The primeval light was created on the first day, but the sun and the moon were not created until the fourth day. How is that possible?
Question: The primeval light was created on the first day, but the sun and the moon were not created until the fourth day. How is that possible?
Answer: If the primeval light was the first thing created, then it must have been fundamental in the creation of the universe.
From the creation narrative, we learn that the main source of light on earth is the sun. In physics, the term light refers to any electromagnetic radiation, whether visible or not. The light has a discrete, indivisible manifestation of its physical property, called quantum, which takes the form of elementary particles, called photon. The photon has frequency which cannot be zero; it is a massless stable particle, has no electric charge, and travels at speed of about 300,000 km/s.
This light we may call, for the lack of a better term, “nuclear light” because it comes from the sun as a thermonuclear radiation and the sun itself is nothing less than a gigantic nuclear reactor. This is the light as we know it today, created on the fourth day, as opposed to the light created on the first day aka primeval light.
But there is something else that was created together with the primeval light, and it is time, since it would have been impossible for the Creator to say Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3, before the definition of “day” (the measurement unit for time) had been created in the first place. Therefore, we see that time was created on the first day before the sun and the moon came into existence on the fourth day.
Today we measure time with a super accurate clock called “atomic clock” that uses an electron transition frequency in the microwave, optical, or ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum of atoms. The atomic clock has an accuracy of 1 second in up to 100 million years, because it uses the microwave signal that electrons in atoms emit. Simply put, the atomic clock measures time by the frequency of the atoms.
By now we should have noticed that both light and time have a common thing and it is frequency. And if “the nuclear light” from the sun has frequency, then we may expect that the primeval light also has frequency to measure time from Day 1 on.
Now, the theologians have erroneously assumed, reading Gen 1:14, that the sun and the moon were created to measure time, for signs and seasons. Because, if they were created to determine the time and the seasons, how would they be able to measure time when time was created before them? The confusion comes from the poor translation of the Hebrew word moedim as “seasons”. That moedim does not mean “seasons” is obvious from the context of Leviticus 23 where this word is used for designating the appointed times of YHVH, not for determining the seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter).
So, what measured the time between Day 1 and Day 3?
It is the present author’s opinion that light and time were created first and the heavenly bodies later not to measure time but to synchronize the rhythm (the frequency) of the already created time. Time was created and measured on the first day and from that day on a heavenly “atomic clock” (the primeval light) started measuring time with its frequency (much like a quartz clock measures time today) until the sun and the moon were created on the fourth day.
But, what happened to the primeval light after Day 4?
Speaking of the primeval light, the Jewish sages differ on when the primeval light ceased to exist. Some of the sages say that it existed until the sun and the moon were created on the fourth day; others: it existed until the seventh day of creation and then it was no more. But, while they are correct to say that the primeval light exists, they are incorrect that it ceased to exist for the simple reason that there is no verse to direct to that conclusion.
On the contrary, we have the reason to believe that the primeval light continued to exist and still exists, because we see it again referred to in Rev 22:5.
And night shall be no more, and they shall have no need of a lamp or the light of the sun, because Yehovah Elohim shall give them light. And they shall reign forever and ever. (Rev 22:5)
Moreover, Rev 22:5 indicates that the primeval light originates and radiates from the Creator YHVH for illuminating the post-millennium epoch on.
A few things should be noted here. The source of the primeval light is the Creator; it exists and will keep on existing even after the seventh millennium; it has an invisible component (time) and a visible one (illumination), together called in Hebrew or “light”; the primeval light and the light that comes from the sun, “the nuclear light”, exist in parallel from Day 4 on; “the nuclear light” is temporary and will cease to exist after the seventh millennium.
To go even further, we may say that the primeval light might have not been created on Day 1 as the word “to create” is interpreted today (Read more), but it might have been in presence endlessly, since Rev 22:5 says that it radiates from the everlasting Creator.
With that being said, how our initial question can be reconciled, but to say that the primeval light served and still serves as a heavenly clock to measure the universal time for the Creator’s Reckoning of Time. And the sun and the moon were created for mankind to reckon the conceivable time to observe The Appointed Times of YHVH.