The significance of the fourth day

The fourth day in Gen 1 poses a traditional crux interpretum. It appears to be out of sequence. For you have the diurnal cycle in place, on day 1, prior to the creation(?) of the sun on day 4.

Unbelievers treat this apparent anachronism as damning evidence for the prescientific character of the account. However, even if we deny the inspiration of Genesis, the narrator was certainly aware of the fact that daylight normally comes from sunlight. That’s not a scientific discovery. Indeed, people living before the advent of artificial lighting had to regulate their lives by daylight.

So even assuming, for the sake of argument, that Gen 1:14-19 is out of sequence, the dischronologous arrangement would be deliberate. A way of throwing something into high relief, in studied contrast to what surrounds it. But what?

In v14, the referent of “seasons” is ambiguous. Does it denote festal seasons or agricultural seasons? These are not mutually exclusive interpretations. Since Israel had an agrarian economy as well as a religious calendar, it makes sense if this reference sets the stage for farming as well as Jewish holidays later in the Mosaic.

On a related note, the “separation” motif (vv14,18) anticipates the distinction between sacred and profane in the Mosaic covenant.    

Assuming that 1:14f. has an agricultural connotation, that foreshadows the postdiluvian restoration of the agricultural cycle in Gen 8:22, which was disrupted by the yearlong flood.

Assuming that 1:14f. has a cultic connotation, that foreshadows the Mosaic law, with its sacred festivals and regulations distinguishing the sacred from the profane.

As I say, one doesn’t have to choose between these two interpretations. Both may well be in play.

Gen 1 is part of a literary unit, comprising the Pentateuch as a whole. And it was written for the immediate benefit of Jews in the wilderness, to prepare them for life in the Promised Land.

Assuming that these identifications are correct, that would account for the emphatic, nonsequential position of the fourth day. The placement of the fourth day prefigures these later events or subsequent developments. A way of cuing the reader by accentuating the fourth day, which–in turn–throws emphasis on what follows. 

If it seems to be out of sequence, perhaps that's because it really is out of sequence. It is what it seems to be, as a part of the narrator's rhetorical strategy.   

Of course, whether the fourth day is actually out of sequence is disputable. But even if it were anachronistic, that would be intentional. A studied anachronism. And this would be the most likely explanation. As one commentator notes:
 

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If the Genesis 1 creation account is at least partly nonchronological, several puzzling problems can be easily solved. For example, how can it be that God “separated the light from the darkness” and that he “called the light ‘day’ and the darkness…’night’” on day 1 (1:4-5) if the sun was not created until day 4? The simplest answer would seem to be that these two days are not related to each other chronologically but that they both refer to the same event–the creation of the sun. Indeed, this would seem to be implied in 1:17-18 where it is stated that God set the sun “in the expanse of the sky…to separate light from darkness” (the latter phrase, in fact, is quoted directly from 1:4). In other words, we are told in Genesis 1:4 that God separated light from darkness and in 1:18 how he did it. R. Youngblood, The Book of Genesis: An Introductory Commentary (WS, 2^nd ed., 1999), 26-27.