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ed prior to this period, no information is | ginal ruahh is the proper term for given, because it did not fall within the breath or wind, whence some commenscope of the objects of a divine revela- tators take it to mean a 'wind of God,' tion. 'The Bible instructs us that man, i. e. a mighty wind, which was now and other living things, have been plac- made to agitate the chaotic mass. This, ed but a few years upon the earth; and however, is less likely, as it does not the physical monuments of the world appear that the atmosphere was now bear witness to the same truth. If the created, nor is the idea compatible with astronomer tells us of myriads of worlds the kind of motion indicated by the epinot spoken of in the sacred records, the thet that follows. Others therefore with geologist in like manner proves (not by more probability interpret it of the diarguments from analogy, but by the vine agency, efficiency, or energy, the incontrovertible evidence of physical undoubted sense of the phrase in numephenomena), that there were former rous other instances, as particularly conditions of our planet, separated from Job 26. 13, 'By his spirit he hath gareach other by vast intervals of time, nished the heavens; his hand has formduring which man and the other crea-ed the crooked serpent.' Ps. 33. 6, 'By tures of his own date, had not been called into being. Periods such as these belong not, therefore, to the moral history of our race, and come neither within the letter nor the spirit of revelation. Between the first creation of the earth, and that day in which it pleased God to place man upon it, who

shall dare to define the interval? On

this question Scripture is silent, but that silence destroys not the meaning of those physical monuments of his power that God has put before our eyes, giving us at the same time faculties whereby we may interpret them, and comprehend their meaning.' Sedgwick.

the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth (1). Ps. 104. 30, Thou sendest forth thy spirit, (7) they are created; and thou renewest the face of the earth;' in all which cases the predominant idea is that of power. That the phrase is here to be understood in allusion to a personal distinction in the Godhead, cannot, we think, be positively affirmed.

Moved upon the face of the waters. Heb. 5 was moving, or rather was hovering. The original implies a gentle waving or fluttering motion, like that of a bird over its young. Thus, Deut. 32. 11, 'As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth () over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings,' &c. Whatever may have been the nature or effect of the operation described in these words, it appears to have been put forth upon the terrestrial mass in its chaotic state previous to the creative work of the six days. For this reason this clause ought not to be separated by a period from the preceding, as is the case in some editions of the English Bible, since the whole verse really forms a continuous and closely connected narrative.

¶ Darkness. The mere privation of light, and therefore not an object of creation. - The deep. Heb. tehom. That is, the vast mass of waters circumfused around the globe, with which it was originally 'covered as with a garment,' Ps. 104. 6, and which were not yet laid up in store-houses,' i.e., distributed into seas, oceans, lakes, and subterraneous receptacles. Ps. 33. 7. The original word is generally rendered in the Gr. version by aẞvooos abyss, a term occasionally used in reference to deep subterranean caverns and recesses in the earth, in which the presence of water is not implied. But that sense is 3. And God said That is, willed; evidently inadmissible here.- - Spirit efficaciously purposed; decreed within of God. Heb. 3. The ori-himself-a very frequent sense of the

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word 'say' in the Scriptures. It is not to be supposed that there was any vocal utterance. Indeed, throughout the narrative the phrase, 'he said,' is simply equivalent to 'he willed.' 'God's speaking is his willing, and his willing is hus doing.' Bp. Hall.- - Let there be light. The sacred writer having in v. 2, described the condition of the globe in its pre-existing chaotic state, now enters upon the details of that stupendous process by which the whole was reduced into order, and converted into the grand fabric of the heavens and the earth as they now appear. The first step was giving visibility to light, an element emanating, as we shall shortly see, from the sun, and diffused in the regions of space around the exterior surface of the globe, but not at this time penetrating the dense mass of aqueous and aerial fluids by which it was surrounded. To this the Psalmist alludes, Ps. 104. 2, 'Who coverest (thyself) with light as with a garment,' where, fom a misconception of the writer's scope, our translators have inserted 'thyself,' instead of 'the earth,' the proper term; as it will be evident upon inspection, that the Psalmist's drift is to recite the successive gradations in the work of creation, and from thence to derive matter of praise to the Great Architect. So also in the moral creation, there is first a' true light which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world,' but as the light of the sun did not at first pierce through the superficial gloom that covered the globe, so the spiritual light 'shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not,' i. e. admitteth it not; but as on the fourth day every interposing medium to the light of the natural sun was removed, and that bright lumi

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

e 2 Cor. 4. 6.

nary shone forth in unclouded lustre, so by a renewed operation of divine power upon the benighted soul, 'God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, shineth in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.'

4. That it was good. Good, as answering the end for which it was made, and good in the sense of pleasant, grateful, refreshing. Thus Eccles. 11. 7,

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Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant (Heb. good) thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.'- ¶ Divided the light from the darkness. Heb. 'separated between the light and between the darkness.' This must mean something more than 'distinguished' between light and darkness, as this was effectually done by the bare creation of light, an element in its own nature directly opposite to, and therefore perfectly distinguished from, darkness. The 'division' of the light from the darkness here spoken of is undoubtedly the 'succession' of the one to the other, arising from the revolution of the earth round its axis,-a strong confirmation of the opinion that the sun had already been brought into being. As to the expedient fancied by some commentators of a temporary luminary, 'an auroralike meteor,' to perform the office of the sun for the three first days and nights, we see not why Omnipotence should have resorted to it when the production of the sun itself was equally easy; and that the letter of the record does not militate with this supposition we shall endeavor to show in the note on v. 14. It may here be remarked, that the interpretation which has sometimes been given to the word 'light,' as implying a subtle, ethereal, all-pervading fluid,

5 And God called the light | Night: and the evening and thẹ ' Day, and the darkness he called morning were the first day.

f Ps. 74. 16. & 104. 20.

created, and should begin to express their thoughts by language. Yet a great degree of uncertainty rests upon the etymology of the word. The supposition of Gesenius is perhaps as probable as any other, viz. that it comes by a slight softening of the guttural from

heat; analogous to which is the Arabic yahina, to glow with anger. This in reference to the sultry climate of the East, would seem to be a very suitable designation of the day as distinguished from the night. In either case it cannot be doubted, that there was in some way a peculiar intrinsic adaptedness in the terms appropriated to day and night, to point out the distinguishing nature of each, as otherwise it is not easy to see why the original words " or, light, and hoshek, darkness should not have answered the purpose equally well.

which produces light from being excited by appropriate agents, and of which philosophers have imagined the sun to be the great exciting instrument, receives no countenance from the predominant usage of the word in the sacred writers. The notion of a light which does not actually shine is entirely for-(, ) to be warm, hot, to glow with eign to the simplicity of the primeval tongue; and though we neither affirm nor deny the theory as a matter of science, we are confident that such an interpretation is doing great violence to the meaning of words; nor would it probably ever have found a place in the explication of the Mosaic cosmogony, had it not been for the purpose of solving the supposed difficulty in the historian's statement that light was created on the first day, and yet the sun not till the fourth. This difficulty we trust will appear on a subsequent page to be altogether imaginary, and consequently the proposed key to it entirely useless. 5. And God called the light Day. This phrase is somewhat remarkable in this place. As there were now no human beings to make use of language, and as God himself could stand in no need of articulate words to express either his will or his works, it is not at once obvious in what way the clause is to be understood. For the most part, by God's calling' any thing by a particular name is meant rather a declaration of the nature, character, or qualities of the thing named, than the mere bestowment of an appellation by which it should be ordinarily known. In the present case, therefore, it is probably to be understood that there was something in the import of the word yom, day

which rendered it a peculiarly appropriate term by which to express the diurnal continuance of light, and one that he would have to be employed by men or this purpose when they should be

And so in regard to the names 'heaven' and 'earth' bestowed on the firmament and the dry land. What may be the bearing of these passages on the question touching the primitive language of the human race, would be a very interesting subject of inquiry, but one into which it falls not within the compass of our present plan to enter.-——— -¶ And the evening and the morning were the first day. Heb. 'And there was evening and there was morning, one day ( 1 yom ahad).' The evening is probably mentioned first because the darkness preceded the light. On the ground of this recorded order of things in the sacred narrative, the Jews commenced their day of twentyfour hours from the evening Lev. 23. 32.-The remark of Josephus on this clause is worthy of note. He observes, 'This was indeed the first day; but Moses said it was one day; the cause of which I am able to give even now; but because I have promised to give

6 And God said, Let there, the waters, and let it divide the be a firmament in the midst of waters from the waters.

g Job 37. 18. Ps. 136. 5. Jer. 10. 12. & 51. 15. such reasons for all things in a treatise by itself, I shall put off its exposition till that time.' J. Antiq. B. I. c. 1. § 1. He evidently considered the phrase 'one day' as having, in this connection, something of a peculiar sense. What that was can only be determined from other instances of the usage that obtains in regard to each of these terms. As to the numeral one, we find several instances in which its true import seems to be that of certain, peculiar, special, Lat. quidam, as Dan. 8. 13, 'Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and behold, there stood before me a ram,' Heb. 3 a certain ram, i. e. a ram of a peculiar description; one having two horns of unequal height. Ezek. 7. 5, 'Thus saith the Lord God; an evil, an only evil, behold, is come,' Heb. one evil, i. e. an evil of a unique and unwonted nature. Cant. 6. 9, 'My dove, my undefiled is (but) one; she is the (only) one of her mother, she is the choice (one) of her that bare her;' where it is plain that the term 'one' conveys the idea of something peculiar, something especially distinguished from others of the same class. Comp. Gen. 37. 20. Kings 19. 4. -20. 13. Dan. 8. 13. Now if this sense may be admitted in the present passage, to which we see no valid objection, the meaning will be, that the evening and the morning constituted a certain, a special, a peculiar day, a day sui generis; in other words, a period of time of indefinite length. For that the Heb.

yom, day is repeatedly used in the indefinite sense of epoch or period, no one will question who is at all acquaint ed with the Scriptural idiom. Thus, in the very first instance in which it occurs after the history of the six days' work, as if to furnish us with authority for such a rendering, we find it employed 'n a collective sense to denote the whole

six days' period of the creation; 'These are the generations of the heavens and the earth, in the day (1 beyom) that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.' So in Job 18. 20, it appears to be put for the whole period of a man's life; "They that come after him shall be astonied at his day (177 yomu);' and in Is. 30. 8, for all future time; 'Now go, note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come (3

for the latter day), for ever and ever.' In like manner the phrase, 'The day of the Lord,' so often occurring, undoubtedly denotes a period of indeterminate length. To this it may indeed be objected that the day here spoken of is said to have been made up of evening and morning; and how, it will be asked, could a single evening and morning constitute a day of indefinite duration? To this we reply, that nothing is more common in Hebrew than to find the singular used in a collective sense equivalent to the plural. When it is said, therefore, that the evening and the morning were a certain day,' we understand it as equivalent to saying, that a series or succession of evenings and mornings (Gr. vvxonpepa, twenty-four hour days) constituted a peculiar kind of day, a day, a period, of undefined extent; and so of the subsequent days of the creative week; the sense of the common day being really involved in that of the other; or in other words, each of the six indefinite days or periods, being made up of an equally indefinite number of common or twenty-four hour days. It is doubtless under some disadvantages that this interpretation is thus briefly and nakedly proposed, but as our limits will not allow enlargement, we have no alternative but to leave it to commend itself as best it may to the judgment of the reader. By the author it has not been rashly adopted.

7 And God made the firma- 8 And God called the firmament, and divided the waters ment Heaven: and the evening which were under the firmament and the morning were the second from the waters which were day.

I above the firmament: and it was
So.

h Prov. 8. 28. i Ps. 148.4.

In our modes of speech one thing may be said to be in the midst of another, as a stone in a bucket of water, without at the same time wholly separating the parts of the containing substance. But

6. Let there be a firmament. Or, Heb. an expansion. The original word for 'firmament' comes from a root () signifying primitively to beat, to smite or stamp with the feet, or other instrument, to make hard or firm by tread-the design of the firmament was wholly

to separate the waters above from the waters below, and to express this the word 'between' is much more appro

divide. Heb. 37 let it be separating, i. e. let it continue to separate. The original implies a continued act. So Is. 59. 2, 'Your iniquities have separated (Heb. are separating) between you and your God,' i. e. continue to separate, form a fixed ground of separation. By this arrangement one portion of the waters remained suspended in the upper regions of ether, whilst another was forced down in immediate contact with the body of the earth, and the expanse left void by their separation was called by the name of 'firmament,' or 'heaven.' Probably a considerable portion of the space now occupied by the atmosphere was previously occupied by the surrounding waters, as the Psalmist says, referring to this period, Ps. 104. 6, "They stood above the mountains.'

ing; hence, to spread out by beating, as thin plates of metal, and finally to stretch out, to expand, as a curtain. The sense of 'expansion' is undoubted-priate than 'in the midst.'-¶ Let it ly prominent in the present use of the term, yet subordinate to this is the idea of a 'firmament' (Gr. scpcwpa), or that which firmly supports an incumbent weight, as the atmosphere does the masses of watery clouds above. But since the aerial regions, by an illusion of the senses, seem to extend to the heavenly bodies, therefore the sun, moon, and stars are said to be placed in the firmament, though in reality removed to immense distances beyond it. It is the usage of the Scriptures to describe the things of the natural world as they appear, as they strike the eyes of plain unlettered observers; accordingly in former ages, before the true structure of the solar system was understood, the idea naturally suggested by the word 'firmament' was Jar of the blue vault of heaven; but now that our superior knowledge enables us to correct the impressions of the senses, we interpret the term with stricter propriety of the extensive circumambient fluid the atmosphere, or rather of the region which it occupies. In the midst of the waters. This rendering, though answering very nearly to the letter of the original, would be better exchanged for 'between,' a term which gives the English reader a far more accurate idea of the true situation and use of the firmament as above described.

7. Waters which were under. Rather, waters which are under,' ( waters which are above,' &c. ; for it cannot be conceived how the firmament should be the first means of dividing the waters, if a portion of them were already above, and a portion already below.

8. Called the firmament heaven. The correct interpretation of the term 'heaven,' or 'heavens,' depends of course upon that of 'firmament.' If this has been rightly explained, it will follow that the word 'heaven' does not in strict propriety, though in general usage

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