Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear;” and it was so.“

Genesis 1:9

God is continuing His work with the water that is UNDER the expanse (physical water here on Earth) that He called sky. In this context, the sky is the firmament in which clouds of the Earth ‘live’ (Psalm 147:8). This is NOT heavenly skies or heavenly clouds like in Daniel 7:13. On this day, God is dealing purely with the Earth, continuing His creation in order to make it habitable and a blessing/benefit to humanity.

If God meant ‘one place’ as a single location, instead of a type of place, then this verse would seem to support the theory of a starting super-continent (Pangaea) – which would then have been split apart from below when the waters were released from under the Earth’s mantle (such as the water held inside ringwoodite – which contains up to 3x the volume of all surface oceans combined) during the Flood period (Genesis 6-9).

There seems to be a difference between the ‘waters under the sky’ here and the ‘waters below the earth’ in Exodus 20:4; although ‘under’ could signify ocean levels and the ground being higher than that. In any case, the gathering of the water was needed in order for the dry land to appear. The ground was in its place all along, but here it is revealed by the removal of the water – just like during the crossing of the Red Sea from the Sinai Peninsula to the Arabian Peninsula (Exodus 14). The ground or land would not remain in its wet state but become dry, putting in motion the reason for its creation. It’s interesting to note that if it had remained wet it would have been useless for the growing of fruit trees.

The Sages teach that before this time, the ground was completely level and therefore submerged under the waters. When God spoke, mountains rose up, valleys and beaches formed, and the water – as a result of the new topography – trickled off the land and ended up in one place; showing God’s glory by the heavier element (dirt) rising, and the lighter element (water) sinking – in contrariness to the natural order of things (Psalm 36:6; 136:6).