Genesis 1:3
“And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.”
If I had never heard Genesis 1:3 before, and all I knew was what these Hebrew words are telling me, how would I say this?
The same Elohim who created is now speaking. The One who made creation is the One telling it what to do. God simply spoke, and what He said came to be. The power isn’t in the fact that God speaks… it’s in who is speaking. God said, “Let there be light,” and light came to be. Creation responded to the word of its Creator.
Genesis 1:3 Interlinear Study:
Background and Breakdown:
Verse 3 feels like a major shift.
In verse 2, everything is just sitting there in this dark, unformed, empty state. The waters are there. Darkness is there. But so is God’s Spirit, actively hovering over them. Nothing has really happened yet.
And then God speaks.
I think that’s what catches me most when I put verses 2 and 3 next to each other. The first recorded action after the Spirit is hovering over the waters isn’t God physically doing something with His hands. He speaks.
And what happens next is immediate.
God says, “Let there be light,” and there is light.
The word amar itself isn’t some uniquely supernatural word. It’s a normal Hebrew word for saying or speaking. Humans amar too. So I don’t think the power here is in the word “speak” itself.
It’s who is speaking.
This is the same Elohim we’ve already seen in verse 1… the God who created. Now the Creator speaks into what we’ve just been shown in verse 2, and creation responds.
And I keep noticing this pattern:
God speaks.
Something comes to be.
God speaks again.
Creation responds again.
It’s almost like Genesis is letting me watch the authority of the Creator unfold one command at a time.
Then there’s the actual thing He speaks into existence: owr, light.
And this one made me stop because I’ve always read “Let there be light” and mentally pictured sunlight. But the sun isn’t introduced until later. Neither are the moon and stars.
So whatever exactly this light is, Genesis doesn’t need the sun to introduce light.
I don’t want to jump ahead and decide what that means before the text gets there. But I definitely want to remember it.
Because back in verse 2, darkness was covering the deep. Now the very first thing God speaks into that scene is light.
That feels intentional.
Darkness was already there.
God was already there.
And now light is there too.
And there’s something else I really like about the wording. God doesn’t just say something and then we have to wonder whether it worked. The verse immediately tells me that it came to be.
He speaks, and it happens.
That makes the relationship between amar, hayah, and owr really beautiful to me.
God says.
Light comes to be.
And suddenly the scene we’ve been sitting in since verse 2 isn’t the same anymore.
We’re only three verses in, and I’m already seeing something that seems to become one of the major themes of this whole chapter: God brings change simply by speaking.
And now I want to see what He says next.
— Katie
Word & Weekdays
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