Genesis 1:9-13
Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the third day.
Day 3 is loaded with detail. Let’s start by making a list of the key points:
- God brings forth the dry land by separating the waters under the heavens from the land into one place.
- God names the gathered waters the Seas
- God saw that separating the Earth from the Seas was good
- Life springs forth from the land(not the Sea). There is a particular emphasis on seeds and fruit[Fruit is mentioned 3 times, seed and earth are each mentioned 4 times)
Separating the Land from the Sea
If the Millennial timeline is consistent, then we are looking for God’s handiwork between 2000 BC and 1000 BC. As it turns out, Israel’s exodus from Egypt took place around 1440 BC. Their exodus brought them to the banks of the Red Sea, where God famously parted the waters and allowed the Israelites to pass over on dry ground. In Exodus 14:21 Moses writes, “Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord swept the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land, so the waters were divided.” Compare that with Genesis 1:9 where God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear.” The similarities are striking, but they do not end there.
To really know what God did in this third Millennial era, we need to go back to around 2000 BC when Abraham was born. It was with Abraham that God formed a covenant and separated him from the people of the world to be “a great nation”(Genesis 12:2).
The significance of this is lost unless we allow the Bible to interpret the Bible. Examining the second point, where God called the waters the Seas, tells us what the Bible has to say concerning another meaning for Seas.
In Isaiah 57:20 we read: “But the wicked are like the tossing sea, for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up refuse and mud.”
And in Isaiah 60:5 “because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee.”
Out from Grace and into the Law
According to the Bible, Seas is a symbol for the Gentiles, or those without the Law–those who are not under the covenant God established with Abraham. As a result of this connection, the gathering the waters from the dry land on Day 3 correlates precisely to God separating Abraham and his descendents apart from the Gentiles both in the covenant and under the Law. It is no coincidence then, that God placed his Law, which separates Jew from Gentile, upon stone, which is a symbol for dry land. Strikingly, it was the Jews who walked on dry land in their escape from Egypt, while it was the gentile Egyptians who ended up under the water.
Then God called separating the dry land from the seas good, and God pours out his blessings on Abraham and his descendents.
Psalms 105:37 describes their departure from Egypt as so, “Then He brought them out with silver and gold, and among His tribes there was not one who stumbled.” Of all the old and young, not one of them stumbled after having been in slavery and bondage for several hundred years? That certainly reflects God’s issuance to a barren Earth to bring forth life.
As God’s people, the Israelites(Earth) were separated from the Gentiles(Sea) under his favor. By His favor they were led through the barren desert under a cloud by day and by a pillar of fire by night. He brought them manna from heaven to eat on a daily basis; and when they grew tired of that, He gave them quail. When they were thirsty, He gave them water and when they had only bitter water, He turned the waters sweet for them. Between Egypt and Mt Sinai, the children of Israel lived under an open heaven of grace and abundance.
But God tested them as well. He instructed that they should not gather more manna nor quail to eat than they needed for a day’s rations, except in preparing for the Sabbath when they were to rest as God had rested. Unfortunately, the Israelites did not recognize their limitations as a result of these tests, so when the time came, God gave them directly over to the consequences of their pride. Keep in mind, that up until Mt Sinai, God had shown remarkable patience to a people that grumbled and complained under his leadership and direction day and night. He had performed all the wonders that delivered them from out of Egypt, led them across the Red Sea, gave them provision in the wilderness and provided comfort on their journey, yet still they lacked faith that his grace was sufficient for all they could need.
Thus, at the foot of Mt Sinai, before God gave Israel the Ten Commandments, He gave them this word in Exodus 19:5, “if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples.”
Stop for a moment and consider what your answer would have been. If you had just taken three tests and failed each one and were handed a final exam by your teacher and asked: “Can you pass this test on your own?” would you really give the same answer you gave before by saying, “All that you test me on: I can do it!” before you have even seen what is on the exam?
There’s a particular reason why God tested them in this way. He was attempting to show them an important lesson about themselves. He gave them several opportunities to discover the truth on their own: that because of the sin nature they had inherited from their ancestor Adam, they could not earn their righteousness before God. Recall that when God created the world man did not appear until the 6th day and only after God’s work was completed. Thus God is not interested in what man can do, but in what God can do. But the Israelites were too proud. So in Exodus 19, before God had even given them one of the commandments they were to keep, their answer to him was: “All that the Lord has spoken we will do!”
Before even knowing what God would require of them, they were already confident that they would keep his commandments! Suppose God asked them to do something so absurd that they would have no way of doing it? But God is gentle in showing his children their folly. They thought they could handle the Law, but they really had no idea the sort of beast they were about to contend with. So God gave it to them, every letter of the Law of the Ten Commandments, and since that day, the Jews have been breaking the Law, requiring regular atonement to be made in order to be found right before God under their covenant with him. Had it ever occurred to any of them that they had it so much better from the time they were delivered out of Egypt all the way to the foot of Mount Sinai, I am sure some would have preferred to go back under his grace.
Bearing Abundant Fruitfulness
Nevertheless, the Israelites were greatly blessed in taking the Promised Land God had established for them. He gave them success in battle, health, strength, and prosperity. Remember how the earth and seed were each mentioned four times? Four in the Bible relates to the Earth, while three signifies perfection, unity or completion. The earth was mentioned four times, the seed was mentioned four times, so the seed and the earth relate to Abraham and his descendants on Earth while the fruit, which was mentioned three times, relates to perfection, completion and unity. From Genesis we find the clues for what would happen in the third Millennial Day occurring between 2000 BC – 1000 BC where Abraham and his seed were separated from the Gentiles and flourished like the dry ground of Earth which was blessed with the perfect fruit of God’s spirit working on their behalf under his covenant with them.
In fact in Exodus 3:8, the very description of the Promised Land correlates strongly to the land God blessed on Day 3 when God tells the Israelites that he will, “come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey,” where milk and honey are symbols of fruitfulness and abundance. From the inspired scriptures that Moses wrote, there can be no question then as to the events of Day 3 in Genesis 1.
Now as we enter Days 4 through 6, things are really going to begin to shift. You see, all the events discussed so far happened before or during Moses’ time. Which means, for the skeptic, it is entirely possible that Moses could have intentionally written Genesis 1 to match the other stories related to creation: the flood, Abraham, the covenant, and the events he claimed were happening in his own life. But Millennial Days 4, 5 and 6 all happen long after Moses wrote Genesis 1, thus there would be no way for him to know the things that would happen. Which means that if the message the symbols point to match the events in those eras, the correlation cannot be tied to any form of fabrication on Moses’ part.