NOTES for Gen 1:3
Very often the beginning readers of the Bible ask to themselves and to others the question: of which light is it? And how could light appear earlier than lights created only on the fourth day?
Certainly, one could reason too much and for long of the fact that light as a physical phenomenon could exist in the universe just appeared before the formation of the stars, that there is nothing surprising in it and even quote again more similar arguments. But do we need that? If the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, this remarkable poem on the creation of the world, was an essay of a natural history, such arguments would have probably been absolutely necessary.
But it is not very probable that the author of the Torah wanted to write a book on the natural history. He was according to the contents of the Pentateuch, above all interested in the sacred history, the history of the revelation, and all the rest was just a background for him.
And the light in such a context meant probably above all God's presence: because all the biblical theophany is somehow or other connected to the light, the radiant presence accompanies the people all throughout its history, and the ministry of the Savior is accompanied so often by the same kind of luminous Epiphany.
And becomes then more understandable what the author of the Pentateuch wanted to say: he does not describe how the world worked just after the creation; he only says that the creation of everything, up to the last atom was permeated with the radiance of God's presence. Such was the world before the fall, before these disasters, from which, unfortunately in a large extent comprised all its subsequent history.