Bereshit Rabbah

English

Rabbi Yanai said: Right from the beginning of the creation of the world, the Holy One blessed be He foresaw the actions of the righteous and the actions of the wicked. “The earth was emptiness” (Genesis 1:2) – these are the actions of the wicked. “God said: Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3) – these are the actions of the righteous. “God distinguished between the light and the darkness” (Genesis 1:4) – between the actions of the righteous and the actions of the wicked. “God called the light, Day” (Genesis 1:5) – these are the actions of the righteous. “And to the darkness He called Night” (Genesis 1:5) – these are the actions of the wicked.

The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022 · sefaria-midrash-rabbah

Hebrew / Aramaic

Bereshit Rabbah 3:8, opening (Vilna numbering) · cc-by-sa

Notes

R. Yanai runs the moral reading through the verses one clause at a time, so that nothing in Gen 1:2–5 is about light and darkness at all. The earth was tohu — the deeds of the wicked. Let there be light — the deeds of the righteous. And God divided between the light and the darkness — between the deeds of the righteous and the deeds of the wicked. He called the light day — the deeds of the righteous; and to the darkness he called night — the deeds of the wicked. It is the same reading as R. Abahu's at 2:5 with the argument taken out and the verse-by-verse mapping put in its place, and it is what Isidore, Rabanus, Remigius and the Glossa do in Latin with the same clauses, four hundred years later and to the same effect. Slice note: K10 built the continuation of this section as `br-3-8`, beginning at 'it was evening'; this is the part before it.

Threads

• → echoes · Bereshit Rabbah
  The same reading twice in the same midrash, once as an argument and once as a mapping. R. Abahu at 2:5 states the difficulty ('I do not know which of them he desires') and resolves it from Gen 1:4; R. Yanai at 3:8 runs the same identifications through every clause of 1:2–1:5 without raising a difficulty at all. The mapping is identical: tohu the deeds of the wicked, 'let there be light' the deeds of the righteous.
• ← parallel · Isidore of Seville
  The moral reading on both benches at the same clause, and the difference between them is exact. R. Yanai: 'and God divided between the light and the darkness — between the deeds of the righteous and the deeds of the wicked.' Isidore: 'then God, according to the favour of his foreknowledge, divided the just, that is, the sons of God and of light, from sinners, as from darkness; calling the just day and those others night.' The rabbinic bench divides deeds, the Latin bench divides people. Neither ever discusses the difference, and it holds across every allegory on this verse.
• ← parallel · Augustine
  Augustine reaches the righteous and the wicked at this clause too, and gets there by a route the rabbinic bench does not need: God is not the author of our vices but is their orderer, when he sets sinners in the place they deserve — sheep on the right, goats on the left. Because he has made the darkness a privation he cannot let the wicked be the darkness outright, only be ordered under it; R. Yanai, under no such constraint, simply says the darkness is their deeds.