The Second Day or Epoch

The expressions "evening and morning" and "day" cannot be understood to signify twenty-four-hour days, for neither Sun nor Moon was visible until the Fourth Day. The Earth was swathed in impenetrable darkness.

The word "day" applies to any period, or Epoch, as for instance, the "Day of temptation in the wilderness"--forty years. (Psalms 95:8.) Note again, that we read of the "Day of Christ," evidently referring to the thousand-year Day in which Messiah is to be King over all the Earth. (Isaiah 2:11.) In the common affairs of life we use the word "day" similarly, when referring to Caesar's day, Napoleon's day, etc.

We follow the theory that each of the Seven Days of the Creative Week was a period of seven thousand years. This, seven times seven thousand, equals forty-nine thousand (7x7,000=49,000) years, ushering in a grand Jubilee Epoch.

As one after another the encircling rings of water and minerals approached the Earth they would spread out like a great canopy, but would not be permitted to fall upon the Earth because of the circumambient air, referred to in Scripture as a "firmament." Saturn's rings have not yet fallen.

God made the firmament in the second, or Palaeozoic Day, and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. (Genesis 1:7.) The strongly mineralized waters above the Earth, held off by the "firmament" and centrifugal force, greatest at the equator, gradually concentrated at the two poles, where later they broke and then reached the Earth, forming layer after layer of mineralized earth deposited by the water which rushed from both poles toward the equator.--Genesis 7:11,18.

These rings, or belts, of water and minerals followed each other as great deluges upon the Earth--perhaps thousands of years apart. The Deluge of Noah's day was the last, of pure water only, heavier minerals being attracted first. Hence minerals are generally under several layers of shale and soil.