And God made the two great lights: in verse 11 the earth is commanded to produce vegetation; however, the firmament is not commanded to produce these lights. For made see comments on verse 1 and Gen 1.7. The two great lights is a way of referring indirectly to the sun and the moon. See Good News Translation. Some translators may prefer to avoid replacing two great lights with “sun and moon.” In that case it may be necessary to say, for example, “greater light, which is the sun” in the text, or else provide a footnote. Great lights refers to their large size or great power, as no other celestial bodies compare with them from the point of view of the human eye.

The greater light to rule the day: greater light may be translated “sun” or “the larger light, which is the sun.” Rule means “to govern, control, direct,” and in this expression we have an object acting like a person. In many languages such verbs as “rule” or “direct” may not be used with a subject such as sun or moon. Therefore it may be necessary to say, for example, “He made the greater light, the sun, to shine strongly in the daytime and the … to shine in the night.”

And the lesser light to rule the night may be rendered “and the moon to rule the night” or “and the lesser light, which is the moon, to direct the night.”

For some people the difference between the sun and the moon is not their size, since as seen from the earth they appear to have the same size. Therefore it is not appropriate to call them “larger” and “smaller.” In the light of this, one translation says “He made the sun, which shines strongly, to work during the day, and the moon, which does not shine as strongly, to work during the night.”

He made the stars also: the words he made are added by many English translations, but they are not in the Hebrew. Hebrew adds “and the stars” at the end of the sentence, almost as an afterthought. The stars are not given a place of importance in the creation as are given the sun and the moon. Stars is a general term that includes all different kinds of stars. While some languages distinguish between planets and stars and some distinguish between stars and falling meteorites, it is the common term for star that is required here.

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 .