What is the Bibles Definition of 'Day'

 I find 'day' to be an interesting word in the Bible. I didn't realize how much work it would take to figure it out until I started to look at time lines of Biblical events. For instance looking at the death and resurrection of Jesus is confusing without a proper Biblical definition of 'day'. So that is what I am going to explore in this blog.

First lets quickly look at how I and most 21st century English speakers use the word 'day'. It has two main meanings.

1. The time between sunrise and sunset (daytime/daylight).
2. The combination of a daytime and a night time (24 hr day). And to be more precise we take a partial night time on either end of the daytime, from midnight to midnight.

    Both of these are perfectly fine in our current usage but they greatly add to the confusion when studying Bible timelines. A typical study of 'day' would include looking how the current people of Israel use the word. They start and end the day at evening. Does that mean that those in the Bible did the same thing?
 As I have read a few other blogs and listened to videos on the 'day' topic, it can become hard to follow. This is mainly due to the above differences in the word 'day' and other usages of the word in the Bible, discussed below. To hopefully get around that confusion for you in this blog, I am going to set forth some definitions and no longer use the word 'day'. For the remainder of this blog whenever I talk about the Biblical use of the word 'day', I will instead use 'yom' (also replaced in quoted Bible verses). I think this will help us understand if there is a difference between the word 'day' and 'yom'. Meaning a difference between how we use the word 'day' and how the Bible uses the word 'yom'. We shouldn't start off by equating the two. Instead we should start by letting the Bible define the word for us. Then see if that definition matches with our current definition of the word 'day'.

• Daylight or daytime: The period of time when the suns light is shining
• Night: The period of time when the suns light is not shining
• 24 hr day: A daytime plus a night
• Yom: The transliteration of the Hebrew word יוֹם, Strongs H3117. This Hebrew word is typically translated into English Bibles as 'day'.

If I were to ask you what is the Bibles definition of the word 'faith', what would you say? A good many people might think of Hebrews 11:1 (all verses from NIV unless stated otherwise) which says "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see". This verse gives a quick and clear explanation of the word in question. Few would argue against it. So does the Bible give a similar type of definition of 'yom'? Well yes it does.
 A good way to find the meaning of a word in the Bible is to go to its first usage in the Bible. This generally happens in Genesis. In this case the first usage comes very quick, in verse 5 of chapter 1. It says "God called the light 'yom' and the darkness He called 'night'". There it is, the definition, but is it really that simple? I think it is, however as humans we like to make things more difficult. So lets go a tad farther. Verse 4 says "God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness". There is a separation between light and darkness and so does that mean there is a separation between yom and night? It sure looks that way to me.
 Here is the full verse 5 "God called the light 'yom', and darkness He called 'night.' And there was evening, and there was morning - the first yom." I used to think that the ending "the first yom" was there to count the combination of yom plus night. I now see a few reasons why this is not the case.

• It doesn't match with the definition in the previous sentence.
• God created during the yom not the night. Look at all 6 times He created. Each happened after sunrise and before sunset.
• The more important part to God is the yom. Verse 16 says "God made two great lights -- the greater light to govern the yom and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars." The yom gets the greater light.

    So I think that the six yom counts that are in Genesis chapter 1 are simply counting the individual yoms, not a yom plus a night, in other words not a 24 hour yom. In my opinion it is the same as writing, 'the first yom, the first night'. But since nothing is recorded to have happened during the night, God does not record a night count.
    Verse 14 says "And God said, 'Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the yom from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and yoms and years'." Again there is a separation. Verse 16 says "God made two great lights--the greater light to govern the yom and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars." This tells us a way to differentiate between yom and night. When the greater light (sun) is seen then it is yom. When the lesser light (moon) is seen then it is night. Verse 18 says "to govern the yom and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God say that it was good." This is now the third time it is stated that there is a separation. We all know that light and darkness are separated. There is either one or the other. Well God is making it quite clear that the same sort of separation applies to yom and night. They are distinctly different from each other.
    So that leaves us with this definition of yom.

• Yom: The period of time when the sun's light is giving its light for you to see

There is another important piece of information about 'yom'. That being when does a 'yom' begin and end. See my When does a 'Day' Begin in the Bible blog post. Also see my upcoming post about the usage of 'yom' in the Bible. It will explore if this definition of 'yom' works throughout the rest of the Bible.