Q&A: He Saw and Fashioned the Form of the Moon
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
He Saw and Fashioned the Form of the Moon
Question
Hello Rabbi,
It says, “He called to the sun and light shone forth; He saw and fashioned the form of the moon.” What does “He saw and fashioned” mean? Why is the sun “called,” while the moon is “seen and fashioned”?
Thank you
Answer
I’m not an expert in biblical Hebrew. Maybe because the moon receives its light from the sun, this is described as fashioning. Like, “he fashioned for him from it an everlasting structure.” When something is taken for the sake of something else, that is called fashioning. You take light from the sun and fashion it into the moon. Or perhaps the intent is “correction” or “adjustment,” since in the aggadic teaching of the Sages the moon was diminished by the Holy One, blessed be He, after its creation.
[That weary “poet” in question had to begin with the letter resh because of the acrostic structure of the poem (after “He called to the sun,” which begins with kuf), and he had to come up with four words to fit the poem’s meter, so there’s no need to be too exacting with him.
But if we’re already interpreting, perhaps he meant it in light of the midrash of the Sages that the sun was created on the first day, and on the fourth day it was hung in place and then gave light; that is why he said “He called,” meaning He calls to it and it comes—He only moved it from place to place (like “He calls to the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the earth”), and then it gave light. And after this thing already existed, and He saw all that had been made—that two kings were serving with one crown—He arose and fashioned a new and distinct form for the moon (as it appears to our eyes), one that keeps changing all the time.
Seemingly, in Hebrew tiken means “arranged/planned,” and in Aramaic it is hitkin; (“You established its pillars forever” is translated “You set up its pillars forever”), and perhaps from there it was absorbed into the language of the Sages (and a bit in Ecclesiastes and Proverbs), as in “he prepared a meal.”]