Genesis 1:31

Summary

Genesis 1:31 closes the sixth day: God sees "all that he had made," and the verdict is intensified — "very good" — followed by the evening-and-morning formula, this time with the ordinal "sixth" carrying the definite article.

Key words

• i.Yar' ("he saw", H7200) — narrative form: "and then he saw."
• Tov ("[it was] good", H2896) — masculine singular adjective.
• me.'Od ("very", H3966) — intensifies the verdict.
• 'E.rev ("evening", H6153) — first half of the day formula.
• shi.Shi ("sixth", H8345) — ordinal number, here with the article.

What the text says

The opening clause repeats the approval formula and widens it: i.Yar' ("he saw", H7200) in narrative form takes as its object "all that" — with the relative particle 'a.Sher ("that", H0834) — 'a.Sah ("he had made", H6213), a perfect of completed action. Then comes the interjection hi.neh- ("there!", H2009), which presents the verdict as an exclamation, and the judgment itself: Tov ("[it was] good", H2896), analyzed in the provided morphology as a masculine singular adjective, intensified by me.'Od ("very", H3966): "very good" (BSB), "bueno en gran manera" (RV1909).

The final formula chains two narrative forms of y.hi- ("there was", H1961): "and there was evening and there was morning," with 'E.rev ("evening", H6153) and Vo.ker ("morning", H1242). The day is numbered with Yom ("[the] day", H3117) in construct and the ordinal shi.Shi ("sixth", H8345), which carries the definite article: "the sixth day."

Differences between versions

The Hebrew has the singular Tov; the LXX writes the plural καλὰ λίαν ("very good," agreeing with "all the things"), and the Vulgate likewise uses a plural: "erant valde bona." In Swete's text the word ἡμέρα ("day") is printed twice — "ἡμέρα ἡμέρα ἕκτη" — where the Hebrew has Yom only once. Furthermore, the Hebrew marks "sixth" with the definite article, while the Greek phrase provided (ἡμέρα ἕκτη) has no article.