Some scientific men suppose they find in this second verse, not water, but the gaseous matter which ultimately became water and solid earth. This construction originates in a theory in regard to the primal form in which the matter of our world came from the Creator’s hand, which theory may or may not be true, but if true is too remote from the common mind and too foreign from the scope of divine revelation to allow us to suppose that God would refer to it in his revelation.――――Carrying out this scientific theory, some have held[7] that not only the “waters” of v. 2 but those of vs. 6, 7, were gases, not waters. The fatal objections to this theory are――that these “waters” are the same which in vs. 9, 10, are “gathered into one place” and “called seas;” also that the common people for several thousand years could not have understood Moses if he had spoken of gases――certainly could not have understood their common word for waters to mean gases.――――It is not well to strain and force this simple narrative to speak so scientifically as to be unintelligible to those for whom it was primarily written.――――The first state of created matter may have been gaseous. The record in Genesis has said nothing to forbid this. It certainly could not come within its province to teach it. Suffice it that time enough may be found between verses 1 and 2 for a portion of this gaseous matter to form water――not to say also to form the more solid portions of this globe. The connection of v. 2 with v. 1 is such that an indefinitely long period may have intervened. The first verb of v. 2 implies no close connection with v. 1. But in v. 3 the form of the first verb――“And _then_ God said”――does make a close historical connection with v. 2. 6. The work of the fourth day. Were the light-bearers (“lights” in the sense of luminaries) in the heavens, viz. the sun, moon, and stars also, “made,” created, on this day, or simply brought forth to the view of a supposed observer upon the earth?――――The latter theory that they were not first brought into being then, but only brought into view from the earth――seems to me most probable, because――(1.) To suppose them created then would be out of all proportion for one day’s work among the six. Throughout the other five days’ work a beautiful proportion obtains: it should therefore be expected in this.――――If it be said that this consideration draws its great strength from our astronomical knowledge of those heavenly bodies――much more enlarged than those of the age of Moses, I answer (a.) Moses, “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,” was not altogether a novice in astronomy――(b.) Modern astronomy is essentially true, not overrating the relative magnitude of the heavenly bodies; and this record in Genesis comes from one who knew all the truth.