30 The discoveries of Geology 
are also employed, and where the context throws such light on them 
as puts an end to all doubt about their true import. This is a process 
of criticism which is universally allowed to be quite satisfactory, 
where we have resources for employing it, as happens to be the case 
in the present instance. 
To make our criticisms intelligible, without the labor of turning 
to the passages quoted, we shall quote the common English transla- 
tion to such an extent as may be necessary. 
The term, the meaning of which we shall first investigate, is * day” 
(in the Hebrew, yom). ‘The interpretation of this, in the sense 
** enoch” or “ period,” has been a subject of animadversion, of an 
unnecessary severity in some cases. A careful examination of the 
first chapter of Genesis itself leads unavoidably to the conclusion, 
that our natural day of one revolution of the sun cannot be here 
meant by it, for we find that no fewer than three of the six days 
had. passed before the measure of our present day was established. 
It was only on the fourth day, or epoch of the creation, “that God 
made two great lights to divide the day from the night, and to be for 
signs, and for seasons, and for days and for years.” ‘The very first 
time that the term occurs in the Hebrew text, after the history of the 
six days’ work, and of the rest of the seventh, as if to furnish us with 
definite information regarding its true import, we find it employed in 
a similar manner to that in which we must understand it here; for, 
in Gen. ii. 4, we have, “These are the generations of the heavens 
and the earth, in.the day (beyom) that the Lord God made the earth 
and heavens.” ‘The use of the term in this indefinite sense is so 
common in the Hebrew writings, that it would be a great labor to 
quote all the passages in which it is found; and we shall satisfy 
ourselves by at present referring to Job xviii. 20, where it is put for 
the whole period of a man’s life, “They that come after him shall 
be astonished at his day” (yomu) ; and Isaiah xxx. 8, where it is put 
for all future time, “ Now go write it in a book, that it may be for 
the latter day (leyom), for ever and ever.” It is quite obvious, from 
these examples, that the Hebrews used the term (yom) to express 
long periods of time. The very conditions of the history in this 
chapter prove that it must be here so understood... 
They who object to this interpretation of the term here, immediately 
quote against it the reason added to the fourth commandment, * For 
in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in- 
them is, and rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the 
