Chapter 1
2026 - So after reading these first three chapters in the LSB, the use of Yahweh God instead of "the Lord God" really stands out. In Hebrew it is Yehova Elohim. I think the point they're making is that in the text this is the name of God. No definite article is needed for a name. Tom, not "the Tom. The capitalization implies a specific person. You don't need the. That's how I will read it. It seems like the right way, especially in Genesis where Yahweh God, Adam, and Eve talked directly.
2025 Addendum 10/13/25. Psalm 104 is a very necessary supplement to the creation story. It adds some details, some chronological considerations, that fill in the sequence of the earth's initial creation.
The heavens and earth are the first things created in Genesis 1:1. So a little hunk of dirt in the emptiness of space. It sat there with nothing to pull on it gravitationally, with no sun, no moon, and no stars. The Bible clearly says that earth predates all the things that modern science says it is made of. It was "without form", so maybe not even spherical at the beginning, since there was nothing to dictate that shape - except its own gravity. There was nothing on it. It was "void". Perhaps a collection of elements, but I'm guessing no compounds as this point. And it was dark. There was nothing to give any light at all. Obviously, the first verse of the Bible is a clean break with modern science. It makes no attempt at reconciling itself with science - either that of Moses' time, when the book was written, or our modern time. It does not "predict" what science will discover, but sets itself apart as an independent history from the very beginning. Since it is therefore a thing apart, we should look to whether it is internally consistent with what it says, and whether what we observe contradicts anything that it says. That is, Genesis is not presented as a guide for modern scientific research. Genesis is not written with the scientific method in mind. It is observational, not testable. By the way, evolution is also entirely observational, and not testable.
On to verse 3....
Let there be light...before the sun or stars. Light permeates everywhere, and just sort of "sits there". But there shouldn't be light all the time. There should also be dark sometimes. So a cyclical pattern of existence is determined here. No idea at all how there was day and night without a sun.
Vvs 6-8....I just don't know. Almost as if the entire everything contained water, as vapor, evenly distributed throughout all that was. And so God concentrates the vapor into the lump of dirt, and removes it from the bulk of what is. The vacuum of space is the result, the atmosphere around earth is formed, containing all the water in the universe. Maybe. I have no idea if that's what this is about. Seems like we have to be talking about saturation or super-saturation.
Next, all that water vapor is further compressed and becomes water. So instead of a water vapor saturated lump of dirt, the water is condensed - pressure increases maybe - and becomes liquid water. This concentrates the water enough to allow unsaturated land to appear. If evenly dispersed throughout all the dirt, we had a big ball of mud. God squeezes the water out into "purer" collections, called seas. The hydrologic cycle begins perhaps. Once land and water are separate, in that same step, plants appear, and they have seeds and fruit. These are before there is any death, before there is anything to eat fruit and disperse the seeds. The seeds speak to reproduction, not to survival strategies. So does the fruit. Perhaps we need to note here that God is not just creating things as they occur to him. He knows where it is all going. He knows that fruit will be eaten and seeds dispersed with it. But again, this is about living and breathing and reproducing, not about survival. The phrases "according to its kind", "according to their own kinds", and "according to its kind" show up three times from 11-13. It is difficult to insert "changing from one thing to another over time" into these three phrases. I think the plural in the second phrase may mean various trees from an original tree, different fruits from an original fruit...but not kinds in the sense of bacteria as the fruit of trees.
In vvs 14-19, we get the planets other than earth, the sun beyond, and the stars beyond that. At this stage, there is a standard by which time can be reckoned. With myriad physical bodies, things start to move, and larger and longer cycles come into being. God had decided that light and dark needed to be separate, and now He implements that in a physical arrangement. 2021 - The planets, stars, sun, and moon are created to separate the night from the day. The two already existed - perhaps as God's plans from back in vs. 3, and now the idea is implemented? I do not see how you can have both day and night without rotation and a distant light source, unless somehow the water vapor was refracting the light around one side or the other. But that water vapor disappeared in vs 9, so after that, and before 14, how was there night and day. I do not know.
Beginning in 20, we get things that live in the water, and things that fly. The waters swarm with living creatures. That word is not used of the birds. Vs 21 sort of implies that everything that lives in water was there from the beginning. "Every living creature that moves" was there, and as a result, the waters "swarm" with life. And these too were according to their kinds. He tells the creatures in the seas to multiply and fill the waters. The birds also are to multiply, but it doesn't say "fill". There had to be room for more creatures than birds. They were not to take up all the available spaces. But the things in the water were to fill it. Nothing else would be created to live there.
Vs 24 "Let the earth bring forth". This is a new phrase. One might almost see this as a natural consequence of what had gone before rather than a new and unique creation. They are still "according to their kinds", but the mechanism of their existence is not as clear as the fish, birds, and plants. In vs 25, he makes beasts, livestock, and everything that creeps on the ground. So in context of this whole verse, God also creates all the creatures on the land. These are not told to multiply. Maybe he made enough of them to start with, and since there is as yet no death, they didn't need to expand. Those in the water were to multiply, but so far, not those on land.
In 26 "Let us make man", in our image after our likeness. So man is a "shadow" of the creator. Man has some commonality with the creator. This was not so of anything else. Male and female. Just those two. 2021 - Note that man's dominion does not extend to the beasts of the earth. Only fish, birds, livestock, and creeping things are subject to man. Beasts are specifically left out - that is, wild animals. Non-domestic animals were not under man's dominion at all. But...vs 28 includes every living thing that moves on the earth. So...what changes between these verses?
2024 - Vs 26 says "and let them rule". So God transferred ruling over all creatures except the wild animals to man.. Man did not rule them. Makes sense.
2024 - -vs 27. In these times, you just have to point out that there were only two categories of humans. Male and female.
2024 - Initially, the earth was pretty empty. So God commands Adam and Eve to multiply and fill the earth and SUBDUE it. This implies that it was not just automatically under their control. They were tasked with subduing the earth. Of incorporating more and more of it into their rule.
2024 - Does vs 28 contradict vs 26? 26 left out the beasts but vs 28 say every living thing that "moves" on the earth. That would include the beasts. Here is the verse:
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." [Gen 1:28 ESV]. A note in MSB says that the word translated "moves" could also be translated "creeps". In fact, it is the same word that WAS translated creeps back in vs 26. Not sure why they changed it. Almost all translations do this - "creeps" in 26, "moves" in 28. The NLT translates both words "scurries along the ground". So. I think the two verses are consistent, and wild beasts are left out. We were never to rule over them.
Man was to multiply, and have dominion, and to fill the earth. To fill the earth. Adam and Eve multiplying before Cain and Abel perhaps?
2024 - This would mean there were children before there was sin. This presents a lot of difficulty in one sense and answers many questions in another. If they were born prior to Adam's sin, then they were not under the curse even after Adam sinned...unless God imputed that sin to them also, as Adam's children. This is possible. It almost has to be that way. And if we continue with this, it was from these children, born before Abel and Cain and dispersed to begin "subduing", that had started "civilizing" other places, continuing to have children, and so providing wives later for Cain and Abel, and others. I don't think the Bible is specific about this either way, and I am not smart enough to get the theological implications of this if it did happen this way, but I see nothing that excludes the possibility.
The reason for the plants is stated. They are for food for people. The animals will eat the plants also. Everything will be eating plants. But no death to anything that breathes. Note that plants and trees were not given as food for the sea creatures. We are not told what they will be eating.