Structure of Ge 1
God wants everyone to know him. He gave Adam a language so that they could talk then told him how he created everything. It looks like God may have given Adam two tablets with the story of creation on them. He wrote the story in his kind of poetry.
God's uses ideas, rather than words, to make his poetry. No matter what language you read it in, you can see the poetry.
Look at our simple poetry:
Jesus loves me this I know, <-'Know' rhymes with 'so'. Call this sound 'A' For the Bible tells me so. <- This is also 'A' Little ones to him belong, <- This is a different sound. Call it 'B'. They are weak but he is strong. <- This sounds like 'B' So it is 'B' also.
The poem is a pattern of sound or rhymes: AABB. Lets see God's poetry.
The first idea is 'the heavens and the earth' A: Ge 1:1 ¶ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
The idea looks like it may be here, but 'to give light...' separates 'heaven' and earth', so this gets a label 'a' because it is similar but different: a. Ge 1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. It is also here: a. Ge 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
It is also here: a. Ge 2:4 ¶ ... when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,
The perfect repetition of the idea is here: A. Ge 2:4 ¶ These [are] the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created,
Now fill in the gaps of ideas for the poem: B. Light: Ge 1:3 ¶ And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. B. From light: Ge 1:14 ¶ And God said, Let there be lights [from light] 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:
C. Waters: Ge 1:9 ¶ And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry [land] appear: and it was so. C. From water: Ge 1:20 ¶ And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl [that] may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
D. Dry ground: Ge 1:9 ¶ And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry [land] appear: and it was so. D. From dry ground: Ge 1:24 ¶ And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
Now the poem looks like: ABCDaaBCDAa When you start to see God's poetry, you begin to know his heart. The aa separates the two tablets. God repeats himself so that you know the order to read the tablets.
God makes sure we understand that the final Aa closes his poem which began with A and not a since the A is before the plants and herbs here: Ge 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, [and] the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed [is] in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
Did you notice that all seven days of creation happened in one day?
Ge 2:4 ¶ These [are] the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
Everything in his poem from the first A to the last A happened in a day! Now there's a riddle for you.
The next tablet begins in Ge 2:6 Ge 2:6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
It repeats the idea that there was no rain in v.5: Ge 2:5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and [there was] not a man to till the ground.
