(9) Let the waters be gathered together.--The verb, as Gesenius shows, refers rather to the condensation of water, which, as we have seen, was impossible till the surface of the earth was made cool by the radiation of heat into the open expanse around it.
Unto one place.--The ocean bed. We must add the vast depth of the ocean to the height of the mountains before we can rightly estimate the intensity of the forces at work on the third day. Vast, too, as the surface of the ocean may appear compared with the dry land, it is evidently only just sufficient to supply the rain necessary for vegetation. Were it less, either the laws of evaporation must be altered, with painful and injurious effects, or much of the earth's surface would be barren.
Let the dry land appear.--Simple as this might appear, it yet required special provision on the part of the Creator; for otherwise the various materials of the earth would have arranged themselves in concentric strata, according to their density, and upon them the water would have reposed evenly, and above it the air. But geologists tell us that these strata have been broken up and distorted from below by volcanic agencies, while the surface has been furrowed and worn by the denuding power of water. This was the third day's work. By the cooling of the crust of the earth the vast mass of waters, which now covers two-thirds of its surface, and which hitherto had existed only as vapour, began to condense, and pour down upon the earth as rain. Meanwhile the earth parted with its internal heat but slowly, and thus, while its crust grew stiff, there was within a mass of molten fluid. As this would be acted upon by the gravity of the sun and moon, in just the same way as the ocean is now, this inner tidal wave would rupture the thin crust above, generally in lines trending from northeast to south-west. Hence mountain ranges and deep sea beds, modified by many changes since, but all having the same final object of providing dry land for man's abode.
Verse 9.- Day three. The distribution of land and water and the production of vegetation on this day engaged the formative energy of the word of Elohim. And God said, Let the waters under heaven be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear. To explain the second part of this phenomenon as a consequence of the first, the disclosure of the solid ground by the retirement of the waters from its surface, and not rather vice versa, is to reverse the ordinary processes of nature. Modern analogy suggests that the breaking up of the hitherto universal ocean into seas, lakes, and rivers was effected by the upheaval of the land through the action of subterranean fires, or the subsidence of the earth's crust in consequence of the cooling and shrinking of the interior mass. Psalm 104:7 hints at electric agency in connection with the elevation of the mountains and the sinking of the ocean beds. "At thy rebuke they (the waters) fled: at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away (were scattered). The mountains rose, the valleys sank (ἀναβαίνουσιν ὄρη καὶκαταβαίνουσι πεδία ( LXX.; ascendunt montes, et descendunt campi - Jerome) to the place which thou hadst established for them" (Perowne). The gathering of the waters into one place implies no more than that they were, from this day forward, to be collected into one vast body, and restrained within bounds in a place by themselves, so as to admit of the exposure of the earth's soil. The "place founded for them" was, of course, the depths and hollows in the earth's crust, into which they were immediately withdrawn, not through direct supernatural agency, but by their own natural gravitation. The configuration of the dry land is not described; but there is reason to believe that the original distribution of land and water was the same, or nearly the same, as it is at present. Physical geographers have observed that the coast lines of the great continents and the mountain ranges generally run from north-east to south-west, and that these lines are in reality parts of great circles, tangent to the polar circle, and at right angles to a line drawn from the sun's center to the moon's, when these bodies are either in conjunction or in opposition. These circles, it has further been remarked, are "the lines on which the thin crust of a cooling globe would be most likely to be ruptured by its internal tidal wave." Hence, though considerably modified by the mighty revolutions through which at successive periods the earth has passed, "these, with certain subordinate lines of fracture, have determined the forms of continents from the beginning" (Dawson, 'O.W.,' p. 184; cf. 'Green's Geology,' p. 512). And it was so. Though the separation of the dry land from the waters and the distribution of both were effected by Divine agency, nothing in the Mosaic narrative obliges us to think that these works were instantaneously completed. "There is truly no difficulty in supposing that the formation of the hills kept on through the succeeding creative days" (Lange). "Generally the works of the single creative days consist only in laying foundations; the birth process that is introduced in each extends its efficacy be, yond it" (Delitzsch). "Not how long, but how many times, God created is the thing intended to be set forth" by the creative days (Hoffman). Scripture habitually represents the world in an aspect at once natural and supernatural, speaking of it as natura and creatura, φύσις and κτίσις (cf. Marten, sen's 'Dogmatics,' § 63); and although the latter is the view exhibited with greatest prominence, indeed exclusively, in the Mosaic cosmogony, vet the frowner is not thereby denied, Not immediateness, but certainty of execution, is implied in the "it was so" appended to the creative fiat.
1:6-13 The earth was emptiness, but by a word spoken, it became full of God's riches, and his they are still. Though the use of them is allowed to man, they are from God, and to his service and honour they must be used. The earth, at his command, brings forth grass, herbs, and fruits. God must have the glory of all the benefit we receive from the produce of the earth. If we have, through grace, an interest in Him who is the Fountain, we may rejoice in him when the streams of temporal mercies are dried up.
And God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place,.... Which are before called the waters under the firmament; and which were either on the surface of the earth, or in the bowels of it, or mixed with it, which by the compressure of the expanse or air were separated from it and these, by apertures and channels made, were caused to flow as by a straight line, as the word (e) used signifies, unto the decreed place that was broke up for them, the great hollow or channel which now contains the waters of the ocean: this was done by the word of the Lord, at his rebuke; and when it seems there was a clap thunder, and perhaps an earthquake, which made the vast cavity for the sea, as well as threw up the hills and mountains, and made the valleys; seeJob 38:10,
and let the dry land appear: clear of the waters, dried by the expanded air, hardened by the fiery light, and as yet without any herb or tree upon it:
and it was so; immediately done, the waters were drained off the earth, directed to their proper channels, and caused to run as by line to their appointed place; and the solid parts of the earth became dry, and appeared in sight.
(e) "congregentur tanquam ad amussim et regulam", Fagius; "recto et equabili cursu contendant et collineant", Junius.
Unto one place.--The ocean bed. We must add the vast depth of the ocean to the height of the mountains before we can rightly estimate the intensity of the forces at work on the third day. Vast, too, as the surface of the ocean may appear compared with the dry land, it is evidently only just sufficient to supply the rain necessary for vegetation. Were it less, either the laws of evaporation must be altered, with painful and injurious effects, or much of the earth's surface would be barren.
Let the dry land appear.--Simple as this might appear, it yet required special provision on the part of the Creator; for otherwise the various materials of the earth would have arranged themselves in concentric strata, according to their density, and upon them the water would have reposed evenly, and above it the air. But geologists tell us that these strata have been broken up and distorted from below by volcanic agencies, while the surface has been furrowed and worn by the denuding power of water. This was the third day's work. By the cooling of the crust of the earth the vast mass of waters, which now covers two-thirds of its surface, and which hitherto had existed only as vapour, began to condense, and pour down upon the earth as rain. Meanwhile the earth parted with its internal heat but slowly, and thus, while its crust grew stiff, there was within a mass of molten fluid. As this would be acted upon by the gravity of the sun and moon, in just the same way as the ocean is now, this inner tidal wave would rupture the thin crust above, generally in lines trending from northeast to south-west. Hence mountain ranges and deep sea beds, modified by many changes since, but all having the same final object of providing dry land for man's abode.
and let the dry land appear: clear of the waters, dried by the expanded air, hardened by the fiery light, and as yet without any herb or tree upon it:
and it was so; immediately done, the waters were drained off the earth, directed to their proper channels, and caused to run as by line to their appointed place; and the solid parts of the earth became dry, and appeared in sight.
(e) "congregentur tanquam ad amussim et regulam", Fagius; "recto et equabili cursu contendant et collineant", Junius.