Ages of Joy, Days of Creation: Day 2

DAY 2 - AOJ Proterozoic Eon (2250-580 Ma)

6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”
7 And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so.
8 And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. (Genesis 1:6-8 ESV)

Premise: Genesis 1:1-2:4 records a divinely-revealed history of the Earth describing some of God's miraculous interventions by which He transformed an uninhabitable and uninhabited world into a habitat in which human beings could thrive. God creates each human being as His image bearers and uniquely endows them with an eternal, morally-obligated spirit.

Chronology

The ICS formally defines the Proterozoic Eon as spanning 2500-541 Ma.

2250-580 Ma: current best fit for what could be called the Proterozoic Yom (Day 2).

Critical Transformations: Cyanobacteria producing oxygen by photosynthesis that oxygenated the atmosphere.

Termination: Snowball Earth conditions culminating in the Gaskiers Glaciation.

word study link

6 And God said,

some translations say "Then God said" indicating an action implying prior action
AOJ assumes that the prior action is the morning of Day 1 which corresponds to the beginning of a new Age, in this case, setting up for Day 2; or all the actions of Day 1 in general

"Let there be

verb: to come into being

an expanse

noun: extended surface, expanse, firmament
from the root raqa to beat out, stamp out, spread out, or overlay
also has the sense of providing support
the imagery is of God hammering out a cover for the Earth and applying it as a protective layer of separation
God wraps the earth with a shielding cover

in the midst of

noun: indicates the middle

the waters,

noun: either water or waters, is the dual of a primitive root, but used as a singular
also means danger, violence, or transitory things
the imagery is of dangers such as wrought by the ocean or storms and the like

and let it

verb: come to pass

separate

literally: "divide a space between" from a Hebrew verb and preposition combination

the waters from the waters

now two separated, but simultaneously existing "waters"

7 And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so.

imagery is of dangers above and dangers below between which a hammered out layer is applied by God

8 And God called the expanse Heaven.

The "expanse/firmament/hammered-out layer" gets named, indicating God's sovereignty over it.
Use of the singular heaven in contrast to "heavens" of Genesis 1:1 seems to scope this to "heaven" as the abode of the clouds in contrast to referring to both the "abode of the clouds" and the "abode of the stars".

And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

evening: literally meaning evening, night, or sunset
could be translated as "and there was night and there was morning"
morning: is a more complex word
includes the meaning: a bright joy after a night of distress (Brown-Driver-Briggs 1a5)
literally denotes the time between one day of work and the next day of work
Imagery conveyed is "and there was a night of distress and there was a bright joy after a night of distress, the second day"

Analysis:

At first, it seems odd to think that the creation week might have involved any kind of distress whatsoever. However, it should be pointed out that:

the creation was not declared "very good" until it was finished
only specific aspects of creation where declared "good" during the work
Romans 8:18-25 refers to the creation being subject to "bondage", "decay", "corruption", "groaning", and "futility" with various words based on English translation
Often interpreters infer that the groaning of creation relates to the Fall, but Romans 8 makes no direct link between the two. To link the two may be incorrect.
Romans 8:22 "For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now."
the imagery of a night of distress followed by a bright joy is clearly linked to the imagery of child birth (and I have 10 kids, so I speak with uncommon authority regarding this)
Job 38:8-9 “Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band,"
And there was labor and there was delivery, the second day (as my wife would say)
labor is a word for work, it is part of work of creation
The work of the Day therefore corresponds to the "pregnancy" or the "gestation" and is thus a long period of time, longer than the night of labor and morning of delivery. It is sometimes referred to as the "hour of delivery" even though it can last longer (I know this from experience)
One Day is then the whole process: gestation followed by labor and delivery
The planting is work of the Spirit of God, as is the work of "making it grow"

See also:

Psalm 30:5b Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.
John 16:21 When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

Only when we have fully explored the possible meanings of words in the Word of God can we then try to understand the message. Too often, we start by assuming we know the message and then start assigning meanings to the words to support what we think the message is. We get it backwards.

And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
(Gen 1:8b)
The repeated phrase "and there was evening and there was morning" gives the narrative text of Genesis 1 its unique, poetic structure.

This evening is not marked by a sunset and this morning is not marked by a sunrise, because the rule of the Greater Light (the Sun) and Lesser Light (the Moon) is not established at this time.

Therefore, what is marked is the ending of one age of creation and beginning of the next.

Biblical Sequence of Events	What Happened	Age
The activity of Day 1 culminates in the Great Oxygenation Event. The work of countless God-designed cyanobacteria, living in the waters below, had utilized the Light which was good for driving photosynthesis. This resulted in an oxygenated ocean with iron precipitated out into banded iron formations from which iron ore is mined. Free oxygen then began bubbling out in to the atmosphere for the first time. Oxygen in the waters caused a mass extinction of anaerobic microbes. Oxygen in the waters above (as yet unseparated clouds above) caused a decrease in green-house gasses and plunged the Earth into deep-freeze event known as the Huronian Glaciation - a period of time during which the whole planet was frozen over from pole to pole.
And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (Genesis 1:5b)	The Great Oxygenation Event and resultant Huronian Glaciation is effectively the boundary between the Archean and Proterozoic periods of Earth's history. These can be likened to the "evening and morning" or "labor and delivery" that deliver the fruit of the First Day, which is oxygen produced from light, for the benefit of the Second Day, which is an expanse produced from oxygen. The "Point of View" of the following passages continue from the vantage of the Spirit of God hovering at the surface of the liquid waters below and gaseous waters above. Here the waters meet without yet having an intervening expanse. The gaseous waters above (clouds of water vapor) have no "upper surface" because they are clouds. The only surface is the boundary between the liquid and gaseous phases of water. This surface may also have a layer of ice.	Archean
Great Oxygenation Event triggers the Huronian Glaciation which was perhaps the longest lasting Snowball Earth event in history.		Proterozoic
And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” (Gen 1:6)	Expanse forms via key steps: oxygen from photosynthesis accumulates in the atmosphere the Earth's core cools, strengthening the magnetic field that preserves the atmosphere from being stripped away by the solar winds accumulated oxygen forms an Ozone Layer shielding the planet from deadly levels of UV radiation while allowing just enough for photosynthesis to continue	Proterozoic
And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. (Gen 1:7a)	Just as God separated a place of light (day) from a place of darkness (night), He also separated a place of waters below (the Deep-to use Biblical language, or Ocean-to use modern language) and the waters above (Storehouses-to use Biblical language, or Clouds-to use modern language).	Proterozoic
And it was so. (Gen 1:7b)	The Ozone layer has formed near the top of the Expanse, enabling life to survive on land Oxygen has accumulated within the Expanse to power enable high-energy life forms Clouds provide a cooling shade from the brightening Sun Magnetic field strengthened to provide a long-lasting shield to protect the Expanse which protects life	Proterozoic
And God called the expanse Heaven. (Gen 1:8a)	Calling denotes sovereignty over	Proterozoic
The Proterozoic was a period of time during which complex photosynthetic organisms lived, created by God for the purpose of transforming the Atmosphere from anoxic (lacking oxygen) to oxic (free oxygen begins to accumulate in the air). The Atmosphere would have gone from murky to clear under God's program of Theistic Engineering as He transformed the formless and void Earth into a more habitable planet. Red Beds are remnants of the Second Day and form by rusting exposed iron in soils, but result in little iron of commercial value, unlike Banded Iron Formations left behind from the First Day. Oxygen-driven atmospheric transformation characterizes the Second Age of Joy.
And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. (Gen 1:8b)	Once again, the Earth is plunged into cold, dark night of "labor an delivery". The oxygenation of the atmosphere removes greenhouse gases and the Earth enters the Cryogenian followed by a series of extreme ice ages. The gestation, labor, and delivery of the Second Day have given birth to a protective expanse which will now enable plants to thrive on dry land.	Proterozoic
The Cryogenian and extreme glaciation events of the early Ediacaran are the by-product of atmospheric change and set the Earth up for the first visible life forms. The Cambrian explosion follows. Some Old Earth creationists correlate the Cambrian Explosion with the teeming of life on the Fifth Day. Ages of Joy does not - rather AOJ places the Fifth day after the demise of the dinosaurs.		Proterozoic
Third Day	The Paleozoic is the time frame where continents form that will host the first plant life.	Paleozoic-Mesozoic