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 A Day is a Day

God defined the word "day" for us the first time He used it. Genesis 1:4-5: "And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light form the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day." The light period is called day and the dark period called night, much like our normal usage of the word day. It says "the evening and the morning were the first day." The phrase "evening and morning" is the normal Hebrew expression for a complete day. The day begins in the evening, continues through the night period, then into the morning and through the day. One total day, one revolution of the earth on it axis, is exactly an evening and a morning, or one day.

Furthermore we read, "the evening and the morning were the first day." The word "day" in the Hebrew is the word yom and every time the word yom is used with a numerical adjective - first, fifth, 100th, 90th- every time day is used with a number in front of it, it refers to a literal day. There is no exception, to this rule in the Bible unless you want to make Genesis 1 that exception, which would appear to be a very shaky position.

In the fourteenth verse we find, "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night: and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years." We understand what a day is in the context because the term "year" is also used. It is very problematical to make the word "day" stand for long periods of time, a thousand years or so, a million years of so, because then what would the word "year" stand for? The verse says these lights were given for days and years. In Exodus 20 we read, "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six says shalt thou labor, and do thy work: But the seventh day it is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it." (Exodus 20:8-11) Here in the midst of the Ten Commandments - and in reality this is the basis for one of the commandments, the sixth - we have those same concepts. God states that in six days He, the Lord, made the heavens and earth, the sea, and make everything that is in the heavens, everything that is in the earth, and everything that is in the sea, and He rested on the seventh day. Because of that, man should also work six days and rest that seventh day and remember to worship God on that day. Here, the word yamin, days in the plural, as with every other time it is used in the Old Testament, refers to literal days. God says that in six days He made heaven, earth, and the sea and all that in them is. So we find that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, the beginning tool place six days before the completion, and these days were literal days.

What is meant by literal says? One revolution of the earth on its axis, one solar day. You may use the term 24-hour day if you wish. There is nothing in our experience to indicate that the days were ever appreciably different in length. God said in six days He created the heavens and the earth.