Commentary of Charles Spurgeon, Adam Clarke & Matthew Henry
And 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 years: 
And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
Vs.14-19
Observe, The lights of heaven are the sun, moon, and stars;
and all these are the work of God's hands.
And let them be for signs - לאתת leothoth
. Let them ever be considered as continual tokens of God's tender care
for man.
For seasons - מועדים moadim
; For the determination of the times on which the sacred festivals
should be held. Some think we should understand the original word as
signifying months, for which purpose we know the moon essentially serves
through all the revolutions of time.
For days - Both the hours of the day and
night, as well as the different lengths of the days and nights, are
distinguished by the longer and shorter spaces of time the sun is above
or below the horizon.
And years - That is, those grand divisions
of time by which all succession in the vast lapse of duration is
distinguished. This refers principally to a complete revolution of the
earth round the sun, ....for though the revolution is that of the earth,
yet it cannot be determined but by the heavenly bodies.
And God made two great lights - Moses speaks of the sun and moon here.
He made the stars also - The Stars in general are considered to be suns, similar to that in our
system, each having an appropriate number of planets moving round it;
and, as these stars are innumerable, consequently there are innumerable
worlds, all dependent on the power, protection, and providence of God.
Where the stars are in great abundance, Dr. Herschel supposes they form
primaries and secondaries, i.e., suns revolving about suns, as planets
revolve about the sun in our system. He considers that this must be the
case in what is called the milky way, the stars being there in
prodigious quantity. Of this he gives the following proof: On August
22,1792, he found that in forty-one minutes of time not less than
258,000 stars had passed through the field of view in his telescope.
What must God be, who has made, governs, and supports so many worlds!
* The sin and folly of that ancient
idolatry, the worshiping of the sun, moon, and stars, which, some think, took
rise, or countenance at least, from some broken traditions in the patriarchal
age concerning the rule and dominion of the lights of heaven. But the account
here given of them plainly shows that they are both God's creatures and man's
servants; and therefore it is both a great affront to God and a great reproach
to ourselves to make deities of them and give them divine honors.
The revolutions of the
day and night oblige us to offer the solemn sacrifice of prayer and praise every
morning and evening.
