eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall
walk, and not faint."

CHAPTER VI

THE SUN

"And God said Let there be lights in the firmament of the
heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for
signs, and for seasons and for days, and years: and let them
be for lights in the firmament of the heaven, to give light
upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights;
the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to
rule the night: He made the stars also. And God set them in
the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and
to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the
light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the
evening and the morning were the fourth day."

A double purpose for the two great heavenly bodies is indicated
here,--first, the obvious one of giving light; next, that of time
measurement. These, from the human and practical point of view, are the
two main services which the sun and moon render to us, and naturally
sufficed for the object that the writer had before him. There is no
evidence that he had any idea that the moon simply shone by reflecting
the light of the sun; still less that the sun was a light for worlds
other than our own; but if he had known these facts we can hardly
suppose that he would have mentioned them; there would have been no
purpose to be served by so doing.

But it is remarkable that no reference is made either to the
incalculable benefits conferred by the action of the sun in ripening the
fruits of the earth, or to the services of the moon as a time-measurer,
in dividing off the months. Both these actions are clearly indicated
later on in the Scriptures, where Moses, in the blessing which he
pronounced upon the tribe of Joseph, prayed that his land might be
blessed "for the precious things of the fruits of the sun," so that we
may take their omission here, together with the omission of all mention
of the planets, and the slight parenthetical reference to the stars, as
indicating that this chapter was composed at an exceedingly early date.

The chief purpose of the sun is to give light; it "rules" or regulates
the day and "divides the light from the darkness." As such it is the
appropriate emblem of God Himself, Who "is Light, and in Him is no
darkness at all." These images are frequently repeated in the
Scriptures, and it is on