Day 4: For Signs and for Seasons
We have already answered the objection concerning how to reconcile Day 1 with Day 4. Now we have to take notice of another detail about these new lights. There is a regular Hebrew word for “sun” (שֶׁמֶשׁ) and a regular Hebrew word for “moon” (יָרֵחַ). Neither one of those is used here. Instead, the Holy Spirit has Moses employ the simpler expressions “greater” and “lesser.” The same Hebrew root as in the first command in 1:3—‘Let there be light’ (אור)—is embedded in the words here in 1:16 for ‘the two great lights’ (שני המארת הגדלים).1 The best explanation for this is that these two are also “the names of divinities.”2 So once again, Moses is bursting the bubble of the pagans, and announcing that these are not to be served, but made to serve.
In his commentary, Victor Hamilton offers additional insight in saying,
“This order contrasts with the order of the Enuma elish, in which priority is given to the stars, following which Marduk organizes the calendar and fixes the polestar. Only then do the moon and sun (in that order) come into play.”3
It begins to look, to some commentators, as if the Bible starts off with multiple shots fired from spiritual Jerusalem to spiritual Babylon: The true God taunting the servants of the devil, saying, “Your gods are too small.”
Heavenly lights to light our way.
Heavenly lights to mark the time.
Heavenly lights to point to Christ.
These heavenly lights ultimately point up to God, forward to Christ, and out to the great war between light and darkness, but like everything else, they are served by analogies—images of divine things in the created order.
Heavenly Lights to Light our Way
Note how it says twice ‘to give light upon the earth’ (vv. 15, 17). So we start off simple—as simple as the needs of an infant, but also to do the serious work of adults—these lights are literally to see, whether by day or night. In doing so, God would also be giving us countless analogies about spiritual light: its power over darkness and its practical good to us.
How does something so simple, and yet not a sentient being, become the first of what we called the “actors” being brought out on stage? The first point is to demote them below mankind and even animals, even as they orbit high above them. We must bear in mind that many of the ancients—even the Greeks with all their wisdom—often attributed aspects of personhood to these heavenly bodies.4 And one author tells us,
“It is noteworthy that in Enuma Elish, the installation of the gods in their celestial abodes is one of Marduk’s first creative acts. He splits and stretches out Tiamat’s carcass to form a dome overhead (IV.136-142) and then immediately sets to ordering the stars into constellations.”5
There was also a division between the “fixed stars” and “wandering stars”6 (cf. Jude 13), the latter being the origin of our word planet.
Why though does he say TO RULE, twice for each of the lights? To ‘rule the day … rule the night’ (v. 16), and then ‘rule over the day and over the night’ (v. 18). Think again of the stages and the actors.7 Now let us think of them as domains under dominion; so the first triad of days were spheres over which the actors in the second triad are the rulers. That makes sense of human beings and perhaps even the animals, but if this view of the text is correct, doesn’t that assume the idea of the stars as having personhood? Kinder comments that, “As signs (14) they will speak for God, not for fate … for they rule (16, 18) only as light bearers, not as powers.”8
In other words, the sense in which they are “actors” or “rulers” are as God’s representatives. Unlike human beings, think of these now as God’s announcements by illumination.
Heavenly Lights to Mark the Time
The first way that these lights mark the time is obvious. It is in the words, ‘to separate the day from the night’ (v. 14a). Since we have already explained how the light of Day 1 and these light bearers on Day 4 are related, the sequence of day and night being separated by new lights is no more complicated than that these were now the permanent markers.
Everything else builds on this: ‘for seasons, and for days and years’ (v. 14b). So in his commentary, Waltke says, “The lights mark out a comprehensive divine order for Israel’s sacred seasons, not the zodiac or astrology.”9 Calvin is of the same mind, insisting here that by ‘signs’ (v. 14) Moses only intends to refer to those regular cycles of nature and not to astrology, since,
“the same God who here ordains signs testifies by Isaiah that he ‘will dissipate the signs of the diviners,’ (Isa. xliv. 25;) and forbids us to be ‘dismayed at the signs of heaven,’ (Jer. x. 2.)”10
We will come back to that latter idea in a bit; but what would be meant by “Israel’s sacred seasons”? This points forward to the feasts of Israel, which, in turn, point forward to Christ. Since Israel was God’s holy people, even the time was sanctified. Just as the tabernacle represented sacred space, so the calendar of Israel represented sacred time.
Heavenly Lights to Point to Christ
If nothing else, this is one more occasion for worship, as these creatures themselves are called to do so: “Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!” (Ps. 148:3-4).
But so are we, to contemplate the majesty of God who makes these:
“Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing” (Isa. 40:26).
Some have taken the eternal significance of the stars to greater lengths. In the nineteenth century, we saw the emergence of the idea of “the gospel in the stars.” The idea was that since Adam and Eve had the gospel initially presented to them by God, they would naturally have passed it down to their generations. Those descendants at some point began naming the constellations and stars—which, of course, does come very early. However, just like accounts of creation, flood, and the practice of sacrifices were all perverted as the cultures moved out from the Ark and then the Tower of Babel, so it was with the signs of the heavens. Some of this came from very questionable etymology in Frances Rolleston’s Mazzaroth, which improperly linked various Hebrew words (assuming that Hebrew was the original language) and those constellations. Some things seemed to check out, as one article notes,
“The name Orion appears three times in the Bible (Job 9:9, 38:31; Amos 5:8). Rolleston correctly noted that Chesil is the Hebrew word translated as “Orion” in all three instances and that Hebrew tradition generally identified Orion with Nimrod. Orion is a hunter, and Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord (Genesis 10:9), so this connection makes sense.
Rolleston viewed Orion as a type of Christ. On most star charts a hare lies beneath the feet of Orion, but Rolleston noted that in some ancient charts a snake lies below his feet. Presumably, this snake has bitten, or bruised, Orion’s heel, but Orion is crushing the serpent’s head in fulfillment of the first messianic prophecy (Genesis 3:15).”11
A generation later, the Anglican minister E. W. Bullinger gave this theory more credibility among laypeople by promoting it in two books. More recent Evangelical audiences may have heard this notion as D. James Kennedy spoke of it on a few occasions.
Regardless of whether or not the stars were really meant to point to Christ specifically, even through (or in spite of) pagan practices of astrology, in pointing to Christ generally, they point to the light of the City of God in the end. In the opening vision of John’s Revelation, he is told that, “the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches” (Rev. 1:20). That Jesus holds these seven stars “in his right hand” (Rev. 1:16; 2:1) shows that these are the elect angels and that they inherit, in some way, the new heavens with Him, even as the elect among us inherit the new world. To be at someone’s right hand signifies a share in the inheritance. The other third of the stars are swept up by the dragons tail in Revelation 12:4 and cast to the earth with Satan. Now in that same vision, the woman has twelve stars on her crown, signifying the twelve tribes of Israel and thus the fullness of the church.
“And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever” (Dan. 12:3).
Now there is one more thing about the Genesis text itself that some commentators claim show this. It has been argued that the Tabernacle was a design of the world in its relation to God, and that the creation days prefigured this—Day 4 being at the center of the seven days—so that there is a downward movement from Heaven (Day 1) corresponding to the Holy of Holies with the ark, down to the firmament (Day 2) corresponding to the altar before the holy place, down to the plants atop the land (Day 3) corresponding to the bread of the presence atop the table, so that the next step takes one to the lamp stand. Then one rises from the lower life forms to the image of God and then to the rest of God.12
Once again, the Day of Creation ends with, ‘God saw that it was good’ (v. 18).
Practical Use of This Doctrine
Use 1. Instruction. Twenty years before Calvin dedicated his Genesis commentary to the then ten-year old Henry IV of France in 1563, back in 1543, the Polish priest more famous for his astronomy, Nicolas Copernicus, died. Since it was now safe to publish his work On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres was put forth. Geocentrism, the view that the earth was at the center of what was called the Celestial Sphere, in which the heavenly bodies revolved around the earth, now gave way to Heliocentrism,13 in which the earth orbited the sun. The important point is this: Copernicus was not refuting the Bible, but Ptolemy. Again, the Bible is not a textbook on science. It does not teach a comprehensive model of astronomy anymore than (we saw) it doesn’t teach a comprehensive model of geology. So, those who do not take Genesis 1 in any literal sense point to this detail of Day 4—‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens’ (v. 14)—so they are “in” the raqia, which, they conclude, would mean that the clouds send their rain down upon the earth from a position above these lights! But based on everything we have seen thus far, all that this means is that these lights show through that expanse. “In” here simply refers to the perspective that the common observer would have.14
Use 2. Exhortation. There is an analogy in the skies for our benefit. The Bible not only calls Jesus the Light of the world (Jn. 8:12). Jesus Himself says this about us in a secondary sense—“You are the light of the world” (Mat. 5:14). There is a proper ordering of lights here.
“There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory” (1 Cor. 15:41).
Like the crowns we are given, that some think we will cast back at His feet so as to glory in the Giver of all good things, so it will certainly be with our light. Our light is a reflective light. As the moon reflects the sun, so the children of light shine in the darkness only by the reflection of the King of Light. But the Bible does not leave us to false humility here. We are exhorted, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Mat. 5:16). One way or another, there is a reminder of the good news in the stars. We perform the same for others:
“for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light” (Eph. 5:8).
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1. המארת is masculine in spite of the ת- ending, which looks feminine. However the adjective is the indicator here, since הגדלים is masculine.
2. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, 1-17, 127.
3. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, 1-17, 127.
4. Calvin remarks, “we dismiss the reverie of Plato, who ascribes reason and intelligence to the stars” (Commentaries, I:87).
5. Jeffery M. Leonard, Creation Rediscovered: Finding New Meaning in an Ancient Story (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Academic, 2020), 125.
6. cf. Augustine, Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis, 12,37 [138].
7. James Jordan’s chiastic framework for the seven days is intriguing, as it places the fourth day as the crux, so that “the enthronement of rulers is the fourth-day theme … Under the Old Creation, these angelically-administered luminaries governed time, festivals, and important days and years, and ruled the earth. In the New Creation, in Christ, man now does these things, which is why the Old Creation calendar is superseded in Christ. Note that man, positioned symbolically in the firmament, is under the angelic heaven, governed by it” (Creation in Six Days, 186, 187).
8. Kidner, Genesis, 53.
9. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary, 62.
10. Calvin, Commentaries, I:84.
11. Danny R. Faulkner, “The Gospel Message—Written in the Stars?” Answers in Genesis.
12. cf. Jordan, Creation in Six Days, 189-90.
13. Geocentrism was (for the day) perfectly good science. Science needs only to combine observation, apply a mathematical model, and run experiments on the hypothesis. Often this is done to solve practical problems. This it did. Sailors navigated and farmers planned their seedtime and harvest accordingly—and accurately. When Copernicus’s model overthrew that of Ptolemy, it did not render those prior truths untrue.
14. Waltke also takes this view, that “the description is phenomenological” (Genesis: A Commentary, 62).
