The Lᴏʀᴅ created the land and plants.

Genesis 1.9-13.

The creation story in Genesis 1 follows a logical progression. On day 2, after creating a ceiling of the skies, and dividing the waters of Earth into above-the-ceiling and below-the-ceiling, Ge 1.6-8 God now turns to below-the-ceiling. Everything above the ceiling is now no longer part of the creation story.

And now that I’ve written this, no doubt some of my readers are gonna say, “Well, but we know what’s above the ceiling. There’s the second and third heavens.” Or the nine heavens of Dante’s Divine Comedy, or the seven heavens of the Babylonian Talmud, or the 10 heavens of 2 Enoch. Paul’s “third heaven” 2Co 12.2-4 is one of the 10 heavens, also known as paradise… but we don’t know whether Paul was confirming there literally are 10 heavens, or simply referring to the then-common pop culture idea of where paradise is. Not that Christians don‘t claim they totally know—and that’s just their pride talking. They really don’t.

The writer of Genesis didn’t speculate what was beyond the ceiling, and unless we have actual, biblical revelation of what God built up there, neither should we. Besides, we know better (or, if we have any sense in our brains, should know better): The writer of Genesis isn’t describing our literal universe. And isn’t so much trying to. The point of the creation story is to rebut ancient pagans who claimed other gods conquered and arranged the universe to their liking. They actually didn’t. The LORD didn’t need to seize creation from anyone; he created it.

And what’s beyond the ceiling isn’t for us to know. Now let’s move what’s below the ceiling. God’s gonna create dry ground and put plants on it.

Genesis 1.9-13 KWL

9God said, “Water from under the skies:

Gather to one place.

Dry surface:

Be seen.”

It was so.

10God called the dry surface land.

The gathered water he called seas.

God saw how good it was.

11God said, “Land:

Sprout vegetation.

Plants:

Scatter seed.

Fruit trees:

Make fruit which has seed in it

by species, on the land.”

It was so.

12The earth produced vegetation,

grass scattered seeds by species,

trees produced fruit which had seed in it, by its species.

God saw how good it was.

13It was dusk, then dawn.

Day three.

In the pagan myths, the gods which conquered the already-existing universe were only interested in setting up the world for their personal comfort, and to rule. They really had no interest in land, plants, crops, or even life.

Well, except for one of them, the fertility god. In the case of the weather and fertility god 𐎅𐎄/Hadád, whom the Canaanites and Hebrews referred to by his title בַּעַל/Baäl, he wound up overthrowing the other gods and becoming the high god himself. Me, I gotta wonder whether the Canaanites decided Hadád was the high god only after they noticed how the LORD was both high God, and the weather and fertility God. (And the God of everything else.) In pagan myths, the fertility god would be the only one of ’em interested in creating and cultivating life. In our creation story, our God is the only deity in the story, and it’s the same God who creates every important thing in the universe. These aren’t the tasks of individual gods; nothing’s delegated to subordinate gods. There’s only the One God, and he effortlessly does everything by himself.

Okay yes, he does command the things he made.

You might notice our English translations tend to make it sound like God’s the only active agent in the creation story:

Genesis 1.9-11 NIV

9And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

11Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so.

Whereas I didn’t use “let the” to translate God’s imperative commands. I simply translated them as, duh, his imperative commands. He’s commanding his creation around. “Water, go there. Land, appear. Now grow plants. Plants, start spreading your seeds around. Okay, that’s good. I’m done for today.”

I suspect translators make the creation itself sound passive because they don’t want to imply the water and land are sentient beings who can choose to obey him. They’re not—and commanding them doesn’t mean they are. My computers are voice-activated, I give ’em commands all the time, and they’re not sentient at all. Neither does the land have to be a sentient being to obey God’s order to sprout plants. After all, who’s empowering the land to do such a thing? God of course.

But the way popular English translations go—“Let the water be gathered,” “Let dry ground appear,” “Let the land produce”—suggests God’s not ordering the water and land to do stuff; that he’s ordering someone else to let this or that happen. So… who’s he ordering around? Kids have asked me this question, ’cause they read their English-language bibles and it sure sounds to them like God’s telling someone else to “let” stuff happen. Who’s God giving directions to? Is there a demiurge, a lesser being who’s doing all the actual creating, while our LORD dictates his creation checklist from his throne?

And I kid you not, some people have claimed God did have a demiurge who was doing all the actual creation. Although if they’re Christians, they’re usually trying to split God up into the trinity, and claim the Father’s the one with the game plan, and the Holy Spirit (who was hovering over Earth’s waters, y’know Ge 1.2) was doing the actual work of creation. Other Christians notice how John states all things were made through the Word of God, Jn 1.3 who became human; whom we call Jesus. So they say Jesus did all the creating—following his Father’s blueprint.

I don’t think it’s either wise nor safe to claim only one or two persons of the trinity did all the creating. Genesis says God did it; let’s stick with that. The whole trinity did all the creating. And none of the persons are lesser than one another; that’s heresy. There is no demiurge. There’s only God. Who doesn’t accurately say, “Let there be…” but simply commands creation to do as he wants, and it does.

Plants and seeds.

Oranges and lemons didn’t exist in the stone age and bronze age. We humans bred ’em into existence. The ancient Chinese cross-bred oranges out of mandarins and pomelos. Medieval Europeans cross-bred lemons out of oranges and citrons. God created the original fruits, but we humans decided, “No, I want this kind of fruit,” and made this kind of fruit. Still do. That’s why I find it so ridiculous whenever certain young-earth creationists object to the latest new hybrids in the grocery store: Darn near every fruit you’ve ever eaten is the product of humans tinkering with the genes. We didn’t have to know how to splice ’em to do this. We’ve been doing it since the beginning of agriculture.

Anyway, this is why lemon and orange seeds are so very similar. Why, in some cases, you can’t really tell the difference between one and the other till you plant them and see which tree they grow into. They’ll produce distinctly different fruit. And the ancients were fascinated by this phenomenon. “How do they know which tree to produce?” was their regular question.

Well, we sought the answer to that question for millennia, and finally figured it out in the last century: Different encodings in their DNA. Nowadays everyone takes this explanation for granted. But back then, seeds that knew which tree to become into was an obvious sign of our Creator’s might. Honestly, it still is. We shouldn’t be less impressed by this feat just because we now know how he pulls it off, and can (to small degrees) do the same. Anyway, God’s feats of intelligent design is why Genesis and the other scriptures bring up the awesomeness of creation so often.

God declared these things—the dry land, and plants—are good. People are awfully fond of pointing this out: God created things and called them good. God created humans and called us good. Everything’s good! God says so.

Okay, but why should God have to say so? Again, this is a rebuttal of the pagan myths. The pagan gods didn’t care whether things were good or not. They were only creating something they could use, with no concern for whether these things had any kind of inherent goodness. If they couldn’t use it, may as well destroy it. And plenty of humans share this attitude—and destroy a whole lot of creation for the simple Mammonist fact they don’t make money off it. Not can’t; people could make money off it, but they don’t, so they don’t care.

But they don’t share God’s attitude. God made the universe and declared it good. It’s inherently good. It shouldn’t be destroyed for our convenience; it shouldn’t be destroyed in our apathy. It was created for our sake, whether we realize how or not; and for our good. We need to be far better stewards of God’s creation than we are.