Genesis - Chapter 01 - Line 00009

Contemplative Summary

And God said, “Let the waters be gathered from beneath the heavens to one place, and let the dry land be seen.” And it was so.

In this verse, the world takes its first breath of solidity. The command yiqqavu — “let the waters be gathered” — draws the restless fluidity of chaos into coherence, as if invisible hands cup the unbounded into form. What once flowed without contour now yields to center; movement meets containment. Then comes ve-tera’eh — “let it be seen” — the unveiling of what was hidden beneath. The dry land, yabashah, does not arise by conquest but by revelation; its presence was always there, awaiting withdrawal of the waters that veiled it. The phrase vayhi-ken, “and it was so,” completes this emergence with quiet inevitability — the divine word crystallizing into terrain.

Here, creation shifts from separation to grounding. The waters, once symbols of undifferentiated potential, now converge to reveal a foundation — the visible resting place within the vast interplay of heavens and depths. It is the first moment of stability, yet still born of fluid grace: form shaped not against the waters but through their gathering. To contemplate this line is to sense the same movement within oneself — the drawing together of scattered energies, the unveiling of what lies steady beneath the tides. Every act of coherence echoes this genesis, when the unseen gathers itself into visibility and says, simply, it is so.