Lonely Cottage

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  “Among the few features of agricultural England which retain an appearance but little modified by the lapse of centuries, may be reckoned the high, grassy and furzy downs, coombs, or ewe-leases, as they are indifferently called, that fill a large area of certain counties in the south and south-west. If any mark of human occupation is met with hereon, it usually takes the form of the solitary cottage of some shepherd. Fifty years ago such a lonely cottage stood on such a down, and may possibly be standing there now. In spite of its loneliness, however, the spot, by actual measurement, was not more than five miles from a county-town. Yet that affected it little. Five miles of irregular upland, during the long inimical seasons, with their sleets, snows, rains, and mists, afford withdrawing space enough to isolate a Timon or a Nebuchadnezzar; much less, in fair weather, to please that less repellent tribe, the poets, philosophers, artists, and others who “conceive and meditate of ple...

How long did it take to create the heavens and the earth: six days or one day?

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Genesis 1:1-2:3 describe the first six days of creation, but 2:4 says, “This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and heaven.” So which is it: did it take one day, or six days?

Answer: six days. Let’s be fair in the use of language. When we refer to a day of work do we mean “9 to 5” or “24 hours?”

  • “Back in the day,” I had a mullet.
  • “Back in the day,” I drank beer.
  • “Back in the day,” I could have cared less.
What day? There is no particular day of which I am thinking, but am instead recalling a period of time—a number of years as a matter of fact! The same is true here. Moses is not being fickle, but for the purpose of introducing a new narrative is summarizing what he has said once already.

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