The Incredible Structure of the Creation Account

Often when we read the creation account we become overwhelmed by the detail and the repetition and just zone out. It can feel as if the Biblical author is droning on and on and on. Could the story be told in a more succinct manner? I suppose, but what we’d sacrifice in the process is the amazing literary structure that the passage contains.

Not counting the day of rest, creation takes place over six days. These six days can be divided into two sets of three days and each set of days serves to undo what Genesis 1:2 calls the formlessness and void of the world, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”

Quick aside: The New American Bible that we read at Mass translates the Hebrew a little differently and says the world is “without form or shape.” It’s not a bad translation, but translating the Hebrew as “without form and void” or “empty” is more accurate and better alludes to the inherent literary structure.

God, seeing the world without form and void, that is, empty, spends the first three days forming the world and the next three days filling the world, thereby undoing the chaos. Let’s take a closer look at this idea in the table below.

At the end of all this, when God had finished creating the world, the text tells us that God “found it very good.”

Hopefully, now knowing the above, we’ll find it all “very good” too.