Genesis - Chapter 01 - Line 00010

Contemplative Summary

And God called the dry land “Earth,” and the gathering of the waters He called “Seas.” And God saw that it was good.

Here, the world receives its first names of belonging. What was revealed in the previous verse is now recognized — form meets awareness. The Hebrew qara, “to call,” is both naming and summoning; it gives voice to relationship. The dry land, yabashah, becomes erets — Earth, the place of groundedness. The gathered waters, miqveh ha-mayim, are called yamim — Seas, the living movement surrounding stability. Through this act of naming, contrast resolves into complement: solidity and flow, containment and expansion. When the text says “God saw that it was good” — ki-tov — it speaks of coherence, the harmony that arises when distinct parts find right relation.

In this moment, creation is not simply divided — it is harmonized. The Earth and Seas emerge as a dialogue, each defining the other’s purpose. Seeing becomes affirmation, a divine recognition that structure and fluidity together make the world inhabitable. To contemplate this line is to perceive one’s own terrain of being — the grounded and the flowing, the known and the yielding. Goodness is not perfection but resonance: when what is formed aligns with what it was meant to hold. Here, the cosmos breathes its first balance, and the observer — divine or human — perceives that it is, indeed, good.