follows the latter, the end
of the preceding day; and why he does not say, "and it became evening" and
"it became _night_, the first day," etc. We then could not avoid the
question: what, according to the conception of the author, did God do in
these six nights of his week of creation? But if we suppose that the author
took the days as days of God, and therefore, in his conception of the days
of creation, elevated the same above the common earthly days of the
creature, and so represented them to himself as he alone, through his idea
of God, thought he might {301} venture to do, then that mode of expression,
so exceedingly strange under all other suppositions, appears very simple
and natural to us. For the author did not mention a night, because these
days simply had no night; and they had none, because as days of God they
_could_ have none--because with God there is no night; because the rest of
God, as the seventh day shows, is only a day of rest and not a night of
rest. And the author saw the morning immediately following the evening of
his divine day of creation, and recognized in this morning together with
the evening immediately preceding it, the close of the day, because the
accomplishment of the day's work (evening) already contained in itself the
preparation of the following day's work, or at least pointed to the coming
of the latter.

Finally, the fact that, according to the Biblical account, _the seventh day
still has no end_, is just as decisive for us. The end of each of the six
days is mentioned by the solemn repetition of the words: "And the evening
and the morning were the first day," etc.; but it is not mentioned in
regard to the seventh day. Now if, according to the meaning of the author,
the seventh day had also had its end like any of the six preceding days, he
would at the seventh and _last_ day have had _double reason_ for mentioning
its end; and the omission of that concluding word would indeed be
inconceivable. When Dillman says: "The formula 'and (it became) the
evening' is wanting, because the account is here at an end, and is no
longer to be carried over to another day, and because for that reason its
designation as seventh day is presupposed in v. 2," we have to reply that,
under the supposition of the days of creation having {302} been common
earthly days, a carrying over of the account to further days was certainly
to be expected, even if from nothing else than the formula: "And the
evening