Hereinafter isn’t so much of a traipse into the issue of the age of the Earth (as the title implied since what follows is relevant to that issue) but focuses on what’s really the usage of the Hebrew term yom in the Bible’s Book of Genesis chapter 1.
Linguistically, we refer to what a word means or to its definition but there’s also the issue of a word’s usage. Example, you can research what the word bad means, what its definition is (or definitions are), do the etymology, etc., but none of that will tell you the usage of it in Michael Jackson’s song by that title. What tells us his usage is the context—by it, he actually means good.
In Genesis chapter 1, the term yom is translated into English as day. This has led to ongoing discussions about to what that refers. The answers range from the immediate context to the greater context—since context expands from the words, sentences, chapters, books, and books: how is it used in the first sentence in which we find it, does the surrounding sentences assist, what of the chapter, what of the book and other books?
Its first appearance is Genesis 1:5 (quoting the good ol’ KJV), “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
Focusing on the immediate context of the sentence itself, we see that yom/day refers to, “the evening and the morning.”
Incidentally, since the day starts in the evening is why traditionally, Jews hold to a lunar calendar.
Now, we can conclude that a day is said to only be evening until morning—wonder what happens the rest of the time.
Well, this is when context expands as we read the next instance of the usage, “And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.”
Thus, we can now understand that a day begins at evening and lasts through the morning until the next evening.
So, as per Genesis 1: what’s the usage of yom?
The most direct answer is actually to delete that word and we if we can figure it this out.
“…evening and the morning were the first…”
“…evening and the morning were the second…”
“…evening and the morning were the third…”
And on it goes until, “evening and the morning were the sixth…”
But, “first…second…third,” etc., what? First, second, third, etc., “evening and the morning.”
Thus, the conclusion is that these events took place from one evening until the next one and so forth—regardless of what that cycle is labeled.
We have a first cycle, a second cycle, a third one, etc.
That is the context of Genesis 1 and, as demonstrated, it can be discerned even if we remove the word of contention from it since doing so demonstrates that we don’t need it in order to understand what we’re being told.
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