יום אחד

(1) And God said, "let there be light:" The word, saying, here is to indicate will; in the [same] way as (I Samuel 20:4) "What does your soul say, and I will do it for you," [which means] what do you will and want; and so [too] (Genesis 24:51), "and she shall be a wife to the son of your master, as God has said," meaning as He willed; since this is how will is in front of Him. Or it means that] it is like thought, as per (Isaiah 47:8), "who says in her heart;" (Zechariah 12:5) "And the captains of Yehuda said in their hearts." And the issue is to say that it was without effort. And so [too], our Rabbis called this 'thought.' They said (Bereishit Rabbah 12:14), "The thought was at day, the act was with the glimmering of the sun." And it is to indicate something thought out that has a reason, not just a simple want. And the word, being, indicates an act that is in the present time (tense), as per (Nechemiah 6:6), "and you will be a king for them." And therefore the verse states that when He created the material of the heavens, He said that there would be a thing that shines [coming] from this material; He called it light.

(1) “And G-d said, ‘Let there be light’” – to fix that which was mentioned above – “and darkness upon the face of the deep”.

(1) "And G-d called the light 'day'" - even though there was not yet "time" [per se], the light and the darkness behaved in the fashion that they behave in time by us, and we call each now by the name "day" or "night".

(2) "And it was evening and it was morning" - even though He separated the light and the darkness so that they would prevail during separate, alternating periods with [need for] rotation of a [heavenly] sphere, He separated them gradually, in such a manner that there was between them a time of "evening" before the onset of night, and a time of "morning" before the onset of day.

(1) According to the sequence of the language of the chapter, it should have been written, “the first day,” as it is written regarding the other days, “second, third, fourth.” Why did Scripture write“one” ? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, was the only one in His world, for the angels were not created until the second day. [i.e., יוֹם אֶחָד is understood as ‘the day of the only One’] So is it explained in Genesis Rabbah 3:8.

And there was light: It did not state, "and it was so," as it is stated with the other days, since the light did not stand in this character all of the days, as [was the case] with the rest of the act of creation. And our rabbis have a midrash about this in a hidden secret. And know that the days that are mentioned in the act of creation were, in the creation of the heavens and the earth, real days - composed of hours and minutes - and they were six like the six days of the [week], like the simple understanding of the verse. And in the inner [understanding] of the matter, the spheres (sfirot) that are emanated from the Most High are called 'days,' since any proclamation that brings existence is called a 'day.' And there were six, 'because to the Lord is greatness and strength.' And the proclamations were ten, since the name 'day' does not apply to the first ones. And the explanation of the order of the verses in this [way] is elevated and hidden, and our knowledge of it is less than a drop in the Great Sea.