On the third day of creation, the earth was a flat, featureless plain submerged under water. Then God spoke. Mountains erupted upward and scattered across the surface. Valleys tore open in the earth's interior, and the waters rushed down to fill them. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle compiled by Jerahmeel ben Solomon, the waters immediately rebelled. They surged back up, flooding the earth a second time, until God rebuked them and measured them in the hollow of His palm.
He fenced the sea with sand, the way a farmer fences a vineyard. When the waves approach and see the barrier, they retreat. The earth itself floats upon the deep waters "like a ship in the midst of the sea." Beneath its surface, the depths plunge sixty years' walking distance downward. One fountain near Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death) produces hot springs that delight anyone who bathes in them.
On the fourth day, God formed two lights. They were identical in size and brightness. Then they quarreled. Each one insisted it was greater than the other. To settle the dispute, God enlarged one and diminished the other. The sun became the great light, ruling by day. The moon became the lesser.
The sun rides through the sky in a chariot, crowned like a bridegroom. Angels guide it, with separate crews for day and night shifts. Three letters of the Ineffable Name are inscribed on the sun's heart. Each evening, it enters the west, where the Shekinah (שכינה), the Divine Presence, permanently resides, and bows before the King of Kings, saying, "I have fulfilled all Your commands."
The moon, by contrast, travels hidden between two clouds like dishes stacked one above the other. Each night of the new month, a sliver more appears, until it reaches fullness at the middle of the month. Then the clouds slowly swallow it again from the opposite side.