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the Creation in the first two chapters "-" Paradise and the Fall" -"the trees of Life and Knowledge "-"the Sons of God"-" the Flood and its extent "-"the Confusion of Tongues and Dispersion "—also "the Anthropomorphism of the early part of Genesis," and "the hypothesis of the composition of the book by two writers, distinguished as the Elohist and the Jehovist, or even by more than two."

A book which he valued highly-Theophylact's Commentaries on St. Paul-was first published in England under circumstances so similar to those in which this Commentary is submitted to the Reader, that I venture to introduce it with the words of the preface of that book :—

"Virum omni literarum genere excultum, inter media optima frugis molimina abreptum, etiam ignoti flebunt. At vero mei muneris esse duxi (qui in istiusmodi studiis illi inservierim) non tam defunctum ignavo questu prosequi, quàm quæ voluerit, meminisse; quæ mandaverit exequi. Hinc animus mihi accendebatur hosce Commentarios quos ille bono publico destinaverat pro mediocritate meâ potiùs excolere quàm unà cum ipso sepelire. Priores ipsius curas, atque etiam secundas experti erant; manus tantum deerat suprema. Unde licèt fortassis haud usque adeò absolutos, non tamen omnino neglectos, prodire comperies."

W. T. B.

Kensington, June, 1872.

THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES,

CALLED

GENESIS.

I. 1 IN the beginning God

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C

John i. 1, 2. Heb. i. 10.

created the heavens and the

a

Prov. viii. 23.

b

ver. 31, 27;

2 And the earth was waste, and empty; and

ch. v. 1, 2.

Isa. xl. 26; xlv. 18. See note. e ch. xiv. 19, 22. 2 Kings xix. 15. Jer. xxiii. 24. d Jer. iv. 23. Isa. xxxiv. 11.

Title] The book is called in the Hebrew BERESHITH, In the beginning, from its first word. It was also known by the Rabbis as "The Book of Creation." The present name is derived from the Septuagint version, which inscribes it GENESIS KOSMOU, the genesis of the world.

I. 1-II. 2.] First, or Introductory portion. THE CREATION OF THE WORLD AND

OF MAN.

I. 1, 2.] History previous to the six days' works. The assignment of this portion of the narrative has been curious. Many have regarded ver. 1 as an announcement of the original creation of matter, and ver. 2 as opening with the first day. Others have included ver. 1 in the first day's works, and have regarded the opening words as meaning First of all. But, inasmuch as every one of the six days' works opens with And God said, it is required by the symmetry of the narrative that the first day's work should begin at ver. 3, and that vv. 1, 2, should be regarded as introductory matter. It is no objection to this that in Exod. xx. 11, xxxi. 17, God is said in six days to have "made" heaven and earth. See on the former of these places. This being so, we have in it three propositions. First, (a) originally God created the heaven and the earth. Secondly, (b) at a certain time formlessness and darkness prevailed. Thirdly, (c) the Divine Spirit wrought upon this chaotic state. And thus the way is prepared for the six-days' work. (a) 1. In the beginning] i. e. as

in reff., absolute, at the first beginning of things. God] Elohim, the Divine Name used throughout the whole of this first portion, I. 1-II. 3. created] The Hebrew verb does not of necessity signify creation out of nothing. It is the same word which is used, Ps. li. 12," Create in me a clean heart, O God;" Jer. xxxi. 22, “Jehovah hath created (brought about) a new thing in the earth; " Isa. lxv. 18, "I create (make) Jerusalem a rejoicing." But in the sense of creating at all, it is used of God only and Gesenius thinks that in passages like this, the sense of creation out of nothing must be taken as intended by it. If not so here, what distinction would there be between this proposition and the narrative which follows, specifying as it does the arrangement and furnishing of that matter which, is here said to have been created?

the heavens and the earth]=, see reff., the whole world, the universe. The Hebraists tell us that there is in Hebrew no one word expressing this meaning. And therefore the expressions "heaven" and "earth," occurring here in an idiomatic formula, are not to be taken singly out and argued on as when they afterwards occur singly in the following narrative. Heavens is properly plural, and is so rendered in the A. V. in ch. ii. 1, and frequently elsewhere. It is not possible to preserve absolute uniformity in such renderings; but in solemn formulæ like the present, it is well to be precise. (b) 2.] At a certain time, or, as first created, the earth-that which we now B

e ch. viii. 2.

Job xxviii. 14.

Jonah ii. 5.

ch. xh, .

Num. xxiv. 2.

Exod. xxxi. 3. Judg. iii. 10. Isa. Ixi. 1

f

darkness was upon the face of the e deep. And the Spirit of God 8 moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was

3

(Luke iv. 18). Ps. civ. 30. g Deut. xxxii. 11. 12 Cor. iv. 6.

h Ps. xxxiii. 9; exxvii. 15; cxlviii. 8. John i. 1. Heb. xi. 3. 2 Pet. iii. 5.

know and inhabit, but then in embryo, in chaos which is naturally removed out of our realm was waste and empty (literally, wasteness of cognizance into language expressing an and emptiness). This is the true rendering. analogy with human acts. Human comThe expression without form seems to have mands are given to intelligent agents by the been borrowed from the apocryphal Book of material organ of the voice: here God, who Wisdom (xi. 17). The Septuagint version has is a Spirit, is represented as exerting His invisible and unarranged. In the Hebrew, power over non-intelligent matter by the the words have not only much the same utterance of words. This example, obvious meaning, but also a kindred sound; tohu va as it is, of the anthropomorphism of the bohu. Besides this, darkness was upon the whole narrative, has, from our familiarity face of, rested upon and covered, the deep- with the phrase, been overlooked. [Kalisch (see ref.), the abyss of waters which en- remarks, in his able commentary, “In the veloped the waste earth. The word thus history of creation, God is said to hover (ver. rendered is derived from a root signifying 2); to speak (ver. 3, 6, &c.); to see and perturbation, commotion—a raging deep of examine (ver. 4, 18, &c.); to give names wild waters and storm. (c) 2.] The (ver. 5, 8, &c.); to approve of His works first action of God to bring order and light (ver. 4, 12, &c.); to deliberate with Himout of chaotic darkness. And the Spirit of self (ver. 26); to rest, and to repose HimGod-so, beyond question, the words are here self (ii. 2, 3); and even to make garments to be rendered. The English reader need for the first pair (iii. 21). By these anthrohardly be told that spirit is originally and pomorphistic phrases, the biblical text loses literally breath, or wind; but that it has in nothing of its grandeur, and gains immeausage and in Scripture acquired the meaning surably in distinctness and perspicuity; it which we now commonly assign to it, of an describes Divine manifestation for human immaterial, sentient, and active being; and beings and in a human medium."] Observe, when joined with of God, as here, the term that there is a material difference between becomes a theological one, variously indeed this absolute proposition "God said,” and revealed and understood in the various ages of that other, "God said unto Moses," or the revelation, but always importing a personal like. God may have communicated His will agency of God. (See the reff., in which this to His intelligent creatures by the vehicle of meaning has its examples.) moved upon sound, if it so pleased Him. But here we (lit. fluttered over, as a bird over her young, are on totally different ground. Observe, see ref. Deut., which is the only recurrence also, that this form of conveying to us the of the same form of this verb. The meaning Divine procedure entirely precludes the evidently is, that the Spirit of God exerted idea of the creatures being emanation from an incubating or vivifying influence, prepara- God Himself. It implies a freely-acting tory to the great calling forth of organism Personality on the part of the Creator. In and life which was to follow). This primeval this employment of the Divine word as the chaotic form of matter, and evocation of life agent in creation we see the first germs of by a Divine influence, are common to the the mysterious doctrine of the Personal ancient Gentile cosmogonies. The Divine Word as now known to us in the N. T. reveinfluence is personified as Eros (love), and is lation. Compare the reff. called the eldest of the gods. 3-31.] be light] The simplicity and sublimity of THE SIX DAYS' WORK. And, herein, 3-5.] this record of the first act of the six-days' The first day's work: the creation of work has been observed even by those outand God said] It is well to side the faith of the Bible. With regard to mark the significance of these words, which the act itself, we may remark that the form the introduction to each creative act. sacred writer first relates the creation of They are altogether anthropomorphic: a world of matter, and then out of it, in translating a Divine method of proceeding, a waste and dark condition, the separat

LIGHT.

Let there

light. And God saw the light, that it was good and
God divided between the light and the darkness.
5 And
God called the light Day, and the darkness he called
Night. And it was evening, and it was morning; one

ing of light and darkness, of waters
above and waters below, of earth and seas,
of day and night. Then we have the
general before the elementary creation, the
elementary before the special. It is in vain
to inquire scientifically, as some have done,
of what kind this first-created light was.
We are not here in the realm of science, nor
is the anthropomorphic arrangement of this
Divine revelation of the facts of creation to
be set parallel with our upward feelings
after the ways and works of the God of
Nature. 4.] The oversight and ap-
proval by God of each of the works of cre-
ation, as made, is recorded again and again,
in the spirit of the whole narrative, ac-
cording to the analogy of human workman-
ship. But not only so. The sacred writer
has it, from the first, in his purpose to
affirm the absolute goodness of the Divine
works and this formula is only another and
a more detailed method of saying that all
creation followed the behest and the cha-
racter of its maker, Himself all good.

and God divided] As above noticed, this division, this specific arrangement out of confusion, is the general character of these former days of creation. The scientific inquiry how this division were possible without the heavenly bodies, whose creation follows on the fourth day, is both a misuse of science and a misunderstanding of the narrative. No such matter-of-fact priority is here in question; light and darkness, as here spoken of, are not merely dependent on the presence or absence of the sun, but are phenomena of human sense and objects of human thought, distinct from each other. That they are so, is the effect of the creative act of God. By what arrangements He made provision for their alternation, does not enter here. Between the light and the darkness is literally, between the light and between the darkness. 5.] Here, again, we see the spirit of the narrative. We are still on the ground of purely elementary and general distinction, and the words will not bear pressing into literal accuracy. It is not always day where there is light, nor always night where there is darkness. But God

made light to be the distinguishing mark of
day, and darkness of night. The objection
that the efficient causes of the succession of
day and night have not yet been mentioned
as created -as it does not stand in the way of
the sacred writer, so neither should it in
ours. This, again, is not enough remembered.
The sacred writer could speak of this
division: he could imply this succession
through three days and a half; and yet he
had no scruple to record after all this (ver.
14), that God said, Let there be lights... to
divide the day from the night. Surely we
are not called upon to be wiser than he was,
nor to reconcile that as a difference which
was none to him. He had reason for writing
as he did; and the question for us is, What
was that reason? By God calling the light
Day, &c., is implied that God made the light
(as above) to be the distinguishing mark of
that which we call Day, &c. and it
was evening. . .] This, which is, as it were,
the burden or refrain of the six strophes in
the narrative, is especially instructive, as it
here occurs for the first time. For how
shall we seek, if we are to seek, to press
it in this case to a literal interpretation?
There can be none, unless indeed the prim-
eval darkness is to be taken as the evening,
and the creation of light as the morning.
And if that be so, then surely all attempt at
literal interpretation is at an end.
neither was that darkness an evening, nor
that light a morning, except in a sense al-
together figurative and non-literal; and
hardly even then, for evening darkens on-
ward into night; which could in no sense be
said of that primeval darkness; for it
brightened into morning. From this con-
sideration alone it would follow that the
idea of a common day of 24 hours being
intended, is quite foreign to the purpose.
But this consideration does not stand alone.
Such an hypothesis would be involved in
the absurdity of limiting God's rest on the
seventh day to a day of the same length,
whereas we know that that rest is enduring.
Again, let it be observed that the whole
notion of equality of endurance, or of close
succession, of these "days" of creation, is

For

day. And God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it be a division between the waters and the waters. 7 And God made the expanse, and divided between the waters under the expanse and the waters above the expanse: and it was so. 8 And God called the expanse Heaven. And it was evening, and

imaginary, and imported into the narrative. The story of creation is arranged in these periods, familiar to us; the great personal cause of every step in it is God, and God's will. But it is as irrelevant and as foolish to inquire minutely into the lower details following on a literal acceptance of the terms used in conveying this great truth to our minds, as it would be to take the same course with the words "God said," to inquire in what language He spoke, and to whom. It never can be too much impressed on the reader that we are, while perusing this account, in a realm separated by a gulf, impassable for human thought, from the matter-of-fact revelations which our senses make to us. We are listening to Him who made the world, as He explains to us in words, the imperfect instruments of our limited thoughts, His, to us, inscrutable procedure. it was

evening, and it was morning] Many commentators have illustrated this order of making up the day by a similar way of speaking among many nations. But, as Kalisch well observes, such illustrations are not to be trusted: for if many used this arrangement, quite as many used the converse order. The choice would be ruled by considerations which may or may not be traceable. It may seem natural to end the day with the disappearance of the sun; it may seem natural also to begin the day at the moment when the darkness begins to wane into light. Some have reckoned their days from sunrise to sunrise, some from noon to noon. It is enough for the illustration of our text, that the Hebrews reckon them from sunset to sunset; and for Hebrews our text was written. one day] I have preferred giving throughout the literal rendering of these Hebrew formule. That adopted by the A. V., though passable in a version, does not tell us exactly what the text tells us. The definite article, "the," does not appear at all in it till ver. 31; and the use of that article throughout tends

to give more idea of a definite pre-arranged week than is furnished by the text. 6-8.] The second day's work: the

creation of HEAVEN. 6. An expanse] The Hebrew word is derived from a verb which signifies to beat, or to spread out by beating. And this, which our version, after the Septuagint and the Vulgate, calls a firmament, implies a solid vault. "The Hebrew idea of heaven was as of a substance (Exod. xxiv. 10), a firm vault fixed on the water-flood which surrounds the earth (Prov. viii. 27), firm as a molten looking-glass (Job xxxvii. 18), borne by the highest mountains, which are therefore called pillars and foundations of heaven (2 Sam. xxii. 8; Job xxvi. 11); doors and windows are attributed to it (ch. vii. 11, xxviii. 17; Ps. lxxviii. 23)." Knobel. Some have thought that by the word which the LXX. used they intended merely a solid of three dimensions, as distinguished from a mere surface; and so the Jew Philo interprets the word. But this hardly agrees with the passages quoted above, nor would there be in this case any contrast between the firmament and the waters, seeing that they are, in this sense, solid also. As the word firmament now stands in our A. V. it conveys no idea, having become in our usage synonymous with heaven. and let it be a division] The Hebrew expresses that the expanse is to be a permanent separation.

between the waters and the waters, &c.] The region above the expanse was regarded as the storehouse of rain, which from thence descends to swell the waters below. The expanse of heaven separates these two, and thus the clear blue sky becomes visible. Beware of applying to such a record speculation about the watery material of the planets, or the like. The description is given by God according to the thoughts of them to whom it was given; and is altogether out of the realm of physical science. The LXX. insert here, And God saw that it was good. But these words are not found in the Hebrew; proba

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