'Day' in the Bible

And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

God called the expanse [of sky] heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

Then God said, “Let there be light-bearers (sun, moon, stars) in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be useful for signs (tokens) [of God’s provident care], and for marking seasons, days, and years;

God made the two great lights—the greater light (the sun) to rule the day, and the lesser light (the moon) to rule the night; He made the [galaxies of] stars also [that is, all the amazing wonders in the heavens].

to rule over the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good and He affirmed and sustained it.

And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good and He validated it completely. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.

And by the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested (ceased) on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.

So God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it [as His own, that is, set it apart as holy from other days], because in it He rested from all His work which He had created and done.

This is the history of [the origin of] the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day [that is, days of creation] that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens—

but [only] from the tree of the knowledge (recognition) of good and evil you shall not eat, otherwise on the day that you eat from it, you shall most certainly die [because of your disobedience].”

For God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened [that is, you will have greater awareness], and you will be like God, knowing [the difference between] good and evil.”

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool [afternoon breeze] of the day, so the man and his wife hid and kept themselves hidden from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Behold, You have driven me out this day from the face of the land; and from Your face (presence) I will be hidden, and I will be a fugitive and an [aimless] vagabond on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, on that same day all the fountains of the great deep [subterranean waters] burst open, and the windows and floodgates of the heavens were opened.

On the very same day Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark,

On the seventeenth day of the seventh month [five months after the rain began], the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat [in Turkey].

The waters continued to decrease until the tenth month; on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains were seen.

Now in the six hundred and first year [of Noah’s life], on the first day of the first month, the waters were drying up from the earth. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and the surface of the ground was drying.

On the twenty-seventh day of the second month the land was [entirely] dry.

“While the earth remains,Seedtime and harvest,Cold and heat,Winter and summer,And day and nightShall not cease.”

On the same day the Lord made a covenant (promise, pledge) with Abram, saying,“To your descendants I have given this land,From the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates—

Then Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all the servants who were born in his house and all who were purchased with his money, every male among the men of Abraham’s household, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin the very same day, as God had said to him.

On the very same day Abraham was circumcised, as well as Ishmael his son.

Now the Lord appeared to Abraham by the terebinth trees of Mamre [in Hebron], while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day.

Abraham started out early the next morning to the place where he [only the day before] had stood before the Lord;

Then the next day, the firstborn said to the younger, “Behold, I lay with my father last night; let us make him drunk with wine tonight also, and then you go in and lie with him, so that we may preserve our family through our father.”

The firstborn gave birth to a son, and named him Moab (from father); he is the father of the Moabites to this day.

The younger also gave birth to a son and named him Ben-ammi (son of my people); he is the father of the Ammonites to this day.

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

On the third day [of travel] Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.

So Abraham named that place The Lord Will Provide. And it is said to this day, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be seen and provided.”

Jacob had cooked [reddish-brown lentil] stew [one day], when Esau came from the field and was famished;

Now on the same day, Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug, saying, “We have found water.”

So he named the well Shibah; therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.

When your brother’s anger toward you subsides and he forgets what you did to him, then I will send and bring you back from there. Why should I be deprived of you both in a single day?”

So on that same day Laban [secretly] removed the male goats that were streaked and spotted and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one with white on it, and all the dark ones among the sheep, and put them in the care of his sons.

On the third day [after his departure] Laban was told that Jacob had fled.

I did not bring you the torn carcasses [of the animals attacked by predators]; I [personally] took the loss. You required of me [to make good] everything that was stolen, whether it occurred by day or night.

This was my situation: by day the heat consumed me and by night the cold, and I could not sleep.

Then He said, “Let Me go, for day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let You go unless You declare a blessing on me.”

Therefore, to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon of the hip which is on the socket of the thigh, because He touched the socket of Jacob’s thigh by the tendon of the hip.

But Jacob replied, “You know, my lord, that the children are frail and need gentle care, and the nursing flocks and herds [with young] are of concern to me; for if the men should drive them hard for a single day, all the flocks will die.

So Esau turned back [toward the south] that day on his way to Seir.

Now on the third day [after the circumcision], when all the men were [terribly] sore and in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s [full] brothers, took their swords, boldly entered the city [without anyone suspecting them of evil intent], and they killed every male.

then let us get up and go up to Bethel, and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.”

Jacob set a pillar (memorial, monument) on her grave; that is the pillar of Rachel’s grave to this day.

Israel (Jacob) said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing [the flock] at Shechem? Come, and I will send you to them.” And he said, “Here I am [ready to obey you].”

And so it was that she spoke to Joseph [persistently] day after day, but he did not listen to her [plea] to lie beside her or be with her.

Now on the third day, [which was] the Pharaoh’s birthday, he [released the two men from prison and] made a feast for all his servants; and he lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker [that is, presented them in public] among his servants.

Now Joseph said to them on the third day, “Do this and [you may] live, for I fear God:

And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt—valid to this day—that Pharaoh should have the fifth part [of the crops]; only the land of the priests did not become Pharaoh’s.

Then Jacob (Israel) blessed Joseph, and said,“The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked [in faithful obedience],The God who has been my Shepherd [leading and caring for me] all my life to this day,

Then Jacob blessed them that day, saying,“By you Israel will pronounce a blessing, saying,‘May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.’”And he put Ephraim before Manasseh.

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present outcome, that many people would be kept alive [as they are this day].

One day, after Moses had grown [into adulthood], it happened that he went to his countrymen and looked [with compassion] at their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his countrymen.

He went out the next day and saw two Hebrew men fighting with each other; and he said to the aggressor, “Why are you striking your friend?”

The very same day Pharaoh gave orders to the [Egyptian] taskmasters in charge of the people and their [Hebrew] foremen, saying,

Now it happened on the day when the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt,

But on that day I will separate and set apart the land of Goshen, where My people are living, so that no swarms of insects will be there, so that you may know [without any doubt] and acknowledge that I, the Lord, am in the midst of the earth.

And the Lord did this thing the next day, and all [kinds of] the livestock of Egypt died; but of the livestock of the Israelites, not one died.

your houses and those of all your servants and of all the Egyptians shall be filled with locusts, as neither your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen, from their birth until this day.’” Then Moses turned and left Pharaoh.

So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind on the land all that day and all that night; when it was morning, the east wind had brought the [swarms of] locusts.

Then Pharaoh said to Moses, “Get away from me! See that you never enter my presence again, for on the day that you see my face again you will die!”

Tell all the congregation of Israel, ‘On the tenth [day] of this month they are to take a lamb or young goat for themselves, according to [the size of] the household of which he is the father, a lamb or young goat for each household.

You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to slaughter it at twilight.

‘Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as an ordinance forever.

[In the celebration of the Passover in future years,] seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove the leaven from your houses [because it represents the spread of sin]; for whoever eats leavened bread on the first day through the seventh day, that person shall be cut off and excluded from [the atonement made for] Israel.

On the first day [of the feast] you shall have a holy and solemn assembly, and on the seventh day there shall be another holy and solemn assembly; no work of any kind shall be done on those days, except for the preparation of food which every person must eat—only that may be done by you.

You shall also observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because on this very day I brought your hosts [grouped according to tribal armies] out of the land of Egypt; therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an ordinance forever.

In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, [and continue] until the twenty-first day of the month at evening.

At the end of the four hundred and thirty years, to that very day, all the hosts of the Lord [gathered into tribal armies] left the land of Egypt.

And on that very same day the Lord brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt by their hosts (tribal armies).

Moses said to the people, “Remember [solemnly observe and commemorate] this day on which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage and slavery; for by a strong and powerful hand the Lord brought you out of this place. And nothing leavened shall be eaten.

On this day in the month Abib, you are about to go onward.

For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the Lord.

You shall explain this to your son on that day, saying, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’

The [presence of the] Lord was going before them by day in a pillar (column) of cloud to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, so that they could travel by day and by night.

He did not withdraw the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from going before the people.

The Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians [lying] dead on the seashore.

They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of Israel came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they left the land of Egypt.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will cause bread to rain from heaven for you; the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, so that I may test them [to determine] whether or not they will walk [obediently] in My instruction (law).

And it shall be that on the sixth day, they shall prepare to bring in twice as much as they gather daily [so that they will not need to gather on the seventh day].”

Now on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each person; and all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses.

Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none [in the field].”

Now on the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none.

See, the Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore He gives you the bread for two days on the sixth day. Let every man stay in his place; no man is to leave his place on the seventh day.”

So the people rested on the seventh day.

Now the next day Moses sat to judge [the disputes] the people [had with one another], and the people stood around Moses from dawn to dusk.

In the third month after the children of Israel had left the land of Egypt, the very same day, they came into the Wilderness of Sinai.

and be ready by the third day, because on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai [in the cloud] in the sight of all the people.

He said to the people, “Be prepared for the third day; do not be intimate with a woman.”

“Remember the Sabbath (seventh) day to keep it holy (set apart, dedicated to God).

but the seventh day is a Sabbath [a day of rest dedicated] to the Lord your God; on that day you shall not do any work, you or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock or the temporary resident (foreigner) who stays within your [city] gates.

For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything that is in them, and He rested (ceased) on the seventh day. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy [that is, set it apart for His purposes].

If, however, the servant survives for a day or two, the offender shall not be punished, for the [injured] servant is his own property.

You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep. It shall be with its mother for seven days; on the eighth day you shall give it [as an offering] to Me.

“Six days [each week] you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall stop [working] so that your ox and your donkey may settle down and rest, and the son of your female servant, as well as your stranger, may be refreshed.