'Day' in the Bible

God called the light “day,” and He called the darkness “night.” Evening came and then morning: the first day.

God called the expanse “sky.” Evening came and then morning: the second day.

Evening came and then morning: the third day.

Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night. They will serve as signs for festivals and for days and years.

God made the two great lights—the greater light to have dominion over the day and the lesser light to have dominion over the night—as well as the stars.

to dominate the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.

Evening came and then morning: the fourth day.

Evening came and then morning: the fifth day.

God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day.

By the seventh day God completed His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done.

God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it He rested from His work of creation.

but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”

These are the family records of the descendants of Adam. On the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God;

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the sources of the watery depths burst open, the floodgates of the sky were opened,

On that same day Noah along with his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Noah’s wife, and his three sons’ wives entered the ark with him.

The ark came to rest in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.

The waters continued to recede until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible.

In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the water that had covered the earth was dried up. Then Noah removed the ark’s cover and saw that the surface of the ground was drying.

By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was dry.

As long as the earth endures,seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,summer and winter, and day and nightwill not cease.”

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “I give this land to your offspring, from the brook of Egypt to the Euphrates River:

Then Abraham took his son Ishmael and all the slaves born in his house or purchased with his money—every male among the members of Abraham’s household—and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskin on that very day, just as God had said to him.

On that same day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised.

Then the Lord appeared to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre while he was sitting in the entrance of his tent during the heat of the day.

The next day the firstborn said to the younger, “Look, I slept with my father last night. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight so you can go sleep with him and we can preserve our father’s line.”

The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned.

On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.

On that same day Isaac’s slaves came to tell him about the well they had dug, saying to him, “We have found water!”

He called it Sheba. Therefore the name of the city is Beer-sheba to this day.

He said, “Look, I am old and do not know the day of my death.

until your brother’s rage turns away from you and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send for you and bring you back from there. Why should I lose you both in one day?”

That day Laban removed the streaked and spotted male goats and all the speckled and spotted female goats—every one that had any white on it—and every dark-colored one among the lambs, and he placed his sons in charge of them.

He put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob. Jacob, meanwhile, was shepherding the rest of Laban’s flock.

On the third day Laban was told that Jacob had fled.

I did not bring you any of the flock torn by wild beasts; I myself bore the loss. You demanded payment from me for what was stolen by day or by night.

There I was—the heat consumed me by day and the frost by night, and sleep fled from my eyes.

That is why, to this day, the Israelites don’t eat the thigh muscle that is at the hip socket: because He struck Jacob’s hip socket at the thigh muscle.

Jacob replied, “My lord knows that the children are weak, and I have nursing sheep and cattle. If they are driven hard for one day, the whole herd will die.

That day Esau started on his way back to Seir,

On the third day, when they were still in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords, went into the unsuspecting city, and killed every male.

We must get up and go to Bethel. I will build an altar there to the God who answered me in my day of distress. He has been with me everywhere I have gone.”

Jacob set up a marker on her grave; it is the marker at Rachel’s grave to this day.

Although she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her.

Now one day he went into the house to do his work, and none of the household servants were there.

On the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, he gave a feast for all his servants. He lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker.

On the third day Joseph said to them, “I fear God—do this and you will live.

Then he blessed Joseph and said:The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day,

So he blessed them that day with these words:The nation Israel will invoke blessings by you, saying,“May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh,”putting Ephraim before Manasseh.

The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you attacking your neighbor?”

They will listen to what you say. Then you, along with the elders of Israel, must go to the king of Egypt and say to him: Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now please let us go on a three-day trip into the wilderness so that we may sacrifice to Yahweh our God.

Then they answered, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go on a three-day trip into the wilderness so that we may sacrifice to Yahweh our God, or else He may strike us with plague or sword.”

That day Pharaoh commanded the overseers of the people as well as their foremen:

The overseers insisted, “Finish your assigned work each day, just as you did when straw was provided.”

On the day the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt,

But on that day I will give special treatment to the land of Goshen, where My people are living; no flies will be there. This way you will know that I, Yahweh, am in the land.

The Lord did this the next day. All the Egyptian livestock died, but none among the Israelite livestock died.

Tomorrow at this time I will rain down the worst hail that has ever occurred in Egypt from the day it was founded until now.

So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and the Lord sent an east wind over the land all that day and through the night. By morning the east wind had brought in the locusts.

Pharaoh said to him, “Leave me! Make sure you never see my face again, for on the day you see my face, you will die.”

Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month they must each select an animal of the flock according to their fathers’ households, one animal per household.

You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembly of the community of Israel will slaughter the animals at twilight.

“This day is to be a memorial for you, and you must celebrate it as a festival to the Lord. You are to celebrate it throughout your generations as a permanent statute.

You must eat unleavened bread for seven days. On the first day you must remove yeast from your houses. Whoever eats what is leavened from the first day through the seventh day must be cut off from Israel.

You are to hold a sacred assembly on the first day and another sacred assembly on the seventh day. No work may be done on those days except for preparing what people need to eat—you may do only that.

“You are to observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread because on this very day I brought your divisions out of the land of Egypt. You must observe this day throughout your generations as a permanent statute.

You are to eat unleavened bread in the first month, from the evening of the fourteenth day of the month until the evening of the twenty-first day.

At the end of 430 years, on that same day, all the Lord’s divisions went out from the land of Egypt.

On that same day the Lord brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt according to their divisions.

Then Moses said to the people, “Remember this day when you came out of Egypt, out of the place of slavery, for the Lord brought you out of here by the strength of His hand. Nothing leavened may be eaten.

For seven days you must eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there is to be a festival to the Lord.

On that day explain to your son, ‘This is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’

The Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to lead them on their way during the day and in a pillar of fire to give them light at night, so that they could travel day or night.

The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night never left its place in front of the people.

That day the Lord saved Israel from the power of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.

The entire Israelite community departed from Elim and came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had left the land of Egypt.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. This way I will test them to see whether or not they will follow My instructions.

On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other days.”

On the sixth day they gathered twice as much food, four quarts apiece, and all the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses.

He told them, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Tomorrow is a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil, and set aside everything left over to be kept until morning.’”

For six days you may gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.”

Yet on the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they did not find any.

Understand that the Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day He will give you two days’ worth of bread. Each of you stay where you are; no one is to leave his place on the seventh day.”

So the people rested on the seventh day.

The next day Moses sat down to judge the people, and they stood around Moses from morning until evening.

In the third month, on the same day of the month that the Israelites had left the land of Egypt, they entered the Wilderness of Sinai.

and be prepared by the third day, for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.

He said to the people, “Be prepared by the third day. Do not have sexual relations with women.”

On the third day, when morning came, there was thunder and lightning, a thick cloud on the mountain, and a loud trumpet sound, so that all the people in the camp shuddered.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy:

but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You must not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the foreigner who is within your gates.

For the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything in them in six days; then He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy.

However, if the slave can stand up after a day or two, the owner should not be punished because he is his owner’s property.

Do the same with your cattle and your flock. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but on the eighth day you are to give them to Me.

“Do your work for six days but rest on the seventh day so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female slave as well as the foreign resident may be refreshed.

The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day He called to Moses from the cloud.

Sacrifice a bull as a sin offering each day for atonement. Purify the altar when you make atonement for it, and anoint it in order to consecrate it.

“This is what you are to offer regularly on the altar every day: two year-old lambs.

Work may be done for six days, but on the seventh day there must be a Sabbath of complete rest, dedicated to the Lord. Anyone who does work on the Sabbath day must be put to death.

It is a sign forever between Me and the Israelites, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, but on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.”

The Levites did as Moses commanded, and about 3,000 men fell dead that day among the people.