As we go throughout the book of Genesis I’m going to be posting questions, and answers to difficult questions that the book of Genesis raises. The hope in doing this is that it will help you in your growth in Christ, and aid you in your understanding of the Bible.

Question, "Does "day" mean a 24-hour period or ages?"

Genesis 1:5, "5God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day."

The day age view teaches that God created the universe, including Adam and Eve, in six sequential periods of time that are not literally 24 hour days. The problem with this view is that the six days of Creation are seemingly clear literal 24 hour days. Exodus 20:11 clearly states that the six days of creation literally saying, "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."

The question before us today which still has not been fully addressed is the six days of creation literal 24 hour days? I will attempt to deal briefly with this question by first getting to the root of the meaning of the word day, then provide an adequate answer from appropriate scholarly sources and sum up why I hold to this viewpoint.

The naming of elements of creation is a mark of God’s sovereignty. In the thinking of the people of the ancient Near East, naming something was a mark of power or lordship. For them, names were not merely labels, but descriptions with some force to them. The meaning of the word day is yom in this chapter which has received varying intreptations. The word yom normally means a 24 hour day, it can also mean a longer general period of time or an idiom when. In this chapter; however it clearly carries its normal meaning which is a literal 24 hour time period.

Dr. Allen Ross speaking about the literal 24 hour time period explains, "The support for this is the following 1) elsewhere when the word yom is used with a number, it means a twenty four hour period; 2) The Pentateuch bases the teaching on the Sabbath on the six days of creation and the seventy day of rest, 3) from the fourth day on there are days, years signs, and seasons, suggesting that the normal system is entirely operative, and 4) if yom refers to an age then the text would have to allow for a long period of day and then a long period of night-but few would argue for the night as an age. It seems inescapable that Genesis presents creation in six days."1 Dr. Walton elaborates on this point, "We cannot be content to ask, "Can the word bear the meaning I would like it to have?" We must instead try to determine what the author and the audience would have understood from the usage in the context. With this latter issue before us, it is extremely difficult to conclude that anything other than a twenty-four hour day was intended. It is not the text that causes people to think otherwise, only the demands of trying to harmonize with modern science. Perhaps, however after the functions approach to the text has been understood, the twenty-four –hour day will not be seen as posing the problem it has in the past." 2

The context of Genesis 1:5 and also the meaning of the word yom teach us that there is no other meaning that this text gives other than the literal 24 hour day which clearly fits within the framework of six days of creation. Dr. Macarthur further points out, "Day can refer to 1) The light portion of a 24 hour period (1:5, 14; 2) an extended period of time (2:4); or 3) the 24 hour period which basically refers to a full rotation of the earth on its axis called evening and morning. This cannot mean an age, but only a day reckoned by the Jews from sunset to sunset (vv.8, 13, 19, 23, 31)."3

The only plausible viewpoint that takes into consideration, the text, language and context of the passage is the literal 24 hour day viewpoint. If we do not take the meaning of the word yom within its given context then we are abusing the context which is exactly what varying viewpoints do. We must take of the word yom literally because it is used in its context in this way. This conclusion leads one to not abuse the text, or the context but rather allows Genesis 1:5 and the context of Genesis 1 to mean what it says, a literal 24 hour day.

In Christ Alone,

Pastor Dave

1. Allen P Ross, Creation and Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis (Baker Books, 2002), 109.

2 John H. Walton, The NIV Application Commentary, (Zondervan, 2001), 81.

3 John Macarthur, The Macarthur Study Bible, (Word Publishing, 1997), 16.