I'm trying to read Genesis 1 very closely and I'm noticing a thing about Genesis 1:3. God says יהי אור. Then it just says "and there was light." The form of "to be" (היה) here is "Qal Imperfect Jussive 3ms."
The jussive mood is distinct from the imperative. It can be used "to indicate a command, permission or agreement with a request" and is distinct from imperative which expresses a command. There is an imperative form in 1:22 and 1:28, "be fruitful and multiply..."
The other places this form (יהי) is used I can understand it as a "letting it be" as in Gen 30:34 and 33:9 where there is a kind of non-action associated with it (as in no interference). Then after the light verse (1:3) in the rest of Genesis 1, there is a distinctly different pattern. God speaks of creation and then acts to make the thing God describes. Here in Gen 1:3, God just seems to say "let light be" and then it is the case that "light was." There is no explicit step where it says that God made light as it says with all the other steps of creation.
Is he acknowledging the light? What is going on here? I'm trying to approach it as best I can without a bunch of preconceived notions of creation (e.g. ex nihilo). I'm wanting to let the text speak for itself. It seems like the earth is emptiness and void, and the darkness over the face of the deep, and the spirit of God hovering over the waters. These all seem to be things that "are" in the perfect tense (הָיְתָ֥ה). In that they are somehow complete, done. This, הָיְתָ֥ה, in Genesis 1:2 is the only instance of explicit "to be" in the perfect tense in Genesis 1. Is the text acknowledging that the light, though there with the stuff of creation, is somehow incomplete in nature and acknowledged as such (it is in the imperfect jussive here).
It seems like God creates distinct from the statements about creation. Is this unique phrasing on the first day somehow speaking of light in motion and part of the creative impulse coming and going in the days? It seems like night/darkness is the basic state of things and with which light is originally co-mingled.
Or was the world originally dark until light was brought into being with this statement? But it doesn't say "God made light" or "God formed light" or anything like that. Like on day 2, God says "let there be a firmament..." and then it says "God MADE (וַיַּ֣עַשׂ) a firmament..." The formula later is not "let there be a firmament..." and then "there was a firmament..."
So can we infer from Genesis 1 that God is separately acknowledging light, acquiescing to its existence, present with darkness and the earth and the deep and the waters (from 1:2), or is there some other meaning to this formula?