It's more than just a beautiful poem about light and darkness, waters above and waters below. It's actually a powerful argument against a very old accusation.
Rabbi Yehoshua of Sikhnin, quoting Rabbi Levi, starts us off with a verse from Psalms: "The power of His deeds He told to His people, to give them the inheritance of nations" (Psalms 111:6). What Rabbi Yehoshua is getting at is this: why does the Torah bother detailing what was created on each day? Why go into such specific detail?
According to Bereshit Rabbah, it's all about those pesky idolaters. You see, they might accuse Israel of being a nation of robbers. "You stole the land of Israel from its original inhabitants!" they would say.
But Israel has a ready answer, a historical trump card, if you will. "And what about you?" they could retort. "Isn't your own land held through conquest and displacement? Remember the Kaftorim (Cretans), who came from Kaftor, and destroyed the Avites, settling in their place?" (Deuteronomy 2:23).
The key point here is sovereignty. Who ultimately decides who lives where? The ancient rabbis understood that land ownership, and indeed the entire world, belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He. As we find in this passage of Bereshit Rabbah, God can give land to whomever He chooses. When He wished, He gave it to one people, and when He wished, He took it away and gave it to another.
That's the force behind the verse in Psalms. "[The power of His deeds He told to His people,] to give them the inheritance of nations…" He told them the history of all the generations.
The creation story, then, isn't just a pretty myth. It's a foundational claim to legitimacy. It's a reminder that everything – the land, the nations, the very fabric of existence – is ultimately in God's hands. God decides who gets what, and when.
So, the next time you read the story of creation, remember this hidden layer. Remember the argument against the "robbers." Remember that the story of Genesis is also a story about power, history, and divine will. It's a reminder that the world, in all its complexity and conflict, ultimately belongs to something bigger than ourselves.