Days

September 7, 2023

So the evening and the morning were the first day. – Genesis 1:5

The Hebrew word for “day” is “yom” (“yome” – יו֗ם), in the plural it’s “yamim” (“yah-meem” -יָמִים ). Yom is the most important concept of time in the Bible. It is used to denote:

The period of light (as contrasted with the period of darkness)
The period of twenty-four hours
A general vague “time”
A point of time
A year (when used in the plural)

A day is based upon the revolution of the Earth; however, from our perspective, it’s the Sun that rises and sets. In the creation narrative, God gave us a way to measure one day. It’s in His Word, right there in the beginning…

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. – Genesis 1:1-5

From this, we learn that a day starts at sunset (evening). No clock necessary. Other ancient cultures chose midnight as the revolution of a day because it was the opposite of high noon. In this system, without a timepiece, it may be difficult to determine when a new day begins.