"The day is Thine, the night also is Thine: Thou hast prepared the light and the sun…. Thou hast made summer and winter."—PSALM lxxiv. 16, 17.
"Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun."—ECCLESIASTES xi. 7.
"One star differeth from another star in glory."—1 CORIN. xv. 41.
When we had got as far in our reading of the first chapter of Genesis as the fourteenth verse, we noticed that it is very like the third; for both verses begin with those wonderful words which none but God could say—"Let there be."
But there is a great difference between the "light" of the third verse and the "lights" of verses fourteen and sixteen. The sun is called "the greater light," and the moon, which is so very much smaller, "the lesser light"; but in the language in which this part of the Bible was first written, these two lamps which give us light are called by a name which means, not the light itself, but that which holds it; not, as we might say, the candle which gives light as it burns but the candlestick in which it is set.
Let us read again carefully what God has told us about His work on the
FOURTH DAY, and I think we shall see, as we noticed in the chapter on
"Light," that we are not told that it was upon that Day that the sun and
moon were created.
"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the 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 the heaven, to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: He made the stars also."
You remember that in the whole of this chapter which speaks of God's work in creation, the word "created" is used only on three occasions, though in the verse which tells of the creation of man, it is three times repeated (verse 27). And now I want you to turn to the hundred and fourth Psalm, and notice the verses which speak of the Days of Creation: you will see that light is spoken of in the second verse, and in the nineteenth we read—
"He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down."
Those who know the Hebrew language tell us that the word "appointed" in this verse is the very same as that which has been translated "made" in the sixteenth verse of the first chapter of Genesis—so that we may read, "God appointed two great lights," just as in the eighth Psalm we read, "The moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained."