The six days of Genesis were unquestionably six diurnal revolutions of the earth upon its axis. This is clear from the tenor of the sabbath law. "Six days shalt thou labour (0 Israel) and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it." Would it be any fit reason that, because the Lord worked six periods of a thousand or more years each, and had ceased about two thousand until the giving of the law, therefore the Israelites were to work six periods of twelve hours, and do no work on a seventh period or day of like duration? Would any Israelite or Gentile, unspoiled by vain philosophy, come to the conclusion of the geologists by reading the sabbath law? We believe not. Six days of ordinary length were ample time for Omnipotence, with all the power of the universe at command, to re-form the earth, and to place the few animals upon it necessary for the beginning of a new order of things upon the globe.—Elpis Israel Pgs. 11-12

The first place in the Bible where the word occurs is in Gen. i. 2. Here it is ruach Elohim— a principle going out of, or from, the Mighty Ones. What could this be? It may be known by its effects. “It brooded upon the face of the waters”—of the waters, which in the primeval state of the earth, covered its entire surface. This brooding principle covered the surface, and penetrated its substance in all its atoms; so that it was only necessary for the word of command to go forth from the Mighty, and whatever might be commanded would be done. Every thing was made by this brooding principle as the executive of the Divine Wisdom. “By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens;" "he sendeth forth his spirit; they are created,” even all the things detailed by Moses. Hence, Job says, "the ruach of Ail hath made me; and the nishmah of SHADDAI hath given me life.” The Spirit is, therefore, formative. It is creative power. It made the light; it divided the vapors from the waters by an expanse; gathered the waters together in the place of the seas; formed the vegetable world; established the astronomy of the heavens; developed the animal kingdom; and executed the whole so satisfactorily, that the work was pronounced “very good.”—Herald of the Kingdom Vol. 11 Pg. 134