Chapter one records that the creation of the
world occurred in six days, and beginning in the 20th century it has
been noted that this process can be sub-divided into two groups.
David Tzvi Hoffmann (1843-1921, p.36, on 1:20,
see a recent formulation by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, 2009, pp.28,29) notes that
the creation of the first day, light, corresponds to the creation on the fourth
day, the sun, the moon and the stars. Also, the creation on the second and the
fifth days are connected since the animals created on the fifth day, fish and
birds, populated the water and air which were formed on the second day. Furthermore, the third and sixth days are
also interrelated since the animals and mankind that were created on the sixth
day populated the land that was created on the third day.
Cassuto (1883-1951, 1961, pp. 16,17,53) records
this same pattern, though he notes that it depends on designating the creation
of water or the seas to the second day and not to the third day.
Leo Strauss (lecture in 1957, 1997, p.364,365)
also notes this pattern. He writes, "There seems to be a kind of
parallelism to the biblical account. There are two series of creation, each of
three days. The first begins with a creation
of light, the second with that of the sun.
Both series end with a double creation." Furthermore, he notes a
difference between the two sets of creation.
He suggests "that the principle of the first half is separation or
distinction simply, while the principle of the second half, the fourth to sixth
day, is local motion." (Leon Kass, 2003,
pp. 27-36, further develops Strauss's ideas with regard to the differences
between the two sets.)
Nahum Sarna (1989, p.4) adds this double
creation on days three and six to the pattern from above. He notes that on day three, the two acts of
creation, dry land and vegetation, correspond to the two acts of creation on
the sixth day, land creatures and humankind. He suggests that vegetation is
parallel to humankind since vegetation is the lowest form of organic life while
people are the highest form of organic life.
I believe that there is a different literary pattern
to the six days of creation. The first
day is not part of the parallelism. On
day two, the key element was the creation of the rakia, 1:6,7,8, which
was populated on the fourth day, 1:14,15,17.
On the third day, the first act of creation was
that the land and seas were created, and these were populated on the fifth day
by the fish and the birds who would multiply on the land and in the seas, 1:22.
Note the Torah relates the birds to the sky in day five, 1:20, and afterwards
in 1:26,28,30, which is to be expected, but on day five the crucial aspect is
that the birds would populate the land, 1:20,22. The relationship between the
birds and land on day five is unexpected and it is not mentioned in day six,
but it highlights the connection between the creation on day five and the first
act of creation on day three.
The third parallelism is that the second act of
creation on the third day was that the vegetation came forth from the earth,
1:12, and similarly, on the sixth day the animals came forth from the earth,
1:24.
With this understanding, mankind, the second
act of creation on the sixth day, is outside the parallelism just like the
creation of light on the first day is outside the parallelism. Instead, there
is a different type of relationship between the creation of light and the
creation of mankind. The creation of light started the creation process, while
the creation of mankind signaled the end of the creation process.
Overall the pattern of creation is 1, 3, 3, and
1. The first half of creation until the
third day has an introduction and three acts of creation, and this is parallel to
the second half of creation, the last three days, when there were three corresponding
acts of creation and a conclusion. (This numeric pattern is similar to the
pattern by the plagues in Egypt; see our discussion, "The plagues: Their
structure.")
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