TEXT
Genesis 1:9-13 “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.”
INTRODUCTION
Before we get into the third day, remember where we are in Genesis 1. Verse 1 starts with God creating the heaven and the earth. On the first day God brings forth light and divides the light from the darkness. On the second day He makes the firmament and divides the waters. Now on the third day He gathers the waters under heaven, exposes the dry land, and causes that land to bring forth vegetation.
After this, day four deals with the lights in the firmament. Day five brings the creatures of the sea and the fowls of the air. Day six brings land animals and man. Then Genesis 2 completes the creation week and begins focusing on man, the garden, and the woman.
And that opening matters for the whole book of Genesis. Genesis begins with the world God made. Then we are going to see man’s fall into sin, the Flood, Babel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Everything that happens afterward happens in the world whose beginning God is giving us right here.
The rest of the Bible keeps coming back to Genesis too. Job points back to God’s authority over the sea. The Psalms point back to God’s word in creation. Exodus points back to the creation week. Hebrews points back to the worlds being framed by the word of God. The Bible starts with God because everything else depends upon Him: He made it, He ordered it, and when He spoke, it happened.
I. GOD GATHERED THE WATERS AND MADE THE DRY LAND APPEAR — VERSES 9-10
Genesis 1:9-10 “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.”
God speaks, and the waters go where He commands them. As the waters are gathered, the dry land appears.
Appear is worth slowing down for. The verse describes dry land becoming visible as the waters are gathered. Then God names the dry land Earth and the gathering of the waters Seas.
People ask whether unto one place means there was one original ocean. That is possible, but the Bible does not give us a map. Verse 9 says one place, while verse 10 calls the gathered waters Seas. Keep both statements exactly where God put them.
What is completely clear is who controls the boundary.
Jeremiah 5:22 “Fear ye not me? saith the LORD: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it?”
The waves toss and roar, but God sets their boundary. Jeremiah uses that to rebuke people who will not fear God. The sea obeys the boundary God gave it, while men hear God’s Word and still choose to rebel against Him.
That is practical for us. When God’s Word tells you what to believe, believe it. When God’s Word tells you how to live, obey it. The Creator who set the boundary of the sea has authority over us too.
II. GOD MADE THE EARTH BRING FORTH AFTER HIS KIND — VERSES 11-12
Genesis 1:11-12 “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”
God speaks a second time on the third day. First He exposes the land. Then He makes that land productive.
Look at what He puts into the vegetation: seed, fruit, and reproduction after his kind. The fruit tree has seed in itself. Reproduction is built into what God created from the beginning.
That phrase after his kind comes up all the time when people argue about creation and evolution. So stay with the words God actually gave us. The text establishes real reproductive continuity according to kind.
Does kind mean exactly the modern word species? The verse never says that. It does not give us a modern biological classification chart. So do not make the Bible say species when it says kind. But do not erase the phrase either. God connects seed, fruit, and reproduction with kind.
The same language appears again with animals.
Genesis 1:24-25 “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”
God uses the same wording again and again: after his kind, after their kind.
There is another question people raise here. Vegetation is completed on the third day, but the lights are dealt with on the fourth day.
Genesis 1:14-19 “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: 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.”
The sequence is clear. Plants are on day three. The lights are dealt with on day four. Genesis 1:3-5 had already introduced light before day four, but the Bible does not explain every physical detail of how those plants were sustained during that time.
So where the Bible is clear, stay clear. Do not move the vegetation out of the third day because you still have a question about how God did it. The text says the earth brought it forth, the seed was in itself, it reproduced after its kind, and God saw that it was good.
III. THE EVENING AND THE MORNING WERE THE THIRD DAY — VERSE 13
Genesis 1:13 “And the evening and the morning were the third day.”
Everything we just read belongs to the third day.
There is a major debate over what these days mean. Some understand them as long ages. Others treat them mainly as a literary arrangement. And yes, the word day can be used in different ways depending on context. Genesis 2:4 uses it in a broader summary sense.
But look at how Genesis 1 uses day here. It is numbered, it has evening and morning, and one day closes before the next one begins.
Then God later points Israel back to this very creation week.
Exodus 20:8-11 “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11 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.”
God takes man’s six days of work and seventh day of rest and connects them directly to His own creation week. That gives strong biblical support for understanding these as real successive, ordinary days.
Genesis does not use the modern phrase twenty-four hours. We do not need to make it say that. The Bible gives us evening, morning, numbered days, sequence, and then God’s own comparison to the human work week.
CONCLUSION
On the third day God takes the waters and puts them in their place. Dry land appears. He names Earth and Seas. Then He commands that earth to bring forth vegetation with seed in itself, reproducing after its kind.
There are questions the passage does not answer completely. What exactly did the original geography look like? Exactly how does a biblical kind line up with modern scientific categories? What were all the physical details involved in vegetation before day four? God did not give us every detail.
God gave us enough to know exactly what He said, and our job is to believe it. The waters gathered. The dry land appeared. The earth brought forth. The seed was in itself. The plants reproduced after their kind. The evening and the morning were the third day. God spoke, and it was so. The sea stayed within His bounds. The earth brought forth at His command. When God has spoken, believe His Word.
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