Genesis 1:9 - The Popular Commentary by Paul E. Kretzmann

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. God here finished His creative work on inanimate matter, when His almighty command bade the waters from below the heavens, below the firmament which He had constructed, be gathered together into a single place, by themselves. In chaos the mixture of solids and liquids had been so complete as to preclude the designation "dry land. " But now both the solids and the liquids were to be separated, so that dry land, as we know it, was visible.