APPENDIX II THE COVENANTAL SABBATH
The figure TWO is found in the Biblical account of creation in that each creation day is comprised of two parts, namely morning and evening. The six creation days fall into two series of three pairs of two days each, namely light and light (first and fourth days); firmament and waters, and the population thereof second and fifth days); and dry land and the population thereof (third and sixth days). On each day God clearly divided two things — on the first day, light and darkness; on the second day, the waters above the firmament from the waters below the firmament; on the third day, the land from the sea; on the fourth day, the sun and the moon, the day and the night; on the fifth day, air creatures from water creatures, and on the sixth day, man from the animals [and, incidentally, on the seventh day, the working days from the sabbath]. Most plants and animals comprise two sexes (cf. the account of the ark), and the human species was created twofold — man and woman. So too only two of the trees in Eden are named. As in respect of the figure two in re-creation (q.v.), two in creation frequently implies division (and perhaps the possibility of sin, it being most interesting to note that the descriptions of all six working days of creation week contain the formula "And God saw that it was good", or words to that effect —except that of the second day (Gen. 1). The figure FOUR, state the editors of the Pilgrim
Edition of the King James Version of the Bible (appendix), "perhaps
from the four points of the compass, has to do with . . . a comprehensiveness
of range or extent" (cf. Kuyper: "Antirevolutionaire
Staatkunde", II, p. 280; A.B.V.A., III, on Rev.
5:6). To illustrate this, mention may be made of the four-footed
beasts of creation, the four rivers of Eden, the four winds from
the four quarters of heaven, and perhaps the four seasons (spring,
summer, autumn, winter) implicit in the fourth day of creation,
the four groups of natural occurrences mentioned immediately after
the flood (seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter,
and day and night), and the two pairs (= 4) of unclean animals
taken into the ark (Gen. 1-8).
|
