days come and go as temporal frames which include everything
that happens during these days, whether we know it or not. Now we may turn
our attention to and mention ever so many works of an earthly day: there
always happen innumerable other things which also belong within the frame
of that day and which are only not observed by us. It is quite another
thing with those Biblical days of creation: here the day _begins_ with the
beginning of the day's work; it _exists_ and _passes on_ single and alone
in the course of the work of the day, and it comes to an end when the day's
work is completed, and the work of the following day begins: it comes to an
end with "evening and morning."

We also lay some stress, though not very much, upon the fact that, in the
account, that which makes and regulates the _earthly_ day is created not
before the fourth day of creation, Genesis I, 14: "And God said, Let there
be lights 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." We admit that if we were obliged for other reasons to suppose that
the author of the account took the days of creation as common earthly days
of twenty-four hours, we must and should find it possible that the author
had been able to {300} suppose the existence and the course of such earthly
days even _before_ the creation of sun, moon, and stars; for he certainly
could not yet have the scientific perception that the sun with its light
and the rotation of the earth were the only cause of an earthly day. But it
is easier and more natural for us to bring that passage, Genesis I, 14,
into accord with the conception that the days of creation are divine days
which, as such, are different from creative days, and on one of which God
also created that which originates creative days.

Another evidence in the account is of still greater importance for our
conception of days. These days of creation in the Biblical record _have no
night_. The account closes the work of each day with the words: "_And the
evening and the morning were the first day_," "_the second day_," etc. Now,
if we have to suppose that the author took these days as common earthly
days, it would be quite impossible to understand why, after having
mentioned at the close of the day's work that it now became evening, he
omits the long night of twelve hours, and, although not having said
anything of the night, makes the morning which