Genesis 1:10 - Exposition

And God called the dry land Earth . In opposition to the firmament, which was named" the heights" ( shamayim ), the dry land was styled "the fiats," "Aretz" (cf. Sansc; dhara ; Pehlev; arta ; Latin, terra ; Gothic, airtha ; Scottish, yird ; English, earth ; rid. Gesenius). Originally applied to the dry ground as distinguished from the seas, as soon as it was understood that the solid earth was continuous beneath the water masses, by an easy extension of meaning it came to signify the whole surface of the globe. And the gathering together of the waters called he Seas. Yamim , from yom , to boil or foam, is applied in Scripture to any large collection of water (cf. Genesis 14:3 ; Numbers 34:11 ; Deuteronomy 4:49 ; Joel 2:20 ). "The plural form seas shows that the one p lace consists of several basins" (Murphy). And God saw that it was good . The waters having been permanently withdrawn to the place founded for them by the upheaval of the great mountain ranges, and the elevation of the continental areas, the work thus accomplished is sealed by the Divine approval. The separation of the land and water was good , as a decided advance towards the completion of the cosmos , as the proper termination of the work commenced upon the previous day, as the production of two elements in themselves beautiful, and in separation useful as abodes of life, with which they were in due course to be replenished. "To our view," says Dawson, "that primeval dry land would scarcely have seemed good. It was a world of bare, rocky peaks and verdureless valleys—here active volcanoes, with their heaps of scoriae, and scarcely cooled lava currents—there vast mud-fiats, recently upheaved from the bottom of the waters—nowhere even a blade of grass or a clinging lichen. Yet it was good in the view of its Maker, who could see it in relation to the uses for which he had made it, and as a fit preparatory step to the new wonders he was soon to introduce. "Besides," the first dry land may have presented crags, and peaks, and ravines, and volcanic cones in a more marvelous and perfect manner than any succeeding continents, even as the dry and barren moon now, in this respect, far surpasses the earth".