
and that ye may make a distinction between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean; – Leviticus 10:10
to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean, and between the living thing that may be eaten and the living thing that may not be eaten. – Leviticus 11:47
Ye shall therefore make a distinction between the clean beast and the unclean, and between the unclean fowl and the clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by bird, or by anything wherewith the ground teemeth, which I have separated from you as unclean. – Leviticus 20:25
Her priests have done violence to my law, and have profaned my holy things: they have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. – Ezekiel 22:26
>> You / your God
but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, so that he will not hear. – Isaiah 59:2
For the longest time, I never paid much attention to the action of dividing/separating the light from the darkness in Genesis 1:4, but when I started studying Scripture to find out about when the day begins, this jumped out at me. At first I didn’t look up the Hebrew word for dividing/separating, I just read the verse and noted that this action is mentioned in several verses there in the first chapter.
It wasn’t until I looked up the Hebrew and sought out where else in Scripture this action is mentioned that I realized its significance.
Scripture clearly says, after the distinction between light and darkness was made, Elohim called the light “day” and the darkness he called “night”.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. – Genesis 1:5a
Then a few verses later, we find that Elohim put lights in the firmament of heaven to make a distinction between the day and the night. A greater light, which we know to be the sun, was to govern/rule over the day, and a lesser light, the moon, to govern/rule over the night.
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years: and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. – Genesis 1:14-18
This tells me there is a distinction between day and night, according to Scripture. I do not see anything in Scripture where this distinction between the two is removed and the whole day plus night is called day. Needless to say, there are many who insist the day includes the night, however that is not what Scripture says.
If I am in error, please somebody reprove me from Scripture.
Posted: January 14th, 2012 under Faith/Religion.
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I’ve been very familiar with the verse in Galatians 3:13 that says,
