it was morning; a second day. 9¶ 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. 10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, above the earth: and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth' grass, herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed is in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 13 And it was evening, and it was morning; a third day. 14 And God said, Let there be bly, because we are not at a point of com- 10.] In the poetical expansion of this brief of animal and vegetable fossil remains, above believed, was of spontaneous growth without seed, while the second and third specify the herbs or "vegetables" which are propagated by seed, and the race of trees which bear both sced and fruit. (upon, A. V.) the earth.] It is doubtful, again, whether these words represent the stature of the tree rising above the earth, as distinguished from that of the herb and the grass, or belong to all the varieties of vegetation mentioned. The former view is supported by the use of the same Hebrew expression in ver. 20, "that may fly above the earth;" I have therefore kept the same rendering here as there. 14-19.] The fourth day's work: THE HEAVENLY BODIES. From this point, the second half of Creation's week begins: the j Job iii. 3. Jer. x. 2. Matt. xxiv. 29. k So Lev. xxiii. 2, 4, 37, 44. Num. x. 10; XV. 3: xxix. 39. Ps. civ 19. Jer. viii. 7. 1 Job xxxviii. 33. m So ch. ix. 7. Exod. i. 7. n So Lev. v. 2; xỉ. 20, Úc. o ch. ii. 7; ix. 3. lights in the expanse of the heaven to divide between the day and the night; and let them be for i signs, and for k seasons, and for days, and years: 15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heaven to give light upon the earth and it was so. 16 And God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17 And God set them in the expanse of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide between the light and the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19 And it was evening, and it was morning; a fourth day. 20 And God said, Let the waters swarm with "moving creatures that have life, and let fowl fly above the earth towards the expanse of divisions of it answering to those of the first half. On the first day light was made: on the fourth, it is divided into its various vessels for the use of the world. On the second, the expanse of heaven was arranged, dividing the waters: on the fifth, the waters and the air are peopled with the winged tribes. On the third, the land and its vegetation is called into being: on the sixth, animals to people that land, and feed on its products; and, lastly, man, for whom all is made. Observe, again, that in this section all is geocentric, related from the position also of man, with reference to this earth only, and as judged of by man's eye and measurement. Of astronomy or its facts there is here not a word. 14. lights] luminaries, repositories of light. for signs, &c.] These terms have been variously interpreted. Kalisch thinks the most likely understanding of them, "for signs of the seasons, days, and years;" but Knobel and Keil, as it seems, more probably take "signs" as importing the tokens given by the heavenly bodies, which are so often mentioned in Scripture (see reff.). seasons] not merely times naturally marked, or days and years would not be also specified, but festal times; the word is derived from a verb signifying to constitute, to appoint: see reff., in all which places the same Hebrew noun occurs, and is thus rendered in A. V., except in Ps. civ. 19, where it is " 'He appointed the moon for seasons." Other appointed times, having reference to man or beast, may also be included, as the times of the migration of birds (Jer. viii. 7, where A. V. thus renders the word), the rutting-time of beasts, the periods of women, &c. days and years need no explanation. 15.] Observe, all these services of the heavenly bodies are for the earth and for man. Of aught else there is no account taken. 16-18.] The final words of this verse in the Hebrew are simply,—“and the stars." Notice, again, how the myriads of fixed stars, and firmaments, are spoken of merely with reference to giving light upon the earth, and to serve man's purposes. "Biblical astronomy is derived from mere optical appearance; the eye alone is the judge; the moon is represented as the second of the great heavenly orbs, and as a luminous body; the stars are nothing else but her companions; and their only end is to shed their chaste lustre on our small planet." Kalisch. 20-23] The fifth day's work: FISHES AND 20. Let the waters] As on the second day of the first triad, the waters below were separated from the waters above, and the expanse of air was constituted between the two; so on this, the second day of the second triad, those waters and air were peopled with living creatures. Observe, this is the first introduction of animal life: creation rising in a climax from the lowest to the highest. teem with] It is impossible to represent exactly the force of the Hebrew. The verb and the following substantive have the same sound, which feature cannot be preserved in English. The verb BIRDS. q Exod. vii. 9. Isa. xxvii. 1. See Ezek. xxxii. 2. Jer li. 34. heaven. 21 And God created the great a whales, and Ex every living creature that moveth, with which the waters teem abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 23 And it was evening, and it was morning; a fifth day. 24¶ And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was so. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and cattle after their kind, and all the creeping things that creep upon the ground after their kind: and Soch. ii. 19. God saw that it was good. 26 ¶ And God said, Let us is probably not to bring forth abundantly, but to creep, or creep [with], i. e. to swarm [with]: it is used of the frogs in Ex. viii. 3, the river shall swarm [with] frogs; and of men in reff. The substantive derived from the verb usually denotes creeping things (reff.). "Plainly," says Quarry, "it is the similarity in the manner of moving, with a wavy or serpentine action of the body, that gives rise to the double use of the word, while the signification which the verb has, to swarm, or produce abundantly, is plainly derived from the abundant offspring of such creatures, the numerous fry of fishes or young of worms being perhaps the chief ground for this use of the word. It is employed here for the sake of the alliteration, which cannot be preserved in a translation without departing from the sense of either the verb or the noun." that have life] literally, a living soul, where soul represents the animal principle, the vital element: see in ch. ii. 7. There is no trace in the original of the fowl being created out of the water, as the A. V., by inserting that, "fowl that may fly," gives. towards the expanse] Literally, to the face of the expanse, i. e. to the under face, which is turned towards us. There may be, as some have thought in classing both fishes and birds under one, as moving creatures, reference to the similarity of their motion; birds swimming in the air with their wings as fishes with their fins in the water. 21. Great whales] The word thus rendered is derived from a verb signifying extension, and is used Exod. xx. 21. 1 Sam. iv. 12. Neh. ix. 1. to denote any great monsters; as, e. g. serpents, ref. Exod.: crocodiles, ref. Isa.: dragons, ref. Jer. No scientific classification must be thought of; "the Hebrew term denotes both mammifer and non-mammifer." Kalisch. 22.] Here we first hear of a blessing, and a command to multiply; for here we first have the power of spontaneous propagation. The words in the earth are a testimony against the connection of the creation of the fowls with the waters. 24-34.] The sixth day's work: THE ANIMALS OF THE EARTH, AND MAN. On this third day's work of the second triad of the week, see above, on ver. 14. living creatures] The same expression as before, living soul: expressing the complex idea of all creatures thus brought into being, that they had animal life. They are subdivided into three classes: cattle-the nonpredaceous, graminivorous animals: beasts of the earth,-the beasts of prey, and creeping things, worms and reptiles. 25.] The word rendered ground is not that which has been rendered earth throughout the history, but is Adamah, soil, the term cognate to Adam (see on both, ch. ii. 19). 26-28.] This is the first instance of more than one saying' of God during the creative day. Let us make] This plural form of deliberation has been variously interpreted :-(1) The idea of a Trinitarian explanation lay too close to the inclination and the practice of the Christian Fathers, and those who in modern times have followed them, not to draw them aside. But any such sch. v. 3; ix. 6. make man in our image, after our likeness: and let 1 Sam. vi. 5, 11. Ezek. t 2 Chron. iv. 3. Isa. xl. 18. them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heaven, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over the creeping things that creep upon the intimation here would be in the highest degree unnatural and incongruous. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which lies at the very root of the New Covenant, was gradually and insensibly opened even in the Old Testament. But to discover, in such expressions as this, inlets into the secrets of the Godhead, is to violate the proportion and analogy of faith. (2) Some have thought it the plural of majesty: against which it is urged as an objection, that the repetition of the plural again "in our image, in our likeness," seems to require a deeper reason than one of mere form; or (3) of agreement with the plural form of Elohim,-which cannot stand, seeing that in ch. xi. 7, we have the same deliberative plural connected, not with the plural form Elohim, but with the singular Jehovah; or (4) of communication, understanding that God took counsel with the heavenly powers. But this, though adopted by the Jewish Targums and Philo, and by the Christian Delitzsch, would both be unbefitting, and is contradicted by what follows: for man was not created in the image of the angels as well as in that of God, but in that of God only; or (5) of mere superfluity, having no meaning at all, which hardly needs refuting; or (6) as an address to that personified Wisdom of God which is said (Prov. viii. 22, ff.) to have been present with God at the creation: but this in its bare form would be liable to the same objections as lie against the Trinitarian explanation; or (7) of pure deliberation, one who deliberates being both speaker and spoken to, and thus having a kind of double personality. This last view is that of Kalisch, who refers to ch. xi. 7, above noticed, and to Ezra iv. 18, vii. 24 (which two seem rather the regal plural of majesty). I am inclined to think that the habit, testified by the name Elohim, and corrected by its usage with singular verbs and adjectives, of connecting plurality, perhaps for the sake of majesty, with the idea of God, would in some measure account for this plural. And it would be no objection, that the same plural occurs with the singular JEHOVAH in ch. xi. 7: because the idea would there rule the deliberative expression, as here. Then, again, do the phrases “in our image, in our likeness," necessarily require any more profound account than this; they must necessarily follow the form of the preceding. This shadowed ideal plurality might, as Lange well reminds us, not be altogether unconnected with the fact that besides God, the spirit of God has been already mentioned. The fact of Divine deliberation here, and here only, interrupting the continuous flow of God's creative acts, sufficiently indicates the solemnity of that which is to follow. Earth and earth's tribes were prepared; but now there is a king to be set over them,—one like them, but also unlike them: a complex being, made up of the dust of the earth and of the image of God. We may observe, once for all, that the word here rendered man is Adam, as throughout the whole history of the fall. I have followed Kalisch's example, and have not changed it into a proper name, till we are beyond this portion of Genesis, and he is distinguished in the genealogies from other men. in our image, after our likeness] The former substantive means primarily, a shadow; hence a sketch, or effigy, or image (see reff.): the latter is literally rendered (reff.). The distinction between these two phrases, much maintained of old, viz. that the former applies to the physical, the latter to the ethical side of man's likeness to God, appears to be groundless. They are far more probably synonymous. Luther has rendered them "an image which may be like us." That the two words do not differ in meaning, is shown by their indiscriminate use, the former in ver. 27 and in ch. ix. 6, and the latter in ch. v. 1, where the same thing is evidently meant. This likeness consists not in his nobler external form,-for God has none; not in his imperial rule over earth and her inhabitants, for this would be only a consequence of his likeness to God;— but in his superior spiritual nature, which he has by direct communication from God, as the parallel account, ch. ii. 7, gives it. This spiritual nature, when free from sin, reflect earth. 27 So God created man in his image, in the image of God created he him; male and female "created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heaven, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth. 29¶ And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the heaven, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. 31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And it was evening, and it was morning; the sixth day. II. 1 AND the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God ed in small the spiritual nature of God himself. When sin intervened, it lost its purity and dignity, its holiness and blessedness, but not its basis and form. Christ is the restorer again to it of the Divine image, Col. iii. 10; Eph. iv. 24. The words all the earth are rendered by the Syriac version, and are by some commentators understood to imply, the beasts of the earth or of the forests. Otherwise, they are not specified in this catalogue. 27.] The repetition gives solemnity and importance-the fact was as God in His deliberation had proposed it. male and female created he them] There is no absolute assertion here that one pair alone were first created: but it follows in the Jehovistic narrative, ch. ii. 7, 22; and is implied in the Elohistic of ch. v. 3. There is no reason to infer from these words that both sexes were at first united in the man, as some have supposed. This account is independent of the details which follow in ch. ii., and speaks generally. But evidently in the form of this narrative, both sexes were created on the sixth day, so that the Jehovistic account, ch. ii. 4, must be regarded not as consecutive on this, but as complete in itself, and beginning from the first.-It has been observed that the parallelism of style begins at this verse, and gives u ver. 1, reff. v ch. ii. 5. Prov. xxvii. 25. w Neh. ix. 6. Isa. xxxiv. 2. 28.] to it a kind of jubilant character. II. 1.] General summary. The word rendered host is generally used of the heavens alone. In ref. Neh., we have the expression more conformed to ordinary usage. In ref. Isa., the word rendered armies in A. V. is the same: see note there |