The Seven Days of Creation in Psalm 104

Hello there! I suddenly realised it's Sunday tomorrow, so I'd better get on with this blog! :P

Last week we had a look at the appearance of the seven days of creation in Psalm 104...

Day 1 - The creation of Light and the division of light from darkness

This appears at the start of the Psalm, in verse 2:
"Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment"
This is fairly straightforward and we have a wonderful image of God manipulating light at his will and covering himself with it like putting on a coat!

Day 2 - The creation of a firmament to divide the waters of the sky from the waters of the deep

In verse 6, "Thou coverdst it (the earth) with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains"
We can see here that there is water covering the earth and water above the mountains - indicating a division between the two, which is where the firmament comes in.

Day 3 - The creation of dry land from the waters and the creation of plants

In verse 7:
"At thy rebuke they (the waters) fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away."
This gives us a poetic glimpse of how the land may have been created - the waters simply fell away at God's command to make way for the land! Some interesting parallels with the Red Sea here...
Verse 8 seems to be a description of the water cycle - thousands of years ahead of its time!
Verse 9 refers to God's promise to Noah after the flood.
Verse 14-16 refer to the creation of the plants and indicate their purpose towards the sustaining of man and the animals.

Day 4 - The creation of the sun and the moon

Verse 19: "He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down."
Verse 22: The sun ariseth, they (the young lions) gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens."
This is an indication of the purpose of the sun and the moon - to let us know when to sleep and when to wake up!

Day 5 - The creation of the birds and the fishes

Verse 17:
(the trees are) "Where the birds make their nests: as for the the stork, the fir trees are their house."
We can see from this verse how the creation all fits together very nicely - where would birds live without trees to make their nests away from predators?
Similarly with the fish and 'creeping things' in verses 25-26:
"So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.
There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein."
Again we can see that the sea created earlier was a perfect habitat for these creatures, and that God would have known this from the start.

Day 6 - The creation of mammals and man

Verse 11: "They give drink to every beast of the field: the wild asses quench their thirst."
More evidence of God's creation all linking together - the water cycle is also vital for animals to get a drink of fresh water!
Verse 14 is the same in that the plants provide nuorishment for the animals.

Man also has his part to play in verse 23: "Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening."
We can also see that God would have had Jesus in mind right from the start: In Genesis 3:15, God refers the woman's seed (singular) and "his heel" - this verse is in fact referring to Jesus triumphing over sin! God could see the whole timeline right from the beginning - everything that has and will happen was known by God even before he created us!

Day 7 - The day of rest and meditation

This appears in verse 34 of Psalm 104 - "My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord."

Thanks for reading folks - as usual anything I have omitted or forgotten or misunderstood, please feel free to post a reply!

Another Look at Creation

Argh, first day back. We spent most of this morning going over what we did last session, what we plan to do this session, and air.

The main thing we looked at from last year were some of the parallels between Creation and other things described in the Bible. I can remember two seperate bits we looked at - if there were more, remember them yourself.

Firstly, the Sun. Jesus is often linked with the sun, and the links are obvious. There are several instances in the NT where He is described as the 'Light of the World' - you wouldn't think it could get much more straightforward than that, but it does.
Malachi 4:2 prophesies of a 'Sun of Righteousness' that will arise with healing in His wings. The sun brings light and provides the energy needed to sustain life on earth. There are probably more similarities in there we could look at, but we didn't.

We also considered clouds, and the water cycle as a whole. It's interesting that thousands of years before modern science, Job writes how God:

Draws up drops of water
Which distill as rain from the mist
Which the clouds drop down
And pour abundantly on man.

Again, there are parallels we can take from this - the influence of Jesus (the sun) causes certain droplets (believers) to separate from the sea (of nations) and rise up to condense in clouds (ecclesias?) which in turn rain down purified water (preaching?) onto the earth. It's interesting there to notice how when water is evaporated it leaves behind many of the impurities and extra bits it had, such as salt. I thought so, anyway.

Hebrews picks up on this as well, speaking of a 'great cloud of witnesses.' As clouds, it's the ecclesias' job to go forth and water all the earth.

No doubt there'll be more next week. Stay tuned, folks. And sorry for the gap between hearing and blogging.