God?s Word is very clear as to the length and relationship of the creation days with each other. First, it is important to understand that WORDS MEAN WHAT THEY ARE USED TO MEAN IN THE CONTEXT IN WHICH THEY ARE USED (This includes the word day).
The following four points make it clear that the creation days were both literal (24 hours or less in duration) and consecutive (in a row without any gaps):
1. Natural Reading. Each of the days is referred to as an ?evening and morning? day. Genesis was initially written in the Hebrew language for the Hebrew people by Moses, probably at Mount Sinai. To a Hebrew the natural understanding of an ?evening and morning? day would be a literal day. The Hebrew day began at sundown and ended at sundown (last light the next day). This is a very important point.
2. Analogy. In Exodus 20:8-11 we read, ?Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (NIV) This is an analogy. God is saying to the Israelites, work six literal days and rest on the seventh literal day because I (God) worked six days creating and rested on the seventh day. It would make no sense to say:
You Israelites work six days and rest on the seventh day because I (God) worked six billion years and rested for a billion years.
Why did God rest on the seventh day?
Answer: Because He was tired?
(I don?t think so, ------- hello?!)
He worked six days and rested on the seventh to set an example. To make either part of this analogy refer to something other than literal days would make no sense.
3. Days - The Hebrew word translated ?days? in Exodus 20:8 & 11 is ?yomim?. This word is used about 700 times. Without exception it is used in reference to literal and consecutive days. Soooo, this word is not just the plural of days, but is used to mean literal and consecutive days (not only that, but days in a row without any gaps too
4. Ordinal Numbers - Each of the days of creation are referred to with ordinal numbers, i.e. first, second, third, etc. (An ordinal number denotes the place occupied in an ordered sequence.) In the Old Testament when an ordinal number is used in reference to day it is referring to a literal day, e.g. ?In the six hundredth year of Noah?s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month -- on that day all the springs of ....? (Genesis 7:11, NIV) This was not the seventeenth billion year period of his life, but a literal day.
Our God is awesome for He spoke (Genesis, chapter 1 cf. Psalm 33:6-9) and it came to be! He didn?t need billions of years.