Chapter I · Location 1 of 50
Chapter 1 · Open to readFrom Genesis · Douay–Rheims / Challoner (1749–1752)
How does God turn the empty earth into a world with ordered places, living creatures, and a human role?
Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary
God separates and names the parts of creation, fills them with life, and creates male and female in his image with authority over earthly creatures. He calls the completed work very good.
Chapter breakdown
In the beginning God creates heaven and earth. The earth is empty, darkness covers the deep, and the spirit of God moves over the waters. God commands light to be made, and light appears. He sees that it is good and separates it from darkness. He names the light Day and the darkness Night. Evening and morning mark the first day.
On the second day God makes the firmament to divide the waters below it from the waters above it. He names it Heaven. Challoner explains the firmament as the space from the earth to the highest stars. Its lower part divides the waters on earth from those in the clouds.
On the third day God gathers the waters under heaven into one place so that dry land appears. He names the dry land Earth and the gathered waters Seas, and sees that it is good. He commands the earth to produce seed-bearing plants and fruit trees with seed of their own kinds. The earth produces them, and God sees that this is good. Evening and morning mark the third day.
On the fourth day God makes lights in the firmament to distinguish day from night and to mark signs, seasons, days, and years. They shine upon the earth. The greater light rules the day, the lesser light rules the night, and God also makes the stars. He places them in the firmament to give light, govern day and night, and divide light from darkness. God sees that it is good. Challoner identifies the greater and lesser lights as the sun and moon. He explains that the light made on the first day moved from east to west to produce morning and evening, and was distributed among the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day. He also explains that the moon is called a great light because it gives more light to the earth than the stars do, although it is smaller than many stars.
On the fifth day God commands the waters to bring forth living creatures and birds to fly above the earth under the firmament. He creates great whales, the moving creatures of the waters, and winged birds according to their kinds. He sees that it is good and blesses them to increase: the sea creatures are to fill the waters, and the birds are to multiply on earth. Evening and morning mark the fifth day.
On the sixth day God commands the earth to bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: cattle, creeping creatures, and beasts of the earth. This happens, and God makes each of these groups according to its kind. He sees that it is good.
God declares that man is to be made in his image and likeness, with dominion, or authority to rule, over the fish, birds, beasts, the whole earth, and its creeping creatures. God creates humanity in his own image, male and female. He blesses them to multiply, fill the earth, bring it under control, and rule its living creatures. Challoner explains that God’s image is not in the body but in the spiritual soul, with understanding and free will. He also says the plural form of the declaration suggests the plurality of persons in God. In a separate note, he explains that the words about increasing and multiplying are a blessing that makes creatures fruitful, rather than a precept: fish and birds receive similar words but cannot receive such a command.
God gives humanity seed-bearing plants and trees with seed of their own kinds for food. God also provides for the beasts, birds, and creatures that move on earth and have life in them. At the close of the sixth day, God sees that everything he has made is very good. Evening and morning complete the sixth day.
The story inside
The chapter builds its account through a repeated sequence: God speaks, the stated work happens, and its place in the six days is marked. Light is distinguished from darkness; waters are divided; land appears and bears plants. The lights then mark time, while the waters, air, and earth hold different kinds of creatures. This makes the human role intelligible: people receive authority within a world God has already ordered, rather than making that world themselves. The final judgment concerns everything God has made, not humanity alone.
Lessons worth keeping
- 1Creation has named distinctions. Day and Night, Heaven, Earth, and Seas are established through God’s acts of dividing, gathering, and naming. Following these acts helps the reader see how the account moves from the empty earth to an ordered world (1:1–10).
- 2Fruitfulness is a blessing. Plants bear seed, and God blesses the creatures of the waters and the birds to multiply. Humanity also receives a blessing to multiply and fill the earth. Challoner explicitly distinguishes this blessing from a precept, or binding command, in his note on 1:28.
- 3The human role includes both God’s image and rule over creatures. Verse 27 includes male and female in the statement about God’s image. Challoner locates that image in the spiritual soul, with understanding and free will. These details explain how the account distinguishes humanity while still including it in the creation called very good (1:26–31).
Test your recall
How do God’s acts of separating, naming, and filling prepare for the authority given to humanity, and what does Challoner say the divine image means?
Show answer
God separates light from darkness, waters above from waters below, and land from sea. He names these places and fills creation with plants and living creatures. He then gives humanity authority over the animals and the earth. Challoner explains the divine image as the spiritual soul, with understanding and free will. This is the annotation’s explanation, not an extra sentence in the verse.
Quotes from Scripture
Exact Scripture quotations from the Douay–Rheims Bible, revised by Bishop Richard Challoner (1749–1752), the same edition used for these chapters. Source: Project Gutenberg no. 1581.
And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth.
In the beginning God created heaven, and earth.
And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.
Source edition and notes
Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.
Lines 171–186
Genesis Chapter 1 God createth Heaven and Earth, and all things therein, in six days. 1:1. In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. 1:2. And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters. 1:3. And God said: Be light made. And light was made. 1:4. And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. 1:5. And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day.
Lines 188–200
1:6. And God said: Let there be a firmament made amidst the waters: and let it divide the waters from the waters. A firmament.... By this name is here understood the whole space between the earth, and the highest stars. The lower part of which divideth the waters that are upon the earth, from those that are above in the clouds. 1:7. And God made a firmament, and divided the waters that were under the firmament, from those that were above the firmament, and it was so. 1:8. And God called the firmament, Heaven; and the evening and morning were the second day.
Lines 202–217
1:9. God also said; Let the waters that are under the heaven, be gathered together into one place: and let the dry land appear. And it was so done. 1:10. And God called the dry land, Earth; and the gathering together of the waters, he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 1:11. And he said: let the earth bring forth green herb, and such as may seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, which may have seed in itself upon the earth. And it was so done. 1:12. And the earth brought forth the green herb, and such as yieldeth seed according to its kind, and the tree that beareth fruit, having seed each one according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 1:13. And the evening and the morning were the third day.
Lines 219–242
1:14. And God said: Let there be lights made in the firmament of heaven, to divide the day and the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years: 1:15. To shine in the firmament of heaven, and to give light upon the earth, and it was so done. 1:16. And God made two great lights: a greater light to rule the day; and a lesser light to rule the night: and the stars. Two great lights.... God created on the first day, light, which being moved from east to west, by its rising and setting, made morning and evening. But on the fourth day he ordered and distributed this light, and made the sun, moon, and stars. The moon, though much less than the stars, is here called a great light, from its giving a far greater light to the earth than any of them. 1:17. And he set them in the firmament of heaven to shine upon the earth. 1:18. And to rule the day and the night, and to divide the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 1:19. And the evening and morning were the fourth day.
Lines 244–255
1:20. God also said: let the waters bring forth the creeping creature having life, and the fowl that may fly over the earth under the firmament of heaven. 1:21. And God created the great whales, and every living and moving creature, which the waters brought forth, according to their kinds, and every winged fowl according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 1:22. And he blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the waters of the sea: and let the birds be multiplied upon the earth. 1:23. And the evening and morning were the fifth day.
Lines 257–264
1:24. And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds. And it was so done. 1:25. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and cattle, and every thing that creepeth on the earth after its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Lines 265–286
1:26. And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth. Let us make man to our image.... This image of God in man, is not in the body, but in the soul; which is a spiritual substance, endued with understanding and free will. God speaketh here in the plural number, to insinuate the plurality of persons in the Deity. 1:27. And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. 1:28. And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth. Increase and multiply.... This is not a precept, as some Protestant controvertists would have it, but a blessing, rendering them fruitful; for God had said the same words to the fishes, and birds, (ver. 22) who were incapable of receiving a precept.
Lines 287–298
1:29. And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat: 1:30. And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done. 1:31. And God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good. And the evening and morning were the sixth day.