Does Let=allow or does it=make?

[Guest]

As I was reading Genesis again, the question came to me this time around when God said let there be light, or let dry land appear and so forth, does this mean it was going to happen on its own unless God stopped it but instead He allowed it?

When I let something happen in my home, for example, it means I don't stop it from happening. Let, does not mean that I created it.

God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth, and then it describes what the earth was like. Then from that point on He let this and that take place.

do you get my thought process here?

[Guest]

Hi Allyn,
Interesting question. I'll give you my thoughts.

1:3 Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.

On this verse, I would see the word "be" as the key to your question. Since God said "let there be light" there must not have been light before this statement, and no reason to believe that the light would appear without God ordaining it.

1:9 Then God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so.

I believe you may be correct with this verse, but I don't think it is necessary to see it that way. God could have been speaking to Jesus and not the cosmos or nature, which is what your statement would imply.

John
1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
1:2 He was in the beginning with God.
1:3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.


For example, if I tell my son to "let the dog out", its fair to assume that the dog would not be let out until I ordered it. Especially if I gave a order to my son to wait until I told him to do so.

Just my thoughts. I hope the help.

Robin

[Guest]

Before making my original post, I looked up the word "let" in my Vines. It basically said, allow or permit. Of course to permit something to happen is not the same as not stopping something from happening that would otherwise happen on its own. Furthermore, I have never had a problem believing that God is the creator of all things. But you know how it goes sometimes when we contimplate Scripture. We begin to wonder about deeper meanings.

Personally I have no issue with a possibility that God just got the ball rolling and things took off from there. For example if there truly was a big bang, I know that God was behind it all. If it took eons to get to the point that our earth cooled and was ready for life, I think that would be fine.

My main point is to understand the word intent so as to be more in tune with God's general purpose.

[Guest]

In English, "let" can mean "allow", and it is also used to express the third person imperative. In our day, we almost never use the third person imperative. Our use of the imperative mood is pretty well restricted to the second person. E.G. "Eat your porridge!" An example of the use of the third person imperative is when Marie Antoinette was informed that the peasants had no bread, said, "Let them eat cake!" She certainly didn't mean, "Allow them to eat cake!"

There is no doubt in my mind that "Let there be light" is a third person imperative. Thus God was commanding light into existence.

I don't know Hebrew, but the Greek Septuagint translation of the phrase in Genesis 1:3 is positively a third person imperative of the verb "ginomai". There is no single word for "let" in the Greek translation, nor in the Hebrew (as far as I can determine).

But in both Hebrew and Greek, where the word "let" means"allow" or "permit" there is a single word to express it, namely "nathan" in Hebrew and "aphiāmi" in Greek.