“And the evening and the morning were the first day.”  Evening is then the boundary common to day and night; and in the same way morning constitutes the approach of night to day.  It was to give day the privileges of seniority that Scripture put the end of the first day before that of the first night, because night follows day:  for, before the creation of light, the world was not in night, but in darkness.  It is the opposite of day which was called night, and it did not receive its name until after day.  Thus were created the evening and the morning.  Scripture means the space of a day and a night, and afterward no more says day and night, but calls them both under the name of the more important:  a custom which you will find throughout Scripture.  Everywhere the measure of time is counted by days without mention of nights.  “The days of our years,” says the Psalmist; “few and evil have the days of the years of my life been,” said Jacob; and elsewhere “all the days of my life.”

“And the evening and the morning were the first day,” or, rather, one day.—­(Revised Vers).  Why does Scripture say “one day,” not “the first day?” Before speaking to us of the second, the third, and the fourth days, would it not have been more natural to call that one the first which began the series?  If it, therefore, says “one day,” it is from a wish to determine the measure of day and night and to combine the time that they contain.  Now, twenty-four hours fill up the space of one day—­we mean of a day and of a night; and if, at the time of the solstices, they have not both an equal length, the time marked by Scripture does not the less circumscribe their duration.  It is as tho it said:  Twenty-four hours measure the space of a day, or a day is in reality the time that the heavens, starting from one point, take to return thither.  Thus, every time that, in the revolution of the sun, evening and morning occupy the world, their periodical succession never exceeds the space of one day.

But we must believe that there is a mysterious reason for this?  God, who made the nature of time, measured it out and determined it by intervals of days; and, wishing to give it a week as a measure, he ordered the week to resolve from period to period upon itself, to count the movement of time, forming the week of one day revolving seven times upon itself:  a proper circle begins and ends with itself.  Such is also the character of eternity, to revolve upon itself and to end nowhere.  If, then, the beginning of time is called “one day” rather than “the first day,” it is because Scripture wishes to establish its relationship with eternity.  It was, in reality, fit and natural to call “one” the day whose character is to be one wholly separated and isolated from all others.  If Scripture speaks to us of many ages, saying everywhere “age of age, and ages of ages,” we do not see it enumerate them as first, second, and third.  It follows that we are hereby shown, not so much limits, ends,