47. Bereshit — Abarbanel on the Torah, Section 47

The Hidden Light of the First Day

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(Why it says ‘one day’ rather than ‘the first day’)

I would add that this is also why Scripture says ‘one day’ rather than ‘the first day.’ For this was not a characteristic unique to the first day alone. Rather, throughout all the days, these transitions of evening and morning occurred in the same manner.

The Blessed One willed that the character of the days should be uniform throughout the days of creation, with no distinction between the first three days, during which this primordial light served, and the later days, during which the light of the luminaries served. In all of them there was evening and morning in the same manner.

For the rising and setting of that first light during the first days occurred gradually, little by little, just as the light would later appear and disappear through the motion of the celestial sphere. The power of the Creator made their measure and proportion alike in a wondrous way, without variation.

Therefore, throughout the days of creation, Scripture employs the same expression: ‘And there was evening and there was morning, day such-and-such.’

I would further suggest another true meaning in the expressions ‘evening’ and ‘morning.’

For on each of the days of creation, two things were brought into existence, not merely one, as Abraham ibn Ezra supposed. On the first day, for example, both light and its cessation—which is darkness—were brought into existence. Corresponding to these, Scripture says: ‘And there was evening and there was morning,’ relating evening to darkness and morning to light.

Likewise, on each of the remaining days, two things were produced: one corresponding to the level of morning and the other to the level of evening, as I shall explain in each case.

It is also possible to say that Scripture speaks of ‘one day’ because on that day things were created from absolute nothingness. For this reason it was a unique day, belonging especially to God and to His work, for it was awesome in its nature.

Our Sages expounded in Bereishit Rabbah: ‘the day of the One’—that is, the day when the Holy One, blessed be He, was alone in His world. This interpretation follows the opinion of those who maintain that the angels were created on the second day.

Nachmanides offered a different explanation. Since there was not yet a second day, Scripture could not call this day ‘the first day,’ for ‘first’ is a relative term that implies the existence of a second. This too is a sound explanation according to its own reasoning.

With what I have explained, the eighth question is resolved: why Scripture mentions evening before morning. It is because evening alludes to the darkness that was upon the face of the deep before the command ‘Let there be light.’

Likewise, the question of why it says ‘And there was evening and there was morning’ rather than ‘And there was night and there was day’ is resolved, for this teaches that the first light rose and set gradually.

Moreover, evening and morning allude to the two things that came into existence on this day: light and darkness.

And the question of why Scripture says ‘one day’ rather than ‘the first day’ is likewise resolved, according to each of the explanations that I have mentioned.

And with what I have explained, no room remains for the ninth difficulty, which Maimonides treated at great length: namely, by what means the first days were measured if the motion of the celestial sphere had not yet begun.

For that primordial light was a quality diffused through the air by the will of its Creator for a fixed duration, constituting day; and it would then withdraw and cease for a fixed duration, constituting night. Moreover, within that light there were gradations corresponding to morning, evening, and noon. Through it, therefore, days, hours, and moments were measured, just as the later natural days were measured by the motion of the sphere. Indeed, the light of the luminaries was patterned after that first light, being made in its likeness and image.

Perhaps this is what our Sages intended when they said: ‘The light that the Holy One, blessed be He, created on the first day—a person could see and gaze by it from one end of the world to the other.’¹

That is, it was of such a nature that one could perceive through it the measure of time—not only for the three days during which it served, but also for the days and years until the end of the world.

And because that light was a divine creation, they exalted its rank by saying that the Holy One, blessed be He, concealed it for the righteous in the world to come². Is meaning is that the nation will then attain such perfection that it will no longer depend upon ordinary things, nor even upon the luminaries according to the natural order, but rather upon miraculous realities existing through divine providence and absolute will, like the first light.

This is the meaning of the prophet’s words: ‘And the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days’ (Isaiah 30:26).

(Parashat Bereshit — Genesis 1:5, The Hidden Light of the First Day in the Commentary of Don Isaac Abarbanel)

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