Why does the Bible put the evening before the morning at the end of each day that God worked in Genesis chapter one?

Question

Each day that God worked in Creation in Genesis chapter one concludes with the words, "And the evening and the morning were the [1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th] day."

Day as we know it, begins with the morning and ends with the evening. Why does the evening come before the morning at the end of each of the six days that God worked in Creation in Genesis chapter one? Could it be that God created evening (the end of day) before morning (the beginning of day) because He is unique in that He is the only being in existence who has no beginning?

This would explain why, with Him, the end comes before the beginning? When the end comes before the beginning... mathematically, the end has no beginning. The beginning has no end. And the middle has no beginning and no end because they are all transcendent.

                  (No beginning)An end/A beginning (No end) 

Does that make any sense? Can anyone help me with this puzzling question of why the evening (or the end of day) comes before the morning (or the beginning of day) at the end of each of the six days that God worked in Creation in Genesis chapter one?

Answer 1

In all societies, there must be a convention about when the cycle of the day begins such as:

• In most modern societies it is mid-night
• In some farming communities the start and end of the day is sun-rise
• In modern astronomical calculation it is mid-day

In ancient Jewish and Hebrew reckoning, the day began with sun-set. One can see this in several OT references:

• Gen 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31, "There was evening and and there was morning - the nth day"
• Lev 23:32 - It will be a Sabbath of complete rest for you, and you shall humble yourselves. From the evening of the ninth day of the month until the following evening you are to keep your Sabbath.”
• Dan 8:14 - ... For 2,300 evenings and mornings [ie, days]; then the sanctuary will be justified

Note the comments of Ellicott in his remarks about Leviticus 23:32

In the ninth day of the month at even.—In accordance with the ancient mode of counting the day, the tenth of the month began with the evening of the ninth. (See Leviticus 16:29.)

Thus, the OT daily calendar regarded the day as beginning at sun-set. Modern Jewish religious observance preserves this.

Answer 2

In Jewish society, a day begins at 6:00 PM rather than 12:00 AM, hence the "evening" is at the beginning of the day and the "morning" comes after. From what I can tell, this is the reason for "evening" being mentioned first.

Answer 3

In Genesis 1:2, it's dark. In Genesis 1:3, there is light. This establishes the time ordering: darkness precedes light.

In Genesis 1:5, the darkness is called Night and the light is called Day. Then, still in the established ordering, the evening and the following morning is the first day.

You say "Day as we know it, begins with the morning and ends with the evening." But this is a convention and it is a convention deeply steeped in the demands of labor and sleep cycles (which have changed as a result of the industrial revolution). It seems a bit ambitious to project this ordering merely 2000 years, much moreso to project it to the Creation.

Answer 4

For the ancient Egyptians the day changed in the morning. Whether this was at sunrise (when the first sliver of the sun disc becomes visible), or at dawn (when the stars disappear) is still a matter of debate amongst Egyptologists.

The ancient Mesopotamian cultures changed the day name and date of each day at sunset.

In the Egyptian Calendar the end of each month occured when the moon had fully disappeared.. at the disappearance of the old crescent moon which was last seen in the morning sky. Hence the first day of the month began in the morning the day after the day the moon was last seen and each subsequent day following started in the morning.

On the other hand the Mesopotamians saw the beginning of the month with the appearance of the new crescent moon in the evening sky: hence the first day of the month began in the evening and each subsequent day of the month necessarily followed in tow with the new day name and date change happening at sunset.

The first few chapters of Genesis were written in Mesopotamia and passed down to Moses: this can be seen by the existence of Hebrew words which are Sumerian and Babylonian Akkadian loan words, ie they have their origin in these two languages. Furthermore, though there are many Egyptian loan words throughout the Pentateuch there are none in the opening chapters of Genesis. (For more on this see https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/71195/who-documented-biblical-events-before-moses/71197?r=SearchResults&s=2|23.6639#71197 )

It has until recently been thought that the Israelites changed the date and day of the week at sunset throughout the whole of the Old and New Testament eras. This is now a matter of debate. It is argued by Colin Humphreys in "The Mystery of the Last Supper" that for the Israelites from the time of Moses until the Babylonian Exile the new day and date changed in the morning, copying the Egyptian Calendar. Upon returning from the Babylonian Exile the conventional calendar of the elite of the Jews followed the Babylonian Calendar (the day starting in the evening at sunset).

An example in the Old Testament of the day and date change starting in the morning can be seen in Leviticus 7:15-17. An example of the day start in the evening can be seen in Daniel 8:14, where Daniel has adopted the Calendar format of the Babylonians.

After the Babylonian Exile, Colin Humphreys argues that the elite, who had been in exile in Babylon, used a Babylonian-influenced Calendar (day and date changes in the evening, and lunar month starts with the new crescent moon), whereas some/many(?) of the "ordinary Jews" who had not been in exile, such as common fishermen, etc, continued to use the Mosiac Calendar (day changes in the morning, first day of month is with the disappearance of the old moon).

The existence of "there was evening and morning.." in Genesis chapter 1 is further evidence that Moses, under divine inspiration, was not writing these chapters from scratch, as it were, but was taking up previously inspired scriptures, writings which had had their origin in Mesopotamia, and incorporating them into his writings.

Answer 5

”Day as we know it, begins with the morning and ends with the evening. Why does the evening come before the morning at the end of each of the six days that God worked in Creation in Genesis chapter one?”

The principle question is why must you assume the evening is the end of the day? Says who? Modern society? Sure that’s how we are forced to set our clocks if we want to partake in the marketplace.

If God says evening, going into the night comes first, then that’s the beginning of the day and morning going into the daytime, is the end of the day.

It’s backwards to say that since the Hebrew people considered the day started in the evening that this is why Genesis 1 reads as it does. Rather because God said the day starts with the evening that is why the Hebrew people started their day in the evening.

In light of this your subsequent question

”Could it be that God created evening (the end of day) before morning (the beginning of day) because He is unique in that He is the only being in existence who has no beginning?”

becomes moot as you are contrasting two entirely different paradigms and the axioms contained within them, are by nature going to conflict.

Possibly you meant to ask why does God consider the darkness to be the first part of the day, the beginning and the day to end with illumination, with daytime? How does this reflect on His character?

In order of events, He created darkness first

“I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.” ‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭45:7‬ ‭

Darkness was over the cosmos, heavens and earth, or over the waters.

“The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Genesis 1:2

Afterwards God brought forth the light and had to separate the light from the darkness.

And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.” ‭‭Genesis‬ ‭1:4‬ ‭

Your question implies that darkness is uncreated. That doesn’t correspond to the text, even if it agrees with modern western thinking. Darkness cannot exist unless first there is somewhere for it to exist in. Prior to the beginning, prior to the creation of the cosmos there was nothing, meaning darkness itself did not exist either.

Conclusion

As such evening being first is an acknowledgment of chronology. The first day, which started in Genesis 1:1 at the beginning, at 00:00:00, corresponded to the evening time on subsequent days. When the sun went beyond the horizon around its circuit that was the end of one day and the beginning of the next. (And the sun was only placed in the heavens on day four, it didn’t exist prior to day four).

If we want to understand biblical prophecy and timing is of the essence then it pays to know when the day starts.

“But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’” ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭25:6‬ ‭

If you think with a modern mind you would think midnight is the end of the current day, when in fact it’s already hours into the next day or what we would call tomorrow.

This passage if it has any prophetic correlation, and you were to understand it thinking we are already at the seventh day, the calendar is going into the eight day already, something should have happened already, you’d be misled because midnight is in the eight day and the Calendar would be expected to flow over into the eight day (thousandth year).

Answer 6

The Editor above provides the most likely answer to this question, but I will offer one other, less likely possibility. The creation narrative of Genesis 1:1-2:3 appears to be a prologue to the book of Genesis, and appears to take the format of a Hymn. If this wording were awkward to the Hebrew reader (and it most likely is not for the reason given in The Editor's Answer), then it is likely because this phrasing better fits the structures and any rhyming that may be present in the Hymn/Prologue of Genesis, thus allowing the writer(s) to better follow their chosen format.

Answer 7

All good things come from heaven. There was no day or sun or time before God started creating. The absence of light (God is light) we call night. In hell they call it eternity.

Bereshit describes this event. God established the order of eternity with this act. In the terms that God operates on, it was as if you or I would have thought of the word yes. Many words are used to convey this concept to our minds. 'Light Be' was said which made the universe and everything in it. It was Yeshua that came forth from His mouth.

The concept of evening was not truly understood until the 'day' came. As many will not understand how many of God's blessings they had, until they have been removed (in death). He sends sun and rain to the good and the wicked.

Eventually, for our way of understanding, he will separate these two types of existence, one to everlasting joy (the eternal co-existence in God's presence {and they will have no need of the sun, and they will not hunger -- in God's rest}) and the other to everlasting condemnation (the absence of God's presence {and the smoke of their torment ascendeth forever, in darkness and there is no rest -- for hell hath torment}).

Answer 8

In my perception, God put the evening before the morning is simply when He completed a day of work, it was evening. A day of work is counted when the job is done, not before it starts. So it is logical when God said this after a day of work, it was evening time that He mentioned evening before the morning.

Surely whether God completed the creation in 6 days and took the 7th day at rest (Sabbath), is debatable. In my opinion, the 7 days of creation is a metaphor aiming to provide wellness to human being. It forbids us to work with no rest, forbids the masters abuse their power on their slaves. Many modern discoveries identified the reason of land fallow; why circumcision is to be on the 8th day, why not drinking blood, all have a wellness concern from God to the Israelites, by that time they were not well civilized.

In other words, God gave them commands in simple form that they could understand, easier to follow.

Answer 9

God is the first Bringer of Light. Light without dark to reflect it, --- cannot exist. He and all of us know this When God paints, he needs a dark canvas. What happens in the bible is a metaphor for what happens when our minds are born. Black to white. As his and our first spark of consciousness within ourselves, we went from dark to the light of recognizing what we are all I am, in the spiritual as well as physical realms. Spiritual transcends religions. All are created in their God's image, because we are those Gods. You likely remember reading the verses where Jesus askes us, have ye forgotten that ye are Gods? Gnostic Christians have not. Have you? Regards DL

Answer 10

The Genesis account does put evening then morning but it puts something before evening, too. Each statement begins with a list of activities God did, then evening came then morning which denoted the official end of a day and the beginning of another. Thus, God did such-and-such, evening came, then the next morning.

The debate about the start of the day was hot and I just went to the Father in prayer about it. I asked Him to help me find the truth. I re-read the creation account and that is how I interpreted it from that point onward. So, I actually believe that the day starts with daybreak. I have found online articles and posts of others who think similarly, but it's only today that I learned that there is a rabbi, Rashbam, who held this position as well.

Here's an article entitled Biblical days started at daybreak not sunset by Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin where he cites Rashbam.

Answer 11

I'm simple-minded but I appreciate all the intricacies of these opinions and the biblical research devoted to the answers.

The way I see this is, God separated light (day) from darkness (night), then He defines Day versus Night. But yet everyone wants to keep tying the darkness into the light! "Day" is the light portion. "Night" is the dark portion. "He knows the end from the beginning." (Isaiah 46:10) Yeshua even says, "Do you not know that there are 12 hours in a Day?" (John 11:9) So, I'm going with this simple logic.

In addition, if you try to start the day in the evening, including the night, then the morning, you have to stop your day when the morning is over, which makes no sense. What about the rest of the daylight hours?

Also, Leviticus 23:26 and 32 describe the Day of Atonement only, not the 7th Day Sabbath. The beginning of solemn rest for the Day of Atonement begins the evening of the 9th but the 10th day is the Day of Atonement. Blessings!