May the mumbling commence!
It’s a time of beginning. We continue our journey through the first
account of creation in Genesis. Today we
focus on the fourth and fifth days of creation.
Read the passage from Eugene Peterson’s The Message:
God spoke: “Lights! Come out!
Shine in
Heaven’s sky!
Separate Day from Night.
Mark seasons
and days and years.
Lights in Heaven’s sky to
give light to Earth.”
And there it
was.
God made two big
lights,
the
larger to take charge of Day
The
smaller to be in charge of Night;
and
he made the stars.
God
placed them in the heavenly sky
to
light up the Earth
And oversee
Day and Night,
to
separate light and dark.
God saw
that it was good.
It was
evening, it was morning –
Day
Four.
God spoke:
“Swarm, Ocean,
with fish and all sea life!
Birds, fly
through the sky over Earth!”
God created the
huge whales,
all
the swarm of life in the waters,
And
every kind and species of flying birds.
God
saw that it was good.
God blessed
them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Ocean!
Birds,
reproduce on Earth!”
It was
evening, it was morning –
Day
Five. (Genesis 1:14-23)
Now read it from the NIV
translation:
And God said, "Let
there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from
the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the
sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. God
made two great lights – the greater light to govern the day and the lesser
light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to
give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light
from darkness. And God saw that it was good.
And there was evening, and there was morning – the fourth day.
And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures,
and let birds
fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." So God created the great creatures of the sea and every
living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds,
and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful
and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds
increase on the earth." And there
was evening, and there was morning – the fifth day. (Genesis
1:14-23)
Though I love the poetry of
Peterson’s translation and the sparseness of words, the economy of words
changes the feel of God's relationship with creation. Throughout
the text, the “Let-there-be’s” and the “Let’s” become imperatives.
God has created all that we see (and don’t
see) with choice. God gives all creation
an invitation to be. To transform
invitation to command is a significant difference.
Economy in words in a poetic setting is not
sufficient reason for the change.
Enough mumbling for now…
Peace Out
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