Ken Keathley
What Was Moses Saying and Doing in Genesis 1–2?
When we read Genesis 1, we naturally ask, “What is Moses saying?” But a deeper, more revealing question is: “What is Moses *doing*?”
We intuitively distinguish between what someone says and what they mean. A father says to his teenage son, “The trash man is coming in half an hour,” but everyone knows he means, “Take the trash out.” Mary says to Jesus at the wedding, “They have no wine” (John 2:3), yet her intent is clear: “Do something about it.”
Even harder to catch is what a speaker is *doing* with their words. In a British murder mystery, a resentful detective tells his captain’s wife, “It’s remarkable how often they work late,” implying an affair and seeking revenge. In 1 Kings 1–2, Adonijah asks Bathsheba to request Abishag as his wife, but Solomon interprets it as a claim to the throne.
So when we come to Genesis 1–2, we must ask: What is Moses *doing* as he writes these chapters to a people wandering in the wilderness?
The Original Audience: Pagans in the Wilderness
We read Genesis from the far side of the completed canon, with the full Bible in hand. For us, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) feels obvious. But Moses’ original audience had no Bible—perhaps only fragments of Job, if anything. For four centuries they had lived in Egypt, immersed in Egyptian mythology, with earlier influences from Babylonian and Canaanite thought stemming from Abraham’s origins in Ur.
These Israelites thought like pagans. Shortly after encountering God at Sinai and entering covenant with Him, while Moses was on the mountain, they fashioned a golden calf. That act only makes sense in a pagan worldview where divine power could be manipulated through images and rituals.
Throughout the Old Testament, Israel repeatedly fell into idolatry. The question is sobering: Were they ever fully convinced that Genesis 1 told the truth about reality?
An Economy of Words in a Radical Text
Genesis 1 contains roughly 700 words in Hebrew—astonishing brevity for covering creation, fall, flood, and Babel across the first eleven chapters. Compared to other ancient texts, Moses says extraordinarily little. There is no backstory for God, no explanation of the serpent, no account of angelic creation or fall. Beyond our solar system, the vast universe receives exactly five words: “He made the stars also” (Genesis 1:16).
Yet within this economy, Genesis 1 is a radical, countercultural statement. To the original audience, steeped in competing creation stories, it would have been shocking—like cold water thrown in the face.
Contrasting the Ancient Near Eastern Narratives
All other known creation accounts—Babylonian, Egyptian, Canaanite—are primarily about the origin of the gods, not the cosmos. Everything is divine: sky, earth, rivers, sun, moon, stars. The cosmos emerges as an afterthought from divine conflicts and bodily fluids.
In the Babylonian Enuma Elish, primordial freshwater (Apsu) and saltwater (Tiamat) mingle to produce generations of gods. Chaos ensues. Apsu plans to kill his noisy children; his son Ea assassinates him. Tiamat, enraged, raises a monstrous army. The gods, terrified, turn to the mighty Marduk, who defeats her in gory battle, splitting her corpse to form heaven and earth. Humans are later created from the blood of her executed general to serve as slaves for the gods.
Egyptian myths vary, but the sun, moon, sky (Nut), and earth (Geb) are deities. Humanity exists largely to serve the divine Pharaoh, the only one made in a god’s image.
These stories feature violence, sexual generation, and struggle. The gods are immanent—part of the created order. Humans are slaves with no inherent worth.
What Moses Is Doing: A Counter-Narrative
Moses flips this worldview entirely.
1. One Transcendent God
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). The watery chaos (Genesis 1:2) that birthed the gods in pagan myths is here something God Himself created. The God of Israel stands outside and above all else—the uncaused cause, the great “I AM.”
2. Order Without Opposition
Days 1–3 form creation (separating light/dark, waters above/below, land/sea). Days 4–6 fill it (lights, sea creatures/birds, land animals/humans). There is no battle, no resistance. God speaks; it is; and it is good. Creation is serene, orderly, and pleasing.
3. De-Deification of Nature – Clarifying Nature is Not a god!
Sun and moon are not named (to avoid confusion with pagan deities) but called “greater light” and “lesser light” (Genesis 1:16). They are objects, not subjects—created to serve humanity with signs and seasons. The stars that pagans feared as controlling fate are dismissed: “He made the stars also.” Nature is not alive; it is a gift.
4. Humanity in God’s Image
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion…” (Genesis 1:26). Every human—male and female—is made in God’s image. No other ancient Near Eastern text teaches this. Humanity is not created to be slaves but to rule as God’s representatives, reflecting His loving care. God enters into covenant with us: “I give you everything; treat it—and one another—as I treat you.”
The Gospel According to Moses
Genesis 1 presents an ethic of love, not slavery. It teaches that we live in a unified cosmos under one sovereign, good Creator who has graciously covenanted with image-bearers. We are stewards, not slaves; brothers and sisters, not property.
To the original audience, this was liberation. Instead of fearing a pantheon of warring deities and living as slaves, they were invited into relationship with the one true God who made them for fellowship and dominion under His blessing.
Moses is doing evangelism. He is declaring: Here is your God. Here is who you are. Here is how the world truly is.
And centuries later, the writer of Hebrews reminds us that this same Creator has now spoken finally “in these last days…by his Son…through whom also he made the world” (Hebrews 1:1–2).
That is the message Moses was proclaiming—and it remains the best story we have to tell.
