פירוש על בראשית 1:5

יום אחד THE FIRST DAY (literally, one day) — According to the regular mode of expression used in this chapter it should be written here “first day”, just as it is written with regard to the other days “the second”, “the third”, “the fourth”. Why, then, does it write אחד “one”? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, was then the Only One (Sole Being) in His Universe, since the angels were not created until the second day. Thus it is explained in Genesis Rabbah (Genesis Rabbah 3:8).

ויקרא אלוקים ליום אור, you may ask yourself what possible need there was for G’d to call this light “day” already at the time He created it; however this is the way Moses worded it when he wrote down the Torah. Whenever, in Scriptures, G’d is recorded as mentioning “day” and “night,” as for instance in Genesis 8,22, where He made the promise that “henceforth the alternating manifestations of day and night will not cease to occur regularly,” יום ולילה לא ישבותון, this is a reference to the original light created on the first day. G’d always called this “light” “night and day.” Similarly, every time in this chapter when we encounter the expression ויקרא אלוקים, as well as when we read in Numbers 13,15 ויקרא אלוקים להושע בן נון יהושע, whereas the same man as representative of the tribe of Ephrayim had been referred to as הושע only 7 verses earlier as הושע. This was the same man, who, previously, when he appeared in his position of Moses’ personal valet was already known as יהושע, (Exodus 24,13) It is customary among kings that when they appoint a person to a position of eminence to signal this by changing the name of such a person. One well known example of this is Pharaoh calling Joseph צפנת פנח upon appointing him as viceroy of Egypt (Genesis 41,45) Other such examples are found in Daniel 1,7, etc.

ויקרא אלוקים לאור יום; even though at that stage of creation “time” was not yet an operative term as we know it nowadays, i.e. the terms “day” and “night” were not yet used by anyone, G’d named these phenomena as such already at that time.

And God called the light, day, etc.: Plausible are the words of Clericus, that this calling is just a sign of authority and rulership over something; to tell that the day and the night are dependent upon the will of the Omnipresent, and so [too] with the other callings in the story of creation. And so [too], He brought the animals to man that he should call them names, to say that he should have dominion over them and and that they would all be under his [control]. And so was the custom of kings in ancient times, to call their servants with new names, like Pharaoh and Yosef; and Pharaoh-Neco and Eliyakim ben Yoshiyahu; and Nevuchadnezzar and Matanya, whose name he changed to Tzidkiyah; and so [too] Daniel and Channaniah, Mishael and Azariah.

AND G-D CALLED THE LIGHT DAY. The verse states that time was created, and G-d made the length of the day and the length of the night.
The purport of the word vayikra (And He called) is [to indicate that] since Adam later gave names [to all the beasts, the fowl, etc.],⁹⁰Further,2:20. it states that those things which were made before his existence were given names by G-d. This is the opinion of Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra.⁹¹In Verse 8.
The correct interpretation is that the matter of calling a name here indicates the division which bounded them when they assumed their form. Thus did the Rabbis say:⁹²Bereshith Rabbah 3:7. “[G-d said to the light,] ‘The day shall be your boundary,’ [and to darkness He said,] ‘The night shall be your boundary.’”

And it was evening and it was morning, one day: [The reason] that it doesn't state 'a first day' [as it does with the other days, i.e., a second day, etc.] is in accordance with what the Rabbis, of blessed memory, said (Berakhot 12b), "We mention the trait of day at night and the trait of night during the day;" [this is] to remove [the opposite idea] from the hearts of heretics, who say that from one beginning there cannot come out two opposites - and so they decreed to say that the one who created the light, did not create the darkness; therefore, [the Torah] stated, "And it was evening and it was morning," meaning night and day; even though they appear to be opposites, nonetheless both of them [belong to] "one day" - the day of One, since one Power created them both. And this explanation is more lucid than the explanation of Rashi, who explained that the angels were not created until the second day; since the angels are not mentioned here, and what does that have to do with this verse of "And it was evening and it was morning?"

ויקרא..ולחשך קרא לילה, the period during which there was no light was called “night.” Such a name can be applied to night even though night is something abstract, as is death, מות. We have numerous nouns which are applied to things which are abstract, such as “blindness, nudity, etc.” כסילות, foolishness, פרץ, “a breach,” and similar nouns all describe matters which are not tangible.

And to the darkness, He called night: The Sages, of blessed memory, explained in the beginning of Tractate Pesachim, that the Holy One, blessed be He, called to darkness and appointed it over the night. [By this,] our Rabbis taught us that we should not say that darkness is only the absence of light, like when - in the middle of the day - we close the windows, it becomes dark. For, if so, it would not be a creation. But in truth, darkness is a creation, on its own as well, as it is written (Isaiah 45:7), "and created the darkness." And it is great distortion to say that darkness is only the absence of light. But rather, God makes both of them, just as He concerns Himself over holiness and impurity. (And see what I have written later, Genesis 27:9.) And to the question, "what does this creation help, behold, even without [its] creation, there would be darkness in the absence of light?," the Sages, of blessed memory, have taught us (in the chapter "Chelek" and in Bereshit Rabbah, Parshat Noach and in the Talmud Yerushalmi in the first chapter) that the light of a fire does not shine during the day in a dark place, [with the same brightness] as it does at night when darkness reigns. And from this, lofty people were able to know while they were sitting in the dark, when it was day and when it was night - in which darkness rules. And as it is with the light and darkness of day and night, so too is it thus with all things that are compared to light and darkness; since there are many bounties that man does not feel so much when he is successful, until he becomes poor and he sees the bounty [that he once had]. And [He], may He be blessed, implanted this into His world.

ויקרא אלוקים לאור יום, “G’d named the light “day.” Seeing that the Torah later on tells us that man named all the living creatures, it mentions here that G’d Himself named these phenomena. Ibn Ezra explains the word ויקרא, [a term normally used only when there is someone who can hear the caller, something not the case here, Ed] as meaning that G’d assigned light its properties and night its properties. Nachmanides explains the term יום and לילה here as the limitations imposed on both day and night by G’d when He created them, i.e. He defined their properties. The period of light being known as “day,” and the period of night being known as “night.”

It should have said “the first day.” [You might ask:] Later it is written concerning the four rivers (2:11): “The name of the one is Pishon,” although afterwards it is written “the second” and “the third.” [Why does this not raise the same question?] The answer is: If there it would say “the first,” we might think that what is stated, “And from there it separated and became four headwaters” (2:10) means that the rivers separated off from one another successively, in four different places, rather than breaking into four headwaters at one place. For example, the second river might separate off several miles downstream from “the first” river, and so forth. Thus it says “one,” and not “first,” to prevent us from making this error. Accordingly, “second” and “third” reflects importance rather than location.

5 times the word 'light' is written in this section, representing the 5 books of the Torah which are called LIGHT...

ויקרא, und Gott rief dem Lichte: Tag! und der Finsternis rief er: Nacht! Es kann schon einfach darum nicht: Nennen heißen, weil ja fortan keineswegs Licht und Tag identisch, vielmehr Tag als Zeitmaß der Zeitraum ist, in welchem das Licht über die Erde waltet, oder als Naturerscheinung alle die Lebenserscheinungen umfasst, die das Licht während dieses Zeitraums zur Verwirklichung bringt. Und eben so Finsternis und Nacht. Hat ja auch sonst der Schöpfer außer Tag und Nacht, Erde und Meer und Himmel nichts "genannt" nicht einmal Adam den Menschen, von dem es nicht heißt: er bildete ein Geschöpf und nannte es Adam. Ohnehin, wo eine Namensnennung von Gott ausgeht, wird in derselben eine Bestimmung des also zu Nennenden ausgesprochen, wie Abraham, Jisrael usf. Es ist daher auch wohl füglich nur in dem Sinne zu nehmen, den unsere Weisen also ausdrücken: קרייא רחמנא לנהורא ופקדיה אמצוותא דיממא קרייא רחמנא לחשכא ופקדיה אמצוותא דלילא (Peßachim 2). "Gott rief das Licht und setzte es über die Aufgaben des Tages, und Gott rief die Finsternis und setzte sie über die Aufgaben der Nacht". Er wies beiden ihr gesondertes Gebiet an, dem Lichte: יום, verwandt mit קום, aufstehen, wo alles zur Selbständigkeit ersteht und in dieser Selbständigkeit dasteht, (damit ist auch יבם verwandt zur Bezeichnung desjenigen, der berufen ist להקים שם לאחיו) die Zeit des Aufrechtseins; der Finsternis: לילה, rad. לול, wovon לולאות, Schleifen, die Zeit, in welcher alles zusammenfällt und sich in sich selbst und mit andern zusammenlegt, und nichts mehr in seinen Umrissen geschieden dasteht. Die Anfangszeiten von beiden: בקר und ערב, ערב: wo sich die Gestalten bereits zu mischen beginnen, und בקר, verwandt mit פקר, בגר, בכר frei, selbständig sein, wo sich eins vom andern löst und in scharfen Umrissen hervortritt und es schon möglich ist לבקר, eins vom andern zu unterscheiden. (ערב heißt auch angenehm, weil alles Angenehme aus der Mischung zweier Gegensätze besteht; und auch Bürge, der in die Mitte zwischen Zweien eintritt. בקר heißt auch wohl darum das Rind, weil es unter dem Vieh das selbständigere ist.) — Es heißt aber: יהי ערב ויהי בקר יום אחד. Der mit בקר beginnende, unter Einwirkung des Lichts sich vollendende Tag ist das Ziel, ist das טוב, welches der Schöpfer beabsichtigt, zu welchem die mit dem ערב eintretende, unter Einfluss des חשך sich vollendende Nacht nur die Vorbereitung bildet, und erst wenn dem ערב ein בקר gefolgt ist, legt die Welt einen Tag ihres vollen Daseins zurück.

ויקרא אלוקים לאור יום, G-d named the light: “day;” G-d named a total of six phenomena that He created, as there was as yet no human being that could name these phenomena. [Compared to the time when He invited Adam to name the animals. Ed.] They are: ,אור, חשך, שמים, ארץ, ימים אדם, “light, darkness, heaven, earth, days and man.”Rabbi Elazar is quoted as saying that the Lord does not associate His name with anything that is evil, only with phenomena that are good, positive, and constructive. (B’reshit Rabbah 3) You will note that when referring to the light, the Torah associates G-d’s name with it by writing the sequence ויקרא אלוקים לאור יום, whereas when speaking of the darkness,.ולחשך קרא לילה, “and the darkness He called night.” G-d’s name was not repeated.

ולחשך קרא לילה, “whereas He had already named the darkness ‘night.’” Seeing that mention of light always precedes mention of darkness, the Torah first told us of the name G’d gave to “light.”

ויהי ערב ויהי בקר, although G’d had made a separation between the light and the darkness, assigning to each different time frames in which to be active, independent of the planet earth revolving on its axis, He arranged for a transition from one phenomenon to the other to take place gradually, step by step. This occurred by means of inserting a period known as evening preceding total night, and a period of dawn preceding bright sunlight, daylight.

To the light, day: He called the time that the light serves, day, and the time that the darkness serves, night. And there was night and day, even before the creation of the luminaries; as the light would serve for a certain time and afterwards disappear and pause for a certain time, and the darkness would serve instead of it. There was evening and morning then also, since there were gradations of evening, morning and afternoon within the light, as per the opinion of Don Yitschak Abarabanel.

And it was evening and it was morning: The explanation is that at the time that it was evening here, it was morning in another place on the face of the earth (Ba'al HaMeor, Tractate Rosh Hashanah, Chapter 1).

ויהי ערב ויהי בקר יום אחד. The word ערב describes the beginning of the night, whereas the word בקר describes the beginning of the day. During the period called ערב, things which could be seen clearly previously begin to become indistinct, appear confused. The reason is that the sense of sight reposing in the eye cannot be effective without light from the outside. The whole night is sometimes referred to as ערב, i.e. as a continuation of the period when things began to appear blurred. This is similar to all the 30 days comprising a month being called חודש on account of the first day of the month which the Bible calls חודש. (Samuel I 20,18) This first day of the month is called thus as on that day the moon renews itself, having faded from view previously. Job 7,4 refers to the entire night as ערב, and so does Psalms 59,7 ישובו לערב יהמו ככלב, “they return at night growling like dogs.” It is a fact that dogs do not bark during the early part of the night. The messengers of Sha-ul kept watch outside David’s house all night long in order to kill him in the morning (Samuel I 19,11) The word לשמרו in that verse means “to guard him so that he could not escape during the night.” An entire day is never called בוקר. This term is applied only to the parts of the day before noon. As soon as noon has passed we enter a period described as ערב seeing that the sun has embarked on a westerly course. Its light becomes progressively weaker. The period assigned for slaughtering the Passover (Exodus 12,6) is known as בין הערבים, commencing one half hour after noon. In Judges 19,9 we read that this period when the “day” becomes weaker is known as לערוב, “towards evening.”
The night is different from the day in that the entire night is described as לילה, not only the period preceding midnight. The reason is that the stars which help illuminate the night remain visible until dawn. The verse means that combining the periods described as ערב and בקר constitute a day. This is so in spite of the fact that not the entire “day,” i.e. the period when the sun is visible on the horizon is called יום. The word בקר must be viewed as the opposite of the word ערב. It is a period when the intensity and quantity of light visible is far greater than the light available during the night. יום and לילה are also opposites The reason why the Torah did not write ויהי לילה, ויהי יום יום אחד which would have been so much clearer, is that the word יום is a word which is applicable both to a single day and to a whole sequence of days such asשלושים יום, and we could have become confused, not knowing whether the Torah referred to the word יום as merely a “single day,” or as a period of days. Furthermore, the fact that day is the major phenomenon, and the essence of what is good of everything that exists in our “lower” regions of the universe, whereas night is a minor phenomenon, makes it imperative that the combined period be called יום, and be described as a unified period.

ויהי ערב ויהי בוקר, “it was evening, it was morning.” According to Ibn Ezra, the beginning of night is called ערב, evening, on account of light and darkness mixing with one another. The beginning of the day, on the other hand, is known as בוקר, morning, the term referring to man now being able to inspect and distinguish different shapes.

This is because... Nachalas Yaakov [diverged from Rashi and] agreed with Ramban [that it says “one day”] because the Torah is written as if copied from a sequence of events recorded as they happened. That is why the entire Torah is [written] in the present tense. And initially, the second day was not yet in existence, so it was appropriate for the first day to be called “one” [whereas “first” is a relative term that is followed by a “second”].

...ה פעמים 'אור' כתוב בפרשה, כגגד חמשה חמשי תורה שנקראו אור

AND THERE WAS EVENING AND THERE WAS MORNING. There was evening and there was morning of one day. The beginning of the night is called erev [which also means “mingling”] because shapes of things appear confused in it, and the beginning of the day is called boker [which also means “examining”] because then a man can distinguish between various forms. This coincides with the explanation of Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra.
By way of the simple explanation of Scripture, it could not have said, [And there was evening and there was morning] “the first day,”⁹³Instead, it says one day. See Rashi who says that according to the regular mode of expression it should have really said “the first day.” He explains, however, the expression “one day” on the basis of the Midrash: It is “because the Holy One, blessed be He, was then the Only One (the Sole Being) in His universe, since the angels were not created until the second day.” One day thus means “the day of the One Being.” It is this interpretation of Rashi that Ramban alludes to when he comments that according to the simple meaning of Scripture it could not have said, “the first day.” because the second had not yet been made; “the first” precedes a “second” in number or degree but both exist, whereas “one” does not connote the existence of a second.
Some scholars explain⁹⁴Ibn Ezra, Verse 5, and Rambam, Moreh Nebuchim, II, 30. that one day is a reference to the rotation of the sphere upon the face of the whole earth in twenty-four hours, as every moment thereof is morning in some different place and night in the opposite place.⁹⁵One day thus means that the entire day consists of evening and morning occurring simultaneously in different places. If so, the verse alludes to that which will take place in the firmament after the luminaries will be placed in the firmament of the heavens.

Bedeutsam steht nicht — wie bei den folgenden Schöpfungen — erst vor diesem Schlusssatz, also hier nach der הבדלה בין האור והחשך וירא א׳ כי טוב sondern unmittelbar nach der Schöpfung des Lichts, vor der וירא א׳ את האור כי טוב, הבדלה und dann erst ויבדל א׳ וגו׳. Es erscheint somit die הבדלה durch das וירא ראי את האור כי טוב motiviert. Nicht die הבדלה, sondern das אור, das Licht und all das durch das Licht gegebene organische Leben bis zur höchsten Stufe ist als das טוב, als das eigentliche Positive, als das bei der Erdschöpfung beabsichtigte Ziel bezeichnet. Als solches, hätten wir erwarten sollen, würde das Licht die Finsternis überwunden, den alten Zustand der lichtlosen Nacht völlig beseitigt haben sollen, und auf Erden ein Reich voller Licht und Leben beginnen. Und in der Tat ist uns ein solcher licht- und lebensvoller Zustand auf Erden durch den Mund der Propheten als endliches Ziel aller Erdentwicklung verheißen, ein Zustand, wo, wie es Jes. 30, 26 heißt, "das Licht des Mondes sein wird wie das Licht der Sonne und das Licht der Sonne doppeltsiebenfach wie das Licht der sieben Tage" (der Schöpfung?), wo (das. 25, 8). "Gott den Tod für immer beseitigt und von jedem Angesicht die Träne trocknet"; wo somit Finsternis und Erschlaffen und Hinsterben geschwunden. Indem Gott somit das Licht als das טוב hinstellte, hat Er es mit der Kraft ausgerüstet, die Finsternis völlig zu überwinden, und es würde sie bereits sofort völlig beseitigt haben, wenn jenes Lichtreich auf Erden nicht eine sittliche Vollendung des Menschen voraussetzte, die erst am Ende der Jahrhunderte als Krone winkt; wenn es bis dahin uns nicht notwendig wäre, uns immer aufs neue wieder im Schoße der Nacht für das Leben des Lichtes zu verjüngen, und nicht darum Gott zwischen das Licht und die Finsternis in die Mitte getreten wäre und auch der Finsternis für jetzt noch ihr, immer frische Lebenskeime bringendes Nachtgebiet angewiesen hätte. Auf diese Stellung des כי טוב beim Lichte dürften wohl unsere Weisen hingeblickt, und daraus die Veranlassung zu dem bedeutsamen Ausspruch geschöpft haben: שגנזו לצריקים לעתיד לבא (Chagiga 12a.).

ויהי ערב ויהי בקר, “there was evening, there was morning;” even though the darkness had existed since the first hour of the night, the Torah refers once more to the darkness, this time with the name לילה, “night.” The reason is that the Torah wished to stress that the creation of a day, i.e. a consecutive period of 24 hours was not two halves, but one whole. The same applies to the following “days” of creation.

And it was evening and it was morning: Evening sometimes (as is written by Rabbi David Kimchi) also includes the night that is adjacent to it and so [too], morning also includes the day that is adjacent to it. And behold, there was already darkness before the creation of the light - hence it mentions the evening first; and so too is the Torah's day, from evening t evening. And there was already in the time of Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra, someone who wanted to explain that the night comes after the day and [subsequently] that Shabbat begins in the morning; and he explained "and it was morning, one day" [to mean] that when it was the morning of the second day, then was the first day finished. And against this did Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra write The Epistle of Shabbat, to elucidate the character of the year and the month and the day that are mentioned in the Torah (and I have already published this epistle in the fourth volume of Kerem Chemed). However, the verse (Leviticus 23:32), "from evening to evening," is a conclusive proof and [so] there is no need for [any] other proofs. And, nonetheless, it may have been possible to explain (like the explanation of Des Vignoles) that at first, the time of light proceeded and afterwards came the evening, and afterwards proceeded the time of darkness and afterwards was morning, and this was [the structure of] one day of the days of the creation, even though it is not the Torah's day. However, according to this, there is no reason for the verse to mention the structure of the day of creation, since it is not the Torah's day. And one cannot say that there is no connection between the Torah's day and the day of creation, since, behold, the Shabbat day is based on the creation, and if the Shabbat of creation was from morning to morning, why should its [observance] be from evening to evening? Hence, it is correct as I have explained.

ויהי ערב ויהי בקר. It is noteworthy that the Torah here did not write ויהי לילה, ויהי יום, but it wrote ערב. This is the period when G’d made the light of the first day fade. The subsequent expression ויהי בקר refers to the morning after the night when dawn rose. At this point the first of the 6 “days” of G’d’s creative activity of which He spoke in the Ten Commandments had come to an end. After that the second “day” began and is introduced with the words ויאמר אלוקים יהי רקיע בתוך המים. The purpose of our verse here was not to tell us that that evening and morning were part of the same day. The verse was needed only to tell us how the 6 “days” are accounted for, i.e. that the morning completed the night, which was the end of that day and the beginning of the second day.

ים אחד. “one day.” According to Bereshit Rabbah the word is chosen to remind us that G’d is unique. Nachmanides claims that the reason why the Torah does not write יום ראשון, “a first day,” is because an ordinal number such as “first” can be used only if there already exists a “second.” In this case there was not yet a second day.” Other commentators feel that we are dealing here with an oblique reference to the motion of the planets, the earth describing an orbit once in 24 hours around its axis so that in different locations at different times there is always one location where it becomes morning. The same is true, of course, of there being always a location where it becomes evening. In other words, a day has been completed when every part of the globe has experienced an evening and a morning.

יום אחד. There is no need to ask why the Torah speaks about a יום אחד, “one day,” as opposed to יום ראשון, “a first day.” The question would be justified if the Torah had written יום ראשון and the word ראשון were meant to be an adjective describing the concept of numbers as it is when the Torah writes in Exodus 29,39) את הכבש האחד תעשה בבוקר, you are to prepare the first sheep in the morning.” In that instance the word אחד is indeed an adjective portraying the concept “first.” The scholar Moses Ibn Ezra wrote that the reason why the Torah wrote the word אחד, is that the implication of the word אחד is “the first,” in the sense that no one had ever preceded this
Our sages (Bereshit Rabbah 3,8) explain the word as an allusion to the fact that the angels were not created until the second day, in order that people should not claim that the archangel Michael supported G’d on His right stretching out the firmament to the south, whereas the archangel Gavriel supported Him by stretching out the firmament on His left to the north. The word אחד confirms that G’d the Creator was alone in His world when He created the heavens (skies). This is also why the prophet Isaiah 44,24 wrote of G’d that נוטה שמים לבדי רוקע הארץ מאתי, מי אתי?, “(it is I, the Lord,) .Who alone stretched out the heaven, and unaided spread out the earth; Who was with Me? The Jerusalem Targum translated the verse in a similar manner, i.e. והוה רמש והוה צפר סדר עובד בראשית יום קדמי, “it was evening, it was morning when He arranged for the first day (to come into being).”
Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra writes (on verse 8) that G’d Himself named 5 phenomena seeing that there was as yet no human being to name them. They are: light, darkness, heaven, earth, and the oceans and man. The reason Ibn Ezra did not refer to “day יום and night, לילה, as having been named by G’d maybe that when G’d reports the creation of the luminaries in verse 14, a time when there had also not been a human being as yet, G’d refrained from naming these luminaries. It appears that the terms “heaven and earth” were actually names given to these phenomena by Moses who wrote the report of creation in the Torah. Similarly, the terms ערב and בקר are in fact terms coined by Moses when he wrote this report. He spoke of darkness and light, even though the Torah specifically credits G’d with naming them. [Actually, there are more, but they do not appear in the report of the creation. Ed.] If we accept this we are left with 5 phenomena named by G’d in the report of creation. Or, one would have to say that what we are in the habit of calling שמים וארץ as well as what are termed thereערב and בקר, Also, there is no specific mention of G’d “naming” man as ארם in the story of creation.

יום אחד, “one day.” According to the commentary of Rashi, the reason why this “day” is not described as “the first day,” as opposed to the subsequent “days” which have an ordinal number, i.e. “second,” “third,” etc;” this is to remind us that on that “day” the Holy One blessed be His name, was still unique, alone in the universe, there not being even angels in heaven. A different explanation for the word אחד, instead of ראשון in this verse: It is grammatically not proper, to speak of “first,” i.e. the beginning of a numerical sequence while the next item in the sequence does not yet exist. Even when the first day had been completed, the second day had not even begun as yet.

Erev (evening): It is called this because of the mixing up (arevut) of things in people's vision, because of the lack of light.

Boker (morning): [It is derived] from baka or (light breaks through), as is the meaning of "your light will break through like the dawn" (Isaiah 58:8).

One day: [This means] that it was evening and it was morning, which is to say (klomar) that it was one day. The word, klomar, is missing (only understood but not written) in Scripture hundreds and thousands of times.

One day: A complete day: the morning and the evening, one after the other, that is one day. And the intention is not to say 'the first day' but rather 'a complete day.' And Nachmanides (Ramban) wrote that it did not say, 'first,' since there cannot be a first without a second, and there was not yet a second [day]. And this is not a sufficient solution, since, in truth, immediately at the end of the first day, the night began and that is the beginning of the second day, and [so] it would have been possible to call the first [day], first. And behold, the preeminent usage of the word, 'day' is regarding the time of the light. And afterwards they [continued to] call it day, alongside [calling day] the time that includes the night and the day - that is to say, twenty-four hours. And so [too] in the other languages (Dies, jour, Tag), one word, by itself, indicates [both] the light of the day and also the span of twenty-four hours. And this is something common in all of the languages, to call something by the name of one of its main parts which is most visible and known or most useful and the like; as the sail (vela in Italian) of the ship is [used to refer] to the ship, [and] "a womb, two wombs" (Judges 5:30) is [used to refer] to a woman. And so here [too], they called the twenty four hours, 'days' as a result of its main part, which is the time of light. And the intention of the Torah here is to say that the connection of evening and morning - first evening and then morning is called one day.