The Earth Was Divided

In the Creation account in the scriptures there is a theme of separating and dividing.  After God brought forth light, He “divided the light from the darkness” and “called the light Day” and called the darkness Night (Moses 2:4-5).   After separating the night from the day, next He brought forth “a firmament in the midst of the water” and said, “Let it divide the waters from the waters; and it was done; And I, God, made the firmament and divided the waters” (Moses 2:6-7).  So the atmosphere with water in the air was separated from the water on the earth.  Next in the creation He divided the dry land from the water.  We read, “And I, God, said: Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and it was so; and I, God, said: Let there be dry land; and it was so” (Moses 2:9).  After this God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years” (Moses 2:14).  Here He seems to have put the heavens in order so that we would have separate seasons across the year.  He also further divided the night and day giving us the sun and the moon: “I, God, made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, and the greater light was the sun, and the lesser light was the moon” (Moses 2:16).  In nearly all of these stages of creation there was a dividing or organizing between two things. 

               This theme continued as the Lord made the animals and then finally man in creation.  Animals were divided into their classes: “beasts of the earth after their kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything which creepeth upon the earth after his kind,” and then man was separated out from those animals to “have dominion” over those animals.  Man was further divided as “male and female” were created (Moses 2:25-27).  In the Garden of Eden the Lord separated the two important trees: “And I, the Lord God, planted the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and also the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Moses 3:9).  He also divided Adam and Eve as He “took one of [Adam’s] ribs and closed up the flesh thereof” and He made “a woman, and brought her unto the man” (Moses 3:21-22).  So we have light divided from darkness, the atmosphere divided from the water on earth, the dry land separated from the water, the different seasons separated from each other, the sun separated from the moon, the animals divided into classes, the tree of life separated from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and finally man divided from the woman.  All of this shows the careful organization and great planning on the part of the Lord as he put everything in its proper place and working according to its planned purpose.  The scriptural record also shows that He wanted to give us diversity in the creation “for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and gladden the heart” (D&C 59:18).

               With all of the separating and dividing that took place throughout the Creation, there was one thing that the Lord commanded should not be divided, at least spiritually: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh” (Moses 3:24).  Man and woman were to be married and become as one, bringing them back together after they were physically divided.  This is perhaps a representation of the quest for unity that we have in our mortal journey.  The great challenge for us, as we work our way back to the presence of God, is to not be divided but to be one: with our spouse, with each other, and ultimately with God.