Genesis 1:14-19
And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, 15and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth." And it was so. 16And God made the two great lights--the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night--and the stars. 17And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
Matthew Henry: “This is the history of the fourth day’s work, the creating of the sun, moon, and stars, which are here accounted for, not as they are in themselves and in their own nature, to satisfy the curious, but as they are in relation to this earth, to which they serve as lights; and this is enough to furnish us with matter for praise and thanksgiving.”
Clay Miller: On day four God again simply spoke and the Sun appeared, replacing whatever source of light the earth had been furnished with on day one through three. He created the moon to reflect the sun’s light at night. And He created the stars also. God could have gone into detail about the impact the sun and moon and stars have on the earth, but He chose to simply give an account of how easily He created those beings. What we continue to learn about those entities gives rise to even more awe of the power and genius behind these great works.
Matthew Henry: Holy Job mentions this as an instance of the glorious power of God, that by the Spirit he hath garnished the heavens (Job 26:13); and here we have an account of that garniture which is not only so much the beauty of the upper world, but so much the blessing of this lower; for though heaven is high, yet has it respect to this earth, and therefore should have respect from it.
Clay Miller: God seems to have created in two phases. Each day of each phase relates to its corollary. Day 1 and Day 4 deals with lights. Days 2 and 5 deal with the sky and waters and birds and fish. Days 3 and 6 deal with land and land creatures. It is like God prepares and then populates. This day, day four was God’s day to create the entities that would govern the patterns of our lives. Henry speaks of the beauty of the heavens and notes the respect it has to the earth. And oh boy does it. The sun itself is an amazing body. It is an incredibly large ball of fire. It measures 865,000 miles in diameter. That is 109 times bigger than the diameter of the earth! Its volume is 1.3 million times greater than the earth’s volume. That means it would take more than 1 million earths to fill the sun! As John MacArthur illustrates, “If the sun were the size of a bowling ball, the earth by comparison would look like a poppy seed.” It is composed of 70% Hydrogen, 28% helium, 1.5% carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, and less the .5% other elements. The surface temperature is estimated at about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Scientists believe that at its core, the temperature is as much as 27 million degrees Fahrenheit.
As we track through Henry’s commentary on this fourth day, I will add more notes on the sun, moon and stars with information on how they affect the earth and how amazing it is that we even see the stars. I was thinking about the sun being 27 million degrees. And yet that is nothing to God. He can withstand it as if nothing. He controls it. He could tell us so much that we would stand in awe of His teaching and power. But sadly, the world would rather pretend that something else is responsible for such an intelligent and coherent design.
