Genesis 1:1

In the begin­ning, God cre­ated the heav­ens and the earth. Gen­e­sis 1:1

In the beginning

The first verse of the Bible describes the begin­ning — not the begin­ning of God but rather the begin­ning of the uni­verse. This is the start of his­tory — our his­tory, Earth’s his­tory, the cos­mos’ history.

God

Hebrew elo­him (prn. el-o-heem’). The word el is much like our Eng­lish word “God” — it is often used in ref­er­ence to the one true God but also to lesser deities with a low­er­case “g” (gods). The title elo­him is the plural form, used in the sense of a majes­tic plural. This is a title of superla­tive — He is el but He is much more than other deities — He is elo­him!

This is our first intro­duc­tion of God in the Scrip­tures. It is impor­tant to note that His exis­tence is sim­ply assumed, with no attempt being here made to argue for His existence.

cre­ated

Imme­di­ately God is estab­lished as the Cre­ator — He who is both sep­a­rate from and infi­nitely greater than the phys­i­cal uni­verse; He is tran­scen­dent.

The word “cre­ated” (Hebrew bara) means “to bring about,” “to form,” and of course, “to cre­ate.” This cre­ation has been described as ex nihilo (“from noth­ing”); if there were raw mate­ri­als with which to cre­ate from, then the uni­verse would have existed prior to it being here cre­ated, which is a log­i­cal absurdity.

This cre­ation serves as a reminder that the uni­verse has not always existed — it is nei­ther self-existent nor self-sufficient. Rather, there was a point at which the uni­verse went from nonex­is­tence to exis­tence, and it did so at the word of God.

As astronomers and cos­mol­o­gists deter­mine that our uni­verse is ever more immense, filled with count­less bil­lions of stars and other celes­tial objects, we should increas­ingly glo­rify God for He is even greater!

the heav­ens

The Hebrew word here (shamayim) refers to that which is lofty and above; step out­side and look up, and you’ll see the sky — the first heaven. At night­time, you’ll get a glimpse into the sec­ond heaven — outer space, where the celes­tial bod­ies reside.

At this ini­tial cre­ation, the heav­ens are empty — there are no birds in the sky, no stars in space. I guess you could say God cre­ated noth­ing­ness — the void of empty space within which every­thing else would go.

It is unclear whether the third heaven, the abode of God and the angels, is here in view, so I can­not say for sure whether Heaven is the same age as Earth or if it is indeed more ancient. One of the few clues we have is found in Job 38:4–7, where God tells us that when the foun­da­tions of the earth were laid, the angels (there described as morn­ing stars and sons of God) sang and shouted for joy.

and the earth

By “the earth” is meant that which is “firm” (erets) — the oppo­site of empty space and the raw mate­ri­als of the uni­verse. How­ever, that spe­cial focus is given to our planet Earth is obvi­ous from sub­se­quent verses, wherein the solid mate­ri­als are con­sol­i­dated and formed into the blue orb upon which we dwell.

Unless oth­er­wise noted, all Scrip­tures quoted within this post come from the Eng­lish Stan­dard Ver­sion of the Holy Bible.