Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 1:16

"And God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: [he made] the stars also." — Genesis 1:16 (ASV)

He made the stars also. —The Hebrew is, God made two great lights ... to rule the night; and also the stars. Though the word “also” carries back “the stars” to the verb “made,” its repetition in our version makes it seem as if the meaning was that God now created the stars, whereas the real sense is that the stars were to rule the night equally with the moon.

But besides this, there was no place where the stars—by which the planets are chiefly meant—could be so suitably mentioned as here. Two of them, Venus and Mercury, were formed somewhere between the first and the fourth day. Indeed, it was not until this day that our solar system, consisting of a central sun and the planets, with their attendant satellites, was complete.

To introduce the idea of the fixed stars is unreasonable, for it is the planets which, by becoming in turn morning and evening stars, rule the night, though the fixed stars indicate the seasons of the year.

The true meaning, then, is that at the end of the fourth day, the distribution of land and water, the state of the atmosphere, the alternation of day and night, of seasons and years, and the astronomical relations of the sun, moon, and planets (with the stars) to the earth were all settled and fixed, much as they are at present.

And to this, geology bears witness. Existing causes amply suffice to account for all changes that have taken place on our globe since the day when animal life first appeared upon the earth.