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 " Jay" 

 (in the Hebrew, yom). The interpretation of this, in the sense 

 ^^ epoch" 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 isj and rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the 



