Genesis 1:9-13 comments: plant life first

9 ¶  And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10  And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

In the third 24-hour period, the water covered earth, under God’s authority and power, water and land separated. Land appears above water which may clarify the condition of the earth as being without form, and void as the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters in verse two. Theoretical scientists suppose a primeval earth with one super-continent and the rest covered by water. This continent is called Gondwanaland, with another super-continent theorized for later call Pangaea. Whatever the musings of scientists who ponder origins and original things God has clearly here, through Moses, given us the separation of the earth, the dividing of it, between land and sea.

Psalm 95:5  The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.

It will be important for later to understand that theoretical scientists presume as much or more water under the earth’s crust as above it, in the oceans.(7)

(7)Mark Prigg, “Revealed:The vast reservoir hidden beneath the Earth's crust that holds as much water as ALL of the oceans,” DailyMail.com, March 12, 2014.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2579584/The-vast-reservoir-hidden-Earths-crust-holds-water-ALL-oceans.html#ixzz47Uti24Se 

 11  And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12  And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 13  And the evening and the morning were the third day.

In the same 24-hour period as the sea and land being divided you can see plant life being created from the earth, not out of nothing. Life is created out of substances already formed the previous day. A fundamental point of biology is made here in that plants yield fruit after their kind. It seems obvious that an orange tree doesn’t produce pears but this will be an important point to remember in a few verses. Kind is a Biblical taxonomic classification. Just as we use Species, Genus, Family, or Order God uses the more general word, Kind. Kind is much larger than species and should not be confused with that word as there are more than two dozen definitions of species, none of which denote the Kind of Genesis but rather smaller divisions of plant and animal life.(8) God, speaking through Moses’ writing, is speaking here about original creations from which developed all other types.

There was a pre-Darwin doctrine claimed by both scientists and Anglican churchmen called ‘The Immutability of Species,’ which insisted that all species were specially created by God at the beginning. This clearly confused kinds with species.

Grasses include wheat, rice, corn, and other grains such as millet and rye. Fruits would include apples, citrus fruits, melons, etc.(9)

 (8) John S. Wilkins, “A List of 26 Species ‘Concepts,’” Evolving Thoughts Science Blog. October 1, 2006. http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2006/10/01/a-list-of-26-species-concepts/

(9)”Cereals, grasses, and grains,” United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/ethnobotany/food/grains.shtml, (accessed 5.3.2016).