Genesis 1:13

Summary

Closing formula of the third day: evening and morning complete the unit of time, counted with the ordinal "third." It is a brief verse that works as the day's formulaic close.

Key words

• y.hi- ("there was", H1961) — twice, in the narrative form.
• 'E.rev ("evening", H6153) — masculine singular noun.
• Vo.ker ("morning", H1242) — masculine singular noun.
• Yom ("a day", H3117) — the unit being counted.
• she.li.Shi ("third", H7992) — ordinal number, masculine singular.

What the text says

The whole verse rests on the repetition of the verb "to be" in the narrative form, glossed by the morphology as "and then…": "and there was evening and there was morning." The same verbal form twice in a row presents evening and morning as two successive events in the story chain rather than one simultaneous state. Both nouns are masculine singular, and no definite article appears anywhere in the provided word list.

The final count pairs Yom ("a day", H3117) with the ordinal she.li.Shi ("third", H7992), agreeing with it in masculine singular. Here too no article occurs among the provided words: literally, "a third day." The full sequence amounts to eight words in the list, including the two narrative conjunctions that head each "and there was."

Differences between versions

The versions track the Hebrew closely: the Septuagint, "καὶ ἐγένετο ἐσπέρα καὶ ἐγένετο πρωί, ἡμέρα τρίτη," also repeats the verb and leaves "third day" without an article, as does the Vulgate, "dies tertius." The RV1909 adds the article: "el día tercero," and the BSB reads "the third day." The provided BSB text also appends the editorial heading "The Fourth Day," which is not part of the verse in the other versions provided.