Genesis 1:3

Hebrew Bible

2 Now the earth was without shape and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the watery deep, but the Spirit of God was hovering11 over the surface of the water. 3 God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light! 4 God saw that the light was good, so God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” There was evening, and there was morning, marking the first day.

Jubilees 2:2

Pseudepigrapha

2 For on the first day He created the heavens which are above and the earth and the waters and all the spirits which serve before him -the angels of the presence, and the angels of sanctification, and the angels [of the spirit of fire and the angels] of the spirit of the winds, and the angels of the spirit of the clouds, and of darkness, and of snow and of hail and of hoar frost, and the angels of the voices and of the thunder and of the lightning, and the angels of the spirits of cold and of heat, and of winter and of spring and of autumn and of summer and of all the spirits of his creatures which are in the heavens and on the earth, (He created) the abysses and the darkness, eventide and night, and the light, dawn and day, which He hath prepared in the knowledge of his heart.

 Notes and References

"... Here Jubilees addresses a classic exegetical problem: how could God have created light on the first day (when He said, “Let there be light,” Genesis 1:3) if the sun, the moon, and the stars—the heavenly bodies that transmit light were created only on the fourth day? One interpretive tradition suggested that the light created on the first day was a special light that allowed God to see all of His creation from end to end. By contrast, Jubilees suggests that light was created on the first day in the sense that God conceived of it then, “He prepared [it] in the knowledge of His mind,” even though He would only create the light-bearing heavenly bodies later. That would also explain how the Torah could designate the end of each of the first three days of creation with the words, “And it was evening and it was morning”; there was no actual evening or morning since the sun did not yet exist, but God had prepared the length of time that evening and morning would take “in His mind” and when that time had passed, He ended each day ..."

Kugel, James L. A Walk through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees and the World of Its Creation (p. 30) Brill, 2012

 User Comments

Do you have questions or comments about these texts? Please submit them here.