Moses lived fourteen hundred years before the birth of Christ, and so, as the great law-giver reckoned time, he placed the beginning of the world about three thousand years before his age. At the rate of development from his day to ours we know that this estimate was altogether inadequate. Hundreds of thousands of years had elapsed since the earth emerged from chaos; no man could estimate how many; no man can comprehend in these days, much less could he have done so in the time of Moses. But he wanted some sort of basis on which to found his history, and so he said three thousand years.
He proved that he himself comprehended that no man could gauge time accurately when he said in addressing the Almighty,
 | "For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday, when it is past, and as a watch in the night." |
After the birth of Christ, Peter referred to this in a way which showed that the thought of Moses was very clear to him, and he sought to emphasize it to men of his day, "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." Since no one has been able to number our days accurately, and it takes a thousand of our years to make a day with the Almighty, this allows all the time necessary for the evolution of the earth and the development of plant and animal life. But according to this rate of reckoning time our world is not yet a week old with the Almighty.
pg. 19