The Clock of the Universe
Prof. Gaussen. Genesis 1:14-19 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs… It was the will of God that man should be able to measure and reckon time, that he might learn its value and regulate its employment of it. He therefore placed in the heavens a magnificent and perfect clock, which tells the hours, the days, the weeks, the months, the seasons, and the years — a clock which no one ever winds up, but which yet goes constantly, and never goes wrong. The dial plate of this clock is the blue vault of heaven over our heads — a vault spangled with stars at night, brilliant with light by day — a vault whose edges, rounded like the edge of a watch, rest on the horizon of our mountains here at Geneva, while far out at sea the whole great dial plate may be seen, the dome of the sky seeming to rest on the wide circle of the ocean. And what, think you, are the hands of this magnificent dial plate? God has placed on it two, the greater and the lesser. Both are ever shining, both are ever moving. They are never either too early or too late. The greater is the great light which rules the day, and which, while it seems to turn above our heads from east to west across the celestial vault, rising each morning over the Alps, and setting each evening over the Jura, seems to move at the same time on the great dial plate of the heavens in a contrary direction, that is to say, from the west to the east, or from the Jura towards the Alps, advancing every day the length of twice its own breadth. And the lesser hand of the clock is the lesser light which rules the night, which progresses also in the same direction with the sun, but twelve times faster, advancing each day from twenty-four to twenty-rive times its own breadth, and thus turning round the dial plate in a single month. Thus, for example, if you look this evening at the moon as she sets behind the Jura, and if you carefully observe what stars are hidden behind her disk, tomorrow you will see her again set behind the same mountain, but three-quarters of an hour later, because she has in the meantime moved towards the east twenty-four times her own breadth; and then she will cover stars much nearer the Alps, so that twenty-four moons might be placed in the sky between the place that she will occupy tomorrow and the one she occupies today. (Prof. Gaussen.) Parallel Verses KJV: And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: WEB: God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years;