One of the first things we notice when we look at the ancient Hebrew language is that it only has five verbal modes: perfect, imperfect, and imperative as well as participles and infinitives. Imperative mode, participles, and infinitives correspond fairly closely to their English counterparts. Perfect mode refers to actions in their entirety, and is usually translated into past tense in English to represent completed events. Imperfect mode refers to actions in part, and is usually translated into present or future tense in English to represent incomplete events. However, this formula cannot be applied too stringently, for there are plenty of examples which run contrary to this general trend. For example, when God is the subject, verbs are sometimes in perfect mode to indicate that the events described are, in a sense, “complete”; that is, there is no possibility that they will not take place. Thus, we have the Hebrew tense known as “prophetic perfect” in which future events are described in perfect mode because there is no chance that the events described will not reach completion. “The perfect is employed to indicate actions the accomplishment of which lies indeed in the future, but is regarded as dependent upon such an unalterable determination of the will that it may be spoken of as having actually taken place: thus a resolution, promise, or decree, especially a Divine one, is frequently announced in the perfect tense.”{i}
Because of the simplicity of the ancient Hebrew verbal system in comparison to English, we have to be careful when we translate the former into the latter. For example, when the perfect mode is used to say that someone performed an action, we have to use the context to determine whether it should be translated as past tense (“he did”), present perfect (“he has done”), past perfect (“he had done”), or even present or future tense.
Semantic range
Another interesting facet of the ancient Hebrew language is that it has a vocabulary much smaller than English: a few thousand words versus half a million. Because of this, Hebrew words generally have broader meanings and more literal definitions than English words, because they have to refer to more diverse concepts.{ii} In studying how a language uses a specific term to signify different ideas, we discover its “semantic range”; that is, the general scope of definitions that a term can be understood to mean. When we try to determine which meaning is most appropriate in a specific usage, we have to look at the immediate context, the surrounding context, and continue expanding outward with more general contexts (the book, the author, the genre, etc.) until we reach the overall context of the Bible.{iii} If we try to apply a definition to a term that contradicts another Bible passage, this should tell us to go back and look at the immediate context again to see if another definition is possible.
Two terms in Gen. 1 serve to illustrate the fact that Hebrew terms are generally more elastic than their English counterparts. Erets (land) can be defined as the ground or soil (Jdg. 6:37-39), a territory, kingdom or country (Exod. 10:15) or all the people therein (1 Sam. 14:25), the country of Israel in particular (Gen. 13:9; Deut. 34:1) or all the people therein (2 Sam. 15:23), the known world (Gen. 47:13), or all the people therein (Gen. 41:57; 1 Kgs. 10:24), or the planet earth in its entirety (Exod. 19:5) or all the people therein (Gen. 18:25).{iv} In fact, all of the above verses use the phrase kol haerets, “the whole land.” Shamayim (heavens or sky) can refer to the air or space around us (Gen. 21:17-19; 22:11),{v} the air or space above us (1 Sam. 17:44-46), the earth’s atmosphere (Deut. 4:17), outer space (Deut. 4:19), or the spiritual realm where God dwells (Deut. 26:15).{vi} Thus one could correctly say that birds fly in the heavens, clouds float in the heavens, stars shine in the heavens, and angels dwell in the heavens. Moreover, when these two terms (shamayim and erets) are combined, they form what is known as a “merism.” “A merism combines two words to express a single idea. A merism expresses ‘totality’ by combining two contrasts or two extremes. For example, David says in Ps. 139:2, ‘O Lord, you know my sitting down and my rising up.’ This merism means that the Lord knows everything about David. The concept of ‘everything’ is expressed by combining the two opposites ‘my sitting down’ and ‘my rising up.’”{vii}
Thus, when we put shamayim and erets together, this should be translated as the entire universe, since it means “sky and land,” or even more basically, “everything above and everything below.” This is, in fact, what happens in Gen. 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” i.e. the physical universe. “Down to the latest period the Biblical Hebrew writers lacked accepted generic terms for such general ideas as ‘the (created or visible) universe,’ ‘the animal kingdom,’ ‘(the totality of) man’s being,’ and constructiones per merismum were their method of expressing such abstractions. The recognition of this limitation of the language’s resources is of importance for our understanding of the Hebrew mind.”{viii}
The meaning of “yom”
But what specifically about yom, the Hebrew word for day? The root meaning of yom is daylight, and any meaning beyond this, including a 24-hour period, is an extended definition.{ix} However, this doesn’t mean much: a term’s root meaning does not correspond to its literal meaning, much less to its entire semantic range. To think it does is to commit an exegetical error known as the “root fallacy.”{x}
So how do we determine whether any given definition of a term qualifies as a literal one? Unfortunately, there’s no cut-and-dry method. Sæbø has argued, specifically in reference to yom, that how far beyond the root meaning one can ascribe the appellation “literal” is largely a subjective judgment.{xi} The problem here is that people tend to look at whether a particular use of an English term qualifies as literal, and then apply this to the Hebrew term that corresponds to it. But this method is invalid: just as Hebrew terms tend to have broader semantic ranges, so they tend to have more literal definitions than their English counterparts. Just because a definition isn’t literal in English doesn’t mean that it’s not literal in ancient Hebrew. This should be obvious: since Hebrew has a much smaller vocabulary, Hebrew words will, on average, have to have many more literal definitions than their English counterparts in order to be able to refer to more concepts literally.
The Hebrew lexicons all give several definitions of yom. In addition to its root meaning, it can also be defined as the period of daylight (roughly twelve hours), a 24-hour period, or an undefined period of time. No distinction is made as to whether the latter definition is not as literal as the others.{xii} Often, yom refers to an undefined span of time in which a significant event (particularly an act of God) takes place, a point that has obvious relevance for the days of creation. For example, the Old Testament often refers to a time of judgment, sometimes in reference to the seven-year period of tribulation, as a day of anger (Lam. 2:21), wrath (Job 20:28; Zeph. 1:15, 18), visitation (Mic. 7:4), destruction (Job 21:30), darkness (Joel 2:2; Zeph. 1:15), trouble (Ps. 102:2), calamity (Deut. 32:35; Jer. 18:17), adversity (Prov. 24:10), vengeance (Prov. 6:34; Isa. 61:2), slaughter (Isa. 30:25; Jer. 12:3), evil (Jer. 17:17; Amos 6:3), or of the LORD (Isa. 2:12; 13:6; Zeph. 1:14).{xiii}
The meaning of yom is thus close to the English word “day” inasmuch as we sometimes refer to our grandparents’ day or the day of the Reformers. However, in English such usage is metaphorical. Given the smaller vocabulary of ancient Hebrew, the lack of any distinctions made between this and other definitions of yom in Hebrew lexicons, and the elastic use of yom in the Bible, it seems fair to consider this a literal meaning. Thus, two day-age proponents have argued, “Nowhere in our analysis of Genesis 1 do we rely on a figurative or metaphorical treatment of words and phrases.”{xiv}
An objection that is frequently leveled at the claim that the days of creation could be understood as long periods of time is that when yom is modified by a number in the Bible its meaning is limited to calendar days. This objection is wrong on several levels.
1. Yom plus a numerical modifier is used in the Bible to refer to long periods of time (Hos. 6:2-3; Zech. 14:7-8).{xv}
2. Even if there were no examples of yom being modified by a number and referring to anything other than calendar days, this could merely indicate that there is no other occasion in the Bible to enumerate long time periods. This is verified by the fact that when yom plus a numerical modifier is used to refer to calendar days, it’s used to describe days of human activity or human history as opposed to days of divine activity or natural history.
3. There is no connection between having a noun modified by a number and limiting the definition of the noun in question. Numbers in Hebrew (and English) are merely used to delineate nouns or to relate nouns to each other. They do not have the characteristic of limiting the nouns they are qualifying to particular definitions. Thus, there is no reason to think that they limit the definition of yom or any other noun.
Other options?
At this point, we must address the allegation that, while yom could refer to indefinite periods of time, there are better words that could have accomplished this with greater clarity. The first, and most obvious, thing to note here is that, regardless of whether the days of creation refer to calendar days or long periods, they are clearly meant to be the archetype for humankind’s workweek: just as God worked for six of his days and rested for one, so we should work for six of our days and rest for one (Exod. 20:9-11; 31:12-17). Obviously, the text had to use yom in order to communicate this. No other word would do it.{xvi}
But let’s ignore this for the time being. In order for another term to be substituted for yom, and to do the least violence to the text, it would at least have to be a singular noun capable of being delineated sequentially, since this is how yom is used in Gen. 1 (one X, a second X, a third X, etc.). Are there any terms that qualify?
The word that is most frequently suggested in place of yom is ‘olam, a term usually understood as “perpetual” or “everlasting.”{xvii} While it can occasionally be used to refer to “past times” in a general sense, “it does not occur independently (as a subject or as an object) but only in connection with prepositions indicating direction (min ‘since,’ ‘ad until, le ‘up to’) or as an adverbial accusative of direction or finally as the modifying genitive in the construct relationship.”{xviii} As such it could never be used to delineate successive periods of time. Eventually, in post-biblical times it did take on the meaning in question, but this is too late to have any relevance.{xix}
Two articles in young-earth creationist publications name several possibilities which the authors claim would have functioned better than yom in communicating seven sequential time periods of undefined length.{xx} They argue, for example, that the word for “year” (shanah){xxi} could have been used metaphorically to refer to unspecified periods of time. But yom is frequently used throughout the Old Testament to refer to time spans of varying lengths, whereas shanah is not; obviously yom would be preferable and less ambiguous. (Plus, it seems painfully obvious to me that if shanah were used, these authors would be arguing emphatically that it must be understood literally as periods of 365 days, and not as a metaphor.) They also note that yammim, which is simply the plural form of yom often refers to long periods of time.{xxii} But this presents its own difficulties: yammim is often used without any qualification in the Old Testament to refer to a year (Exod. 13:10; Lev. 25:29; Num. 9:22; Jdg. 17:10; 21:19; 1 Sam. 2:19; 27:7; 2 Sam. 14:26). That is, this term referred to a time period of a specific length, and thus could not be used to refer to periods of unspecific lengths, at least not without even greater ambiguity than the singular form presents. Not to mention the fact that it is plural, and so couldn’t be substituted for yom in the singular. Another option I’ve seen one author suggest is the term ribbo,{xxiii} but this word simply means “myriad” or “many” or “ten thousand.”{xxiv} As such, it functions either as an adjective or as the modifier in a construct phrase, and couldn’t be used to delineate anything, much less periods of time.
Another word I’ve seen suggested is dor, which means “generation” (from the root “circle”), and sometimes indirectly refers to periods of time.{xxv} The fact that it does so indirectly is problematic, since it can also simply refer to a congregation or group of people without any reference to time (Ps. 73:15). Thus, if this term were used in place of yom to describe the days of creation, it could be reasonably understood as not referring to the passage of time or sequential time periods. Another problem is that, when it does refer to periods of time, it often means the period from one’s birth to the birth of his/her offspring. This could then be understood to entail evolution (an alternative that, I suspect, most calendar-day advocates would be unwilling to consider), since it could imply that the elements of one dor are producing the elements of the next. A similar word is toledot, which means “generations” or “records” or “genealogies”.{xxvi} But again, this term only refers to the passage of time obliquely if it does so at all. Moreover, it only occurs in the plural, and so couldn’t be substituted for yom in the singular.
Another term I’ve seen suggested is mo’ad (or mo’adah) which means “appointed” and usually refers to some kind of meeting between God and people, such as the Tent of Meeting (Exod. 33:7-11).{xxvii} As with dor, the passage of time is only an indirect aspect of this word when it’s an aspect at all—it can also refer to an appointed place (Josh. 8:14; Ps. 74:8; Lam. 2:6).{xxviii}
There are several other terms that strike me as being much more plausible. Two synonymous terms that fall into this category are zemen,{xxix} and the much more common ‘et.{xxx} Both of these words mean “time,” and are used to answer “when” questions. “In contrast to the Ger. word ‘Zeit’ or the Eng. ‘time,’ however, ‘et has a more limited range of meaning, insofar as it does not refer to temporal duration or to an extended period of time … but to some definite point in time or period of time.”{xxxi} Note two things from this quote: first, while this term can refer to a period of time, it cannot refer to an extended period of time, and would thus be inappropriate in Gen. 1 to refer to ages or epochs; but this is not the case for yom. Second, it can only refer to a definite or specific period of time—not to an indefinite one; whereas, again, yom can refer to an indefinite time period. These conclusions also apply to another word for time, pa’am.{xxxii}
So it seems to me that most of these terms simply could not be substituted for yom in Gen. 1 at all. And those that (possibly) could would create much more significant problems than yom does. Thus, none of these terms would delineate long periods of indefinite length as clearly and unambiguously as yom. For this purpose, yom is the best word that could have been used. And when we remember that Gen. 1 is emphasizing the parallel between God’s work of creation and humankind’s workweek, it becomes the only word which could have been used.
Qualification
However, some would argue, I’ve limited this study too much. I have only tried to find individual terms that could have been substituted in place of yom, rather than looking for any alternate way of describing long time periods. For example, the text could certainly have clarified that the days of creation were not calendar days by adding a qualifying adjective to yom (such as rab, “long”), or a statement that clearly stated such. To my mind, this is a strong objection. There are two points to make about it:
First, it is obvious that the days of creation are portrayed as God’s days (since they comprise his workweek) and, as such, are already qualified. Since the creation days are God’s days, we have to ask whether the Bible represents God’s experience of time as being the same as our own; and I would argue that the Bible clearly answers this in the negative (Ps. 90:4; 2 Pet. 3:8). It would certainly be nicer if there were further clarification, but it would also be superfluous and redundant.
Personally, I would have appreciated some statement in Gen. 1 to the effect of, “The days of creation are God’s days, and God’s days are not the same temporal length as humanity’s days.” For that matter, I would have appreciated a statement somewhere in the Bible that clearly states the relationship between Jesus’ divine and human natures,{xxxiii} or explains how God’s sovereignty is compatible with human free will.{xxxiv} But God didn’t write a systematic theology, and I suspect that’s for our own good.
Second, this objection seems to assume that, absent any explicit statement that the days of creation are not calendar days, the best interpretation is that they are calendar days. In other words, it assumes that the calendar-day interpretation is essentially the fallback position. I disagree, because I think the context of Gen. 1 and other implicit aspects of the text support the day-age interpretation over against the calendar-day interpretation. This is the subject of the following chapter.
Objections and responses
Objection: Since the first day of creation involves the separation of night from day, any word would have been better than yom to describe the days of creation if they were meant to be understood as long periods of time, since to use yom in this context would inevitably lead to confusion.
Response: The confusion that yom can cause is merely how long a period the days of creation are: 24-hours or longer periods of time. In comparison to the possible misunderstandings that other terms could cause (such as not requiring or even denying the concept of creation in time), this is insignificant. Moreover, the calendar-day interpretation, just as much as the day-age interpretation, holds that yom has two different meanings in Gen. 1:5: daylight, and a calendar day. And again, only yom could draw the parallel between God’s workweek and our own.
Objection: Yom only refers to an undefined time span when it’s prefixed with a preposition and functions as an idiom to mean “when” or “then.”
Response: This is false. There are plenty of references to undefined time spans (such as the day of the LORD) in which yom isn’t prefixed with a preposition (Deut. 32:35; Isa. 2:12; Ezek. 30:3; Joel 1:15; Amos 5:18; Ob. 1:15; Zeph. 1:7; Mal. 3:23; etc.).
Objection: If the days of creation are meant to be understood as God’s days instead of humankind’s days, this means that they are anthropomorphic. But if they are anthropomorphic, yom is not being used literally.
Response: Just because something is anthropomorphic, it doesn’t mean that it’s figurative or allegorical.{xxxv} While the ascription to God of characteristics he does not have, such as hands (Exod. 3:20; 7:5; 9:3; etc.) or eyes (Deut. 11:12; Ps. 11:4; 34:15; etc.) is clearly metaphorical, there are examples when this is not the case, such as references to God’s thoughts (Ps. 33:11; 40:5; 92:5; Isa. 55:8-9; Jer. 29:11; 49:20; 50:45; 51:29; Amos 4:13; Mic. 4:12) or his heart or mind (lev or levav;{xxxvi} Gen. 6:6; 8:21; 1 Sam. 2:35; 13:14; 1 Kgs. 9:3; 2 Kgs. 10:30; Ps. 33:11; Jer. 23:20; 30:24; 44:21). In these latter examples our possession of a property or capacity is derived from God’s possession of it in a higher or purer fashion—perhaps they should be called “deimorphic” when ascribed to human beings rather than the other way around. The reason why we can understand God in human concepts at all is because, being created in his image, the very origin of these concepts rests in him. Since Scripture clearly represents humankind’s workweek in precisely this manner, i.e. as derivative and representative of God’s week of creation (Exod. 20:8-12; 31:12-17), it does not seem like much of a stretch to posit that, just as God’s ways are not our ways, so might his days not be our days.
Objection: Even liberal scholars who reject the message of Gen. 1 don’t believe that the days of creation can be reasonably interpreted as anything but 24-hour periods. For example, James Barr wrote in 1984 that, “So far as I know there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Gen. 1-11 intended to convey to their readers … that creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience.”{xxxvii}
Response: Calendar-day advocates commonly refer to this quotation, but there is at least one major problem with it: Barr was incorrect.
…the statement was wrong when made, because Gleason Archer and Walter Kaiser, among many other highly reputable Bible scholars, did and do support the long-day interpretation. … For example, when the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy deliberated on the subject of the duration of the Genesis 1 creation days at their second summit held in Chicago in 1982, none of the Hebrew and Old Testament professors who participated concluded that the Genesis creation accounts mandated six consecutive 24-hour creation days. … The only possible defense for Barr’s statement is that he takes such a biased definition of “world-class university” that only institutions hostile to evangelical Christianity are included.{xxxviii}
Objection: The “calendar-day interpretation” is not an interpretation. It’s simply what the Bible says. The days of creation are days. That’s it.
Response: Well, if the word “interpretation” is a stumbling block, substitute the word “understanding” in its place. Your interpretation of a text is just your understanding of it. So then the question becomes: is it possible for you to misunderstand what the Bible says? Everyone would concede this, and Christians especially so, in light of the belief that the human race is fallen and imperfect.
Another point to make here is that as long as a term has more than one possible definition (and all terms do), then by analyzing the text to see which of these definitions best fits a particular context, we are interpreting. Language is not like mathematics or symbolic logic, where a symbol has a fixed meaning that never varies. As Christian philosopher Frederick Copleston points out, “…our language is not in any case a simple photograph of bare facts. It expresses interpretation. Hence it cannot be used as a touchstone of truth. And philosophy cannot be simply uncritical of so-called ordinary language. Nor can it be critical without indulging in theory. Needless to say, this is not a discovery of the present writer. It is a matter of common recognition.”{xxxix}
Bear in mind that this does not mean that any interpretation is just as good as any other. There are good and bad interpretations. Sometimes we will not be able to be very certain of our interpretations, but many times we can be. No one would deny, for example, that the references to Jesus’ resurrection taking place on the third day refers to anything other than the Sunday following his crucifixion. The context makes this clear beyond any reasonable doubt. But we must be wary of comparing this to other texts, when the context is less clear, and we can mistake our understanding for the text itself.
Notes:
{i} S. R. Driver (1892), 17.
{ii} Of course, there are examples of ancient Hebrew terms being more specific than their English counterparts, but these are exceptions to the general rule.
{iii} William W. Klein, et al. (1993), 161-71.
{iv} BDB, 75-6; TWOT, 74-5 (167); GHCL, 81.
{v} Dallas Willard (1998), 67-74.
{vi} BDB, 1029-30; TWOT, 935-6 (2407); GHCL, 884.
{vii} John Sailhamer (1996), 56.
{viii} A. M. Honeyman (1951), 17-8.
{ix} M. Sæbø (1990), 6:25.
{x} D. A. Carson (1996), 28-33.
{xi} Sæbø (1990), 6:25.
{xii} BDB 398-401; TWOT 370-1 (852); GHCL 341; OTWS, 109.
{xiii} R. A. Torrey (1970), 220-2.
{xiv} Hugh Ross and Gleason Archer (2001c), 200.
{xv} These passages are dealt with in more detail in chapter 5.
{xvi} It’s often argued that in order for this parallel to hold, God’s days must be temporally identical to humankind’s days. I address this in chapter 4.
{xvii} BDB, 761-3; TWOT, 672-3 (1631a); GHCL, 634.
{xviii} TWOT, 2:672-3.
{xix} James Barr (1969), 73, 123-5.
{xx} James Stanbaugh (1991); Russell Grigg (1997).
{xxi} BDB, 1040; TWOT, 941-2 (2419a); GHCL, 840.
{xxii} BDB, 399 (4-5); see note 13.
{xxiii} Jobe R. Martin (2000), 596, n. 18. Ironically, Martin suggests that yom could be used to refer to long periods of time in Gen. 1, but thinks that the numerical qualifier limits its meaning to 24-hour periods.
{xxiv} BDB, 914; TWOT, 826-7 (2099e); GHCL, 754.
{xxv} BDB, 189-90; TWOT, 186-7 (418b); GHCL, 194.
{xxvi}
{xxvii} BDB, 417-8; TWOT, 387-9 (878); GHCL, 457-8.
{xxviii} Moreover, when it means appointed time, it always refers to the festivals or seasons which God has appointed for his people to commemorate—but not to the original event being commemorated itself. As such, it refers to either future or repeated events, neither of which is true of the days of creation. I don’t see any intrinsic reason why it couldn’t be used to refer to the original event being commemorated, but it is never used this way in Scripture, and there are plenty of opportunities for it to do so.
{xxix} BDB, 273-4; TWOT, 245 (557); GHCL, 248.
{xxx} BDB, 773-4; TWOT, 680-1 (1650b); GHCL, 661.
{xxxi} TLOT, 2:952-3.
{xxxii}
{xxxiii} Millard J. Erickson (1991), 41-86, 531-76.
{xxxiv} Carson (2002); William Lane Craig (1999).
{xxxv} C. John Collins (1994), 120-1.
{xxxvi} BDB, 523-5; TWOT, 466-7 (1071a).
{xxxvii} James Barr to David C. C. Watson, April 23, 1984, quoted in J. Ligon Duncan and David W. Hall (2001a), 23.
{xxxviii} Hugh Ross and Gleason Archer (2001b), 79, n. 13.
{xxxix} Frederick Copleston (1966), 506.