God called the dry land Earth: the term for Earth should be the one that contrasts with Seas. In languages in which there is no contrasting term, perhaps because the sea is unknown, the contrast may be with “river.” Many languages have terms for cultivated land versus uncultivated land, or inhabited land versus uninhabited land. If a choice must be made on the basis of these distinctions, uncultivated and uninhabited land will be more appropriate in this context. In some languages it may be necessary to say, for example, “God said to the land, ‘Your name will be land,’ ” or “God said to the land, ‘Now I will call you land.’ ” See Gen 1.5.

And the waters that were gathered together he called Seas: see verse 5 for the wording of the second naming. Seas in Hebrew is plural, but the idea of a mass of water in one area is often more naturally expressed as a singular or collective noun, as in Good News Translation, Bible en français courant, Traduction oecuménique de la Bible, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, and Biblia Dios Habla Hoy.

And God saw that it was good: see verse 4. In this case it is not named. The Hebrew is literally “God saw that good.” In many languages translators will need to fill in what was good. For example, two translations have “God looked at all these good things, and he was happy” and “He looked at all these works of his, and he was glad.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .