"things," however glorious and admirable; that they are the
handiwork of God; and--

"The works of the Lord are great,
Sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.
His work is honour and majesty;
And His righteousness endureth for ever.
He hath made His wonderful works to be remembered."

What, then, is the significance of the detailed account given us of the
works effected on the successive days of creation? Why are we told that
light was made on the first day, the firmament on the second, dry land
on the third, and so on? Probably for two reasons. First, that the
rehearsal, as in a catalogue, of the leading classes of natural objects,
might give definiteness and precision to the teaching that each and all
were creatures, things made by the word of God. The bald statement that
the heaven and the earth were made by God might still have left room for
the imagination that the powers of nature were co-eternal with God, or
were at least subordinate divinities; or that other powers than God had
worked up into the present order the materials He had created. The
detailed account makes it clear that not only was the universe in
general created by God, but that there was no part of it that was not
fashioned by Him.

The next purpose was to set a seal of sanctity upon the Sabbath. In the
second chapter of Genesis we read--

"On the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and
He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had
made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it:
because that in it He had rested from all His work which God
created and made."

In this we get the institution of the _week_, the first ordinance
imposed by God upon man. For in the fourth of the ten commandments which
God gave through Moses, it is said--

"The seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it
thou shalt not do any work. . . . For in six days the Lord
made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and
rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath
day, and hallowed it."

And again, when the tabernacle was being builded, it was commanded--

"The children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the
sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual
covenant. It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel
for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and ear