What Does Genesis 1:14 Mean?

The sixth day's evaluation replaces the six individual declarations of tov with a single declaration of tov meod: "very good." Each creative act received its own evaluation; the completed creation receives a heightened one. The intensification is significant: the individual parts were good; the integrated whole is very good. Every element fitted to every other, the human pair placed in the world made for them, the provision assigned to every creature, the structure of the week moving toward its Sabbath, all of it together is the best possible expression of what the creating God intended.

The "very good" of 1:31 is the theological baseline for the entire biblical story that follows. The fall of Genesis 3, the corruption of Genesis 6, the violence of Genesis 4, the scattered nations of Genesis 11, all of these are departures from a world that was once very good. What went wrong was not always the case and is not the final word. The redemptive project of the biblical narrative from Genesis 3 through Revelation 22 is the restoration of what this declaration describes. The new creation that Revelation depicts as "making all things new" (21:5) is the new-creation restoration of what 1:31 declared at the first creation's completion.

The sixth day closes with the week complete: six days of forming and filling have produced a world entirely ready for the seventh day of rest. The structural parallel is complete: day one's light is managed by day four's lights; day two's sky is filled with day five's birds; day three's land is governed by day six's creatures. The architecture of the week is integral. The seventh day is not an appendage to a finished project; it is the week's own final purpose, the day the creation was made to arrive at.