Genesis 1:10

And God called the dry land earth,.... The whole chaos, that was a turbid fluid, a mixture of earth and water, a rude unformed mass of matter, was called earth before; but now that part of the

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. Let the waters under the heaven ... i:e., which extended far and wide under the whole heavens.

He called them not sea, but seas; because of the differing quantity and nature both of several seas, and of the rivers, and other lesser collections of waters, all which the Hebrews call seas. The separation of the waters was begun on the second day, , &c., but not perfected till this third day; therefore God’ s approbation of that work is not mentioned there, but here only.

Genesis 1:10 And God called the dry [land] Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that [it was] good.Ver. 10. He called earth.] This is, the earth which we tread (namely, still the land which we manage, the land we desire.) - our bodies; - and - heaven) This he called earth, that is, he set it and settled it by the word of his power. Where we may well wonder that the earth, being founded upon the seas, and prepared upon the floods, and poised in the just proportion, by line, and measure, should abide steadfast; when the high mountains, which do, as it were, imboss the earth, may seem able to shake it, oversway it, and tumble it into the sea. Bark. On Com.

Verse 10. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas] These two constitute what is called the terraqueous globe, in which the earth and the water exist in a most judicious proportion to each other. Dr. Long took the papers which cover the surface of a seventeen inch terrestrial globe, and having carefully separated the land from the sea, be weighed the two collections of papers accurately, and found that the sea papers weighed three hundred and forty-nine grains, and the land papers only one hundred and twenty-four; by which experiment it appears that nearly three-fourths of the surface of our globe, from the arctic to the antarctic polar circles, are covered with water. The doctor did not weigh the parts within the polar circles, because there is no certain measurement of the proportion of land and water which they contain. This proportion of three-fourths water may be considered as too great, if not useless; but Mr. Ray, by most accurate experiments made on evaporation, has proved that it requires so much aqueous surface to yield a sufficiency of vapours for the purpose of cooling the atmosphere, and watering the earth. See Ray's Physico-theological Discourses. An eminent chemist and philosopher, Dr. Priestley, has very properly observed that it seems plain that Moses considered the whole terraqueous globe as being created in a fluid state, the earthy and other particles of matter being mingled with the water. The present form of the earth demonstrates the truth of the Mosaic account; for it is well known that if a soft or elastic globular body be rapidly whirled round on its axis, the parts at the poles will be flattened, and the parts on the equator, midway between the north and south poles, will be raised up. This is precisely the shape of our earth; it has the figure of an oblate spheroid, a figure pretty much resembling the shape of an orange. It has been demonstrated by admeasurement that the earth is flatted at the poles and raised at the equator. This was first conjectured by Sir Isaac Newton, and afterwards confirmed by M. Cassini and others, who measured several degrees of latitude at the equator and near the north pole, and found that the difference perfectly justified Sir Isaac Newton's conjecture, and consequently confirmed the Mosaic account. The result of the experiments instituted to determine this point, proved that the diameter of the earth at the equator is greater by more than twenty-three and a half miles than it is at the poles, allowing the polar diameter to be 1/334th part shorter than the equatorial, according to the recent admeasurements of several degrees of latitude made by Messrs. Mechain and Delambre.-L'Histoire des Mathem. par M. de la Lande, tom. iv., part v., liv. 6. And God saw that it was good.] This is the judgment which God pronounced on his own works. They were beautiful and perfect in their kind, for such is the import of the word טוב tob.

10. God called the dry land Earth — Or, called the dry (substance) land. The name “land” was given to the dry ground, as distinguished from the surrounding waters, which were named Seas.