Genesis 1:13

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

There was evening and there was morning, a third day.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

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שְׁלִישִֽׁי

shᵉlîyshîy

H7992

“third”

Adjective, Ordinal number, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 108× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: ordinal from H7969

TWOT: 2403b

third, one third, third part, third time - ordinal number

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

6: words
5: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

First appearance in Scripture

This word makes its first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

שְׁלִישִֽׁי third H7992

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
3 nouns
1 adjective

Verb forms

וַֽיְהִי Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וַֽיְהִי Qal · Sequential Imperfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

וַֽיְהִי to be H1961 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 10 words from the Hebrew and 11 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 6 Hebrew tokens and 8 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Genesis 1:13 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַֽיְהִי עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם שְׁלִישִֽׁי

There was evening and there was morning, a third day.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Genesis 1:13 Septuagint · lemma form

καί γίγνομαι ἑσπέρα καί γίγνομαι πρωΐ ἡμέρα τρίτος

And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וַהֲוָה רְמַשׁ וַהֲוָה צְפַר יוֹם תְּלִיתָאִי

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וַהֲוָה רְמַשׁ וַהֲוָה צְפַר יוֹם תְּלִיתָאֵי

And it was evening, and it was morning, the Third Day.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Genesis 1:13 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

John Gill's Exposition

And the evening and the morning were the third day. The space of twenty four hours ran out, and were measured, either by the rotation of the body of light and heat around the earth, or of the earth upon its axis: and this was according to Capellus the twentieth day of April, and, according to Bishop Usher, the twenty fifth of October; though those who suppose the world was created in autumn make the first day to be the first of September, and so this must be the third of that month; the Jews are divided about the season of the creation; some say Nisan or March, others Tisri or September (g).

(g) Vid. T. Bab. Roshhashanah, fol. 11. 1.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The Pulpit Commentary

And the evening and the morning were the third day. For exposition vid. ver. 5. Has modern geological research any trace of this third day s vegetation? The late Hugh Miller identified the long-continued epoch of profuse vegetation, since then unparalleled in rapidity and luxuriance, which deposited the coal-measures of the carboniferous system, with the latter half of this Mosaic day. Dana, Dawson, and others, rejecting this conclusion of the eminent geologist on the ground that the underlying Devonian, Silurian, and Cambrian systems yield abundant fossiliferous remains of aquatic life, infer that the third day"s vegetation is to be sought for among the "unresolved schists" of the Azoic period. The metamorphic rocks, it is true, have not as yet yielded any absolutely certain traces of vegetable life; and. indeed, it is an open question, among geologists whether any of the earliest formed metamorphic rocks now remain (cf. Green"s "Geology," p. 308); but still it is susceptible of almost perfect demonstration that plants preceded animals upon the earth.

1. Among the hypozoic strata of this early period limestone rocks and graphite have been discovered, both of these being of organic origin.

2. In the process of cooling the earth must have been fitted for vegetable life a long time before animals could have existed.

3. As the luxuriant vegetation of the coal period prepared the way for the subsequent introduction of animal life by ridding the atmosphere of carbonic acid, so by the presence of plants must the ocean have been fitted to be the abode of aquatic life.

4. Vegetation, being directly, or mediately, the food of animals, must have had a previous existence. On these grounds Professor Dana concludes that the latter part of the Azoic age of geology corresponds with the latter half of the third creative day. In the Creation Series of Chaldean tablets are two fragments, which George Smith conjectures have a reference to the first part of the third day"s work. The one is

1. When the foundation of the ground of rock (thou didst make)

2. The foundation of the ground thou didst call

3. Thou didst beautify the heaven

4. To the face of the heaven

5. Thou didst give

The other, which is much more mutilated and obscure, describes the god Sat (or Assur) as saying

1. Above the sea which is the sea of

2. In front of the esara (firmament) which I have made.

3. Below the place I strengthen it

4. Let there be made also e-lu (earth?) for the dwelling of man? ("Chaldean Genesis," p. 68.)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Genesis, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 6 words (5 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is shᵉlîyshîy (“third”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “third” (shᵉlîyshîy) shape what this verse is saying?
This is the first place “third” appears in Scripture (first appears here). What does its debut here establish?
What does the repetition of “to be” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
«וַֽיְהִי» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how John Gill's Exposition and The Pulpit Commentary read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 6 Hebrew ↔ 8 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 1 word in this verse.
“to be” occurs 2× in this single verse.
5 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 6 words in this verse.