The heavens, the earth, and all their vast array were finished. On the seventh day God finished his work which he had done; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. God blessed the seventh day, and made it holy, because he rested in it from all his work of creation which he had done.
This is the history of the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that Yahweh God made the earth and the heavens. No plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for Yahweh God had not caused it to rain on the earth. There was not a man to till the ground, but a mist went up from the earth, and watered the whole surface of the ground. Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Yahweh God planted a garden eastward, in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground Yahweh God made every tree to grow that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it was parted, and became the source of four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon: it flows through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and onyx stone are also there. The name of the second river is Gihon. It is the same river that flows through the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Hiddekel. This is the one which flows in front of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. Yahweh God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it. Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”
Yahweh God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him.” Out of the ground Yahweh God formed every animal of the field, and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature became its name. The man gave names to all livestock, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field; but for man there was not found a helper comparable to him. Yahweh God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. As the man slept, he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Yahweh God made a woman from the rib which he had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and will join with his wife, and they will be one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they were not ashamed.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 1. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished…
1. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished Moses summarily repeats that in six days the fabric of the heaven and the earth was completed. The general division of the world is made into these two parts, as has been stated at the commencement of the first chapter. But he now adds, all the host of them, by which he signifies that the world was furnished with all its garniture. This epilogue, moreover, with sufficient clearness entirely refutes the error of those who imagine that the world was formed in a moment; for it declares that all end was only at length put to the work on the sixth day. Instead of host we might not improperly render the term abundance ; for Moses declares that this world was in every sense completed, as if the whole house were well supplied and filled with its furniture. The heavens without the sun, and moon, and stars, would be an empty and dismantled palace: if the earth were destitute of animals, trees, and plants, that barren waste would have the appearance of a poor and deserted house. God, therefore, did not cease from the work of the creation of the world till he had completed it in every part, so that nothing should be wanting to its suitable abundance.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25 That is, the innumerable abundance of creatures in heaven…
That is, the innumerable abundance of creatures in heaven and earth.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–25 Gen 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were…
Gen 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
Ver. 1. All the host of them.] His upper and nether forces, his horse and foot, as it were, all creatures in heaven, earth, or under earth; called God’s host, for their (1) number, (2) order, (3) obedience. These the Rabbins {a} call magnleh cheloth, and matteh cheloth, the upper and lower troops ready pressed.
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{a} Kimchi
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–25 All the creatures in heaven and earth are called…
All the creatures in heaven and earth are called their
hosts, for their multitude, variety, order, power, and subjection to the Lord of hosts. Particularly the host of heaven in Scripture (which is its own best interpreter) signifies both the stars, as Deu 4:19; 17:3; Isa 34:4; and the angels, as 1Ki 22:19; 2Ch 18:18; Luk 2:13; who from these words appear to have been created within the compass of the first six days, which also is probable from Col 1:16-17. But it is no wonder that the Scripture saith so little concerning angels, because it was written for the use of men, not of angels; and God would hereby take us off from curious and impertinent speculations, and teach us to employ our thoughts about necessary and useful things.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 8, 16, 18, 21 We have here, I. The settlement of the kingdom…
We have here, I. The settlement of the kingdom of nature, in God's resting from the work of creation, Gen 2:1, Gen 2:2. Here observe, 1. The creatures made both in heaven and earth are the hosts or armies of them, which denotes them to be numerous, but marshalled, disciplined, and under command. How great is the sum of them! And yet every one knows and keeps his place. God uses them as his hosts for the defence of his people and the destruction of his enemies; for he is the Lord of hosts, of all these hosts, Dan 4:35. 2. The heavens and the earth are finished pieces, and so are all the creatures in them. So perfect is God's work that nothing can be added to it nor taken from it, Ecc 3:14. God that began to build showed himself well able to finish. 3. After the end of the first six days God ceased from all works of creation. He has so ended his work as that though, in his providence, he worketh hitherto (Joh 5:17), preserving and governing all the creatures, and particularly forming the spirit of man within him, yet he does not make any new species of creatures. In miracles, he has controlled and overruled nature, but never changed its settled course, nor repealed nor added to any of its establishments. 4. The eternal God, though infinitely happy in the enjoyment of himself, yet took a satisfaction in the work of his own hands. He did not rest, as one weary, but as one well-pleased with the instances of his own goodness and the manifestations of his own glory.
II. The commencement of the kingdom of grace, in the sanctification of the sabbath day, Gen 2:3. He rested on that day, and took a complacency in his creatures, and then sanctified it, and appointed us, on that day, to rest and take a complacency in the Creator; and his rest is, in the fourth commandment, made a reason for ours, after six days' labour. Observe, 1. The solemn observance of one day in seven, as a day of holy rest and holy work, to God's honour, is the indispensable duty of all those to whom God has revealed his holy sabbaths. 2. The way of sabbath-sanctification is the good old way, Jer 6:16. Sabbaths are as ancient as the world; and I see no reason to doubt that the sabbath, being now instituted in innocency, was religiously observed by the people of God throughout the patriarchal age. 3. The sabbath of the Lord is truly honourable, and we have reason to honour it - honour it for the sake of its antiquity, its great Author, the sanctification of the first sabbath by the holy God himself, and by our first parents in innocency, in obedience to him. 4. The sabbath day is a blessed day, for God blessed it, and that which he blesses is blessed indeed. God has put an honour upon it, has appointed us, on that day, to bless him, and has promised, on that day, to meet us and bless us. 5. The sabbath day is a holy day, for God has sanctified it. He has separated and distinguished it from the rest of the days of the week, and he has consecrated it and set it apart to himself and his own service and honour. Though it is commonly taken for granted that the Christian sabbath we observe, reckoning from the creation, is not the seventh but the first day of the week, yet being a seventh day, and we in it, celebrating the rest of God the Son, and the finishing of the work of our redemption, we may and ought to act faith upon this original institution of the sabbath day, and to commemorate the work of creation, to the honour of the great Creator, who is therefore worthy to receive, on that day, blessing, and honour, and praise, from all religious assemblies.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–25 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished,.... Perfected…
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished,.... Perfected and completed in the space of six days, gradually, successively, in the manner before related; by the word and power of God they were on the first day created out of nothing, but they were not perfected, beautified, and adorned, and filled, until all the creatures in the were made:
and all the host them, of the heavens and the earth; the host of heavens are the sun, moon, and stars, often so called in Scripture, and also the angels; see Luk 2:13 wherefore this may be considered as a proof of their creation within the above space of time, probably on the first day, though the Jews commonly say on the second; for if all the host of heaven were made at this time, and angels are at least a part of that host, then they must be then made, or otherwise all the host of heaven were not then and there made, as here affirmed: and the host of the earth, or terraqueous globe, are the plants, herbs, and trees, the fowls, fishes, animals, and man; and these are like hosts or armies, very numerous, and at the command of God, and are marshalled and kept in order by him; even some of the smallest of creatures are his army, which are at his beck, and he can make use of to the annoyance of others, as particularly the locusts are called, Joe 2:11.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 8, 16, 18, 21, 23, 24, 25 This chapter is an appendix to the history of…
This chapter is an appendix to the history of the creation, explaining, and enlarging on that part of it, which relates immediately to man. We have in it,
I. The institution of the sabbath, which was made for man, to further his holiness and comfort, ver. 1-3.
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II. A more particular account of man's creation, as the summary of the whole work, ver. 4-7.
III. A description of the garden of Eden, and the placing of man in it under the obligations of a law and covenant, ver. 8-17.
IV. The creation of the woman, her marriage to the man, and the institution of the ordinance of marriage, ver. 18-25.
We have here, (1.) The settlement of the kingdom of nature, in God's resting from the work of creation, ver. 1, 2. Where observe,
1. That the creatures made both in heaven and earth, are the hosts or armies of them, which speaks them numerous, but marshalled, disciplined, and under command. God useth them as his hosts for the defense of his people, and the destruction of his enemies.
2. That the heavens and the earth are finished pieces, and so are all the creatures in them. So perfect is God's work that nothing can be added to it or taken from it, Eccl iii, 14.
3. That after the end of the first six days, God ceased from all work of creation. He hath so ended his work, as that though in his providence he worketh hitherto, John v, 17. preserving and governing all the creatures, yet he doth not make any new species of creatures.
4. That the eternal God, tho' infinitely happy in himself, yet took a satisfaction in the work of his own hands. He did not rest as one weary, but as one well-pleased with the instances of his own goodness. (2.) The commencement of the kingdom of grace, in the sanctification of the sabbath day, ver. 3. He rested on that day, and took a complacency in his creatures, and then sanctified it, and appointed us on that day to rest and take a complacency in the Creator; and his rest is in the fourth commandment made a reason for ours after six days labour. Observe,
1. That the solemn observation of one day in seven as a day of holy rest, and holy work, is the indispensible duty of all those to whom God has revealed his holy sabbaths.
2. That sabbaths are as ancient as the world.
3. That the sabbath of the Lord is truly honourable, and we have reason to honour it; honour it for the sake of its antiquity, its great author, and the sanctification of the first sabbath by the holy God himself, and in obedience to him, by our first parents in innocency. See note at "ver. 1"
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25 The seventh day is consecrated for a sabbath,
CHAPTER II
The seventh day is consecrated for a sabbath,
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and the reasons assigned, 1-3.
A recapitulation of the six days' work of creation, 4-7.
the garden of Eden planted, 8.
Its trees, 9.
Its rivers, and the countries watered by them, 10-14.
Adam placed in the garden, and the command given not
to eat of the tree of knowledge on pain of death, 15-17.
God purposes to form a companion for the man, 18.
The different animals brought to Adam that he might
assign them their names, 19, 20.
The creation of the woman, 21, 22.
The institution of marriage, 23, 24.
The purity and innocence of our first parents, 25.
NOTES ON CHAP. II
Verse 1. And all the host of them]. The word host signifies literally an army, composed of a number of companies of soldiers under their respective leaders; and seems here elegantly applied to the various celestial bodies in our system, placed by the Divine wisdom under the influence of the sun. From the original word צבא tsaba, a host, some suppose the Sabeans had their name, because of their paying Divine honours to the heavenly bodies. From the Septuagint version of this place, πας ὁ κοσμος αυτων, all their ornaments, we learn the true meaning of the word κοσμος, commonly translated world, which signifies a decorated or adorned whole or system. And this refers to the beautiful order, harmony, and regularity which subsist among the various parts of creation. This translation must impress the reader with a very favourable opinion of these ancient Greek translators; had they not examined the works of God with a philosophic eye, they never could have given this turn to the original.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, 25 Gen 2:1. The host of them — That is,…
Gen 2:1. The host of them — That is, the creatures contained therein. The host of heaven, in Scripture language, sometimes signifies the stars, and sometimes the angels. But, as Moses gives us no intimation, in the preceding chapter, that the angels were created at this time, and as Job 38:6-7, evidently implies that they had been created before, they do not appear to be here included.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 8, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25 - The Seventh Day
- The Seventh Day
1. צבא tsābā' “a host in marching order,” a company of persons or things in the order of their nature and the progressive discharge of their functions. Hence, it is applied to the starry host Deu 4:19, to the angelic host 1Ki 22:19, to the host of Israel Exo 12:41, and to the ministering Levites Num 4:23. κόσμος kosmos.
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2. חשׁביעי chashebı̂y‛ı̂y. Here השׁשׁי hashshı̂y is read by the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Septuagint, the Syriac, and Josephus. The Masoretic reading, however, is preferable, as the sixth day was completed in the preceding paragraph: to finish a work on the seventh day is, in Hebrew phrase, not to do any part of it on that day, but to cease from it as a thing already finished; and “resting,” in the subsequent part of the verse, is distinct from “finishing,” being the positive of which the latter is the negative.
שׁבת shābat “rest.” ישׁב yāshab “sit.”
3. קדשׁ qādı̂sh “be separate, clean, holy, set apart for a sacred use.”
In this section we have the institution of the day of rest, the Sabbath שׁבת shabāt, on the cessation of God from his creative activity.
Gen 2:1
And all the host of them. - All the array of luminaries, plants, and animals by which the darkness, waste, and solitude of sky and land were removed, has now been called into unhindered action or new existence. The whole is now finished; that is, perfectly suited at length for the convenience of man, the high-born inhabitant of this fair scene. Since the absolute beginning of things the earth may have undergone many changes of climate and surface before it was adapted for the residence of man. But it has received the finishing touch in these last six days. These days accordingly are to man the only period of creation, since the beginning of time, of special or personal interest. The preceding interval of progressive development and periodical creation is, in regard to him, condensed into a point of time. The creative work of the six days is accordingly called the “making,” or fitting up for man of “the skies and the land and the sea, and all that in them is” (Exo 20:10 (Exo 20:11)).
Gen 2:2
Then finished. - To finish a work, in Hebrew conception, is to cease from it, to have done with it. “On the seventh day.” The seventh day is distinguished from all the preceding days by being itself the subject of the narrative. In the absence of any work on this day, the Eternal is occupied with the day itself, and does four things in reference to it. First, he ceased from his work which he had made. Secondly, he rested. By this was indicated that his undertaking was accomplished. When nothing more remains to be done, the purposing agent rests contented. The resting of God arises not from weariness, but from the completion of his task. He is refreshed, not by the recruiting of his strength, but by the satisfaction of having before him a finished good Exo 31:17.
Gen 2:3
Thirdly, he blessed the seventh day. Blessing results in the bestowment of some good on the object blessed. The only good that can be bestowed on a portion of time is to dedicate it to a noble use, a special and pleasing enjoyment. Accordingly, in the forth place, he hallowed it or set it apart to a holy rest. This consecration is the blessing conferred on the seventh day. It is devoted to the rest that followed, when God’s work was done, to the satisfaction and delight arising from the consciousness of having achieved his end, and from the contemplation of the good he has realized. Our joy on such occasions is expressed by mutual visitation, congratulation, and hospitality. None of these outward demonstrations is mentioned here, and would be, so far as the Supreme Being is concerned, altogether out of place. But our celebration of the Sabbath naturally includes the holy convocation or solemn meeting together in joyful mood Lev 23:3, the singing of songs of thanksgiving in commemoration of our existence and our salvation (Exo 20:11 (Exo 20:10; Deu 5:15), the opening of our mouths to God in prayer, and the opening of God’s mouth to us in the reading and preaching of the Word. The sacred rest which characterizes the day precludes the labor and bustle of hospitable entertainment. But the Lord at set times spreads for us his table laden with the touching emblems of that spiritual fare which gives eternal life.
The solemn act of blessing and hallowing is the institution of a perpetual order of seventh-day rest: in the same manner as the blessing of the animals denoted a perpetuity of self-multiplication, and the blessing of man indicated further a perpetuity of dominion over the earth and its products. The present record is a sufficient proof that the original institution was never forgotten by man. If it had ceased to be observed by mankind, the intervening event of the fall would have been sufficient to account for its discontinuance. It is not, indeed, the manner of Scripture, especially in a record that often deals with centuries of time, to note the ordinary recurrence of a seventh-day rest, or any other periodical festival, even though it may have taken firm hold among the hereditary customs of social life. Yet incidental traces of the keeping of the Sabbath are found in the record of the deluge, when the sacred writer has occasion to notice short intervals of time. The measurement of time by weeks then appears Gen 8:10, Gen 8:12. The same division of time again comes up in the history of Jacob Gen 29:27-28. This unit of measure is traceable to nothing but the institution of the seventh-day rest.
This institution is a new evidence that we have arrived at the stage of rational creatures. The number of days employed in the work of creation shows that we are come to the times of man. The distinction of times would have no meaning to the irrational world. But apart from this consideration, the seventh-day rest is not an ordinance of nature. It makes no mark in the succession of physical things. It has no palpable effect on the merely animal world. The sun rises, the moon and the stars pursue their course; the plants grow, the flowers blow, the fruit ripens; the brute animal seeks its food and provides for its young on this as on other days. The Sabbath, therefore, is founded, not in nature, but in history. Its periodical return is marked by the numeration of seven days. It appeals not to instinct, but to memory, to intelligence. A reason is assigned for its observance; and this itself is a step above mere sense, an indication that the era of man has begun. The reason is thus expressed: “Because in it he had rested from all his work.” This reason is found in the procedure of God; and God himself, as well as all his ways, man alone is competent in any measure to apprehend.
It is consonant with our ideas of the wisdom and righteousness of God to believe that the seventh-day rest is adjusted to the physical nature of man and of the animals which he domesticates as beasts of labor. But this is subordinate to its original end, the commemoration of the completion of God’s creative work by a sacred rest, which has a direct bearing, as we learn from the record of its institution, on metaphysical and moral distinctions.
The rest here, it is to be remembered, is God’s rest. The refreshment is God’s refreshment, which arises rather from the joy of achievement than from the relief of fatigue. Yet the work in which God was engaged was the creation of man and the previous adaptation of the world to be his home. Man’s rest, therefore, on this day is not only an act of communion with God in the satisfaction of resting after his work was done, but, at the same time, a thankful commemoration of that auspicious event in which the Almighty gave a noble origin and a happy existence to the human race. It is this which, even apart from its divine institution, at once raises the Sabbath above all human commemorative festivals, and imparts to it, to its joys and to its modes of expressing them, a height of sacredness and a force of obligation which cannot belong to any mere human arrangement.
In order to enter upon the observance of this day with intelligence, therefore, it was necessary that the human pair should have been acquainted with the events recorded in the preceding chapter. They must have been informed of the original creation of all things, and therefore of the eternal existence of the Creator. Further, they must have been instructed in the order and purpose of the six days’ creation, by which the land and sky were prepared for the residence of man. They must in consequence have learned that they themselves were created in the image of God, and intended to have dominion over all the animal world. This information would fill their pure and infantile minds with thoughts of wonder, gratitude, and complacential delight, and prepare them for entering upon the celebration of the seventh-day rest with the understanding and the heart. It is scarcely needful to add that this was the first full day of the newly-created pair in their terrestrial home. This would add a new historical interest to this day above all others. We cannot say how much time it would take to make the parents of our race aware of the meaning of all these wondrous events. But there can be no reasonable doubt that he who made them in his image could convey into their minds such simple and elementary conceptions of the origin of themselves and the creatures around them as would enable them to keep even the first Sabbath with propriety. And these conceptions would rise into more enlarged, distinct, and adequate notions of the reality of things along with the general development of their mental faculties. This implies, we perceive, an oral revelation to the very first man. But it is premature to pursue this matter any further at present.
The recital of the resting of God on this day is not closed with the usual formula, “and evening was, and morning was, day seventh.” The reason of this is obvious. In the former days the occupation of the Eternal Being was definitely concluded in the period of the one day. On the seventh day, however, the rest of the Creator was only commenced, has thence continued to the present hour, and will not be fully completed till the human race has run out its course. When the last man has been born and has arrived at the crisis of his destiny, then may we expect a new creation, another putting forth of the divine energy, to prepare the skies above and the earth beneath for a new stage of man’s history, in which he will appear as a race no longer in process of development, but completed in number, confirmed in moral character, transformed in physical constitution, and so adapted for a new scene of existence. Meanwhile, the interval between the creation now recorded and that prognosticated in subsequent revelations from heaven Isa 65:17; 2Pe 3:13; Rev 21:1 is the long Sabbath of the Almighty, so far as this world is concerned, in which he serenely contemplates from the throne of his providence the strange workings and strivings of that intellectual and moral race he has called into being, the ebbings and flowings of ethical and physical good in their checkered history, and the final destiny to which each individual in the unfettered exercise of his moral freedom is incessantly advancing.
Hence, we gather some important lessons concerning the primeval design of the Sabbath. It was intended, not for God himself, whose Sabbath does not end until the consummation of all things, but for man, whose origin it commemorates and whose end it foreshadows Mar 2:27. It not obscurely hints that work is to be the main business of man in the present stage of his existence. This work may be either an exhilerating exercise of those mental and corporeal faculties with which he is endowed, or a toilsome labor, a constant struggle for the means of life, according to the use he may make of his inborn liberty.
But between the sixfold periods of work is interposed the day of rest, a free breathing time for man, in which he may recall his origin from and meditate on his relationship to God. It lifts him out of the routine of mechanical or even intellectual labor into the sphere of conscious leisure and occasional participation with his Maker in his perpetual rest. It is also a type of something higher. It whispers into his soul an audible presentiment of a time when his probationary career will be over, his faculties will be matured by the experience and the education of time, and he will be transformed and translated to a higher stage of being, where he will hold uninterrupted fellowship with his Creator in the perpetual leisure and liberty of the children of God. This paragraph completes the first of the eleven documents into which Genesis is separable, and the first grand stage in the narrative of the ways of God with man. It is the keystone of the arch in the history of that primeval creation to which we belong. The document which it closes is distinguished from those that succeed in several important respects:
First, it is a diary; while the others are usually arranged in generations or life-periods.
Secondly, it is a complete drama, consisting of seven acts with a prologue. These seven stages contain two triads of action, which match each other in all respects, and a seventh constituting a sort of epilogue or completion of the whole.
Though the Scripture takes no notice of any significance or sacredness inherent in particular numbers, yet we cannot avoid associating them with the objects to which they are prominently applied. The number one is especially applicable to the unity of God. Two, the number of repetition, is expressive of emphasis or confirmation, as the two witnesses. Three marks the three persons or hypostases in God. Four notes the four quarters of the world, and therefore reminds us of the physical system of things, or the cosmos. Five is the haIf of ten, the whole, and the basis of our decimal numeration. Seven, being composed of twice three and one, is especially suited for sacred uses; being the sum of three and four, it points to the communion of God with man. It is, therefore, the number of sacred fellowship. Twelve is the product of three and four, and points to the reconciliation of God and man: it is therefore the number of the church. Twenty-two and eleven, being the whole and the half of the Hebrew alphabet, have somewhat the same relation as ten and five. Twenty-four points to the New Testament, or completed church.
The other documents do not exhibit the sevenfold structure, though they display the same general laws of composition. They are arranged according to a plan of their own, and are all remarkable for their simplicity, order, and perspicuity.
Thirdly, the matter of the first differs from that of the others. The first is a record of creation; the others of development. This is sufficient to account for the diversity of style and plan. Each piece is admirably adapted to the topic of which it treats.
Fourthly, the first document is distinguished from the second by the use of the term אלהים ‛Elohiym only for the Supreme Being. This name is here appropriate, as the Everlasting One here steps forth from the inscrutable secrecy of his immutable perfection to crown the latest stage of our planet’s history with a new creation adapted to its present conditions. Before all creation he was the Everduring, the Unchangeable, and therefore the blessed and only Potentate, dwelling with himself in the unapproachable light of his own essential glory 1Ti 6:15. From that ineffable source of all being came forth the free fiat of creation. After that transcendent event, He who was from everlasting to everlasting may receive new names expressive of the various relations in which he stands to the universe of created being. But before this relation was established these names could have no existence or significance.
Neither this last nor any of the former distinctions affords any argument for diversity of authorship. They arise naturally out of the diversity of matter, and are such as may proceed from an intelligent author judiciously adapting his style and plan to the variety of his topics. At the same time, identity of authorship is not essential to the historical validity or the divine authority of the elementary parts that are incorporated by Moses into the book of Genesis. It is only unnecessary to multiply authorship without a cause.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 17, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25 Furniture, ornaments or militia, whether we understand the Angels,…
Furniture, ornaments or militia, whether we understand the Angels, or the stars, which observe a regular order and obey God. (Menochius)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 4 See Gen_1:1 ff for the passage quote with footnotes…
See Gen_1:1 ff for the passage quote with footnotes for Gen_2:1-3
12. Gen_2:1-3. The Divine Sabbath. Gen_2:1. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished.—A solemn retrospect introducing the sabbath of God.—And all their host.—A concrete denoting of the universe from the predominant terrestrial stand-point. The host has reference to the heaven, so far, at all events, as the stars are meant. As the host of the earth, however, denotes its inhabitants (Isa_34:2), so the thought, moreover, gives an intimation of the inhabitants of the heaven. “The passage in the book of Nehemiah (Gen_9:6) that treats of the creation supposes correctly that in the host of heaven (צְבַא) the angels are included.” Delitzsch. When he says farther: “The stars, according to the more ancient representation (Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian) are set forth as a host for battle, or that together with the angels they are assigned a portion in the conflict of light with darkness whose theatre is the earth created within the surrounding sphere of the luminous heavenly bodies,”—all such remarks may be taken as Parsic rather than purely Biblical.1
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Gen_2:2. And on the seventh day God ended His work.—The difficulty that arises from the mention here of a completion of God’s work on the seventh day, as before it seemed to have been on the sixth, has given occasion to the Septuagint, the Syriac, and many exegetes to put the sixth day in place of the seventh. Others (Calvin, Drusius, etc.) have read וַיְכַל as pluperfect (had finished) contrary to the grammar. Knobel explains the word with Tuch and others: God let it come to an end on that day. Delitzsch in a similar manner. Richers wrongly places a completion of the creation on the seventh day. Kurtz speaks of a heptæmeron. It seems to us, however, that the rest of God does not denote a remaining inactive merely, or a doing nothing. The perfecting of the work on the seventh is likewise something positive: namely, that God celebrated His work (kept a holy day of solemn triumph over it) and blessed the sabbath. To celebrate, to bless, to consecrate, is the finishing sabbath-work—a living, active, priestly doing, and not merely a laying aside of action. “The Father worketh hitherto,” says Christ in relation to His healings on the sabbath (Joh_5:17). The doing of God in respect to the completed creation is of a festive kind (solemn, stately, holy), a directing of motion and of an unfolding of things now governed by law, in contrast with that work of God which was reflected in the pressure of a stormy development, and in the great revolutions and epochs of the earth’s formation. “His מְלָאכָה (His work) was the completion of a task which He had proposed.” Delitzsch. God rests2 now and triumphs in that last finish of His work, the paradisaical man; God’s great festival is reflected in Adam’s holy-day. In accordance with his supposition that the creative days were not numbered from evening to morning, but in the contrary order (which is opposed to the text), Delitzsch holds that not the evening of the sixth day, but the morning of the seventh, was the real beginning of the sabbath (p. 127). But the evening of the sixth day lies back before the sixth day, whilst of an evening and a morning of the seventh day there is no mention at all. Had we taken the creative days as periods generally, or the evenings as merely remissions of the creative activity, the question about the evening and the morning of the seventh day would have had no right sense. If we truly take the evenings as denoting creative crises, then may it be asked: did not a crisis follow upon the creation of Adam? and this may we find intimated (Gen_2:21) in the deep sleep of Adam. Still must we suppose that the completion of Adam’s creation took place towards the evening or decline of the sixth day.
Gen_2:3. And God blessed the seventh day.—The blessing of the seventh day may of itself denote primarily that it was appointed for rest and re-creation, “which is a blessing for the laboring man and beast (Exo_20:10; Deu_5:14).” But the earlier blessings say: Be ye fruitful and multiply, and to bless means to wish for, and to promise one infinite multiplications in the course of life, as to curse means to wish for one an infinite multiplication of evil—that is, to imprecate, or pray against him. The blessing of the sabbath must consist in this, that it gives birth to all the festivals (or rests) of God, and all the festivals of men—that it endlessly propagates itself as a heavenly nature above the self-propagating earthly nature, until it has become an everlasting sabbath. Its most distinct birth is the New Testament Sunday. But this Sunday must mediate the heavenly Sunday. “It makes it to be an inexhaustible fountain of re-creation” (or new life). Delitzsch.—And hallowed it.—To hallow is to take an Object out of its worldly relation, and to devote it to God. There is, indeed, nothing before us here of a worldly relation in a profane sense, and so far can the negative force here have no place in the hallowing. Without doubt, however, the contrast is this: he withdraws it from labor for the sake of the world, and establishes it as the festival for God. In six days’ work had God condescended and given Himself up to live for the world; on the sabbath, He ordains that the world must live for God. He blessed and hallowed it, because He rested therein—that is, He appointed His own rest, as a ground and rule for the rest of man, and of the creatures, on the seventh day (see Exo_20:11; Exo_31:17). “According to the author God made this appointment at the creation, but He leaves its execution to a time after Moses, when, in the desert of Sin, He practically leads Israel to the festival of the seventh day, and thereupon makes publication of the law of the sabbath on Sinai (Exo_31:12; Exo_35:1). There is nothing known of any observation of the sabbath before the time of Moses.” Knobel. This holds good only of the legal establishment of the sabbath, for the custom of keeping a day of rest was not confined to the Jews only. Concerning the name שַׁבָּת, which the creative account does not contain, see Delitzsch, p. 130. Derivations: 1. From שַׁבְּתַי, an old name of Saturn; 2. from (שִׁבְעַת) שַׁבְעַת, the seventh day (Lactantius); 3. contracted from שַׁבֶּתֶת, the time of holy rest, which is the most likely.—Which He had created and made (marginal reading in English Bible: created to make). Grammatically the infinitive construct לַעֲשׂוֹת is rendered by the Latin faciendo. Still the explanation: which God being active (that is, by doing, or by an effort) had created, would be quite idle, were it not that one would find in the language the recognition of an antithesis to the doctrines of emanation, or generally, to the supposed heathenish pathological and fatalistic modes of creation. Delitzsch thus modifies the faciendo (or לַעֲשׂוֹת): the creating is fundamental, whilst the making, or the forming, is consequential. Then there would be denoted thereby the continuing of the divine activity beyond the time of the creative work.3 In respect to the four verses that follow, which Delitzsch, too, as well as Ewald and others, would make the subscription of the previous section, not the superscription of the one that follows (as Tuch, De Wette, and others), compare Delitzsch, p. 133. Knobel says (p. 7): “The Elohist has a superscription before every principal section in Genesis, and so much the more must he have had such a superscription placed before his first narration.” Ilgen, Pott, and Schumann have rightly found the same (Gen_2:4) in the words: “these are the origines of the heaven and the earth,” etc. The word tholedoth, then, must have suffered a misplacement. According to Delitzsch it is a closing formula. We hold it to be the superscription to what follows, because the word tholedoth must otherwise have regularly preceded, and because our text regards the tholedoth, or generations of the heavens and the earth, as conditioned in its principles through the creation of the earth and the heavens—that is, the earth, and especially Adam as the principal4 point of view for the whole.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL5
1. The contrast which is at once drawn between heaven and earth, and whose symbolical significance cannot be ignored, proves, in the first place, that the whole period before us, from Genesis 1-12, is to be considered under the point of view of the history of primeval religion. Secondly, the constitution of man in the image of God, the history of Adam, of Abel, of the Sethites, etc.; and, further, the contrast openly appearing at the close of this section between the uniting and separating of the peoples on the one hand, and the budding theocracy on the other. Thirdly, all periods lying in the middle between these two extreme points. Within this section, which presents the contrast between the primeval religion and the patriarchal religion of Abraham, now appear individual contrasts: 1. The contrast between the paradise-world and the sin-world; 2. the contrast between the anomism of the human race before the flood, and the heathenism of man after the flood. And to these add the more special contrasts which are to be brought out by the separate sections.
The primitive religion is to be distinguished from the religion of Abraham by the following points: 1. In the primitive religion, the symbolical sign is first, and the word second; in the patriarchal religion, the word of God is first, and the symbolical sign is second. (See Gen_12:1; Gen_12:7.) 2. In the primitive religion the continuance of the living faith in God is sporadic. This, it is true, is in connection with genealogical relations (Seth, Noah, Shem), as the appearance of Melchisedek especially proves (comp. Heb_7:3); and, as a gradually fading twilight, it goes on through the times until the days of Abraham, forming continually, as natural religion, the background of all the heathenism of humanity. The faith of Abraham, on the contrary, forms with the patriarchal religion a genealogical and historical sequence. The aurora of the morning in Abraham contrasts with the twilight of the evening in Melchisedek. Melchisedek looks, with the faithful of the heathen world, back to the lost Paradise; Abraham looks forward to the future city of God—his religion is the religion of the future. 3. The symbolical primitive religion is yet, in its exterior, overgrown with mythological heathendom. While it forms the bright side of the primal religious world, its dark side arises from the mythologizing of the symbols (Rom_1:19-23). With the patriarchal religion, however, the contrast between the theocratic faith and heathendom has become fixed. 4. With the historic form of this contrast, it is at the same time conclusive that heathendom maintains its relative light side in the history of humanism, and the theocratic popular history its relative dark side, which increases to the rejection of the Messiah and the death on the cross. The material development of salvation among the Jews, and the formal development of the human form of salvation among the heathen (Greeks and Romans), are for each other, just as the evil tendencies of heathendom and Judaism unite with each other in the crucifying of Christ.
2. Within our division appears the beautiful contrast that the creation of the world is once represented in the genetic order as an ascending development of life, so that man seems the aim (τέλος) of all things; then, from Genesis 2, 3, onward, in principial order, according to which man, as a divine idea, is the principle with which, and for which, the world, and especially Paradise, was created. The first view is universalistic, and hence Elohistic; the latter is theocratic, and hence Jehovistic.
3. The form of the account of the creation: religious symbolical chronicle; its source: a revealed word or image effected by the vision of a prophecy looking backwards (see Introduction). The objections of Delitzsch against the mediation of the knowledge of creation to men through divine revelation in human vision (see 79 sqq.), rest on a want of appreciation of the scriptural idea of vision, as already indicated. Delitzsch, with the more ancient catholic supernaturalism, explains our account from a divine teaching, which is defined as the interposing voice of the Spirit of God, and the guidance, through it, of man’s own spirit. To this ultra-supernaturalistic view of Delitzsch and Keil is opposed the rationalistic one of Hofmann, namely, that the account of the creation is the transposed impression in history which the world made on the first-created man reflecting on its origin. To the purely historical conception of a wonderfully preserved or regenerated (Delitzsch) tradition of revelation or legend, is contrasted the mythical conception in various forms, effected through the allegorical interpretation of Philo; which is followed by many church Fathers, and by Herder in his adoption of a parabolic hieroglyphic. a. Moral myth as a ground for the commandment of the sabbath (Paulus). b. Philosophical myth, especially the natural philosophical (Eichhorn and others). We have already shown in the Introduction why we cannot join in either the purely historical or the mythical view, but must insist on the specific of a religious symbolical history. The vision might be designated as intuition, in so far as we carry back the respective knowledge to the unfallen man.
4. In our section the world is represented according to its four different relations: 1. As creation; 2. as nature; 3. as cosmos; 4. as æon (see Lange’s “Dogmatics,” p. 222 sqq.). The idea of creation is expressed by the word ברא, as well as by the going forth ten times of the Omnific Word of God. God said, “Let there be, and there was.” The account of nature, 1. through the great contrasts, separations, and combinations: heaven and earth, darkness and light, atmospheric waters and terrestrial waters, firmament and terra firma, land and water, sky and earth. 2. Through the designation of plants, that they should bear seed, each according to its kind. 3. Through the blessing on animals: be fruitful and multiply, and the distinction of various kinds of animals, as also finally the blessing on men. 4. Through the relation of the various creatures to the sphere of birth or life corresponding to them (especially water and earth), through their coming forth from these spheres at the creating word. Especially belong here the picturesque expressions: Thohu, Vabhohu.—תַּדְשֶׁא הָאָרֶץ דֶשֶׁא שֶׁרֶץ—עֵץ פְרִי עֹשֶׂה פְרִי—עֵשֶׂב מַזְרִיעַ זֶרַע—הָרֹמֵשׂ—פְרֹוּ וּרְבוּ—וְעוֹף יְעוֹפֵף—יִשְׁרְצוּ הַפַּיִם הָרֶמֶשׁ 5. The six days’ work itself.—The idea of the cosmos. It appears distinctly in all the solemn pauses of the creative work, as they are marked with the sevenfold repetition of the words: and God saw that it was good. The celebration of the sabbath also belongs here, as it points back to the beautiful completion of the universe.—But the idea of the æon appears with the fact that man is made the end and aim of all days of creation, by which it is clearly pronounced that he is the real principle in which the world and its origin is comprehended. The history of the earth is thus made the lifetime of humanity. Its profoundest principle of development and measure of time is the support of man.
5. The Creation.—On the dogmatic doctrine of the creation, see Hase, Hutter, Hahn: “Doctrine of Faith,” and Lange’s “Positive Dogmatics.” Here comes especially into consideration 1. the relation of the doctrine of the creation to the Logos, Joh_1:1-3. The first verse of Genesis clearly forms the ground presupposed in that passage, God spake; through His word He created the world, says Genesis; His word is a personal divine life, says John, and the New Testament in general, especially Col_1:15-19; Gen_2:3-9. According to Genesis everything is created through the idea of man in the image of God with a view to this man; according to the New Testament it is through the idea of Christ, who is the principal of humanity, with a view to Christ. As Adam was the principle of the creation, so is Christ the principle of humanity. Therefore it reads: “God hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world” (Eph_1:4; comp. Joh_17:5). The creation is, in its most essential point, the production of the eternal God-Man in the eternal to-day. In man nature has passed beyond itself, from the relative, symbolical independence, to the perfected and real, to freedom; it has in him the mediator of its redemption, of its glorification. The beautiful cosmos, this unity of all varieties, which combines in it an endless complex of unities, to the production of external harmony and beauty, has, in Christ, the most beautiful of the children of men, its middle point, the centre of its ideal beauty. Finally, the first æon, which is fixed by the life of Adam, has for its core, its root, and its aim, the second æon fixed by Christ. 2. The relation to the Holy Ghost. The spirit is the living, self-impelling unity of spiritual life, the breath of the soul, as the wind forms the spirit of the earth, the vital, ever-active unity of its varieties. The Spirit of God hovering over the waters, is the divine, creative, living unity, which rules over the fermenting process of the Thohu Vabhohu; hence, as the peripheral principle of formation (at one with the central principle of formation, the Logos), it effectuates the separations and the combinations by which the formation of the earth is determined. In the New Testament, however, it appears in its personal strength, as the unity of all works of revelation of the Father and the Son, and as the absolute, spiritual principle of formation which effects the glorification of the world through the separation of the ungodly and the godly, and through the combination of everything godly in the church and the kingdom of God. 3. The relation of the creation to the Divine Being. In the creation, God appears as the creator, who calls forth things as out of nothing. But from the genesis out of the pure nothing, are distinguished the creative things as proceeding from the life or breath of the creator’s word, with which they come forth into existence (Psa_104:30); and finally man stands complete with the features of divine affinity, proceeding from the thought of His heart, from His counsel, as created in His image, and intended to be His visible administrator on earth. In the New Testament, however, the paternal feature of the Divine Being has unvailed itself as a paternity, from which all paternity in heaven and on earth proceeds, but which, in the most special sense, refers to Christ, the image of the Divine Being. By the relation of the work of creation to the coming Christ, the whole creation becomes an advance representation, a symbol of Christ in a series of symbolical degrees, of which each represents in advance the next following one. Through the relation of Christ to the Father, the whole creation receives the mark of the human, especially of revelation, or of the wonderful (as denoted by the lion), of resignation, or of sacrifice (as denoted by the ox), and of the reflection of light, that is, the idea (as denoted by the eagle).6 But the spirit, as the unitary life of the revelation of the Father and of the Son, is reflected as creative wisdom in all creative movements of the world, and, indeed, in the fundamental forms of separation and combination, of centrifugal and centripetal force, of repelling and attracting operations.—The account of the creation, Gen. Genesis 1, is not a dogma of the trinity of God; the completed creation, however, as a work of God and revelation, is a mirror of the trinity, and a prophecy of the revelation of its future (see Lange’s “Positive Dogmatics,” p. 206 ff. 4. The relation of the creation to revelation. The most general sphere of the revelation of God, that which forms the basis of all future revelations, is the creation of heaven and earth as the objective revelation of God, which corresponds with the subjective revelation of God in his image, Man_1:5. The relation of the doctrine of the creation to the heathen and post-heathen view of the world. It denies polytheism, for the creator of all things appears as the only one, and if his name stands in the plural (Elohim), the element of truth in polytheism (in contrast to Judaism) is therewith recognized, namely, the variety of the revelation of the one God in the variety of his strength, works, and signs, and the variety of the impressions which he thereby produces.
It denies pantheism, for God distinguishes himself by his creation of the world; he creates the world through his conscious word, consequently freely, and stands in personal completion before his work and over it, so that the world is neither to be regarded as an emanation of his divine being, nor especially as a metamorphosis of the divine being, (the second form of it,) or, vice versa, God as the emanation of the world. But it emphasizes also the true in pantheism (in contrast to deism): the animating omnipresence and revelation of God in the world, with his creating word, with his spirit hovering over the formation of the world, with his image in the dispositions and destination of man. It denies dualism, for God appears as the creator of all things directly. He is also the originator of the Thohu Vabhohu of fermenting elements; he finds in the creation no blame, and, at the end of the sixth day, everything is very good. The true in dualism is, however, also retained (against fatalism), namely, the contrast between the materials and the formative power, between the natural degrees and the natural principles, between nature and spirit. But the doctrine of creation denies much more the antichristian polytheism, that is, atomism, even to its most modern form of materialism, as such materialism rejects not only the truth of the spirit, of personal life, of the Godhead, of the immortality of the soul, and of liberty, consequently all ethical principles, but also the physical principia of crystal formation, of the formation of plants and animals. It does this by making matter regarded as devoid of all visibility, and in so far thoroughly hypothetical and abstract, or rather the infinity of feigned abstract substances (with which the Thohu Vabhohu, as a living fermentation of appearing elements, is not to be confounded), the sole God-resembling factor of all phenomena of life, such phenomena consisting of two classes, of which the physical and abstract spiritual is to be in accordance with the play of matter, the ethical, on the contrary, a bare appearance, having no conceivable or comprehensible reality. The living God here stands in contrast with the multitude of these dark idols of a feigned deity, and he places opposite the subordinate elements of life the superordinate vital principles, which give the elements their cosmical form, whilst over all he places the ruler man, with his godlike, spiritual nature.
The only thing that endures as an element of truth in materialism is the infinite and subtle conformity to law that is found in material things, a fact which spiritualism nowadays far too much disregards. The doctrine of creation also denies with increased emphasis the intensified pantheism, i.e., the most modern pantheism as opposed to personality—the pantheism which makes everything proceed from an impersonal thought, in order to let everything again disappear through continual metamorphoses (morphologism) in impersonal thoughts; for the scriptural doctrine makes all thoughts of creation proceed from an unconditioned personality, pass through fixed forms, and culminate in a conditioned personality. The truth that lies in such self-deification is recognized in this, that all works of the absolute thinking are themselves thoughts. He has spoken thoughts which have become works of creation. Finally, it denies the dynamical dualism (or the dualism of power), i.e., that hierarchical absolutism which holds as evil not only the material world, but still more the entire realm of spirit and spiritual life regarded as something to be controlled with infinite care, and with the infinite art and power of an abstract authority; for it testifies for the word of God as immanent in the world, and thereby holds fast the element of truth in that hierarchism, according to which the spirit of God hovers over the waters, and man as the administrator of God is commanded, with reference to all animal life in the world: Rule over them, and make them subject to you.
At the very first verse and word of Genesis, it clearly steps over that impure sink of dualism beyond which the entire heathen and philosophical view of the world could never go. It does this, by contrasting God in his eternal self-perfection to the creation which arose with time. The doctrine of the creation is the first act of revelation and of faith in the history of the kingdom of God. It would lead too far, should we attempt to show how the three heathen errors of religion are ever present with each other, although at one time polytheism, at one time pantheism, and at another time dualism, prevails. We make this observation, however, to indicate thereby that we do not ignore the pantheistic basis of Gnosticism, even when it plays with polytheism, since we present it according to its prevailing characteristic as dualism. But not only are the coarse ground-forms of the ancient and modern darkening of the doctrine of the creation to be judged by the first chapter of Genesis, but also the more subtle, Christianly modified forms, as, on the one hand, they present themselves in Gnosticism, (with which we also reckon Manichæism and its later shoots, extending to our time: Priscillianism, Paulicianism, Bogomiles, Albigenses, dualistic theosophs of Jacob Böhm), and, on the other hand, in Ebionitism, as it has found its continuation in the later Monarchianism, and still more modern deism. The Gnostics ground their opposition to the Old Testament on a paganistic misinterpretation of the New, and thus they may be ranged according to their more or less hostile attitude to the Old Testament, and as representing various heathenish views of the world which, after the manner of old Palimpsests, placed one upon the other, appear through the overlying Christianity. Among such Palimpsests, on which a form of Christianity has been overwritten, may be reckoned the Samaritan (Simon Magus), Syrian (Saturninus, etc.), Alexandrian (Basilides), old-Egyptian (Ophiten), Hellenic (Karpocrates), Ponto-Asiatic (Marcion), and Persian Gnostics (Manes). Finally, in Mohammed, the Arabian Gnosticism and Ebionitism ran together, as the again broken forms of Subordinatianism and Monarchianism ran together in Arianism. Through the manifold modifications which Christian dualism experienced immediately, and especially in the course of time, one must not be led astray in respect to the Unity of the genus. Just so, pure Ebionitism, whose naked image is Jewish Talmudism (as it is to be recognized throughout by its oblique position to the New Testament and the New Testament elements in the Old), has passed through various mutations whose ground-thought remains the same: namely, a fatalistic, eternalized, ontological divorcement between God and the world, through the law of religion or nature, whether the form of the change be called deism, naturalism, or rationalism. And, finally, the mixed form of gnostic Ebionitism, which was prepared through the Alexandrian system of Philo, and whose naked image is the Jewish Kabbala, has remained unchanged, through all mutations, in its ground-thoughts, whether they appear as Montanism, Donatism, or pseudo-Dionysian, mediæval and modern ultra-supernaturalism, as inflexible baptismism, or yielding spiritualism. Together with the true difference between God and the world, the doctrine of creation expresses also the true combination between both, and finds the living mediation of this contrast in the man created in the image of God; whereas, dualism makes the difference a separation, while pantheism makes the combination a mixture, and the still observable, polytheistic reminiscence in Christendom vacillates, in its love of fables, between creature deification and creature demonizing.
6. The relation of the temporal creation to the eternity of God. It is quite as wrong to transfer gnostically the origin of the real world to the eternity of God, to fix the existence of God according to theogony by speaking of a becoming of God, or of an obscure basis in God (Böhm), or of an origin of the material contemporary with the self-affirmation of God (Rothe), as it is to declare, with scholastic super-naturalism, that God indeed might have left the world uncreated. Against the first view, there is the declaration that the world had a beginning, which, a little farther on, is fixed as the beginning of time. Against the latter, there is the declaration that God chose believing humanity from eternity in Christ, as it is also indicated in our text, by the decree of God at the creation of man, and by the image of God. The world rests therefore, as an actual and temporal world, on an eternal ideal ground.7 Its ideal preparation is eternal, but its genesis is temporal, for it is conditioned by the gradual growing, and the beautiful rhythm of growth is time.
7. In the significant number ten, the number of actual historical completion, the account is repeated: God said, Let there be, and there was. The speaking of God now certainly indicates the thinking of God, and it thence follows that all works of creation are thoughts of God (idealism). But it indicates also a will, making himself externally known, an active operation of God, and thence it follows that all the works of creation are deeds of God (realism). Both, however, thinking and operating, are one in the divine speaking, the primal source of all language, his personally making himself known, although we cannot bring up the thought of this speaking to the conception (personalism). Through creating, speaking, making, forming, the world is ever again and again denoted as the free deed of God.
8. Theological definitions of the creation. The creatio is distinguished as a single act and as a permanent fact. A third period is, however, at the same time pointed out, namely, the continuance of the doing in the deed, so that the world would not only fall to pieces, but would pass away, if God withdrew himself from it. The thought that he cannot withdraw from it in his love, should not be confounded with the untenable thought that he might not be able to withdraw from it in his omnipotence. The absolute dependence of the world on God is at all times the same (see Psa_104:30; Col_1:17; Heb_1:3). On the relation of the creation to the trinity, compare Hase, Hutter, p. 149, and Lange’s “Positive Dogmatics,” p. 206 ff.—The expression, creation from nothing, is borrowed from the apocryphical word, 2Ma_7:28 : ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων; comp. Heb_11:3. It denies that an eternal material, or indeed that anything, was present as a (material) substratum of the creation. One can, however, misinterpret the expression by making the act of creation one of abstract will, absolved from any divine breath of life (Güntherianism). On determining the creatio ex nihilo we distinguish the nihil negativum, by denying the eternity of matter as substratum of the creation, and the nihil privativum, by assuming that God at first created matter as nihil privativum, then the forms in the hexaëmeron. This the modus creationis: first, matter; then, the form. This idea of a matter as something before form, does not correspond, however, to the idea of a quickening or life-giving activity in creation. With the beginning of creation there is immediately established the contrast of heaven and earth, i.e., different spheres, which as such are not mere matter; and with the Thohu Vabhohu of the first earth-form there is immediately established the constructive activity of the spirit of God. The demiurgic conception presupposes an eternal world-matter, whether regarded according to the Persian idea as evil, or according to the Greek as blind, heterogeneous, and antagonistic, or according to the Indian idea as magically mutable, which eternal world-matter must, in all cases, make the demiurgic formation a thing of mere arbitrary sport. The true idea of the work of creation lies between this and the theurgo-magical, according to which God had made the universe, in abstract positiveness, a pure material contrast of His divine being. This is a conception in which the creating word, the spirit of God hovering over the waters, the image of God, or even the omnipresence of God in the world, do not receive their just due. As the aim of the creation finally (finis creationis), there have been distinguished the highest or last aim, God’s glorification, and the intermediate aim, the welfare of his creatures and the happiness of man. But it must be observed that God glorifies himself in the happiness of men, and that the latter should find their happiness in contemplating the glory of God.
9. The Relation of the Mosaic Account of the Creation to the Mythological Legends of the Creation.—The cosmogonies of the heathen are confounded with their theogonies, as their gods with primeval man. See Lücken: “The Traditions of the Human Race, or the Primitive Revelation of God among the Heathen,” Münster, 1856. “These cosmogonies are all very similar to each other. At first chaos is placed at the head as a disordered mass (chaos alone?). This chaos develops or forms itself into the world-egg. This egg, which plays a certain part in the cosmogonies, is only a conception called forth by the apparent form of the earth,8 so that the sky presents itself as the shell and the earth as the yolk of this great egg. With this shaping of chaos into a world-egg, or earth-sphere, arises then, according to the representation of these cosmogonies, the first being, the ‘first-born,’ or the first man. This first man originating with (out of) the world-egg, the father and founder of all life, is now, according to the popular conception, a giant-like being. As the present man, according to primitive conception, is a microcosm, so is that first being, in heathen conception, the macrocosm itself, originating all life in nature by developing from himself the various parts of the world-organism, heaven and earth, sun and moon, mountains and rivers. Now by dividing or killing this macrocosmic being, or by mingling its generating parts with earthly things (especially fertilizing water, as in the story of Chronos), the lower life of nature begins, and things can multiply in sexual division and separation. This is the whole nucleus of all cosmogonies. And we would here observe, how frequent it is in heathen conceptions that all primitive generating being is imagined under the form of a great world-animal (as an immense ox or goat, for example), and as such worshipped. Thus the first being of the Persians is the ox Abudad, and the Egyptians worshipped it as a goat under the name of Mendes.” Here, however, the following is to be observed: 1. Behind, beside, or over the chaos, or the disordered matter, usually stands a mysterious form of the highest divinity: Brahma among the Indians, Fimbultyr among the Teutons, Ormuzd among the Persians. 2. With the Hesiodic Gaia, which proceeds from chaos (i.e., from boundless empty space), there is also Eros; so in the Chinese legend the first macrocosmic man or giant (Panku) is formed with the earth. In like manner Brahma with the Indians, and Ymer with the Teutons, become, by the division of their limbs, the foundation of the world. 3. Matter is always fixed with the divinity, or the divinity with matter. But matter is coherent with God in the predominantly pantheistic systems of emanation. According to the Indo-Brahmic, Platonic, and Alexandrian system of emanation, matter emanates with the world from divinity; according to the Egyptian and mythologico-Grecian system, divinity emanates from the world, from chaos, or the ocean. According to the predominantly dualistic systems, the world arises from a mixture in the conflict between the emanations of the predominantly spiritual, light, good God, and the emanations of the predominantly material, dark, wicked God—sometimes in a decidedly hostile position of the two powers, as in the Persian mythology, sometimes in a more peaceful parallelism, as in the Slavonian. For the various cosmologies, compare the quoted work of Lücken, p. 33; Delitzsch, pp. 81, 83, and 609; Hahn: Compendium, p. 374, with reference to Wuttke: “The Cosmogonies of the Heathen Nations before the Time of Jesus and the Apostles,” Hague, 1850. The Chaldean myth of the creation, as given by Berosus, is found in Eusebius: “Chronicles,” i. p. 22; Syncellus, i. p. 25; the Phenician myth as given by Sanchoniaton in Eusebius: Præparatio Evangelica, i. p. 10; the Egyptian myth in Diodorus Siculus, i. 7 and 10; a Grecian myth in Hesiod’s Theogony, Gen_2:1-16 sqq.; the Indian myths in P. von Bohlen: “Ancient India,” i. p. 158; Lassen: “Indian Antiquities,” iii. p. 387 (at the beginning of the code of Manu); the Zend myth in Avesta, the Etrurian myth in Suidas under Tyrrhenia (see the “Commentary” of Keil and Delitzsch, p. 8); the Scandinavian myth in the Edda, etc.
According to the older conceptions of the days of creation as combined with biblical chronology, one could speak of a date of the creation. Starke is satisfied with the correctness of the date: 23d of October, 4004 before Christ. Schröder makes the date the 1st or 17th of September, 4201, but adds; “The Son of Man knew not the day nor the hour when heaven and earth should pass away, but the child of man would know the year and the day when heaven and earth arose.” The autumn seems to have been chosen on account of the ripe fruits, without reflecting that on the entire earth it must ever be autumn somewhere.
10. The World as Nature. a. The Ancient View of the World, that of the Bible and of Modern Times.—The world-view of the ancients was based on appearance, according to which the earth formed a centre reposing under the moving, rolling starry world; this geocentric view received a scientific expression in the well-known Ptolemaic system. This system was abandoned in the time of the Reformation for the helio-centric system of Copernicus. But because the Bible, with respect to astronomical matters, speaks the language of common life, which is yet authorized in accordance with appearances (the sun rises, sets, etc.), it was supposed that the Copernican system contradicted the teaching of Holy Writ, and not only the papal council imagined that in its treatment of Galileo, but even Melancthon was of the same opinion, and to the present day such protests, even on the Protestant side, have not entirely died away (see the attacks on Dr. Franz in Sangerhausen in Diesterweg’s “Astronomy,” p. 104; also p. 20, especially p. 325). These prove how often a contracted Bible belief can injure more than profit the faith. The Copernican theory was especially supposed to be in contradiction with the passage in Jos_10:12-13. While men were torturing themselves with this difficulty springing from a blind adherence to the literal rendering, a much greater one was gradually stepping forth out of the background. The consequences of the Copernican system were developed, according to the discoveries of Herschel, in this wise: the sun among its planets is only a single star of heaven, and the earth is one of its smallest planets. Since now the fixed stars of heaven are nothing but suns, and these suns are all, according to the analogy of ours, surrounded by planetary groups, there appear to be countless numbers of planets, of which very many are larger than our earth. How shall we now retain the thought, that the earth is the sole scene of the revelation of God, as Holy Writ declares: the scene of the incarnation of God, and the centre of a reconciliation, dissolution, and glorification of the world, embracing heaven and earth.
The Hegelian philosophy sought at first to meet this difficulty in its own interest. In order to make the earth the sole arena of the evolutions of mind, which was to reach the full glory of its self-consciousness in the Hegelian system, the whole starry world was declared to be destitute of spirits and in the main spiritless—mere films of light, etc. (see Lange’s “Positive Dogmatics,” p. 279). The effort was made to render this barren view agreeable to theology with the pretence that it was in accordance with the Bible, and favored the faith (“Land of Glory,” p. 12 ff.). Against this insinuation the author wrote the articles which are collected in the work: “The Land of Glory” (Meurs), Bielefeld, 1838, with reference to the work of Pfaff: “Man and the Stars.” The results of modern astronomy (according to Struve, Mädler, Schubert, etc.), viz., that the other planets of our solar system have not, in the first place, the same plastic consistency nor the same planetary relations as our earth, and secondly, that the stellar world is divided into a solar planetary region like our solar system, and a solar astral region (the world of double stars, of eternal sunshine), were applied to the biblical Christian view of the world as recognizing (in its conception of various places of discipline and punishment) a place beneath the world on the one hand, and a place above it on the other; consequently the contrast of a region of growing and a region of perfected life, of the church militant and the church triumphant, of the earthly and the heavenly, of the earthly-human and the angelic life. Above all, it was observed that with the doctrine of the ascension of Christ the existence of a land of glory, in contradistinction to the earthly sphere of day and night, birth and death, or the sphere of the creative, was settled. This work was followed by the work of Kurtz: “Bible and Astronomy,” 1st ed. 1842. In the meanwhile there sprung up a third representation of cosmology, which was again to fix the geocentric stand-point in a spiritual respect. This was mainly induced by A. von Schaden, but diligently prosecuted by Dr. Ebrard, recently in his work: “The Results of Natural Science,” Königsberg, 1861. With respect to our planetary system, the said work endeavors to prove that the earth is its teleological centre, and to that end, farther, that the other planets could be either not at all or only partly inhabitable; that they are only accretions to the planetary nature, having their places there simply on account of the earth; and that considered under any other point of view they could only appear as caricatures of the planetary nature.
Delitzsch (p. 614) is in general inclined to this view. He permits, however, a natural philosopher by profession (Prof. Franz Pfaff), to speak for him, who nevertheless acknowledges (after a severe criticism of the plant-family) that there may be imagined elsewhere such beings as are organized in correspondence to the prevailing relations on other heavenly bodies. But one cannot see how the conceptions in question can be called “creatures of fantasy.”
We consider the view of the pure unreality of the extra-earthly planetary world as neither cosmologically grounded, nor of wholesome tendency in aid of a biblical view of the world. As respects the first point, one must clearly distinguish between an inhabitability of the planets of our solar system for beings of our earthly organization, and a similar inhabitability for spiritual beings in general. If the earthly organization of man is to fix the measure for the habitableness of supra-terrene bodies, then must we also apply the analogy to the most beautiful and brilliant stellar-world. And what must become of the departed human souls, separated from their bodies? How shall there be found a native region for angelic spirits? But it would redound little to the glorification of the living God of Holy Writ to consider the whole planetary group of our sun, the earth alone excepted, as spiritless wastes. Whatever in this respect is true of the Hegelian system in general, in its relation to the stellar-world, is true of the said view in special reference to our planetary system.
[Note on the Astronomical Objection to Revelation.—The question of the planets’ inhabitability, especially in its religious and biblical bearings, has been very ably and scientifically discussed in a work entitled “The Plurality of Worlds” by Prof. Whewell of Oxford. The author maintains a view similar to that of Dr. Ebrard, that the earth is the advanced planet of the system, and that the most scientific evidence goes to show that the others (especially the largest, or those of least density) are in a rudimentary or inchoate state. The same may be true of all the visible bodies of the stellar spaces. The only reasoning against it is simply the question, why not, pourquoi non, as Montaigne employs it, without any inductive evidence. This author employs also the modern view in geology with great pertinence and force: Immense times without life or with only the lowest forms of life! If this is not inconsistent with the divine wisdom and goodness, then immense spaces without life, or with only the lowest forms of life, for a certain time, is no more inconsistent.
So far, however, as this presents a difficulty to revelation and Christianity, it is not due to modern science alone, or even mainly. The inhabitability of the planets, and the “plurality of worlds,” are as much a priori thoughts, that is, rising of themselves to the musing meditative mind, as they are the results of any scientific or inductive reasoning. In both cases, imagination is the chief power of the mind employed, though modern science has furnished it with its stronger stimulants. As such a priori or independent thought, the notion of a plurality, or even an infinity, of worlds, was very ancient. It was, however, larger than the modern notion, being rather a plurality of κοσμοὶ, or mundi (that is, total visible universes) than of worlds used, as the name is now used, of planetary or stellar bodies. It was the old question of the soul demanding a sufficient reason for the non-existence, the absence of which reason seemed to be itself a proof of the actual existence. Why not? If one world, why not two—three—more—numberless? See Plutarch: De Placitis Philosophorum, vol. v. p. 239, Leip. ed., where among other statements and arguments he quotes the saying of Metrodorus: ἄτοπον εἶναι ἐν μεγάλῳ πεδίῳ ἕνα στάχυν γενηθῆναι, καὶ ἑνα κόσμον ἐν τῷ ἀπείρῳ, “it is absurd (incredibly strange) that there should be but one head of wheat in a great plain, and no less so, that there should be but one cosmos in infinite space.” The other idea of the planets’ inhabitability appears also in the Greek poetry. See especially the fragment given by Proclus:
ἄλλην γαῖαν ἀπείρατον ἥντε σελήνην ἀθάνατοι κλῄζουσιν, ἐπιχθόνιοι δέ τε μήνην ἡ πόλλ’ ρὔρε’ ἔχει, πόλλ’ ἄστεα πολλὰ μέλαθρα.
Another land of vast extent,
Immortals call Selene, men, the moon,
A land of mountains, cities, palaces.
The Bible is charged with narrowness in its space conceptions, but how narrow is that science, or that philosophy, which while vaunting itself, perhaps, on its superior range of view, has no idea of any higher being than man, and sometimes would seem to reject any other conception of deity than that of a developed humanity, slowly becoming a god, an être suprême, to the nature still below. How glorious the Scripture doctrine appears in the contrast, as starting with an all-perfect personal being: Jehovah Tzebaoth, Jehovah of Hosts, with cherubim and seraphim, ἀρχαί, κυριότητες, living principles, ruling energies, angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers. If not in space conceptions, yet how sublimely in the higher idea of ascending ranks of being do the Scriptures surpass the low and narrow views of Herbert, Comte, and Darwin. After a past eternity of progress, nature and the cosmos have just struggled up to man! This is the highest limit yet reached after a movement so immeasurably long, yea, endless in one direction; and that, too, not man as the Scripture represents him, a primus homo, an exalted being, so constituted by the inspiration that gave him birth, and signed him with the image of the eternal God, but man just rising above the ape, just emerging from that last growth of nature that preceded him in this interminable series of chance selections at last falling into some seeming order, and of random developments that never came from any preceding idea. Man as he now appears on earth, and whom Scripture pronounces a fallen being, the highest product of an endless time! Such is “the positive philosophy,” so boastful of its discoveries in width and space, but so exceedingly low and narrow in respect to the other and grander dimension! It discards theology and metaphysics as belonging to a still lower stage of this late-born child of nature, but alas for man if all the glory of his being, all his higher thinking, has already thus passed away! We may thank the Living God for giving to us an ideal world, as in itself a proof of something above nature, and of a higher actual even now in nature than our sense and our science ever have drawn, or may ever expect to draw, from it.
The objection to revelation to which Lange here alludes as drawn from the modern astronomy is itself simply anthropopathic. They who make it imagine Deity to be just such a one as themselves. If He has two worlds to take care of, it is incredible that His providence should be as particular, and His interest as near, as though He had but one to govern. Such a mode of thinking makes worth, too, and rank, wholly quantitative and numerical, banishing, in fact, all intrinsic quality, and intrinsic value, from the world of things and ideas. The bigger the universe in space, the less the worth in each part, as a part, and this without any distinction between the purely physical or material to which such a quantitative rule of inverse proportion might apply, and the moral and spiritual, which can never be measured by it.
The force of this objection comes from the fact of the imagination overpowering the reason. The lower though more vivid faculty impedes or silences for a time the higher. Reason teaches intuitively, or as derived from the very idea of God, that His care and providence towards any one rational and moral agent cannot be diminished by the number of other rational and moral agents, or be any less than it would be if such agent had been alone with Deity in the universe. The light and heat of the sun are the same whether the recipients are few or many. The case, therefore, may be thus stated: If a certain manifestation of the divine care for, and interest in, our world and race (namely, such as is revealed in the Bible) would not be incredible on the supposition of their being but one such world or race, then such credibility is not at all diminished by the discovery that there are others, few or many, to any extent conceivable. We must hold firmly to this as a pure rational judgment against the swaying imagination invading the reason, and even assuming to take its place. If the interest revealed by Christianity could be pronounced credible before the discoveries of astronomy (and this is assumed as the ground of the argument), then such measure is equally credible now, or we are convicted of judging God anthropopathically, however we may dignify the feeling with the name of an enlarged and liberal philosophy.
Besides, there is no end to the argument until it banishes all providence, all government, all divine interest conceivable in the cosmos—everything, in short, which distinguishes the divine idea from that of a wholly impersonal nature. On a certain scale of the universe the Old Testament becomes incredible. On a wider sweep Christianity, the old Christianity of the Church, can no longer be believed. The incarnation and the atonement must be thrown out; God could not have cared to that extent for this petty world. Turn the telescope, so as to enlarge the field, or, through its inverted lenses, behold the objects still farther off, and “liberal Christianity” disappears. Even that has too much of divine interest for the new view. Draw out the slide still farther, and the very latest and faintest “phase of faith” departs. Everything resembling a providence or care of any kind for the individual becomes incredible in this time and space ratio. Prayer is gone, and hope, and all remains of any fear or love of God. Farther on, and races are thrown out of the scale as well as individuals; even a general providence of any kind becomes an obsolete idea. Not only the earth but solar and stellar systems become infinitesimals, or quantities that may be neglected in the calculus that sums the series. There is no end to this. We have no right to limit it by the present size or power of our telescopes. The present visible worlds of astronomy may be no more—they probably are no more—to the whole, than a single leaf to the forests of the Orinoco. The false idea must be carried on until every conception of every relation of a personal deity to finite beings, of any rank, utterly disappears, and a view no better than blank atheism—yea, worse than atheism, for that does not mock us with any pretense of theism—takes the place of all moral fear as well as of all religion.
And this raises the farther question: If such be the diminishing effect on the religion, what must it be on the science and the philosophy? If human sins and human salvation become such small things when seen through this inverted glass, what becomes of all human knowledge, human genius, and human boasting of it? We do not find that the men who make these objections, as drawn from the magnitude of the universe, are more humble than others; but surely they ought to be so, after having thus shown their own moral and physical nothingness, and, along with it, the utter insignificance of their science.
In one aspect, his mere physical aspect, man is indeed insignificant. The Scripture does not hesitate to call him a worm. It pronounces all nations “vanity”—“the small dust of the balance,” unappreciable physically in the great cosmical scales—“less than nothing and emptiness.” Such is its view of man in one direction, whilst in the other his value is to be estimated by the incarnation of Christ, and the very fact that the Infinite One condescends to make a revelation of Himself to such a being.—T. L.]
The cosmology of the Bible is geocosmic in its practical point of view. After it has presented to us the creation of the heavens and the earth, it lets us conclude from the development of the earth the development of the heavens, namely in respect to the creation of light and of man. From the spirit-world of earth we are to conclude a spirit-world of heaven. But it superabundantly indicates a development of the earthly solar system parallel with the development of the earth (Gen_1:14). That heaven is an inhabited region, appears from many passages, e.g., Gen_28:12; and also that this region is divided into a rich multitude of various departments. And the question is not only of heaven, but also of the heaven of heavens (1Ki_8:27). Christ teaches us too: In My father’s house are many mansions (Joh_14:2). But finally the Holy Writ informs us clearly, that notwithstanding the changeability, and necessity for rejuvenation, of the entire universe (Psa_102:27; Isa_51:6), there is yet a contrast between the regions of growth on this side, and of perfection on the other (Eze_1:21; 1Pe_1:4; 2Pe_3:13, etc.). In this respect the newest and purest astronomical view of the world corresponds entirely to this biblical distinction between the regions of growth here, and of perfection beyond. But the Bible also promises for the form of the world, even on this side, a new structure and perfection. Once all was night; but in the present order of things day and night alternate; in the future the new world shall be raised beyond the contrast of day and night (Revelation 21). Formerly all was sea; the present order consists in the contrast of land and sea; in the new world the sea shall be no more.
b. The Idea of Nature in the Bible. The Bible and the Investigation of Nature.—We have shown in passing that the Scriptures fully recognize the idea of nature, i.e., of the conditioned going forth of the fixed life of nature from a fundamental principle peculiarly belonging to it. Every creative word becomes the ideal dynamical basis of a real principle. At first appear the principles of the separation. The separation of heaven and earth has the more general signification of universe on the one side, and of a special world-sphere on the other as represented by the earth, of which we now speak. At the second separation (light and darkness) the co-operation of the spirit of God is brought out, i.e., of the creative formative activity of God; at the third separation (water and land) the co-operation of light is presupposed. The natural law set up by Harvey (see Lange’s “Positive Dogmatics,” p. 259): omne vivum ex ovo, has been again brilliantly restored in modern times by the exact investigation of nature in opposition to the theory of generatio œquivoca, which natural philosophy had taught (see Sobernheim: “Elements of General Physiology,” Berlin, 1844). In Delitzsch also the conception of the generatio œquivoca plays a part in the account of the creation (p. 111), because he has not sufficiently considered that the creative words, in the ideal they carry, form the foundation of the actual principles of nature.
From the last-quoted principle it appears as follows:
1. Every grade of nature is fixed by a corresponding principle of nature, the natural principle of the plant, etc.
2. By its unfolding, this principle brings to light the standard of its development as the natural law of its grade. The natural principle is the first, the natural law is the second.
3. By the new principle of the higher grade of nature, the natural law of the preceding grade is modified in accordance with the new and higher life. The plant modifies the natural law of gravity, the animal modifies the local attachment of the plant; in man the animal instinct is effaced.
4. With each new life-principle God creates a new thing. The creation of the new is however the most general idea of the miracle, as the announcement of what is new is the most general idea of prophecy. Consequently, each new natural principle is to the preceding surpassed grade of nature as a miracle. “The animal is a miracle for the vegetable world” (Hegel). From this relation of the new natural principles, as they form the new degrees of nature, it follows that all nature is a symbolical support and prophecy of the ethical miracle of the kingdom of God. For as the first man, Adam, miraculously changes the natural law of the animal world, that is, changes instinct into human freedom, thus does Christ, as the new man from heaven, as the completed life-principle and miracle, change the Adamic laws of life into fundamental laws of the kingdom of God. It is in accordance with his nature to perform miracles within the Adamic sphere (1 Corinthians 15).
5. But what is true of the laws of nature, is also true of the matter of nature. Principle is the first thing in nature, law is the second, matter, as we know it, is the third. For through the intervention of a new and higher natural principle in the world by means of the creative word supporting it, the life of the preceding grade is reduced to the grade of matter. Thus by the appearance of the vegetable principle, the elementary world becomes matter for new formations; so, too, the animal reduces the vegetable world to the grade of material, and in like manner does man change the grade of the animal world. But the man from heaven makes from the elements of the Adamic world the matter for a new world. The materialists of our day have ridiculed the idea of a life-power which should be different from the supposed fundamental matter of the world. Instead of the life-power, there should have been opposed to them something more real: the life-principle. The life-principle is fundamentally distinguished in the contrast of plastic formative power and material substratum. They are both mutually established each with the other, but above them stands the principle. The materialist, therefore, as he explains everything from a force of matter, which no man has ever yet seen (see Lange’s “Miscellaneous Writings,” 1st vol. p. 54), does not only deny the existence of the human soul and its ethical nature and highest causality, the Godhead, but he is also the antagonist of the genuine zoologist who believes in the reality of the animal principle, as he is of the genuine botanist who does not consider the vegetable formations a shadowy play of matter on the wall, and of the crystallographer who connects imponderable forces and polarity—yea, of the genuine chemist too, who has perceived that the relations of elective affinity in substances extend beyond the atomistic conceptions. May it not possibly be explained, that as the material side of the natural principle is formed by the creating word, so is the reference of the origin of matter to a pure thought of God something else than the reference to the difficult enigma of a creative matter; and experience proves that the coarser matter everywhere, as outside or precipitate, proceeds from finer formations. It is a radical contradiction that matter should generate spirit, and, nevertheless, be everywhere subjected to spirit, even to the disappearance of its original nature.
6. The ascending line of natural principles is an ascending line of acts of creation, with which the principles always the more strengthen, deepen, generalize, and individualize themselves, and with which, at the same time, new forms of the natural law and new combinations of substances appear.
7. The finished lower sphere of nature does not produce the newly appearing principle of the higher sphere, but it is, however, its maternal birth-place. And because the lower sphere prepares for the higher, in order to serve as its basis, it is full of indications of it, and becomes throughout a symbol which represents in advance the coming new world-form.
8. With respect to the development of the nature-principles into the realization of the conditioned self-generation of nature, we must distinguish the following kinds of development: a. The development of the world-creation in general; b. the development of our solar system; c. the spherical development of the earth; d. the gradual development of the individual life on earth; e. the natural development of the individuals themselves; f. the development of nature in the narrower and the broader sense, or 1. apart from human life, and 2. in connection with it.
a. The Development of the Creation of the World in general.—Through the analogy of the development of the earth, the Scripture permits us to infer also a development of heaven. The heavens are created (Gen_1:1; 1Ch_17:26; Neh_9:6; Psa_33:6; Psa_136:5; Pro_3:19); the heavens grow old and pass away (Psa_102:27; Isa_51:6); the heavens are renewed (2Pe_3:13; Rev_21:5). Astronomy also teaches a continuous growth, and in the same way recognizes indications of passing away in the stellar world. But there is a difference between the various celestial regions. The old Jewish and Mahommedan tradition, and the Christian Apocryphas know seven heavens (the Koran, the Kabbala, the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs). But the Hebrews admitted in general three heavens as in accordance with the Scripture (Paul also 2Co_12:2-4; the third heaven the paradise): 1. The heaven of the air (the clouds, birds, changes of the atmosphere); 2. the heaven of the stellar world, the firmament; 3. the heaven in which God dwells with His angels, paradise. Of the latter heaven it must be observed that it is a symbolico-religious idea, and by no means excludes the stellar world (see Lange’s work: “The Land of Glory”). The Scripture recognizes also the distinction between an earlier heavenly stellar world and the system to which this earth belongs, as we find it indicated in the fourth day’s work. When the earth was founded the morning-stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy (Job_38:7). Consequently before the foundations of the earth those morning-stars were there. Also the “Heaven of heavens,” as well as the ascension of Christ, point to a heavenly region which lies beyond the cosmical sphere of the world, to a region “of eternal sunshine.” See the above quotations.
b. The Development of our Solar System.—Although on the fourth day of the creation the whole stellar world is introduced into the circle of vision of the earth, nevertheless the cosmical completion of the system belonging to the earth is especially indicated. Special allusion is made to this system when the New Testament biblical eschatology treats of the end of the heavens and the earth, and their renewal (Joe_3:4; Mat_24:29; 2Pe_3:10).
[Note on the Scriptural Heavens and Earth.—We think Dr. Lange carries too far what may be called the cosmological view of the Mosaic account. It either gives the writer too much science, or, in order to get a ground of interpretation independent of his conceptions, makes him to be a mere automatic medium—thus taking away the human, or that subjective truthfulness which is so precious in any view we may take of this narrative. Hence the tendency to regard the Bible heavens as the astronomical heavens of modern science, instead of the heavens of the earth, nearly connected with the earth, and in which the sun, moon, and stars appear as lights, whatever may be the near or remote causes of those appearances. See remarks in note on the Hebrew plural שָׁמַיִם, pp. 162, 163. The symbolic contrast of the heavens and the earth, with which Dr. Lange starts in the interpretation, has all the value he attaches to it; but it is not at all lost in what he might regard as the narrower view. The optical heavens, with the appearances in it, was all the writer knew, or was inspired to know, or describe. It was to him the cosmos. As this enlarges, by science, or otherwise, the conception of the heavens enlarges with it, but only as a conception. The idea remains as in the beginning. In keeping up this contrast, however, we are not to regard the scientific bodies discovered in the remoter spaces, as the heavens in distinction from our own home, as though the heavens were simply all that is off, and away from, the earth. The planet Mars is no more a heaven, or heavens, to us than we are a heavens to it. As knowledge lifts up the everlasting gates, the conception of the mundus enlarges to take in other earth-like bodies in space; but the old idea travels forth unchanged. The great symbolic contrast yet remains. The heavens, too, enlarge their scale, and the peculiar divine residence, once thought to be in the near sky just above us, is carried farther off, beyond the sky of clouds, beyond the sphere of the moon, the sun, the planets, the solar system. Science adds the stellar bodies; the heavens, the great symbolic, or rather symbolized, heavens, are still beyond, high over all, embracing all. “Who hast set Thy glory above the heavens,” עַל הַשָׁמַיִם (compare עַל as used Gen_1:20; Gen_19:23, שֶּׁמֶשׁ עַל-הָאָרֶץ); “Who stoopeth down to behold the things that are in the heavens (the lower heavens) and the earth,” Psa_113:6. Solomon’s language, “The heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee,” may, or may not, be surpassed in its local conception, but no science, it may be repeated, will ever transcend it in idea. Whatever the number of spheres, real or imaginary, the שְׁמֵי שָׁמַיִם, the heaven of heavens, is still the great heaven above them all.—T. L.]
c. The Spherical Development of the Earth, or the Six Days’ Work.—As was above indicated, the six days’ work have been represented in the sequence of a twofold ternary, in which is mirrored the significance of the number three. We construct these ternaries in the following manner: 1. Light and the lights; 2. water and air, and the animals of water and air; 3. the solid land and over it the vegetable world; the land-animals and over them man. As to the strict consistency of these days’ works, the most celebrated naturalists, as Cuvier, have expressly acknowledged it. Now we find these days’ works construed in the most manifold way; in part purely according to the Scriptures, in part purely according to natural science, and partly in distinct comparison, whereby the harmony between the Bible and natural science is contested or maintained.—Scriptural representations of the six days’ work. Here the 104th Psalm exceeds all. First day, Gen_2:1-2; second day, Gen_2:3-4; third day, Gen_2:5-18; fourth day, Gen_2:19-20. The fifth day and the first half of the sixth are freely inlaid into the picture from the fourteenth verse. The sixth day also from Gen_2:14; but in Gen_2:23 man appears more distinctly in his rule. Here follows an accurate picture of the whole creation from Gen_2:24. The creation of the new world, which is the aim of the Apocalypse, passes also through a sevenfold stage. Here an accord in the order of the six days’ work is not to be misunderstood. 1. The seven congregations as the seven candlesticks of the earth, Christ in a figure of light in their midst, with seven stars in His hands—an allusion to the creation of light of the first day (Genesis 1-3). 2. The seven seals. The council in heaven and the seven seals or decrees of sorrow on earth—an allusion to the creation of the firmament between the waters above (Gen_4:6, the “sea of glass”; comp. Gen_7:17) and the waters beneath (the blood of the lamb,9 Gen_7:14), Genesis 4-7. The seven trumpets. Decrees of judgment on the earth preaching repentance (Gen_8:7) and on the sea (Gen_2:8)—allusion to the separation of land and sea (see also Gen_10:2), Gen_8:1 to Gen_10:2. The seven thunders (voices of awaking whose speech had been sealed). The angel who had awakened the seven thunders, raises his hand to heaven and swears that hereafter time shall be no more.10 Episodes from the stage of the seven thunders: the swallowed scroll, the measuring of the temple of God, the two olive trees, the woman in heaven clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head—an allusion to the lights created to mark the seasons (Gen_10:3 to Gen_12:2). 5. The seven heads of the dragon. The (flying) dragon in heaven, the woman with eagles’ wings, and the beast out of the sea with seven heads, the earthly anti-Christ representative of the seven heads of the dragon—allusion to the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the sea (Gen_12:3 to Gen_13:10). 6. The seven last plagues or vials of wrath. Introduction: the animal out of the earth, the number 666 (with reference to the significance of the number 6; perhaps also the sixth day); the lamb on Mount Sion, the image of God with the 144,000 virgins who bear on their foreheads the name of the lamb and the name of the father, i.e., are images of God; the announcement of the judgment, of the seven last plagues; the judgment on the earth; the whore, her counterpart the bride and her bridegroom, heroes and deliverers, judges of spirits and associates in the apostasy—allusion to the animals of the earth and to man created in the image of God, with the command: Rule over them and make them subject to you, Gen_13:11 to Gen_19:21).11
7. The great Sabbath of God (Genesis 20, 21). It is, of course, understood that so original a creation as the Apocalypse could not be an allegorical copy of the six days’ work. In the Epistle of Barnabas (among the writings of the Patres apostolici) we find Genesis 15 the incorrect literal interpretation of the passages Psa_90:4 and 2Pe_3:8 (according to which a thousand years of earth should make one day of God, consequently six thousand years of history the great spiritual week of God which is to precede the divine millennium sabbath). This became later a standing presumption of the chiliastic computations. One of the first patristic representations of the hexaëmeron with polemical references to the heathen view of the world, we find in the apology of Theophilus of Antioch: Ad Autolycum, lib. ii. cap. 12 sqq. Many others have followed these (see Introduction). Among the modern biblio-theological representations of the six days’ work, that of Herder (“Oldest Record of the Human Race”) occupies a prominent place. It rejects all combinations of the scriptural text with natural science. It traces back the account to the teaching of God; but it arose by means of human observation of the rising sun, as in this the picture of creation is ever unrolled to the eyes of the observer. The representation itself he calls a hieroglyphe for the instruction of man in the great pictures of creation, as presented to his contemplation in the order of life, first work, then rest (the sabbath-law), and in the numbering of days (with reference to the week) as given to him in language, etc. He finds in the account the symbols of the first religion, natural science, morality, politics, chronology, writing, and language. In his poetic diction there is much that is beautiful; but the picture he gives us of the terror of the Orientals in respect to darkness and labor is very partial and exaggerated. The same may be said of many other things in his book. The ignoring of the reality of the six days’ work is rationalistic. The construction is as follows:
I. Light. II. Firmament. III. Terra firma.IV. Lights. V.Water
Air}of heaven.VI. Creatures of earth.VII. Sabbath. In the spirit of Herder, but independent in its view, and determination of the individual parts, is the representation in F. A. Krummacher’s “Paragraphs on Sacred History” (p. 22 ff.). The six days, as such, and in themselves understood, are to him divine days. Zahn also falls back on Herder in animated representation (“History of the Kingdom of God,” p. 1 ff.). Grube’s delineation of the six days’ work is very comprehensive and full of meaning (“Features from Sacred History,” p. 11 ff.—Scientific representation of the six days’ work. On the historical development of the doctrine of the cosmos, see Alex. von Humboldt, iii. p. 3 ff. Steffens: “Polemical Sheets for the Advancement of Speculative Physics.” Second number, on Geology, Berlin, 1835 (here are quoted, p. 6, the respective geological works of Cuvier, Boué, Brogniart, Elie de Beaumont, De la Beche, and Von Leonhard). Merleker: “Cosmography,” Leipzig, 1848, p. 3. There is also the historical part of Lyell’s “Principles of Geology,” and Vogt’s “Compendium of Geology” (Braunschweig, 1854, 2 vols.); Reusch: “Bible and Nature,” p. 71.—Here belong Quenstedt: “Then and Now.” A popular treatise: Harting: “The Antemundane Creations compared with the Present.” From the Dutch, Leipzig, Engelmann, 1859. See, moreover, the preliminary literature. We must distinguish those treatises which regard the Hexaëmeron of Moses, and those which do not. And further, we must distinguish the systems which assume the formation of the earth by radical revolutions in a steady sequence of new creations (Cuvier), and those which assume a gradual transformation with partial revolutions. Harting belongs to the latter. We must, however, certainly maintain that a seed or germ of creation (for the transformation) must have passed through the catastrophes out of the earlier stage into the later, analogous to the process at the flood, but transformed in a creative way during the metamorphosis of the earth. But the doctrine of the great catastrophes is not therewith excluded. In respect to those who deny the existence of any harmony between the Bible and natural science, it may be said, that a few theologians in Germany, with shallow scientific acquirements, have undertaken the work; such as Ballenshedt (in the notorious book: “The Primitive World”), Bretschneider, and Strauss. In England recently Goodwin (in the Essays and Reviews). Schleiermacher has also in this respect expressed anxieties which prove that he was not well posted on the point (“Studies and Criticisms,” 1829, p. 489). Most recently has this assumed opposition become a special dogma of the Hegelian school of Tübingen, which has its main altar in Eastern Switzerland. On the side of natural science the harmony has been mainly contested by French authors; in Germany, by Vogt and Burmeister. On the side of the naturalists, who at the same time were scientifically learned and Bible-believing men, stand Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Pascal, Haller, and Euler; at a later period the Frenchmen Cuvier, Brogniart, Deluc, Biot, Ampére; in Germany, Steffins, H. von Schubert, A. Wagner, and others. (See Reusch, p. 63 ff.) To these add also the Bible-believing cosmologists—the Frenchmen Marcel de Serres, de Blainville, the Belgian Waterkeyn, and especially many Englishmen and North Americans (Reusch, p. 67; see especially also Delitzsch, p. 609). A significant position is taken by the already quoted work of Buckland: “Geology and Mineralogy,” etc., as given by Werner, in the German edition of the well-known “Bridgewater Treatises,” vol. v., with which compare the valuable criticism of it by W. Hoffmann, in “Tholuck’s Literary Advertiser,” 1838, Number 44. “The conditions on which the great geologist treats with his timid brothers in the theological world are (according to W. Hoffmann) the following: 1. Geology has evidently proved that the surface of our planet has not been from eternity in its present condition, but has passed through a series of creative operations, which followed each other in long, fixed periods of time. 2. There is an exposition of natural phenomena which stands so little in contrast with the Mosaic history that it even throws light on dark parts of it, and thereby confirms it. 3. The authenticity of the Scriptural text must remain unscathed, but the exposition demands concessions from the literal expositor; the reader must make this, and indemnify himself therefor by the accession which geology supplies to natural theology. 4. The Bible does not aim to give solutions of geological and other questions of natural science. Else, God would have found it necessary to endow man with omniscience, because he was obliged, at the same time, to impart to him all degrees and kinds of human knowledge, if the revelation were not to remain an insufficient one.” In several points Hoffmann has corrected the author with a free and large survey, namely, in the endeavor of Buckland to transfer all the periods of the geologically determined earth-formation into the undefinable beginning before the first day of the creation, although to those geological periods the long biblical day-periods are still to be added. Hoffmann, on the contrary, alleges that then the eyes of the trilobites, for example, must have existed before the creation of light. The same is true of the first vegetable and animal world throughout. The same untenable view, however, that will transfer the geological periods, with their relation to each other, into the time of the Thohu Vabhohu, meets us also now in various forms. It is represented by Andreas Wagner and Kurtz (see, on the contrary, Delitzsch, p. 112). The more defined combination of geological results and the biblical account appears in a form sometimes mainly scientific, and again mainly theological; but the two series cannot be strictly separated from each other. Reusch places here Marcel de Serres, Waterkeyn, Andreas Wagner, Wiseman, Nicolas: “Philosophical Studies of Christendom,” Sorignet (La Cosmogonie de la Bible devant les sciences perfectionées, Paris, 1854), Pianciani, Kurtz: “Bible and Astronomy,” Keerl and Westermeyer, whose work, in his view, is without scientific value. So also Mutzl, Michelis, Ebrard, and a series of Essays in the Periodicals: “Nature and Revelation” (Münster, 1855 ff.), and “The Catholic” (Mentz, 1858 sqq.). We also enumerate here, La Cosmogonie de la Révélation, par Godefoy, Paris, 1841, the previously quoted works of O. Reinsch, Fr. von Rougement, and Böhner (with respect to the cosmogonal theory of Kant and La Place). The newest commentary on Genesis, by Keil, shows no progress. Keil insists on regarding the account of creation as an historical record in the strictest sense; he opposes the division of the six days’ work according to ternaries, he sets the act of creation in excluding contrast with the idea of the natural process, boldly questions the evidence of the various periods of the creation, and contends that the days of the creation are simple earth-days. With this continued darkening of the present view of the state of the case, it is a small merit that the theosophic view of the Thohu Vabhohu seems sets aside (p. 16).
The six days’ works are above all things to be comprehended as six consecutive acts of creation, in which, every time, a new creation is placed as a new appearance of the cosmos. For the world is to be regarded throughout as being, in respect to its foundation, the act of God, or creation (in the stricter sense); according to its development, nature, whilst, according to its appearance, cosmos, and, according to the plastic life-principle lying at its base (the future of man and the God-Man), it is œon. The creation is, in the first place, and in general, represented as creation of heaven and earth; then the history of the earth is specially brought out with reference to its relation to heaven, and also to give an idea of the cosmical creation beyond the earth in our planetary system. The characteristic traits are the following:
The First Day.—The separation of darkness and light, i.e., of dark and light matter. We must here preserve the text from the terrifying pictures of darkness in Herder, and the conceptions of darkness, approaching dualism, of certain theologians of the present day. The Scripture speaks also of a “smiting of the sun” (Psa_121:6; Jon_4:8), and of a sacred obscurity, also of a beneficent shade, as Christendom recognizes a holy night; it knows also a higher unity of day and night (Rev_20:21; see “The Land of Glory,” p. 150; Novalis: “Hymns to the Night”). Nothing is more dangerous to life than the commingling of physical and ethical darkness (see Isaiah 45). God did not make physical darkness in so far only as it is privative, mere absence of light, but he made it in so far as he made the earth, the darkness in general, and the order of life: day and night. With respect to light and its effects, comp. Schubert: “Mirror of Nature,” p. 457 ff.; also F. A. Krummacher’s poem: “The Light,” and Milton’s “Salutation to Light.” The light is in the Scripture as an image of the Godhead, or of its indwelling (1Ti_6:16). It is God’s garment (Psa_104:2), an image of the being and life of Christ and of its efficacy. Not without reason have some designated light as the first creature of God, and distinguished between latent light = material darkness, and free light-matter. Comp. what Hoffmann has observed, in his quoted criticism, about the visible creation proceeding from the invisible sphere of the creative powers, the imponderable substances dynamically regarded. (Comp. Heb_11:3) The unity of the contrast of centripetal and centrifugal power (sympathy and antipathy), attraction (gravity) and repulsion (motion), warmth and light, appears to lie in something beyond the relative contrast of electricity, where warmth predominates, and that of magnetism, where light predominates (although in both one is set with the other); which remoter principle we may designate as a breath of life, whose material product is an inconceivably minute, fundamental form of the luminous world-body which is to spring from it, as the cell or the fundamental form of organic life, in an element of growing light, that is, which becomes light, or an ether, which as earth-matter has attractive power, and, as a medium of light, repulsive power. With respect to the evenings and the mornings, it is to be observed that Kurtz has also effaced their optical reality. By the evenings is meant the going out or departure of the separate visions. The permanent reproduction of the word, “Let there be light,” is not so much the rising of the sun, according to Herder, as rather the electric spark, the lightning proceeding from the dark thunder-cloud, the northern light of the long polar night, just as every meteoric revelation of the light-nature of the earth. For this is clearly intimated, that the earth, until its arrangement into cosmical dependence on the sun, found itself in a condition of self-illumination, like that towards which it ever strives to rise in the polar night. Physical darkness is undoubtedly made by the Scriptures an image of ethical darkness, for it is the comparatively imperfect. But we again distinguish the black night, which may be in measure illuminated by every spark; the gray night of mist, which is in positive opposition to the light, and the white night, or blinding light, by which the light is corrupted into the worst darkness, or the most evil night.
Second Day.—About the upper waters, see the Exegesis. The allusion they contain to the matter of the distant world-space, the space of heaven, is found also in mythology (see Delitzsch, p. 614). But it is questionable whether, along with the upper waters, there is also presupposed here a world-matter out of which the lights are formed on the fourth day of creation (A. Guyot, with the addition of the mist theory of La Place; Fr. de Rougement, translated from Fabarius, p. 61, with distinct reference to our planetary system; Böhner, p. 158, a clear and instructive representation). But it is to be observed that the lights of the fourth day clearly refer to the light of the first day, consequently not to the upper waters of the second. The rakia, as firmament, indicates the boundary line behind which water, air, and æther, flow together. Consequently, this firmament indicates, at the same time, the boundary line between the centripetal and centrifugal force of matter, between its impulse to become earth, and its impulse to become light. But this is just what makes the rakia a symbol of the real heaven: it is the equator which spirits pass in their passage to the home in light. The second day is therefore the separation of the atmosphere and the element of liquid earth (dividing the substance of light and the substance of darkness), and probably still glowing hot. With the firmament, between the coldness of the æther and the warmth of the earth, as between light and gravity, are built the first formations of the earth as the vessel of its liquid nucleus; neither Plutonic nor Neptunian, because fire and water are not yet separated. For the contest between Plutonism and Neptunism, see Delitzsch, p. 609. The contrast of both systems does not begin till the third day of the creation, with the separation of water and land. The beginning of the third day of creation (the evening) probably marks the period of the actual water-formation from the precipitates of the recent atmosphere, with which the entire new surface of the earth is overflowed. In the transition from light days, and rain-storms, and hurricanes, is mirrored the creation of the second day. The crystals and precious stones children of night. “On the second day God made nothing,” says Rougemont, “he only caused a separation.” But such a separation was a creation.
Third Day.—Separation between land and water. In accordance with this, the development of fire, which brings forth the earth, and combines with water, to continue the formation of the earth. The first appearance of plants on points of earth in insular dispersion. Remains of the general flood: deserts, sandbanks. (Question, whether the plants throughout were created before coal, or whether coal is not mainly to be considered as pre-existing as a formative substance of the plants.)
Fourth Day.—The cosmical combination of the lights of heaven and the earth. Cosmico-atmospheric and chemical completion of the earth for the conditions of a higher life. Ecliptic. Beginning of the relations of the zones. Continued operation: the zones, the seasons, the periods. The metals children of light.
Fifth Day.—Animals of the water—birds. The conclusion of this period and the first half of the following; the main period of the strata-formation and the petrifactions, although this period begins with the end of the third day.
Sixth Day.—The catastrophe introducing this closes, with its completion not manifest before the appearance of man, or the cycle of the great general revolutions, and introduces the world which is intended to be Adam’s home. The natural law, in its central effect as a law of necessity, is abolished in the destination and freedom of man.
Seventh Day.—God reposes and rests in man. Man reposes and rests in God. God’s sabbath is reflected in the sabbath of the world. Just as the geology of the first day represents the cosmogony through the universality of light, so the firmament of the second day represents the heaven above and the earth beneath. Then the fourth day, in contrast to the third, points up again to the cosmos. On the fifth day of creation the birds of heaven must at least indicate the cosmical relation; on the sixth day man, the special representative of the spirit-world.
d. The Gradual Development of the Individual Life on Earth.—The idea of the natural life is the idea of a relative independence communicated by God to the world, which passes through the stages of symbolical independence to actual independence, or that freedom of man in which nature is abolished. We distinguish, accordingly, the following degrees of independence in an ascending line: 1. The element: or dependent self-existence to be annulled (through chemistry); 2. the chemical combination: or the mutual relation of the one element to the other, i.e., to its related opposite; 3. crystals: self-formation in forms and colors; 4. plants: self-production, reproduction; 5. animals: self-motion inwardly (self-perception), outwardly (motion in the narrower sense); 6. man: self-consciousness and power of self-control; 7. the power denoted points to the man from heaven, the God-man: or complete self-control in complete self-comprehension in the unity with God, nature, and humanity (see Lange’s “Positive Dogmatics,” p. 247).
In respect to the classification, we remark, 1. That every lower grade reappears in all higher grades in a continually modified form; 2. that it is the coming grade as a symbol and actual prophecy; and 3. that it takes the lower place of a serving and supporting substance for the higher grade. In man all grades are combined and subordinated to spirit. As he is an image of God, so also is he an image of the earth; so also of the universe. Microcosm. The idea of the lower grade is not so to be understood as if the stamp of divine authority were wanting to it. 5. Every grade comprises again lower and higher formations; with the lowest it reverts to the preceding grade, but with the highest it presents, in its solemn pauses of formation, a preliminary or provisional completion which becomes the symbol of the completion of life in general. Through those relapsing or bastard-like formations arise the poisons, according to H. von Schubert and K. Snell (see Lange’s “Dogmatics,” p. 266), which are an allegory of moral discord and relapse into sin. The completed types of a fixed grade of nature are, on the contrary, the precious stone, the palm, the rose, the eagle, the dove, the lamb, etc., becoming with their transient completion symbols of the highest life. The period which is peculiar to each grade, appears with it in full power; hence in the element, the obscure, enigmatical, apparently isolated existence; in chemistry, the whole irresistible power of physical elective affinities; in the crystal, the stately play of the sternest forms and the most beautiful colors; in the plant, the whole power of reproduction (through root, seed, and branch), and of growth high into space, and far into time; in the animal, the motion in all kinds and in all grades; in man, finally, the self-consciousness in that perfected intensity which makes it the most peculiar characteristic of his being. 7. The individual formation appears in every grade in greater power. Hence the elements have mostly lost themselves in chemical combinations, and these again submit to the most manifold separations. Hence crystals are mostly altered, arrested, or distorted through disturbing influences or checks, and seldom appear pure. Hence plants are capable of greater degeneracy in their kinds than animals, and the metamorphoses of the subordinate animals greater than those of the higher. This disposition to degeneracy and to variety has lately become an inducement to dispute the idea of fixed species, as we see it in the work of the English naturalist Darwin, on the origin of species in the animal and vegetable world by natural generation, translated into German by Bronn, Stuttgart, 1860. This work, doubtless, will only be able to induce more exact formulas as to the grade of the individuality of the species and the susceptibility of modification in their pure ground-types through antagonistic or favoring influences.
e. The Natural Development of the Individuals themselves.—It passes through a regular series of stages or metamorphoses in which the metamorphoses of growth to maturity, of the transition from one ground-form into another (analogous in the insect-world to the passing through various natural grades) are to be distinguished from a higher state of perfection. It has indeed been doubted whether from the beginning our nobler grains have not been distinguished from the wild species, and also the tame domestic animals from the wild. The Scripture seems to speak in this tone in the distinction appearing in the very beginning between cattle and wild animals, and farther on in the distinction of certain plants of Paradise (see Delitzsch, p. 622 and Genesis 2).
f. The Development of Nature at large.—1. Apart from man. That nature waits patiently for man appears from the fact that left to itself it grows wild, and in boundless luxuriance threatens to overwhelm and smother itself, as is proved by the primitive forests, the marshes, and the miasmas. 2. In reference to man. Nature is intended to develop itself in accord with man. It therefore sympathizes in his fall (Gen_3:17 ff; Gen_19:28; Deu_28:15 ff; Isa_13:6 ff; Rom_8:19 ff), and in his resurrection (Deu_28:8; Psalms 77; Isaiah 35; Isa_65:66; Rom_8:21; 1Co_15:45 ff; 2Pe_3:13; Rev_20:21). See De Rougemont, pp. 2 and 3.
Therefore also has man in his individual form, and man in his totality, his natural side; and therefore it is that the most sublime idea of nature (for the idea of nature, see the quotation from Aristotle in Lange’s “Dogmatics,” p. 258), or the idea of an inceptive founding, of a gradual development, and a final completion of animal life, does, for that very reason, present itself to us in the history of the kingdom of God, as the miraculous tree, which continues to grow from the beginning to the end of the world, with its crown reaching into eternity. And especially in the history of the God-Man, does it thus appear as a tree whose roots go back into the foundation of creation, and whose boughs, branches, blossoms, and fruits spread throughout the new humanity. The natural sciences have not yet attained to the greatness of the scriptural idea of nature.
Of the Relation of the Account of the Creation and of the Holy Writ in general to the Natural Sciences.—In this relation a fourfold collision may be conceived: 1. An incorrect exegesis of the Scripture may clash with an incorrect exegesis of nature (the investigation of nature is indeed only exegesis, and its teachings are to be distinguished from the objective facts themselves). 2. An incorrect scriptural exegesis can contradict the ground-text of the life of nature. 3. A false exegesis of nature can come in conflict with the text of the Scripture. The fourth case, that the sense of the Scripture itself, or the text of nature itself, might be in contradiction with each other, could only be imagined on the ground that Scripture and nature were not, both of them, books of revelation of the same God. The thorough, scientific, and theological investigation confirms more and more their harmony.—Pretended incongruities in the account of creation itself are: 1. Light before the lights or illuminating bodies. This is thoroughly removed (see Exegesis). 2. The earth proceeding from the water in contrast to Plutonism. This objection reposes on the misunderstanding of the waters Gen_2:2 and Gen_2:6, and exaggeration of the demands of Plutonism. 3. The firmament on the fourth day. See the Exegesis and the fundamental thoughts. 4. The days of creation: Also removed by the correct exposition which makes them peculiar days of God. When, however, naturalists fill their mouths with millions of years as a necessity for the formation of the earth, they fall into contradiction with the spirit and the laws of nature itself. It is a law of nature that the subordinate formations arise more rapidly than the higher ones. And further, that life in the glowing, warm moments of its origin, moves more rapidly than in its development. If man continued to grow in the same proportion as in the maternal womb, he would increase beyond the highest trees. 5. The relation between the heliocentric and the geocentric view, see above.—Pretended collisions between the scriptural miracles and nature. See “Bible-Work,” Matthew; “Life of Jesus,” ii. p. 258; “Philosophical Dogmatics,” p. 467. On the prophetic-symbolical parallel-miracles, see more particularly in the “Bible-Work,” Exodus.
11. The World as Cosmos.—The idea of the cosmos, i.e., of the regulated, unitary, beautiful appearance of the world, makes itself known, at first, through the sevenfold verdict: “God saw that it was good.” In this we must bear in mind that, with the good, the adjective טוֹב means also the appropriate, the agreeable, the beautiful. But when it is said for the seventh time, after the creation of man, and with enhanced emphasis: Behold everything was very good, there lies therein a reference to the fact that the great world, the macrocosmos, has reached in man, as the microcosmos, its living point of unity. A variety, however, which with its appearance rises into an ideal unity, forms the very idea of the beautiful. But here this idea is, at the same time, in its completeness, the idea of the good; for in man the finite world has reached its unending eternal aim. And then there is what may be called the poetical account of man affirming his appearance in that parallelism of phrases, Gen_2:27, of which it has been observed, it is the first example of religious poetry, as the song of Lamech, Gen_4:23, is the first example of secular. The solemnity of the cosmical appearance of the world is then again specially expressed in the delineation of the rest of God on the seventh day. The sabbath of God is the primitive picture of the human days of rest and festivity, in which the adorning of the world appears in the reflection of human adornment, and human worship endeavors to unite in itself all forms of the beautiful, of art, as it also unites with the most beautiful periods of the life of nature in the course of the year. The Holy Writ retains also this view of the world especially in the appreciation of the beautiful, even of female beauty, and in the reverence of the sublime and beautiful nature (Psa_8:19 and Psalms 104; Isaiah 40, etc.), in the glorifying of the beautiful service of Jehovah (who Himself is adorned with light, Psalms 104), and in its own festal robes of beauty. It may be observed, in passing, that the Jewish Rabbinism has discovered strange reasons why, in the account of the second day, there does not also stand the expression: “He saw that it was good;” it was because, say they, on that day the apostate angels fell, because on it God created hell, or because the waters brought the flood over the world. It is generally assumed that the sentence of approbation of the firmament on the second day is comprised with that pronounced on the formation of the land on the third day, and on the firmament on the fourth. This is pursued farther in the preceding exegetical illustration.—It is known that the Grecian idea of beauty and of the cosmos is elevated far above that of the Chinese, satisfied as it is only with the delicately formed, the variegated, and the cheerful, and whilst it detests the shadows in the picture. Certain representations respecting the darkness and night in the treatment of the six days’ work remind us of the Chinese or Persian views; for instance, in Herder, Delitzsch, Rougemont (p. 11), and in Christianus (“Gospel of the Kingdom,” p. 5). In one respect, again, is there presented a similar difference between the Grecian and the scriptural idea of the cosmical. The former throws the obscure into the background, because it cannot resolve it into higher unities. For the Hebrew, that which is the ugly in a smaller unity is only the picturesque shadow in a general higher unity (see Psa_104:20; Psa_148:7-8). The obscurity of the cosmos, originating with sin, is quite as well to be regarded subjectively, according to which the world meets the sinner in an uneasy threatening form (Ecc_1:8), as objectively, according to which the creature, as suffering, must, in reality, with fallen man, sigh for redemption (Rom_8:19).
12. The World as Æon.—That the world also in its truest and most inward principle of life and development is comprised in man, appears already from the strong emphasis with which man is introduced in the first chapter of Genesis as end or aim of the creation, but still more from his principial position at the head of things, which is given to him in the second chapter. The idea of the æon is a development and a developing period of life placed with the power of life in the principle of life. The world as æon has also the principle of its life-power, its duration, form, and development in man. And thus is it explained that with the distinction of universal history into the history of the first and second man, or Adam and the Messiah, there is also distinguished a twofold æon. But it is in accordance with the idea of the æon, that the new æon of Christ can have principially begun with His appearance and redemptory act, whilst the old æon still externally continues. The life-development of the æon starts from the beginning and appears, at first, gradually, but not perfectly, until the close. Just so it is explained that the world in the course of its development depends on the bearing of man, and that the history of man is the history of the earthly cosmos. The sinless man and Paradise, Adam and the field burdened with the curse, the rain of the first race and the flood, Noah’s generation and the rainbow, the people of promise and the promised land, the renewal of humanity, through Christ, and the renewal of the earth, the judgment, and the end of the world, these are only the principal epochs of a chain of events which are expressed in the most manifold separate pictures and traits (see Lange’s “Life of Jesus:” the Baptism of Jesus, the natural events at His death and ascension).
13. That the Scriptures neither know nor will know of pre-Adamites (see Hahn: “Compendium of Faith,” ii. p. 24), nor of various primitive aboriginal races, appears not only from Genesis 1, 2, but also from the consistent presumption and assertion of the entire Holy Writ; for example, Mat_19:4; Act_17:26; 1Co_15:47. Here we can bring out only the following points: 1. The original unity of the human race coincides with the doctrine of the unity of the fall of man in Adam, and the unity of the redemption in Christ. It also accords with the biblical and Christian idea of the unitary destination of the earth. 2. The autochthonic doctrine of the ancients stands in intimate connection with their polytheism; the special race of any certain land corresponds with the special gods of said land, as the speech of Paul in Athens clearly shows (Act_17:25-26). 3. The greatest naturalists have mostly declared themselves against the originality of different human races, see Lange’s “Dogmatics,” p. 330; the greater part of the earlier defenders of said view belonged to the department of natural philosophy. With the distinction of the various ground-types, which are formed from the one human species, the most serious difficulties are banished, though not solely by reference to climatic relations; and so in regard to the alleged fruitfulness of sexual combinations among the various races, the proof of such fruitfulness is justly pronounced one of the strongest proofs of unity. 5. The autochthonic theory has never been able to harmonize itself in relation to the ground-forms to be presented; and it can also, 6. not deny the fact that the origin of the various types of men points back to a common home in Asia.
14. As to the doctrine of the original image, compare the dogmatic works. The following distinctions need special attention: 1. צֶלֶם and דְּמוּת, image and likeness. The Greek expositors referred the first to the dispositions of man, and the latter to his normal development; thus also the scholastics referred the former to the sum-total of the natural powers of man (reason, liberty), and the latter to his pious and moral nature. This distinction appears again in another form in the older Protestant dogmatics, when it distinguishes between an image that man has not lost by sin (Gen_9:6; Jam_3:9), and such a one as he, in fact, has lost, although this Protestant distinction does not refer itself back to those words image and likeness. Image has already been made to refer to the similitude to God in man (the so-called μικρόθεος), likeness to man as microcosm in so far as he unites the whole world in himself and presents it in a reduced scale, because the world is a likeness of God on a grand scale (A. Feldhoff: “Our Immortality,” Kempten, 1836). We maintain rather that the image designates the principle in accordance with, and with a view to which, man has been created—consequently, the dynamic-plastic idea of the God-Man (which view is supported by the fact that man, according to Genesis 3, wished arbitrarily to realize this idea). We maintain, therefore, that the image denotes the primitive image, as in Christ alone is it plainly so called,12 and comes in Him to its realized appearance. Therefore is it said in the image, that is, the determinable similitude of man in proportion to the image of Christ. The likeness, on the contrary, is the real appearance of the copied similitude, as it was peculiar to the first man in the condition of innocence from the beginning. The older Protestant dogmatics distinguished, as said (without reference to the words image and likeness), the substantial human affinity, to God, especially in spiritual powers, reason, etc., and the image in the narrower sense, the justitia originalis, the status integritatis with its separate attributes (especially impassibility, immortality). They laid the emphasis on the fact that the image in this stricter sense was lost. Thereby has this opinion, for its part, represented the glory of the first man in various ways as too much developed, whilst the Socinians, contrary to the nature of the spirit, would consider it as a mere abstract power (see Lange’s “Positive Dogmatics,” p. 304). 2. To say nothing now of the Encratites and Severians, who denied to the female sex a share in the similitude, there may be farther noted the strange contrast between such as would find the image merely in the bodily appearance of man (The Audians, and lately Hofmann), or merely in his spiritual nature (Alexandrians, Augustine, Zwingli), since here the simple observation suffices, that the body of man is above all an image of his peculiar spiritual nature. In accordance with this the similitude can naturally be understood only of man in his totality. Its root is the spiritual nature or the divine affinity, its appearance is the bodily form in which man effects his dominion over nature, and although this does not fulfil the idea of his similitude, it certainly appears as the first and most common realization of it. Man is the administrator of God on earth. The similitude, i. e., the disposition and designation of man to the image, has remained to him; the image in its integrity (δόξα) he has lost. Still, an obscure outline of it, especially of the likeness, has remained to him, as is proved by the remains of the manifoldly evil administration of men on earth. The distorted image of the divine assumes various forms in sinful man, even to the image of evil spirits. One must make the distinction between the primitive image, Christ, and the copy, human nature, but not so as if the primitive image were the exclusive Godhead, or the copy pure creature. See also the article “Image” in Herzog’s Real-Lexicon.
15. Man (אָדָם) indicates here collectively humanity according to its origin in the first human pair, or in the one man in general, who was certainly the universal primitive man and the individual Adam in one person. Adam, referring to Adamah; the red one, from the red earth taken. Or is it, in fact, as Starke maintains, the beautiful, the brilliant? It is true, אָדָם in Arabic may also mean to be beautiful, to shine, and Gesenius remarks: solent Arabes duplex genus hominum distinguere, alterum rubrum, quod nos album appellamus, alterum nigrum. If the earth had the name of Adam, Adamah, as might be inferred from the first appearance of the word in Gen_2:7, the conception of Adam had a good sense, as brilliant, beautiful, analogous to the commendatory appellations of man in other nations. But it is clear that Adam is named according to Adamah, Gen_2:7, and so Paul has comprehended him as the χοϊκός (1Co_15:47). On the word Adam, comp. Delitzsch, pp. 141 and 619. The Scripture indicates by this name that it is in unity with the wonderful fact, that man was created by God, though he went forth from the earth in the form of a natural growth under an “inspiration of the earth,” as Steffens expresses himself.
16. The Sabbath. The view set up by Schröder and Gerlach of the late origin of the sabbath in the giving of the law, finds a contrast in the exaggerated importance of the significance of the word sabbath in Delitzsch (p. 131 ff.), where he says, “Sunday has a churchly solemnization, but the sabbath remains the blessed and hallowed day of days,” etc. The sense of these and similar words is not entirely clear, especially when one considers that under the days of creation Delitzsch does not understand real days but periods. Also the beautifully expressed parallel, in Delitzsch, of the creative Friday when everything was finished, and the Friday of the redemption, when Christ died with the words: “It is finished;” that is, the sabbath of creation and the day of rest of Christ in the grave, as bringing up with the resurrection of Christ the now prominent and deep significance of that first Sunday, when God said: “Let there be light.” For historical particulars, see Winer, article “Sabbath;” Hengstenberg: “The Day of the Lord.” See especially the article “Sabbath” by Oehler in Herzog’s “Real-Encyclopædia,” where the existence of a clearly marked pre-Mosaic solemnization of the sabbath among the Jews, and the analogous existence of a heathen, that is, an Egyptian weekly festival, is decidedly questioned. That the heathen nevertheless, from time immemorial, have known certain festive periods, appears from their mythological systems.
17. As significant figures, as signs of a future sacred symbol of numbers already appearing in our section, are to be observed the number two, appearing in the various contrasts (heaven and earth, etc.) as the number of nature or of life; the number three in the contrast of the two ternaries; the number four as number of the world in so far, as on the fourth day the cosmos in the whole was completed; the number six as the number of labor, and seven as the sacred number of the divine labor concluded and perfected in the solemn rest of God. The number seven appears besides in the sevenfold, solemn expression: God saw that it was good. But the number ten also is seen in the tenfold introduction of the creative word: “God spake: Let there be.”
18. The so-called anthropomorphisms of the present chapter: God spake, God saw, God made, God rested, form the foundation of the whole anthropomorphic and anthropopathic style of delineation in Sacred Writ. We must here observe that the anthropopathic expression may not be understood as literal-dogmatic (anthropopathists) neither as mythical (spiritualists), but as religio-symbolical, representing the divine ideal-doing under the figure of human action, not, however, in the sense as if human life, action, and image were the original that shadows itself in the similarities of divine action, but in the sense that the divine speaking, working, and resting form the foundation for the analogous, comparative doings of man (see “Bible-Work,” John); just as God’s day is the original image for the day of man, but not vice-versa.
19. The first chapter of Genesis clearly contains the germs of all fundamental doctrines of theology in the stricter sense, as well as of anthropology; that is, it is the basis for the doctrine of God (the first article of the apostolic Confession of Faith), of His attributes and His personality, of the world, of the religious and earthly-real side of the world; finally of man, his nature, dignity, and destiny. With the image of God, in which man is created, is also expressed the future of Christ, as it lay in its ideal destination in the divine counsel from eternity (see Lange’s “Dogmatics,” p. 211). The possibility of sin is, moreover, alluded to in the words: Rule over them and make them subject to thee. It appears, however, more clearly in the second chapter.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
(Kleist: “Hymn to God;” Gellert: “God is my Song;” Klopstock’s “Odes to Creation;” Fr. Ad. Krummacher: “The Days of Creation”).—Homily on the six days’ work from Gen_1:1 to Gen_2:3. Point of view: The creation as a revelation of God: 1. His omnipotence (Let there be!); 2. His wisdom (means and end, the grades of nature and the image of God); 3. His goodness (the living beings and their movement and nourishment); His love (man).—The creation as a future of man (the preparation of the house of God for man and man for the house of God).—The creation as the advent of the God-Man: 1. The days’ works of God a prophecy of Man_1:2. the perfected man on the sabbath of God a prophecy of the God-Man.—The first creation a prefiguration of the second creation or the redemption.—The week of God: 1. God’s work in nature; 2. God’s rest in man.—The sabbath of God a prophecy of the divine Sunday.—The week of God in the history of the world.—The appointment of the whole course of the world as a work of God: 1. The Chiliastic error therein: the chronological computation, etc.; 2. the truth therein: the expectation of the divine period of rest (Revelation 20).—The world according to its various forms: 1. As creation; 2. as nature; 3. as cosmos; 4. as æon.—The work of God and the work of man. What is different, and what is common to both: a. The order; b. the constancy; c. the gradual progression; d. the aim.—The account of the creation contrasted with ancient and modern errors (see Doctrinal and Ethical).—The account of the creation in its truth and sublimity.—The basis of all the days’ works: Heaven and earth.—The contrast of heaven and earth running through the entire Holy Writ as a symbol of religion.—Heaven as the home of man whilst on the earth: 1. The sign of his origin; 2. the direction of his prayer; 3. the goal of his hope.—The first three days’ work as the preparation of the last three.—The word of God as the word of power in the creation.—The spirit of God as the formative strength of all God’s works.—Creation as a mirror of the Trinity.—The creation a revelation of life from God: 1. The foundations of life in the elementary world; 2. the symbolical phenomena of life in the animal world; 3. the reality and truth of fife in the human world.—The glory of the Lord in the work of creation: 1. The co-operation of all His qualities (omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, etc.); 2. the unity of all His attributes.—Separate Sections and Verses. Gen_2:1 : In the beginning. The birth of the world also the birth of time. 1. The fact that the world and, time are inseparable; 2. the application: a. the operations in the world are bound to the order of time, b. time is given for labor. To-day, to-day!—The relation of worldly time to the eternity of God (Psa_90:1).—The beginning of the Scriptures goes back to the beginning of the world, as the end of the Scriptures extends to the end of the world.—The outline of creation: Heaven and earth: 1. Heaven and earth in union; 2. earth for heaven; 3. heaven for earth.—The primary form of the earth and the creation of light a picture of the redemption: 1. The redemption of mankind in general, 2. of the individual man.—Waste and void the first form of the world.—Laying the foundations of the world (Eph_1:4, and other passages).—The spirit of God the sculptor of all forms of life.—The word of God: Let there be: 1. How the growth of the world points back to the eternal existence of the word; 2. how the eternal word is the foundation for the growth of the world.—The word—let there be—in its echo through time as the word of the creation, of the redemption and glorification.—The first clearly defined creation: the light.—The significance of light; its physical and religious significance.—God’s survey of light.—Light a source of life: 1. Its good as existing in its ground; 2. its beauty as disclosed in its appearing.—The creation of light at the same time the creation of physical darkness (see Isaiah 45).—How carefully we must guard against the commingling of natural and spiritual darkness.—The natural darkness as it were a picture of the spiritual.—But also a picture of the “shadow of His wings.”—Evening and morning, or the great daily phenomenon of the alternation of time.—The creation of light a day’s work of God: 1. The first day’s work; 2. a whole day’s work; 3. a continuous day’s work; 4. a day’s work rich in its consequences.—The first day. Gen_2:6-8 : The second day’s work, or the firmament of heaven.—The firmament in its changing phenomena a visible image of the invisible heaven.
Gen_2:9-10 : Land and sea. The beauty of the land, the sublimity of the sea. The symbolical significance of the land: the firm institutions of God; of the sea: the wave-like life of nations.—The second day of God. Gen_2:9-13 : The earth and the vegetable world. The green earth a child of hope.—The plant the prelude and symbol of all life (of animal, human, and spiritual).—The providence of God in the creation of the vegetable world before the creation of animals and man.—This providence a picture of the same providence with which he thought and commanded our salvation from eternity.—The storehouses of the earth supplied before the appearance of man, according to the Scriptures and natural science (coal, minerals, salts, etc.).—The third day. Gen_2:14-19 : The creation of the heavenly lights for the earth.—The sun. The moon. Sun and moon (Psa_8:19). The stellar world.—A glance of faith into the stellar world.—The office of the stars for the earth: 1. God’s sign for faith; 2. sacred signs for the festive periods of the solemnization of the faith; 3. spiritual watchers and guides for the spiritual life of Man_1:4. homes of life for creature-life.—The fourth day. Gen_2:20-23 : The life of the fishes in the sea and the birds under the heaven a sign of the possibility of an endlessly diversified existence of spiritual beings.—The blessing of God on the animal world (in every climate and sea).—The fifth day. Gen_2:24-25 : The animals of the earth as the forerunners of man: 1. The first signs and pictures of human life; 2. its most intimate assistants; 3. its first conditions.
Gen_2:26–31: The creation of man: 1. A decree of God; 2. an announcement of the image of God; 3. the last work of God.—The office of man: 1. God’s image in his power and perfection; 2. God’s likeness in his appearance.—The perfect fulfilment of this destiny.—The one divine similitude in the contrast of man and woman.—The blessing of God on man: 1. His future; 2. his calling; 3. his possessions and his sustenance.—The institution of marriage (see Genesis 2).—The calling of man, throughout, a call to dominion: 1. In representing God; 2. in ruling over the beasts; 3. in the free self-control.—The purity of the first creation.—The verdict of God: Very good.
Gen_2:24-25 The sixth day.—The completion of the world, the sabbath of God.—The significance of the rest of God on the seventh day.—The sabbath of God, the sabbath of man: 1. Man a sabbath of God; 2. God the sabbath of man.—The contrast between struggling creation and joyful labor, also in the life of man.—The blessing of God on the sabbath.—The sabbath in its significance: 1. Its source in the heart of God, like the life of man (the bliss of God); 2. its signs: the solemn pauses (God saw that it was good), like the evening-rest, preludes of the Sunday; 3. its fruitfulness: the festivals of the Old Covenant, the Sunday of the New Covenant, the eternal sabbath-rest, and celebration of the Sunday in eternity.—The festal demeanor according to the pattern of God: 1. Reposing; 2. blessing; 3. hallowing.—The first completion of the world a presage of its final completion.
Starke, Gen_2:1 : The question what God did before the creation. He chose us (Eph_1:4), He prepared for us the kingdom (Mat_25:34), He gave us grace in Christ (2Ti_1:9), He made the decree of the creation.—Some understand by the beginning the Son of God (Col_1:16; Rev_1:8), at which also the Chaldaic translation aims by rendering it: in wisdom (comp. Wisdom of Solomon Gen_9:4; Psa_104:24; Pro_8:22); but because the Son of God is nowhere13 absolutely called the beginning (see, however, Colossians 1, ἀρχή), and Moses, besides, intends to describe the origin of the world, the first explanation is reasonably preferred to the second (namely, from the beginning of the creation).—Moses, with these words: in the beginning, overthrows all the reasons of the heathen philosophers and atheists with which they maintain the eternity of the world, or that it perchance has arisen from numberless atoms (see Rom_1:19-20).—That the world is not eternal may be seen from the following passages: Psa_90:2; Pro_8:22; Pro_8:24-25; Isa_45:11-12; comp. Gen_2:13; Mat_13:35; Mat_24:21; Mat_25:34; Mar_10:6; 2Ti_1:9; 2Pe_3:4; Joh_17:24; Eph_1:4; 1Pe_1:20.—The spirit of God (Psa_33:6).
Gen_2:3 : Of the speaking of God. Although God did not speak as we do, nevertheless the speaking of God was a real genuine speech, in a higher but also more appropriate sense than speaking is said of man. For as God really and properly, although not in a natural manner, generates like man, so also is it with divine speech.
Gen_2:5 : God created light on a Sunday, and on that day the children of Israel passed through the Red Sea, etc.—God is a father of lights (Jam_1:17), of the external light, of the internal, natural light of reason, of the spiritual light of grace, and the eternal light in yonder world of glory.
Gen_2:11 : The herbs not only a house of supply, but also a store for healing.—To this third day belong also the subterranean treasures, as precious stones, metals, and other minerals.
Gen_2:29: We cannot say that they had not the liberty of eating flesh. Whether they really used this or preferred to eat fruits and herbs, we can reasonably refer to its proper place.—(Gen_2:31: Since God could have created everything in a moment, no reasonable cause can be given why He preferred six days, unless we reflect that it had perhaps a reference to the six great changes in the church, to which will finally succeed the sabbath of the saints. Thus the first day is a prefiguration of the time from Adam to Noah, etc.)—A Christian can use the creatures, but he must not misuse them (1Co_7:31) that they groan not against him (Rom_8:19).—Gen_2:3 : Discussion whether the first men were bound to respect the sabbath. On the contrary: 1. Every service of God connected with certain times and places had a view to man after the fall; 2. man in a state of innocence has served God at all times and in all places; the sabbath was first instituted in the wilderness: God gave the sabbath only to the Jews. Reasons for it: Appeal to the contents of our passage, etc.—The sabbath-day a favor of God.
Schröder to Gen_2:3 : Then spake God, says Chrysostom, “let there be light,” and there was light, but now He has not spoken it, but Himself has become our light.—From Valerius Herberger: But it is much more that the Lord Jesus will finally transport us, after this temporal light, into the eternal light of heaven, where we shall see God in His light face to face, and praise Him in the everlasting heavenly light and glory.—From Luther: He utters not grammatical words, but real and material things. Thus sun, moon, heaven, earth, Peter, Paul, I and thou are scarcely to be reckoned words of God, yea, hardly a syllable and letter (?) in comparison to the entire creation.—From Michaelis: Moses endeavors in the whole history of the creation to present God not merely as almighty, but at the same time as perfect, wise, and good, Who considers all His works and has created the best world.
Gen_2:6-8 : The conclusion of the first day’s work was an actual prophecy of the work of the second day of creation. It was on the basis of the light shining into and separating the moist chaos of the world, that God made the division.—From Calvin: We well know that torrents of rain arise in a natural manner, but the flood sufficiently proves how soon we can be overwhelmed by the violence of the clouds, if the cataracts of heaven are not stayed by the hand of God.—God named. The subsequent naming on the part of man is only the prophetic fulfilment of the naming of God here and elsewhere.
Gen_2:9-13 : The first (rather the second) division (Gen_2:6-8) is followed by a second, both closely and intimately clinging to and antithetically conditioning each other, for which reason some would even reckon Gen_2:9-10 to the preceding day.—Valentin Herberger: Is it not a miracle? We take a handful of seed and strew them on one earth and soil, where they have the same food, sap, and care, nevertheless they do not commingle, but each produces its kind: the one white, the other yellow, the fruit sweet and sour, brown and black, red and green, fragrant and offensive, high and low. Thus we, though, like the seeds, buried in one consecrated ground (Sir_40:1), will nevertheless at the day of judgment not be confounded with each other, but each will go forth in his flesh, yet incorruptible (1Co_15:38).
Gen_2:14-19. From Luther: He maintains the same order as in the three preceding days, in that He first adorns the heavens with lights and stars, and afterwards the earth. Even the heathen philosopher Plato says, that eyes are especially given to men that, by the observation of the heavenly bodies and their movements, they may be to them as guides to the knowledge of God. It is by the heavenly bodies that men judge of the weather; by their help they find their way on the water and on the land. So, too, a star led the wise men to the manger, etc.—Michaelis: They (the stars) are the great and almost infallible clock of the world, ever moving at the same rate.—From Luther: Hereby is developed and shown to us the immortality of the soul, from the fact that, with the exception of man, no creature can understand the movement of the heavens, nor measure the heavenly bodies. The hog, the cow, and the dog cannot measure the water that they drink, but man measures the heavens and all their hosts. Therefore there shows itself here a spark of eternal life.—From Calvin: “Moses paid more attention to us than to the stars, precisely as became a theologian.”—The true morning-star is Christ (Rev_22:16), the sun of righteousness (Mal_4:2).—The animals of the water are in marked contrast with the animals of the air. Water and air. The latter is as it were the embodied liquid light, the former embodied darkness; in its depths there is neither summer nor winter, it is the heavy melancholy element, whilst the air, light and cheerful, gives life and breath everywhere. The inhabitants of the former are opposed to those of the latter, the fish to the birds, as water and air, darkness and light. The fish is cold, stiff, mute; the bird warm, free, and full of melody. Yet not without reason were both created on one and the same day. They have many things in common, and are in structure and movement closely and intimately allied; the variegated scaly mail of the fish points to the colored feathery coat of the bird, and what the wings are to the latter, the fins are to the former. Water and air once lived together, and do so now; as the air descends into sea and earth, and vivifyingly penetrates the water, the latter, for its part, rises into the air, and mingles with the atmosphere to its remotest border.—That God blesses the animals, expresses the thought, that God creatively endows animals with the power of propagating their kind, and also points to the work of preserving the world. “Here we see what a blessing really means, namely, a powerful increase. When we bless we do nothing more than to wish good; but in God’s blessing there is a sound of increase, and it is immediately efficacious; so again, His curse is a withering, and its effect in like manner immediately consuming.” Luther.—Only the largest water-animals are introduced, because from them the greatness, omnipotence, and glory of the creator most clearly shine forth. The land-animals a product of the earth—with heads bent downwards.—Various views as to the time of the creation of the angels (p. 20).—The Redeemer rests also through the seventh day in the grave.—In divinely solemn stillness lay the young world, a mirror of the Godhead, before the eyes of the still unfallen first human pair, as with Him they kept holy day, representing in their divine similitude the sabbath of God in the creation, and the sabbath of the creation in God, harmoniously joined in one.—Of a sabbath-law, there is nothing said in the text. Israel’s later sabbaths (as the whole law was to awaken a sense of sin) were reminding copies of this sabbath of God after the creation, and unfulfilled prophecies not only of the completion of the theocracy of the Old in the Christocracy of the New Covenant, but also of the final consummation of the present order of things, especially on the last great sabbath, etc.—The ancient allegorizing of the days of creation according to the periods of the kingdom of God (p. 23).—“Six days,” says Calvin, “the Lord occupied in the structure of the world, not as if He needed these periods, before whom a moment is a thousand years, but because He will bind us to the observing of each one of His works. He had the same object in His repose on the seventh day.” (Augustine had already expressed himself in the same way. There lies at the base of this an abstract comprehension of the divine omnipotence, and a great ignoring of the idea of nature. Luther’s conjecture: The fall occurred on the first day of creation, about noon.)
Lisco: Death is nothing in the creation. Everything lives, but in very manifold modification.—Man is created in the image of God, i. e., so that all divine glory shines forth in him in a reduced scale. He has a nature allied to God, and therein lies the possibility and capability of becoming ever more like God.—The whole human race is one great family. All are blood-relations.—The dominion of man over nature obtains, in progressive development and extension, by the arts and sciences, by investigation of nature’s laws, and by using its powers (of course, under the conditioning of life in the spirit through community with God).
Gerlach: The whole subsequent history is written only for men (i. e., according to the human stand-point); therefore sun, moon, and stars, the host of heaven (Gen_2:1), appear merely as lights in the firmament of heaven, and nothing is told us of the inhabitants of heaven, although even in this book the angels frequently appear, and the fall of some is already in Genesis 3 presupposed, etc.—All things have had a beginning.—The world was to develop itself in the contrast of heaven and earth, which repeats itself on a small scale—on earth, in spirit and nature, and in man, in spirit and flesh.—It is self-evident, therefore, that God’s speaking is not the production of an audible sound, but the realization of His thoughts through an act of His will.—The “naming” is equivalent to determining something in accordance with its nature or its appearance. There is thereby indicated the power of God as ruling and thinking all things. (The naming here is not meant as a creative calling, but as an expression of the divine adaptation.)—The upper firmament from which descend light and warmth and fertilizing moisture, casting blessings on the earth, attracting with its wonderful moving and fixed lights the observation of the rudest man, and drawing forth the anticipation of, and longing for, a higher home than this earthly one, is, the visible pledge, yes, perhaps the distant gleam, of a heavenly world of light. It bears with it, therefore, a name which is the same with the kingdom, where in undimmed light “our Father in heaven” reveals Himself.—As originally everything was sea, thus in the glorified earth there will be no more sea.—It is absurd to suppose, because fruit-trees only are here spoken of, that the others, as thorns and thistles, did not appear until after the fall of man. (Only the fact that they at a later period burdened the field, is alluded to by Augustine as a punishment.) A very fitting distinction of a similitude of man, which cannot be lost, and of such a one as has been lost.—The reader must carefully guard against the Jewish fables which have also found their way among Christians, namely, that man was at first created as man and woman in one person, and afterwards both sexes were separated from it.—God rested, etc. Perfect rest and the greatest activity are one in Him (see Joh_5:17).—Whether a fixed observance of the seventh day was ordered with the revelation of the history of creation, or whether this was first given to the people of the law with the other laws, presents an obscure question, but the latter view is the more probable; in Genesis, at least, there is found no trace of the observance of the sabbath, and still less among heathen nations; the division of weeks, as found among some, might have been made according to the quarters of the moon. (The knowledge of the week, and the religious consecration of this knowledge, forms, indeed, the patriarchal religious basis of the sabbath-law, which no more came into the world abruptly than any other religious institution.)
Calwer Bible Exposition: The number seven, important through the whole Old Testament, reminds one of the year of jubilee and the rest of the sabbath which is allotted to the people of God above, whither Jesus has gone before to prepare a place for His own.—Bunsen: The days of creation go from light to light, from one (outstreaming) of light to another. Man as the real creature of light is the last progressive step.—Fruits of trees “above the earth” in contrast with bulbous plants, which are included in the herbs (?).—Signs. Sun, moon, and stars; especially sun and moon are to be signs for three important points: for festive periods (new moons and sabbaths), for days of the month, and for the new year (beginning of the solar and lunar year).—The week has its natural basis in the approximate duration of the four phases or appearances of the moon’s disk, whose unity forms the first measure of time, or the month, according to the general view of all Shemites. Astronomically the number seven has in the ancient world, and especially among the Shemites, its representation in the seven planets, or wandering stars, according to the view of the senses (?): the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Thence comes also the series of our week-days.—Arndt (Christ in the Old Covenant): As long as there is a world there is an advent.—The birth of the world is the great moment of which it is declared: God said: Let there be light, and there was light.
[Note on the Creation-Sabbath.—The question of the sabbath in all its aspects stands wholly clear from any difficulty as to the length of the creative days. We have already shown that there is not only a bare consistency but a beautiful scriptural harmony in the less being made a memorial of the greater. See Introd. to Genesis 1 pp. 135, 136. God’s great rest, or ceasing from His work of creation, commences with the first human consciousness following the inspiration that makes the primus homo. Then the heavens and the earth are finished. Nature and the world are complete in this crowning work, and the divine sabbath begins. This is blessed and hallowed. Time, as a part of nature, is now proceeding in its regular sun-divided order, and from this time a seventh returning part is also blessed and hallowed for man, as a season in which he is to rest from his works, and contemplate that now unceasing sabbath of God, which, from the very nature of the case, can have no such shorter recurring intervals. Hence the force of our Saviour’s words that the sabbath, the weekly solar sabbath, was made for man. They who contend that the divine sabbath is simply the first twenty-four hours after creation is finished, make it unmeaning, as predicated of God and His works. In this sense God no more rested on that solar day than on every one that follows until a new creative æon, or a new creative day, arises in the eternal counsels. Such a view destroys the beautiful analogy pervading the Scripture, by which the less is made the type of the greater, the earthly of the heavenly, the temporal of the eternal. It makes the earthly human sabbath a memorial of something just like itself, of one long-past solar day, of one single transient event, instead of being the constantly recurring witness of an æonian state, an eternal rest, ever present to God, and reserved for man in the unchanging timeless heavens.
But the question with which we are most concerned is in regard to the sabbath as established for man. Does this seventh day, or this seventh portion of time, which God blessed and hallowed, have thus an eternal and universal ground as a memorial of the creative work with its sevenfold division, or does it derive its sanction from a particular law made long after for a particular and peculiar people? The question must be determined by exegesis, and for this we have clear and decisive, if not extensive, grounds. It demands the close consideration of two short passages, and of a word or two in each. “And God blessed the seventh day,” Gen_2:3. Which seventh day? one might ask, the greater or the less, the divine or the human, the æonian or the astronomical? Both, is the easy answer; both, as commencing at the same time, so far as the one connects with astronomical time; both, as the greater including the less; both, as being (the one as represented, the other as typically representing) the same in essence and idea. The attempt to make them one in scale, or in measure, as well as in idea, does in fact destroy that universality of aspect which comes from the recurring, moving type as representing the standing antitype. Take away this, and all that we can make out of the words, as they stand in Gen_2:3, is that God blessed that one seventh day (be it long or short), or, on the narrower hypothesis, that one day of twenty-four hours which first followed His ceasing to create, and left it standing, sacred and alone, away back in the flow of time. But blessing the day means blessing it for some purpose: it is the expression of God’s love to it as a holy and beneficent thing among the things of time, as carrying ever with it something of God, some idea of the Blesser, and of the love and reverence due to Him as the fountain of all blessedness and of all blessed things. So the blessing upon man looks down through all the generations of man. No narrower idea of the blessing of the sabbath can be held without taking from the word all meaning. “And hallowed it, וַיְקַדֵּשׁ אֹתוֹ, and made it holy. This also is a very plain Hebrew word, especially in its Piel form, as any one may see by examining it with a concordance. We have given to the word unholy (the etymological opposite) too much the vague sense of wickedness in general, to allow of its fairly representing the opposite in idea. The holy throughout the Old Testament is opposed to the common, however lawful in itself it may be. To hallow is to make uncommon. To hallow a time is to make it a time when things which are common at other times, and peculiar to other times, should not be done, but the time so hallowed should be devoted to other and uncommon uses. Of course, things essential and necessary at all times are not included, or excluded, in such distinction. Neither will it hold of days or times that mere human authority thus devotes to any separate uses. Such devotion may be as partial, or as indefinite, as the authority chooses to make it. But when God hallows a time it is for Himself. Not simply whatever man does, but whatever he does for himself, or for his individual worldly interest, at other times, that must he not do on the times that God has hallowed for His own special remembrance; but he must, on the contrary, do other things which are more immediately connected with that special remembrance. Anything less than this as a general principle leaves the word to hallow or make holy, as used by God, and of God (unless specially limited to some partial application), an unmeaning utterance. It is the portion of time which the Creator of time keeps for Himself, out of the time He has given to man. It is elevating a portion of the human time to the standard, or in the direction at least, of God’s own eternal sabbath. There can be no hallowed time to God alone; there can be no hallowed time in itself irrespective of any agents in time. Therefore, the expression, He hallowed it, must be for men, for all men who were to be on the earth, or it is a mere blank. It is God’s day in which men should live specially for Him. It is sometimes said, we should live every day for God. If it be meant that there should be no special times in which we live to God as we do not, and cannot, at all times (when God permits us, in living for Him, to live also for ourselves), then is it a hyper-piety which becomes profanity in claiming to be above the need of a provision instituted by the divine wisdom and grace. Like to this is the plea, that, if there be a sabbath at all, it should be spent, not in religious acts, so called, but in the study and the contemplation of nature. This cavil has a high sound, but it would soon be abandoned, perhaps, by many that use it, if the contemplation of nature spoken of were what it ought to be, a contemplation of the very sabbath of God—nature itself being that holy pause in which God rests from His creative energies, that ineffable repose in which, though superintending and preserving, He provides for man through law that he can comprehend, and an executing Word that he can devoutly study.
If we had no other passage than this of Gen_2:3, there would be no difficulty in deducing from it a precept for the universal observance of a sabbath, or seventh day, to be devoted to God, as holy time, by all of that race for whom the earth and its nature were specially prepared. The first men must have known it. The words “He hallowed it,” can have no meaning otherwise. They would be a blank unless in reference to some who were required to keep it holy. After the fall, the evil race of Cain, doubtless, soon utterly lost the knowledge. In the line of Seth it may have become greatly dimmed. Enoch, we cannot hesitate to believe, kept holy sabbath, or holy seventh day (whether the exact chronological seventh or not), until God took him to the holy rest above. It lingered with Noah and his family, if we may judge from the seven-day periods observed in the ark. Of the other patriarchs, in this respect, nothing is directly told us. They were devout men, unworldly men, confessing themselves pilgrims on earth, seeking a rest. Nothing is more probable, prima facie, than that such men, as we read of them in Genesis, and as the Apostle has described them to us, should have cherished an idea so in harmony with their unearthly pilgrim-life, even though coming to them from the faintest tradition. To object that the Bible, in its few brief memoranda of their lives, says nothing about their sabbath-keeping, any more than it tells us of their forms of prayer and modes of worship, is a worthless argument. The Holy Scripture never anticipates cavils; it never shows distrust of its own truthfulness by providing against objections—objections we may say that it could have avoided, and most certainly would have avoided, had it been an untruthful book made either by earlier or later compilers. The patriarchs may have lost the tradition of the sabbath; it may not have come to them over the great catastrophe of the flood; or they may have lost the chronological reckoning of it; but, in either case, it would not affect the verity of the great facts and announcements in Genesis 1, 2, however, or by whatever species of inspiration, the first author of that account obtained his knowledge. For all who believe the Old Scriptures, as sanctioned by Christ and supported by the general biblical evidence, there it stands unimpaired by anything given or omitted in the subsequent history.
But there is another passage which shows conclusively that, through whatever channel it may have come, such a knowledge of the sabbath was in the world after the time of the patriarchs. The language of the fourth commandment (Exo_20:8), to say nothing of Exo_16:22-27, cannot be interpreted in any other way. Remember the sabbath-day, זָכוֹר אֶת יוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת. The force of the article is there, though omitted, in the Hebrew syntax, because of the specifying word that follows. It is just as though we should say in English: Remember sabbath-day. Take the precisely similar language, Mal_3:22, זִכְרוּ תּוֹרַת משֶׁה: Remember the law of Moses, or, Remember Moses’ law. As well might one contend that this was the first promulgation of the Pentateuch, as that Exo_20:8 was the first setting forth of the sabbatical institution. There was no call for such language had that been the case. It would have been in the style of the other commands: ‘Thou shalt have no other gods; Thou shalt not take the name, etc.; Thou shalt keep a sabbath, or rest,’ etc. We dwell not upon the distinct reference that follows to the creation-sabbath, and the perfect similarity of reason and of language. The artless introduction is enough to show that those to whom it was addressed are supposed to have known something of the ancient institution, however much its observance may have been neglected, or its reckoning, perhaps, been forgotten. The use of the word זְכוֹר (remember) would seem to point to some such danger of misreckoning, as though the Lawgiver meant to connect it back chronologically, by septennial successions, with the first sabbath, or the first day of the conscious human existence. Or he may have had in view future reckonings. The old law of a seventh day, or a seventh of time, being preserved as an immutable principle, there might have been a peculiar memorial reckoning for the Jewish people, as there afterwards was for the Christian church when the resurrection of Christ was taken for the initial day of reckoning, as being, in a most solemn sense, to the church, what the creative finishing had been to the world. So that, in this respect, the Christian seventh day may have been no more a substitution than the Jewish.
A seventh part of time is holy for man. God blessed it and hallowed it. Such is the deduction from the language of Gen_2:3. There are other questions relating to the sabbath, its adaptation to the human physical constitution, and the change of reckoning as between the Jewish and Christian dispensations, but they would come more in place in commenting on some other parts of the sacred volume, to which they may be, therefore, referred. The religious aspect appears more in the universal hallowing in Genesis than in the more national establishment among the Jews, where mere rest from labor seems more prominent than religious worship, or that holy contemplation of the divine which is the living thought in the creative account, and which comes out again so emphatically in the Christian institution as more suggestive, than the Jewish, of the eternal rest. It is a great, though very common, mistake, that the Jewish aspect of the sabbath is the more severely religious, as compared with the Christian, which is sometimes claimed to be more free in this respect. Strict as the Jewish institution was, in its prohibitions of labor, it was in fact the less religious; it had less of holy contemplation; it had no worship prescribed to it; it was, in a word, more secular than the primitive or the Christian, as being enjoined more for secular ends, namely bodily rest and restoration for man and beast, and even for the land. These, indeed, are important ends still remaining. The connections between the sabbath and the physical constitution of man form a most valuable part of the general argument, but as they bear upon the biblical view as collateral confirmation rather than as connected with its direct sanctions, we would simply refer the reader to some of the more instructive works that have been written on this branch of the subject.
James Aug. Hessey: “Sunday, its Origin, History, and Present Obligation” (Bampton Lectures preached before the University of Oxford), London. 1860; James Gilfillan: “The Sabbath viewed in the Light of Reason, Revelation, and History, with Sketches of its Literature,” Edinburgh, 1862, republished by the N. Y. Sabbath Committee and the American Tract Society, New York, 1862; Philip Schaff: “The Anglo-American Sabbath (an Essay read before the National Sabbath Convention, Saratoga, Aug. 11, 1863), New York, 1863 (republished in English and in German by the American Tract Society); Mark Hopkins: “The Sabbath and Free Institutions” (read before the same Convention), New York, 1863; Robert Cox: “The Literature on the Sabbath-Question,” Edinburgh, 1865, 2 vols. On the practical aspects of the sabbath-question, comp. the Documents prepared and published by the N. Y. Sabbath Committee from 1857 to 1867.—T. L.]
Footnotes:
[1][We get the best order of senses in the root צָבָא and its cognate צָבָה, by regarding, as the primary, the idea of splendor, or glory, as it remains in the noun צְבִי. See its use, Isa_4:2, where it seems synonymous with כָבוֹד, Isa_13:19, and a number of other places. The secondary sense of host, orderly military array (comp. Son_6:10), comes very easily and naturally from it. Or we may say that along with the idea of hosts, as in the frequent יְהוָֹה צְבָאוֹת, Jehovah of hosts, it never loses the primary conception. “Thus the earth and the heavens were finished and all their glory,” or their glorious array. Compare the Syriac ܨܒܬܐ, decus, ornamentum, where the servile tau has become radical. The LXX. and Vulgate translators seem to have had something of this idea: πᾶς ὁ κόσμος αὐτῶν—omnis ornatus eorum. There is a grand significance in the Greek κόσμος and Latin mundus as thus used for the world or the array (artistic unity) of the worlds. צָבָא is the Hebrew for κόσμος, and thus there is a most sublime parallelism presented by its two expressions: יְהוָֹה צְבָאוֹת and מֶלֶךְ עֹלָמִים—Lord of the worlds in space, King of the worlds in time: βασιλεὺς τῶν αἰώνων, Psa_145:13; Isa_26:4; 1Ti_1:17. The Hebrew far transcends the Greek.—T. L.]
[2][“The Scriptures,” says Delitzsch in his comment on וַיִּשְׁבֹּת, p. 129, “do not hesitate to speak anthropopathically of God’s entrance into rest.” As far as the word שָׁבַת is concerned, there is no anthropathism here except as all human language, and all human conception, in respect to Deity, is necessarily such—that is, necessarily representing him in space and time. The primary sense of the word שָׁבַת is simply to cease, cease doing—as the LXX. render it, κατέπαυσε—not ἀνέπαυσε which carries the idea of recreation or refreshment after fatigue, like ἀναψύχω, or the Hebrew Niphal יִנָּפֵשׁ. When joined with this latter verb, as in Exo_31:17, the whole language may be called anthropopathic, but the added word shows that the idea expressed by it is not in the first. If ceasing from creation, wholly or partially, implies mutability, it is no less implied in the emanation-theory, unless we suppose an emanation, or necessary creation, of every possible thing, everywhere, always, and of the highest degree—in other words, an unceasing and unvaried filling of infinite space and infinite time with infinite perfection of manifestation. But waiving all such inconceivable subtleties, it may be truly said that rest, of itself, is a higher and more perfect state than outward action—if we may speak of anything as higher and lower in respect to God. Rest is not inertia. Rest in physics is the equilibrium of power, and so the maximum of power (re-sto, re-sisto). Motion is the yielding, or letting out, of power, necessary, indeed, for its manifestation or patent effect, yet still a dispersing or spending of that static energy which was in the quiescence. Absolute rest in the kosmos (the bringing it into, or keeping it in, that state) would be the highest exercise of the divine might; but as it would preclude all sensation, and all sentiency, both of which are inseparable from change or motion of some kind, it would be an absence of all outward manifestation; that is, it would be non-phenomenal or non-appearing. So also rest is the highest power (activity) of mind or spirit, and thus its highest state. This is Aristotle’s dictum, Ethic. Nichomach. x. 8, Genesis 7 : ἡ τελεία εὐδαιμονία θεωρητική τις ἐστὶν ἐνέργεια, “the perfect blessedness is a contemplative energy;” “so that (sec. 8) that energy of God which excels all in blessedness must be contemplative (or theoretical), and, of human things, that which is most akin to this must be most blessed” (εὐδαιμονικωτάτη). In this way, too, may we strive to obtain a conception of the sabbath or “rest of the saints.” The Scripture thought of this would seem to be as much opposed to torpor or inertia, on the one hand, as it is, on the other, to that busy doing which enters so much into some modern conceptions of the future life. They that believe have entered into rest. There can be no doubt, too, that the idea of holy contemplation, or sabbath-keeping in the festal sense of the word, on which Lange so much insists, enters into the idea of שָׁבַת here in Genesis, although derived, perhaps, from its subsequent use. In this sense, there is something of a sabbath whenever there come the words: and God saw (surveyed, contemplated), “saw that it was good.” It is a solemn pausing to behold the divine ideas in their outward appearing—not as a change in Deity, as though with him this took place at intervals, but as a presentation, for the time, of that constant, immutable aspect of the divine character as it comes forth at intervals for us. This eternal rest of God is the sun ever shining calmly above the clouds, yet now and then revealing itself through them as they break away over our changing world of nature and of time. It is such a timeless sabbath that is intended by Rabbi Simeon, as quoted by Raschi in his comment. on the words seventh day, Gen_2:2. “Flesh and blood has need to add the common to the holy time (to reckon them by passing intervals) but to the Holy One, blessed be He, it is as the thread that binds the hair, and all days appear as one.” Compare it with the צְרוּר הַחַיִּים, “the bundle of life,” or lives, 1Sa_25:29, and which is so often referred to by the Rabbinical writers.—T. L.]
[3][The simplest rendering of the Hebrew here would give the easiest and the plainest sense. It is that presented in our marginal reading, taking לַעֲשׂוֹת, not as a gerund (faciendo), but literally, as an infinitive of purpose: which God had created to make. It suggests nearly the distinction given by Delitzsch between the fundamental and that which follows—the ground-laying and the finishing, the material-gathering and the architectural arrangement of the structure. So the Vulgate: Quod Deus creavit ut faceret, and Onkelos: די ברא יי למעבד.—T. L.]
[4][This word is not to be found in any English dictionary, but we are compelled to Latinize here, and form a word, from principium principia, to correspond to Lange’s word prinzipielle. Our “principal” is too vague, and used in too many senses, to answer the purpose.—T. L.]
[5]With respect to dogmatical literature on the account of the Creation, examine Bretschneider: “Systematical Development of Dogmatic Ideas,” p. 450.
[6][For this thought of Lange, which some might regard as pure fancy, there is an etymological ground in the Hebrew language. The words for light, and for the motions of light, have a close affinity to those for flying, compare עוף, volare, עופף, vibrare, עיפה rendered tenebræ, but which strictly means the earliest twilight or twinkling of the morning, and that beautiful word, עַפְעַפֵי שַׁחַר, palpebræ auroræ, Job_3:9; Job_41:10—ἡμέρας βλέφαρον, Soph. Antig. 103, “the eye-lids,” the opening wing “of the morning.” Compare also נצא, volavit, Jer_48:9, and נצץ, splenduit, micavit, shone, glistened, glimmered, נְץ, a flower, etc. It is something more than a mere poetical image when we speak of light as having wings, especially as the conception is applied to the faint gleaming, glimmering, fluttering, we may say, just waving up out of the darkness. How natural the order of the images: to fly, flutter, palpitate, vibrate, quiver, twinkle, glimmer, gleam, shine. Comp. Engl.: fly, Hare, flash; Latin: volo (volito), flo, flare, flamma. So spiritually, idea and reflection support the same analogy. It may be the piercing eye of the eagle that represents the idea, but the other view has the best philological grounds.—T. L.]
[7][We have placed this sentence in italics as containing a truth of vast importance, transcending all science on the one hand, and all theology that places itself in antagonism to science on the other. If it contains truth in respect to the world, then, a fortiori, is it true in respect to man, who is the final cause, or “the spiritual core of the world,” as Lange elsewhere styles him. There is an eternal ground for the world; much more is there an eternal ground for humanity (Adam-ity); beyond all, is there an eternal ground for the new humanity (Christ-ianity). “Chosen in Him before the foundation of the world.”—T. L.]
[8] [This conception seems to be sanctioned by Lange, but there is no proof of it. Instead of being suggested by the figure of the mundus (which is not like an egg, or the earth like its yolk, unless we make very ancient the knowledge, or notion, of the earth’s sphericity), this so common feature of the old cosmogonies came most probably from the idea of a brooding, cherishing, life-producing power, represented in Genesis by the רוּחַ מְרַחֶפֶת, the throbbing, pulsating, moving spirit-from רָחַף, primary sense in Piel, palpitare, secondary sense, yet very ancient in the Syriac, to love warmly, or with the strongest affection. Hence in the Greek cosmogony the first thing born of this egg was ἔρως, the primitive love, which shows that the egg had nothing to do with the figure of the earth, either real or supposed. See the Birds of Aristophanes, 697, where the poet calls it ὑπηνέμιον, the egg produced without natural impregnation:
Ἐξ οὗ περιτελλομέναις ὥραις ἔβλαστεν Ἔρως ὁ ποθεινός,
From which sprang Love the all desired,—
only the Greeks, as usual, inverted the primitive idea, and made the generating cause itself the effect. Eros then produced the human race, etc. In other respects the heathen cosmogonies are very fairly given here by Lücken; but what a contrast do these monstrosities present to the pure, harmonious, monotheistic grandeur of the Bible account! If the Mosaic cosmogony was derived from the heathen, as is contended, how very strange it is, and counter to what takes place in all similar derivations, that the Hebrew mind (a very gross mind, they say) should have taken it in this impure and monstrously confused state, and refined it back to that chaste and sublime consistency which the Bible narrative, whatever may be thought of its absolute truth, may so justly claim.—T. L.]
[9][Dr Lange’s fancy here seems altogether too exuberant. The parallelism with the Mosaic account in the 104th Psalm is too striking to be mistaken. It was doubtless, too, in the mind of the writer of the Apocalypse, as it is also evident in the beginning of the Gospel of John, but many of the resemblances here traced by Dr. Lange altogether fail to satisfy.—T. L.]
[10][Dr. Lange’s rendering here is that of Luther, and is the same with our English translation. But there can be hardly a doubt of its being erroneous. It should be, “that there shall be no more delay”—that is, in what is to follow. See Bloomfield.—T. L.]
[11][It may seem strange that Dr. Lange, while laying so much stress on these remoter, if not altogether fanciful, parallelisms with the creative account which he finds in the Apocalypse, should have overlooked the much more distinct reference in the beginning of the Gospel of John. Whether the principium there is the same with that in Genesis, may admit of discussion, but there can be no doubt of the parallelism, and the mention of light and life immediately following makes it unmistakable. It is a higher light, indeed, for “the darkness overtakes it not,” as it should be rendered. There is no night following that new and eternal day, and so there are no mornings and evenings to succeed. It is a new creation, and a new chronology, but this idea only makes more clear the reference to the old Mosaic creation and the Mosaic days.—T. L.]
[12][Compare Heb_1:3, where Christ is called “the express image,” which is a poor translation of the Greek χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως, the impression, stamp, or image of the substance. Compare, also, Coloss. Gen_1:15 : εἰκὼν τοῦ Θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου—“image of the invisible God.”—T. L.]
[13][Unless it be Pro_8:22, יְהוָֹה קָנָנִי רֵאשִׁית דַּרְכּוֹ, which can only be rendered “Jehovah possessed me, or begat me, the beginning of his way.” This probably was the ground of the translation in the Jerusalem Targum, and there would seem to be something in it, if we would in any way connect the creation of the world with the eternal beginning, as Lange does in respect to the creation of the church—chosen in Him, created in Him. The expressions seem parallel.—T. L.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24 THE FIRST SABBATH. (Gen 2:2-7)
THE FIRST SABBATH. (Gen 2:2-7)
and he rested on the seventh day--not to repose from exhaustion with labor (see Isa 40:28), but ceased from working, an example equivalent to a command that we also should cease from labor of every kind.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 SEVENTH DAY — SABBATH, Gen_2:1-3.
SEVENTH DAY — SABBATH, Gen_2:1-3.
1. All the host of them — That is, all the things, animate and inanimate, which made up the several works of creation.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–25 Ch. Gen_2:1-4 a. The Seventh Day: (a) The Cessation…
Ch. Gen_2:1-4 a. The Seventh Day: (a) The Cessation from Work; (b) The Hallowing of the Day
1. were finished] In these verses the repetition of the words “finish,” “work,” “seventh day,” “made,” is probably intended to heighten the solemnity connected with the seventh day; see also note on Gen_1:27, and Introduction, on the characteristics of P.
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and all the host of them] The word “host” is noteworthy. The Hebrew is ṣâbâ, “army,” the plural of which is the word “Sabaoth” (= ṣ’bâôth = “hosts”) familiar to us in the Te Deum. Here, as applied to the countless forces of the universe, its use is metaphorical. In the ancient world a great army represented the ideal of an organized multitude: and the designation of “host” (ṣâbâ) is often given in the O.T. to the heavenly bodies (e.g. 2Ki_17:16). The LXX ὁ κόσμος αὐτῶν, = “their order, beauty, or array,” is reproduced in the Lat. ornatus eorum = “their splendour,” missing the significance of the original. Upon this error of the Vulgate St Thomas Aquinas based his division of the works of Creation into “opera distinctionis” and “opera ornatus.”
NOTE ON THE SABBATH
In connexion with the Institution of the Sabbath recorded in Gen_2:1-3 the following points deserve to be noticed.
1. The writer gives the reason for the sanctity among the Hebrews of the Seventh Day, or Sabbath. As, in chap. 17, he supplies an answer to the question: What is the origin of the Hebrew sacred rite of circumcision? so, here, he gives an answer to the question: What is the origin of the observance of the Sabbath?
2. Whereas the Hebrew rite of circumcision is described as having its origin in the command of God delivered to Abraham, the Father of the Chosen People, the origin of the Sabbath is treated as more ancient and uniquely sacred. As an institution, it follows at once upon the work of Creation. Whatever its import, therefore, may be, it is regarded by the writer as universal in its application. The Divine rest from Creation, like the Divine work of Creation, was a pledge of Divine Love, not to the Jew only, but to the whole world.
3. From the first, God is said to have “blessed” and “sanctified” the seventh day. In other words, he invested the seventh day with the quality of highest value and advantage to those who observed it; stamped its observance with the seal of Divine approbation; and “set it apart,” as distinct from the other six days, for sacred purposes.
4. The account of the origin of the Sabbath, given in this passage, is followed in the legislation, Exo_31:17 (P), and seems to have supplied the appendix to the primitive form of the Fourth Commandment as found in the Decalogue of Exodus (Gen_20:11).
In the Deuteronomic Decalogue (Deu_5:12-15) the observance of the Sabbath is enjoined, without any reference to the days of Creation, but with an appendix explaining its humanitarian purpose. “And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God brought thee out thence by a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.”
A similar explanation for the observance of the Sabbath is found in the so-called Book of the Covenant (Exo_20:22 to Exo_23:33 E), which contains the earliest collection of Hebrew laws: “Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may have rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed” (Exo_23:12). In the old ritual laws of Exo_34:10-28, the observance of the seventh day is commanded as a duty with which no pressure of field labour is to interfere: “Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest; in plowing time and in harvest thou shalt rest” (Gen_2:21).
What relation exists between the Hebrew institution of the Sabbath and Babylonian usage is a question which has been much discussed in recent years. It has sometimes been too hastily assumed that the Hebrew ordinance has been directly imported from Babylonia. For a full discussion, see Driver (D.B. s.v. Sabbath); Gordon, Early Traditions of Genesis, pp. 216–223; the Commentaries by Driver and Skinner; Meinhold, Sabbath u. Woche im A.T. The following points may here be noticed:
(a) The Assyrian word shabattu appears in a cuneiform syllabary (ii Rawlinson 32, 16 a, b) with the equivalent ûm nûḥ libbi (ilâni), i.e. “day of resting (satisfying or appeasing) the heart of the gods.”
(b) In a tablet, discovered in 1904 by Pinches, the word shapattu appears to have been applied to the 15th day, or full-moon day, of the month (P.S.B.A. xxvi. 51 ff.).
(c) There is evidence which shews that the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th days, and also the 19th (i.e. the 49th = 7 × 7th, from the commencement of the preceding month) were in certain, if not in all, of the Babylonian months, regarded as “unlucky” days. The following quotation is from a calendar of the intercalated month of Elul. “On the 7th day, supplication to Marduk and Sarpanitum, a favourable day (sc. may it be). An evil day. The shepherd of many nations is not to eat meat roasted by the fire, or any food prepared by the fire. The clothes of his body he is not to change, fine dress (?) he is not to put on. Sacrifices he is not to bring, nor is the king to ride in his chariot. He is not to hold court, nor is the priest to seek an oracle for him in the holy of holies. The physician is not to be brought to the sick room. The day is not suitable for invoking curses. At night, in the presence of Marduk and Ishtar, the king is to bring his gift. Then he is to offer sacrifices so that his prayer may be acceptable” (M. Jastrow’s Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 376, 377).
(d) It is only on the side of prohibition that we can here see any resemblance between the Babylonian treatment of the seventh day and the Hebrew Sabbath of every seventh day. Of course it is possible that if the use of the Babylonian word shapattu for “full-moon” day is sustained, it may be a survival of Semitic lunar sacred days, the observance of which, though dropped by Babylonian usage, was retained by Hebrew legislation and given a new religious significance.
(e) In the pre-exilic writings of the O.T. (2Ki_4:23; Isa_1:13; Hos_2:11; Amo_8:5) we notice the joint mention of the New Moon and the Sabbath as sacred festivals observed by the people; but the conjecture of Meinhold, that the Sabbath was originally the Hebrew name of the Full Moon Festival, seems very improbable. That there is some underlying connexion between the Babylonian shabattu and the Hebrew shabbath is highly probable. At present, there is no evidence to shew that the Hebrew usage is borrowed from Babylonian. Nor does the language of the post-exilic writers suggest that the Hebrew observance of the Sabbath was one which they associated with Babylonian religion.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 (1) Were finished.—The first three verses of this chapter…
II.
THE SABBATH.
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(1) Were finished.—The first three verses of this chapter form part of the previous narrative, and contain its Divine purpose. For the great object of this hymn of creation is to give the sanction of the Creator to the Sabbath. Hence the ascribing of rest to Him who wearies not, and hence also the description of the several stages of creation as days. Labour is, no doubt, ennobled by creation being described as work done by God; but the higher purpose of this Scripture was that for which appeal is made to it in the Fourth Commandment, namely, to ennoble man’s weekly rest. Among the Accadians, Mr. Sayce says (Chald. Genesis. p. 89), the Sabbath was observed—so ancient is its institution—but it was connected with the sun, moon, and five planets, whence even now the days of the week take their titles, though the names of Scandinavian deities have been substituted in this country for some of their old Latin appellations. Here every idolatrous tendency is guarded against, and the Sabbath is the institution of the One Almighty God.
The host of them.—The word translated host does not refer to military arrangement, but to numbers gathered in crowds. This crowded throng of heaven sometimes means the angels, as in 1Ki_22:19; oftener the stars. Here it is the host both of heaven and earth, and signifies the multitudes of living creatures which people the land, and seas, and air.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. H. Mackintosh 1880 · Public Domain On v1 Genesis 2
Genesis 2
The chapter introduces to our notice two prominent subjects, namely, "the seventh day" and "the river." The first of these demands special attention.
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There are few subjects on which so much misunderstanding and contradiction prevails as the doctrine of "the Sabbath." Not that there is the slightest foundation for either the one or the other; for the whole subject Is laid down in the word, in the simplest possible manner. The distinct commandment, to "keep holy the Sabbath day" will come before us, the Lord permitting, in our meditations on the book of Exodus. In the chapter now before us, there is no command given to man, whatever; but simply the record that, "God rested on the seventh dray." "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. and God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." There is no commandment given to man, here. We are simply told that God enjoyed His rest, because all was done, so far as the mere creation was concerned. There was nothing more to be done, and, therefore, the One who had, during six days, been working, ceased to work, and enjoyed His rest. All was complete; all was very good; all was just as He Himself had made it; and He rested in it. "The morning stars sang together; and all the sons of God shouted for joy." The work of creation was ended, and God was celebrating a Sabbath.
And, be it observed, that this is the true character of a Sabbath. This is the only Sabbath which God ever celebrated, so far as the inspired record instructs us. After this, we read of God’s commanding man to keep the Sabbath, and man utterly failing so to do; but we never read again the words, "God rested;" on the contrary, the word is, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." (John 5: 17) The Sabbath, in the strict and proper sense of the term, could only be celebrated when there really was nothing to be done. It could only be celebrated amid an undefiled creation - a creation on which no spot of sin could be discerned. God can have no rest where there is sin; and one has only to look around him in order to learn the total impossibility of God’s enjoying a rest in creation now. The thorn and the thistle, together with the ten thousand other melancholy and humiliating fruits of a groaning creation, rise before us, and declare that God must be at work and not at rest. Could God rest in the midst of thorns and briers? Could He rest amid the sighs and tears, the groans and sorrows, the sickness and death, the degradation and guilt of a ruined world? Could God sit down, as it were, and celebrate a Sabbath in the midst of such circumstances?
Whatever answer may be given to these questions, the word of God teaches us that God has had no Sabbath, as yet, save the one which the 2nd of Genesis records. "The seventh day," and none other, was the Sabbath. It showed forth the completeness of creation work; but creation work is marred, and the seventh day rest interrupted; and thus, from the fall to the incarnation, God was working; from the incarnation to the cross, God the Son was working; and from Pentecost until now, God the Holy Ghost has been working.
Assuredly, Christ had no Sabbath when He was upon this earth. True, He finished His work - blessedly, gloriously finished it but where did He spend the Sabbath day? In the tomb! Yes, my reader, the Lord Christ. God manifest in the flesh, the Lord of the Sabbath, the Maker and Sustainer of heaven and earth, spent the seventh day in the dark and silent tomb. Has this no voice for us? Does it convey no teaching? Could the Son of God lie in the grave on the seventh day, if that day were to be spent in rest and peace; and in the full sense that nothing remained to be done? impossible! We want no farther proof of the impossibility of celebrating a Sabbath than that which is afforded at the grave of Jesus. We may stand beside that grave amazed to find it occupied by such an one on the seventh day; but, oh! the reason is obvious. Man is a fallen, ruined, guilty creature. His long career of guilt has ended in crucifying the Lord of glory; and not only crucifying Him, but placing a great stone at the mouth of the tomb, to prevent, if possible, His leaving it.
And what was man doing while the Son of God was in the grave? He was observing the Sabbath day! What a thought! Christ in His grave to repair a broken Sabbath, and yet man attempting to keep, the Sabbath as though it were not broken at all! It was man’s Sabbath, and not God’s. It was a Sabbath without Christ - an empty, powerless, worthless, because Christless and Godless, form.
But some will say, "the day has been changed, while all the principles belonging to it remain the same." I do not believe that scripture furnishes any foundation for such an idea. Where is the divine warrant for such a statement? Surely if there is scripture authority, nothing can be easier than to produce it. But the fact is, there is none; on the contrary, the distinction is most fully maintained in the New Testament. Take one remarkable passage, in proof:" In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week." (Matt. 28: 1) There is, evidently, no mention here of the seventh day being changed to the first day; nor yet of any transfer of the Sabbath from the one to the other. The first day of the week is not the Sabbath changed, but altogether a new day. It is the first day of a new period, and not the last day of an old. The seventh day stands connected with earth and earthly rest; the first day of the week, on the contrary, introduces us to heaven and heavenly rest.
This makes a vast difference in the principle; and when we look at the matter in a practical point of view, the difference is most material. If I celebrate the seventh day, it marks me as an earthly man, inasmuch as that day is, clearly, the rest of earth - creation rest; but if I am taught by the Word and Spirit of God to understand the meaning of the first day of the week, I shall at once apprehend its immediate connection with that new and heavenly order of things, of which the death and resurrection of Christ form the everlasting foundation. The seventh day appertained to Israel and to earth. The first day of the meek appertains to the Church and to heaven. Further, Israel was commanded to observe the Sabbath day; the Church is privileged to enjoy the first day of the week. The former was the test of Israel’s moral condition; the latter is the significant proof of the Church’s eternal acceptance. That made manifest what Israel could do for God; this perfectly declares what God has done for us.
It is quite impossible to over-estimate the value and importance of the Lord’s day, (e kuriake emera,) as the first day of the week is termed, in the first chapter of the Apocalypse. Being the day on which Christ rose from the dead, it sets forth, not the completion of creation, but the full and glorious triumph of redemption. Nor should we regard the celebration of the first day of the week as a matter of bondage, or as a yoke put on the neck of a Christian. It is his delight to celebrate that happy day. Hence we find that the first day of the week was pre-eminently the day on which the early Christians came together to break bread; and at that period of the Church’s history, the distinction between the Sabbath and the first day of the week was fully maintained. The Jews celebrated the former, by assembling in their synagogues, to read "the law and the prophets;" the Christians celebrated the latter, by assembling to break bread. There is not so much as a single passage of scripture in which the first day of the week is called the Sabbath day; whereas there is the most abundant proof of their entire distinctness.
Why, therefore, contend for that which has no foundation in the Word? Love, honour, and celebrate the Lord’s day as much as possible; seek, like the apostle, to be "in the spirit" thereon; let your retirement from secular matters be as profound as ever you can make it; but while you do all this, call it by its proper name; give it its proper place; understand its proper principles; attach to it its proper characteristics; and, above all, do not bind down the Christian, as with an iron rule, to observe the seventh day, when it is his high and holy privilege to observe the first. Do not bring him down from heaven, where he can rest, to a cursed and bloodstained earth, where he cannot. Do not ask him to keep a day which his Master spent in the tomb, instead of that blessed day on which He left it. (see, carefully, Matt. 28: 1-6; Mark 16: 1-2; Luke 24: 1; John 20: 1, 19, 26; Acts 20: 7; 1 Cor. 16: 2; Rev. 1: 10; Acts 13: 14; Acts 17: 2; Col. 2: 16.)
But let it not be supposed that we lose sight of the important fact that the Sabbath will again be celebrated, in the land of Israel, and over the whole creation. It assuredly will. "There remaineth a rest (sabbatismos) for the people of God." (Heb. 4: 9) When the Son of Abraham, Son of David, and Son of man, shall assume his position of government over the whole earth, there will be a glorious Sabbath rest which sin shall never interrupt. But now, He is rejected, and all who know and love Him are called to take their place with Him in His rejection; they are called to "go forth to Him without the camp, bearing his reproach." (Heb. 13: 13) If earth could keep a Sabbath, there would be no reproach; but the very fact of the professing church’s seeking to make the first day of the week the Sabbath, reveals a deep principle. It is but the effort to get back to an earthly standing, and to an earthly code of morals.
Many may not see this. Many true Christians may, most conscientiously, observe the Sabbath day, as such; and we are bound to honour their consciences, though we are perfectly warranted in asking them to furnish a scriptural basis for their conscientious convictions. We would not stumble or wound their conscience, but we would seek to instruct it. However, we are not now occupied with conscience or its convictions, but only with the principle which lies at the root of what may be termed the Sabbath question; and I would only put the question to the Christian reader, which is more consonant with the entire scope and spirit of the New Testament, the celebration of the seventh day or Sabbath, or the celebration of the first day of the meek or the Lord’s day?*
{*This subject will, if the Lord permit, come before us again in Exodus 20; but I would, here, observe, that very much of the offence and misunderstanding connected with the important subject of the Sabbath, may be justly traced to the inconsiderate and injudicious conduct of some who, in their zeal for what they termed Christian liberty, in reference to the Sabbath, rather lose sight of the claims of honest consciences and also of the place which the Lord’s day occupies in the New Testament. Some have been known to enter upon their weekly avocations, simply to show their liberty, and thus they caused much needless offence. Such acting could never have been suggested by the Spirit of Christ. If I am ever so clear and free, in my own mind, I should respect the consciences of my brethren: and, moreover, I do not believe that those who so carry themselves, really understand the true and precious privileges connected with the Lord’s day. We should only be too thankful to be rid of all secular occupation and distraction, to think of having recourse to them, for the purpose of showing our liberty. The good providence of our God has so arranged for His people throughout the British Empire, that they can, without pecuniary loss, enjoy the rest of the Lord’s day, inasmuch as all are obliged to abstain from business. This must be regarded, by every well-regulated mind, as a mercy; for, if it were not thus ordered, we know how man’s covetous heart would, if possible, rob the Christian of the sweet privilege of attending the assembly, on the Lord’s day. And who can tell what would be the deadening effect of uninterrupted engagement with this worlds traffic? Those Christians who, from Monday morning to Saturday night, breathe the dense atmosphere of the mart, the market, and the manufactory, can form some idea of it.
It cannot be regarded as a Good sign to find men introducing measures for the public profanation of the Lord’s day. It, assuredly, marks the progress of infidelity and French influence.
But there are some who teach that the expression e kuriake emera, which is rightly enough translated, "the Lord’s day," refers to "the day of the Lord" and that the exiled apostle found himself carried forward, as it were, into the Spirit of the day of the Lord. I do not believe the original would bear such an interpretation; and, besides, we have in 1 Thess. 5: 2, and 2 Peter 3: 10, the exact words, "the day of the Lord," the original of which is quite different from the expression above referred to, being not e kuriake emera, but e emera kurion. This entirely settles the matter, so far as the mere criticism is concerned; and as to interpretation, it is plain that by far the greater portion of the Apocalypse is occupied, not with "the day of the Lord" but with events prior thereto.}
We shall now consider the connection between the Sabbath, and the river flowing out of Eden. There is much interest in this. It is the first notice we get of "the river of God" which is, here, introduced in connection with God’s rest. When God was resting in His works, the whole world felt the blessing and refreshment thereof. It was impossible for God to keep a Sabbath, and earth not to feel its sacred influence. But alas, the streams which flowed forth from Eden-the scene of earthly rest - were speedily interrupted, because the rest of creation was marred by sin.
Yet, blessed be God, sin did not put a stop to His activities but only gave them a new sphere; and wherever He is seen acting, the river is seen flowing. Thus when we find Him, with a strong hand, and an outstretched arm, conducting His ransomed hosts across sterile sand of the desert, there we see the stream flowing forth, not from Eden, but from the smitten Rock - apt and beautiful expression of the ground on which sovereign grace ministers to the need of sinners! This was redemption and not merely creation. "That rock was Christ," Christ smitten to meet His people’s need. The smitten rock was connected with Jehovah’s place in the Tabernacle; and truly there was moral beauty in the connection. God dwelling in curtains, and Israel drinking from a smitten rock, had a voice for every opened ear, and a deep lesson for every circumcised heart. (Ex. 17: 6)
Passing onward, in the history of God’s ways, we find the river flowing in another channel. "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood, and saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." (John 7: 37, 38.) Here, then, we find the river emanating from another source, and flowing through another channel; though, in one sense, the source of the river was ever the same, being God Himself; but, then, it was God, known in a new relationship and upon a new principle. Thus in the passage just quoted, the Lord Jesus was taking His place, in spirit, outside of the whole existing order of things, and presenting Himself as the source of the river of living water, of which river the person of the believer was to be the channel. Eden, of old, was constituted a debtor to the whole earth, to send forth the fertilising streams. And in the desert, the rock, when smitten, became a debtor to Israel’s thirsty hosts. Just so, now, every one who believes in Jesus, is a debtor to the scene around him, to allow the streams of refreshment to flow forth from him.
The Christian should regard himself as the channel, through which the manifold grace of Christ may flow out to a needy world; and the more freely he communicates, the more freely will he receive, "for there is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty." This places the believer in a place of sweetest privilege, and, at the same time, of the most solemn responsibility. He is called to be the constant witness and exhibitor of the grace of Him on whom He believes.
Now, the more he enters into the privilege, the more will he answer the responsibility. If he is habitually feeding upon Christ, he cannot avoid exhibiting Him. The more the Holy Spirit keeps the Christian’s eyes fixed on Jesus, the more will his heart be occupied with His adorable Person, and his life and character bear unequivocal testimony to His grace. Faith is, at once, the power of ministry, the power of testimony, and the power of worship. If we are not living "by the faith of the Son of God, who loved us, and gave himself for us" we shall neither be effectual servants, faithful witnesses, nor true worshippers. We may be doing a great deal, but it will not be service to Christ. We may be saying a great deal, but it will not be testimony for Christ. We may exhibit a great deal of piety and devotion, but it will not be spiritual and true worship.
Finally, we have the river of God, presented to us in the last chapter of the Apocalypse.* "And he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." "There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High." This is the last place in which we find river. Its source can never again be touched - its channel never again interrupted. "The throne of God" is expressive of eternal stability; and the presence of the Lamb marks it as based upon the immediate ground of accomplished redemption. It is not God’s throne in creation, nor in providence; but in redemption. When I see the Lamb, I know its connection with me as a sinner. "The throne of God," as such, would but deter me; but when God reveals Himself in the Person of the Lamb, the heart is attracted, and the conscience tranquillised.
{*Compare also Ezek. 47: 1-12; Zech 14: 8.}
The blood of the Lamb cleanses the conscience from every speck and stain of sin, and sets it, in perfect freedom in the presence of a holiness which cannot tolerate sin. In the cross, all the claims of divine holiness were perfectly answered; so that the more I understand the latter, the more I appreciate the former. The higher our estimate of holiness, the higher will be our estimate of the work of the cross. "Grace reigns, through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord." Hence the Psalmist calls on the saints to give thanks at the remembrance of God’s holiness. This is a precious fruit of a perfect redemption. Before ever a sinner can give thanks at the remembrance of God’s holiness, he must look at it by faith, from the resurrection side of the cross.
Having thus traced the river, from Genesis to Revelation, we shall briefly look at Adam’s position in Eden. We have seen him as a type of Christ; but he is not merely to be viewed typically, but personally; not merely as absolutely shadowing forth "the second man, the Lord from heaven," but also as standing in the place of personal responsibility. In the midst of the fair scene of creation, the Lord God set up a testimony, and this testimony was also a test for the creature. It spoke of death in the midst of life. "In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." Strange, solemn sound. Yet, it was a needed sound. Adam’s life was suspended upon his strict obedience. The link which connected him with the Lord God* was obedience, based on implicit confidence in the One, who had set him in his position of dignity - confidence in His truth - confidence in His love. He could obey only while he confided. We shall see the truth and force of this, more fully, when we come to examine the next chapter.
{*My reader will observe the change in the second chapter from the expression "God" to Lord God." There is much importance in the distinction. When God is seen acting in relation with man, He takes the title Lord God," - (Jehovah Elohim;) but until man appears on the scene, the word "Lord’: is not used. I shall just point out three out of many passages in which the distinction is very strikingly presented. "And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God (Elohim) had commanded him; and the Lord (Jehovah) shut him in (Gen. 7: 16) Elohim was going to destroy the world which He had made; but Jehovah took care of the man with whom He stood in relation. Again, "that all the earth may know that there is a God (Elohim) in Israel. And all this assembly shall know that the Lord (Jehovah) saveth," &c. (1 Sam. 17: 46, 47) All the earth was to recognise the presence of Elohim; but Israel was called to recognise the actings of Jehovah, with whom they stood in relation. Lastly, "Jehoshaphat cried out, and the Lord (Jehovah) helped him; and God (Elohim) moved them to depart from him." (2 Chr. 18: 31) Jehovah took care of His poor erring servant; but Elohim, though unknown, acted upon the hearts of the uncircumcised Syrians.}
I would here suggest to my reader the remarkable contrast between the testimony set up in Eden, and which is set up now. Then, when all around was life, God spoke of death; now, on the contrary, when all around is death, God speaks of life: then the word "in the day thou eatest thou shalt die;" now the word is, "believe and live." And, as in Eden, the enemy sought to make void God’s testimony, as to the result of eating the fruit, so now, he seeks to make God’s testimony as to the result of believing the gospel. God had said, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. But the serpent said, Ye shall not surely die." And now, when God’s word plainly declares that "he that believeth on the hath everlasting life," (John 3: 16) the same serpent seeks to persuade people that they have not everlasting life, nor should they presume to think of such a thing, until they have, first, done, felt, and experienced all manner of things.
My beloved reader, if you have not yet heartily believed the divine record, let me beseech you to allow "the voice of the Lord" to prevail above the hiss of the serpent. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." (John 5: 24)
C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished. Literally,…
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished. Literally, and finished were the heavens and the earth, the emphatic position being occupied by the verb. With the creation of man upon the sixth day the Divine Artificer"s labors were brought to a termination, and his work to a completion. The two ideas of cessation and perfection are embraced in the import of calais. Not simply had Elohim paused in his activity, but the Divine idea of his universe had been realized. The finished world was a cosmos, arranged, ornamented, and filled with organized, sentient, and rational beings, with plants, animals, and man; and now the resplendent fabric shone before him a magnificent success very good." This appears to be by no means obscurely hinted at in the appended clause, and all the host of them, which suggests the picture of a military armament arranged in marching order. Tsebaam, derived from tsaba, to go forth as a soldier (Gesenius), to join together for service (Furst), and applied to the angels, (stratia oujraniov Luk_2:13; 1Ki_22:19; 2Ch_18:18; Psa_148:2) and to the celestial bodies (dunameiv twn oujranwn, (Mat_24:29; Isa_34:4 Isa_40:26; Dan_8:10) here includes, by Zeugma, the material heavens and earth with the angelic and human races. (cf. Neh_9:6) If the primary signification of the root be splendor, glory, like tsavah , to some forth or shine out as a star (T. Lewis), then will the LXX and the Vulgate be correct in translating pav oJ kosmov aujtwn and omnis ornatus eorum, the conception being that when the heavens and the earth were completed they were a brilliant army.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD
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Vers. 1-3.
Rest and Light.
The finished heavens and earth and their host prepare the day of rest. God ended his work as an interchange of darkness and light.
I THE REST OF THE SABBATH IS NOT INACTION, BUT THE CESSATION FROM THE LOWER ORDER OF WORK FOE THE HIGHER. The idea of the first proclamation seems to be that creation was perfectly adjusted through the six days into a settled harmony which puts heaven and earth in their abiding relation to one another.
II Then THERE IS NO MORE SAID OF EVENING AND MORNING. The seventh day is only light. God"s rest is complacency in his works. The blessing on the seventh day which hallowed it is the blessing on that which the day represents perfect peace between heaven and earth, God satisfied in his creation, and inviting his intelligent creatures to enter into his rest" by communion with him. It seems quite unnecessary to vindicate such a sanctification of the seventh day from the insinuations of critics that it was a late addition made by the Jewish legislator to support the fourth commandment. In that case the whole cosmogony must be renounced. Such an observance of a day of rest seems a natural antecedent to the patriarchal as well as the Mosaic economy. We have already intimated that the whole account of creation is placed at the commencement of revelation because it has a bearing upon the positive ordinances of religion. It is not either a scientific or poetic sketch of the universe; it is the broad, fundamental outline of a System of religious truth connected with a body of Divine commandments. The sabbath is thus described in its original breadth. The sanctification of it is
1. Negative. It is separation from the lower conditions of work, which in the case of man are the characteristics of days which are sinful days days of toil and conflict, of darkness and light mingled.
2. Positive. It is the restful enjoyment of a higher life, a life which is not laboring after emancipation from bondage, but perfect with a glorious liberty; the true day, sacred, high, eternal noon," God and man rejoicing m one another, the creature reflecting the glory of the Creator. R.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 24, 25 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and…
Gen_2:1
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them
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The completed creation
I.
THE CREATION WAS A GRADUAL PROCESS. The reasons might be--
(1) To show that Gods works were not the offspring of hasty impulse, but planned from everlasting, and executed with minute and lingering care;
(2) To discover the variety of methods which a God infinitely rich in resources can employ in effecting His great purposes.
II. THE CREATIVE PROCESS AT LAST CAME TO A POINT IN MAN. (G. Gilfillan.)
Lessons from the Mosaic account of creation
1. That the universe as it exists now is different from the universe as it existed once.
2. That the creation of the world was not the work of many gods, but of One.
3. That it was a Person that effected this vast work, and not some law of the universe gradually educing all things from a power that was inherent in matter.
4. Respecting the character of the Creator, the Israelite was taught that He had formed all things good.
5. The Israelite was taught also the divinity of order: that it is the law of mans existence; that the unregulated or unruly heart is like the ship with an insubordinate crew which is wrecked on the ocean; that order is to pervade the church, to rule the state, to regulate the family, to influence mans personal happiness, his affections, his desires.
6. The Israelite was taught also this: that it was gradation that regulated Gods creation, to be traced not only in this that the more perfect forms of life were created last, but also in the fact that more work was done at the close than at the beginning of the creative period. And this is true of every work which will stand the test of time. It must not be hastily done, but thoughtfully planned and carried out with steady and increasing energy. God who works for eternity lays His foundations deep, He does not extemporize. It matters not whether it be in things great or small: quick, mere outside work is done for time; meant for show, it falls speedily to nothing, there is in it nothing belonging to eternity. If then a man would follow God, he must be content to toil and toil to the last.
7. Once more, the principle of the providence of the Almighty emerges from the history of the creation. We read of mans creation and the creation of the beasts. The vegetables He did not create till the earth was dry; the animals not till the vegetables were prepared for their sustenance; and man not till the kingdom was put in order which man should rule. Now this is what we call providence in God, foresight or prudence in man. Thus we see how a mere earthly virtue may in another sense be a spiritual excellence, and it is the duty of man to rise into this higher view. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
The second account of creation
This is, observe, a second account, not a continuation of the first. Yet let us not suppose for one moment that these are two separate accounts thrown together with no object. They are manifestly linked together, each is supplemental to the other. In the first, we have these spiritual truths--the unity of God, His personality, His order: in the second, His dealings with nature and with the mind of man. God gives man law, and annexes to his obedience and disobedience reward and punishment. We make three remarks on this second account.
1. The first is with reference to the reason given for mans creation, that there was a man wanted to till the ground. We should not have said that of man. We should have held another view, and looked upon ourselves as the rulers of this world for whom all things were created, were it not for this verse which teaches us the truth. In the order of creation man is the highest; but the object for which man is created is that he should, like all the rest, minister to the advance of all things. That is our position here; we are here to do the worlds work.
2. The next thing we have to observe is the unity of the human race. All that we are told in the first account is that God, in the beginning, created them male and female. All that we are told in the second is that He placed Adam and Eve in paradise. Theologically, the unity of the human race is of great importance. Between the highest and the lowest animals there is an everlasting difference, but none between the highest and lowest men; and it is only as this is realized that we can ever feel the existence of our common humanity in Jesus Christ.
3. The next thing to observe is this, that we have here a hint respecting immortality. It must have struck every attentive reader of the Scriptures, that in the Old Testament there is so little allusion to futurity. We are told, in a phrase that declares the dignity of mans nature, that God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And when the mind of the Israelite began to brood on this he would remember that there was also a sad, dark intimation, Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return, apparently a denial of immortality. But then there were aspirations in the soul that never could be quenched; and this yearning aspiration would bring him back again to ask: Dust is not all; the breath of God, what has become of that? (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
Creation
First, God says, I made all these earthly treasures which you see; value them for My sake, and do not misuse them. A child on its birthday finds a present on its plate at breakfast time. Who could have put it there? Presently, the father says, I put it there, my child: it is my gift to you. Has not that gift, however small it be, a value over and above its intrinsic worth as bought in a shop? And still more, if the father says, I did not buy it, I made it for you myself. Let us all so regard Gods gifts to us! Secondly, God says, I made you: I made that wonderful body of yours out of the material elements, the dust of the ground, and I breathed into it that living soul which makes the body alive. So says Gen_2:7. But look also at Gen_1:26. There God seems to say, I did more than this: I made you in My image, like Myself; are you like Me? No, indeed, we are not; but then comes in the new creation in Christ Jesus. Christ is the image of the invisible God, and He took our human nature. If we yield ourselves to Him, He will make us partakers of the Divine nature 2Pe_1:4), and hereafter we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. (E. Stock.)
The theology of creation
I. THAT CREATION IS AN EXPRESSION OF GODS MIND. It is the embodiment of an idea; the form of a thought. Theology says that creation had a beginning, and that it began at the bidding of God.
II. THAT CREATION, BEING AN EXPRESSION OF GODS MIND, MAY FORM THE BASIS FOR THE CONSIDERATION OF GODS PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER. If we see something of the artist in his work, we may see something of the Creator in creation.
1. The works of God proclaim His eternal and incommunicable sovereignty. Man cannot approach the dignity of having himself created anything. He is an inquirer, a speculator, a calculator, a talker--but not a creator. He can reckon the velocity of light, and the speed of a few stars. He can go out for a day to geologize and botanize; but all the while a secret has mocked him, and an inscrutable power has defied the strength of his arm. The theologian says, that secret is God--that power is Omnipotence.
2. There is more than sovereignty, there is beneficence. Thou openest Thine hand; they are filled with good. He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry. This is a step downwards, yet a step upwards. Over all is the dread sovereignty of God--that sovereignty stoops to us in love to save our life, to spread our table and to dry our tears; it comes down, yet in the very condescension of its majesty it adds a new ray to its lustre. The theologian says, This is Gods care; this is the love of the Father; this bounty is an expression of the heart of God. It is not a freak of what is called nature; it is not a sunny chance; it is a purpose, a sign of love, a direct gift from Gods own heart.
III. THAT GODS WORD IS ITS OWN SECURITY FOR FULFILMENT. God said, Let there be--and there was. He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. This is the word which alone can ultimately prevail. This is of infinite importance--
(1) As the hope of righteousness;
(2) As the inevitable doom of wickedness.
IV. THAT THE WORD WHICH ACCOUNTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF NATURE ACCOUNTS ALSO FOR THE EXISTENCE OF MAN. Know ye not that the Lord He is God? It is He that made us, and not we ourselves. O Lord, Thou art our Father; we are the clay, and Thou our potter; and we are the work of Thy hand. Have we not all one Father? hath not one God created us? We are the offspring of God: In Him we live, and move, and have our being. See what a great system of unity is hereby established. He who made the sun made me!
V. ALL THINGS CONTROLLED BY THE CREATOR.
VI. ALL THINGS JUDGED BY THE CREATOR. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The work of creation
I. We are to consider WHAT THINGS GOD DID CREATE IN THE PERIOD OF SIX DAYS.
II. THAT THOSE THINGS, WHICH WERE CREATED AT THAT ONE PERIOD OF TIME, COMPRISED, OR INCLUDED ALL THINGS THAT EVER WERE CREATED.
1. There is reason to think that when God began to create, He would not rest, until He had completely finished His whole work of creation. This Moses represents Him to have done in the text.
2. All the works of God must compose but one whole, or perfect system. This we may safely conclude from the perfect wisdom of God. He could not consistently begin, or continue to operate, before He had formed a wise and benevolent design to be answered by creation.
3. Those things which we know God did create in six days, compose a whole, or form a complete system. The lower heaven is intimately connected with the earth. The sun, the moon, the stars, the firmament, the atmosphere, the heat, the cold, the clouds and the rain, were all made for the service and benefit of mankind; and are so necessary, that they could not subsist without the kindly influence of these things, which belong to the lower heaven. And it is no less evident that there is a constituted connection between the inhabitants of the upper heaven and the inhabitants of this lower world.
4. Those things which were created in six days, not only form a whole, or system, but the most perfect system conceivable. All the parts, taken together, appear to be completely suited to answer the highest and best possible end that God could propose to answer by creation.
5. It appears from the process of the great day, that angels and men are the only rational creatures who will then be called to give an account of their conduct.
Improvement:
1. It appears from what has been said, that the enemies of Divine revelation have no just ground to object against the Bible because it does not give a true and full account of the work of creation.
2. If angels and men are all the intelligent beings that God created in six days, then there is no reason to think that this world, after the day of judgment, will be a place of residence for either the happy or miserable part of mankind.
3. If God acted systematically in the work of creation, and formed every individual in connection with and in relation to the whole, then we may justly conclude that He always acts systematically in governing the world.
4. If God created all things at once, and as one whole connected system, then He can remove all the darkness which now rests, or ever has rested, on His providence. It is only to bring all His intelligent creatures together, and show them their relations to and connection with each other; and that will discover the various reasons of His conduct towards every individual, and convince them all that He has been holy, wise, and just, in all the dispensations of His providence and grace. When they see the same reasons that He saw for His conduct, it will carry irresistible evidence to every created being, that He has treated him perfectly right.
5. If God created all things at once, to answer a certain great and good purpose, then that day will be a glorious day, when this purpose shall be completely accomplished. And it will be completely accomplished at the end of the world. So that the end of the world will be a far more glorious day than the day of creation.
6. If the end of the world will exhibit such a blaze of perfect light, then we may be sure that it will fix all intelligent creatures in their final and unalterable state. Those who are happy in the light of the last day, must necessarily be happy forever; and those who are unhappy in Chat light, must be unhappy and completely miserable forever. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
The form of the record of creation
The first narrative commences, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth: and then follows the detail of Gods work through the six days of creation, concluding with His rest on the Sabbath of the seventh. This carries us to the third verse of the second chapter. But with the fourth verse we make a new commencement. These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created: words which appear to refer solely to what follows them, and to contain no recognition of the narrative which has just preceded. This second account traverses a new and more deeply interesting field, as far as the end of the fourth chapter. But with the fifth chapter again we seem to encounter a third commencement: This is the book of the generations of Adam; a clause which is followed up, after a very brief summary of creation containing no direct allusion to the fall, by the genealogy of the earliest line of Patriarchs.
1. The first chapter, as contrasted with the others, relates especially to the physical aspect of creation. It deals more with powers than with persons: more with the establishment of law, than with the gift of will.
2. But the second narrative at once enters on the moral record. Man is now charged with personal duties, and holds individual relations to the Personal Jehovah. There is a moral law, a moral probation, a punishment which it would need a moral principle to understand. While mans dominion is defined and explained, as the beasts are summoned to their master to receive their names, yet he is taught that he must obey as well as rule: that if he is higher than the brute creation, there is a law, again, which is higher than himself; which he cannot break without descending from his sovereignty, and submitting to the forfeiture of death. And then follows the minute history of his fatal trial, fall, expulsion from Eden. To this division belongs the whole fourth chapter, which does but lead us from that point of expulsion, through the original quarrel between Abel and Cain, up to the actual establishment of a Church, and the consequent establishment, by exclusion, of an ungodly world, when men began to call upon the name of Jehovah, and so again to recognize a personal God.
3. Then this scene also closes. It had unveiled relations which exist upon this world no longer. It had spoken of higher communion, and of purer glory, than the fallen mind can maintain, or than the eyes of the fallen can behold. Adam now stands only as the highest term in these our mortal genealogies. There is no further notice of the innocence which he had lost; of that open intercourse with God which he had forfeited; of the mode in which sin had found an entrance into this world; of the establishment of a Church, as defining and completing the separation, between those who were satisfied with their evil, and those who were struggling to recover their good. And this is the account of creation, which especially connects it with our present history.
(1) The object of revelation is to deal with mans moral and religious, but not with his material interests. It is obvious, therefore, that the physical account of creation must come first, though it was not necessary that we should be told more about it than would be sufficient to mark mans precise place in the creation, of which he forms so prominent a part. This, and no more than this, is the duty discharged by the first of these narratives. Next, the necessity of explaining how man fell, that is, how Gods image came to be defaced, how mans eye came to be darkened, and his will corrupted, governs the arrangement of the second narrative. This is pursued simply to its natural completion; and then it gives place to the record of succeeding history. No order could be more perfect, none could more accurately follow out the very course which a clear view of the needs of the narrative would have led us to anticipate, than the precise order in which these chapters are arranged.
(2) The same is evident if we regard the subject from the other side. Gods revelations of Himself have always been gradual. Ever since the fall this has been the law of His communications. We can trace it throughout the sacred records, through every point in which the Old Testament furnished any type or prophecy or symbol which had to wait for its explanation in the New. Now the Divine names which are used in these chapters furnish the strongest confirmation of the account which I have given, and of the propriety of the order on which the record proceeds. In the first narrative, the Creator describes Himself only as Elohim, that is, God. We can conceive that He might even here have been spoken of as Jehovah. He bears that name in other parts of Scripture in reference to this very act of creation: and the nearest name, when we know it, must surely be applicable even to His grandest operations. But the name of power, rather than the name of individuality, seems to have been intentionally chosen, for the very same reason that placed first the merely physical narrative of creation, and thus gradually introduced us to the moral attributes of God. In the next section, in perfect conformity with what might have been looked for, we read of Jehovah, the Lord: or rather we find the compound expression, Jehovah Elohim, the Lord God. The Personal Jehovah appears to us, with all His moral attributes, as soon as the personal Adam is disclosed. But that man may no more doubt His power than His goodness, the name of creation is retained, in combination with this nearer and more personal name. (Archdeacon Hannah.)
Observations
I. IT MUST BE OUR CARE TO OBSERVE, NOT ONLY WHAT GOD WORKS, BUT WITHAL HOW HE DISPOSETH, AND ORDERETH THAT WHICH HE HATH WROUGHT.
1. Because the excellency and perfection of every work is in the end whereunto it is directed and applied.
2. Because the wisdom of God is most discovered in the ordering and disposing of His works, as His power is most seen in creating of them: as usually the workmans skill is more commended in the use of an instrument than in the making and framing of it.
II. THE CREATURES THAT GOD HATH MADE ARE TO BE LOOKED ON AS AN ARMY ARRAYED IN AN EXCELLENT AND WELL COMPOSED ORDER.
1. Let all men carefully search into the order, mutual correspondence, and scope, whereunto all the ways of God, in the administration of the creatures, tend.
(1) Judging of His works, in and by them, not apart, but laid all together.
(2) Looking to, and waiting for, the end of the work which He hath in hand, as we are advised to do (Psa_27:37).
2. Tremble before that God, and trust in Him that hath power in His hand to command all the creatures in heaven and earth, and to arm them at His pleasure for the defence of those that fear Him, and against such as hate Him.
III. GOD PERFECTETH AND FULLY FINISHETH EVERY WORK THAT HE TAKES IN HAND.
1. In their measure, which is proportioned to the end, whereunto they were appointed.
2. And in their time, for they are brought to perfection by degrees, as David professeth of the framing of His own body (Psa_139:16).
(1) Let us in imitation of God, work till we bring things to perfection; as Naomi assures Ruth that Boaz would do (Rth_3:18). Especially in the works that more immediately concern Gods honour and our own salvation; not contenting ourselves with laying the foundation, but labouring to go on to perfection (Heb_6:1). Adding still one grace to another (2Pe_1:5), and growing strong in every grace, that we may perfect holiness (2Co_7:1). And abounding in every good Heb_13:21). Lest we prove like the foolish builder Luk_14:30), or the ostrich (Isa_39:14-15).
(2) Let it be a means to strengthen our hearts, in the assurance of the perfecting the work--
(a) Of sanctification. God, according to His promises, will not leave purging us till He have made us without spot or wrinkle (Eph_5:17-20).
(b) Of our salvation (Php_1:6). He that suffered for us, till all was finished (Job_19:30), will not leave till He have brought us into thefull possession of the glory which He hath purchased for us. (J. White, M. A.)
The completed creation
God now proclaims the completion of His creation work. It was no mere sketch or outline: it was no half-finished plan: it was a finished work. A goodly and glorious work! Not merely on account of what we see and touch in it, but on account of what we cannot see or touch. For creation is full of secrets. Science, in these last days, has extracted not a few, but how many remain secrets still! What a multitude of hidden wonders does each part of creation contain! Outwardly, how marvellous for the order, beauty, utility of all its parts; inwardly, how much more marvellous for the secret springs of life, motion, order, health, fruitfulness, and power! Each part, how wondrous in itself, as perfect in its kind; yet no less wondrous, as wrapping up within itself the seeds of ten thousand other creations, as perfect, hereafter to spring from them! God proclaims the perfection of His works, not as man does, in vainglory, but that He may fix our eye on their excellency, and let us know that He, the Former of them, is fully satisfied, and that His work is now ready for its various functions and uses. The great machine is completed, and now about to begin its operations. (H. Bonar, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 8, 18 Gen_2:2. Rested] “Kept sabbath,” i.e. “observed a sacred, festive…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Gen_2:2. Rested] “Kept sabbath,” i.e. “observed a sacred, festive quiet.” A good worker does his work well, and leaves off when he has done. The very crown of his work is the pleasure he takes in it when complete. Such is God’s rest; and hence He graciously seeks for intelligent companionship therein: Hebrews 3-4.
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Gen_2:3. Created and made] “Made creatively, i.e., perh. by making it anew out of chaos” (Dav.).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Gen_2:1-3
THE DIVINE SABBATH
The Divine Artificer with intelligence and delight completes his work. In the calm majesty of His repose He contemplates it. What a scene must have spread before his eye! The created minds who could comprehend but a part, would be overwhelmed at the splendour, variety, and order. How perfect must it have shone forth before the Divine eye that saw all arrangements, and knew the relations of the universe! As none but He could paint such a picture, so He must have been alone in his delight. This was God’s Sabbath. See in it:—
I. The Divine completion of His creative work. “The heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them.” The Bible teaches that creation ended with the sixth day’s work. As it was itself a series of separate, distinct acts, so in itself the series was complete. According to this cosmogony there were no further creations. Individuals may be born and die. According to the laws impressed upon the vegetable and the animal worlds there may be the development of the individual from the parent, but it will be after the parent’s kind. Races and species may die, become extinct; but, if so, they go to a grave whence there is no resurrection. Whatever may be the truth underlying the words of the ancient record, it certainly is not development of species, either by natural or any other selection. Science and Bible are not opposed, but the peculiar form of the present day’s theory is not that of the Scriptures. This fact is in harmony with:—
1. The disclosures of science in its history of the earth’s crust. The evidence, as yet, is beyond comparison in favour of no resurrection of an extinct species, nor post-Adamic creation of a new species.
2. The history of the world as the record of moral and religious special acts on the part of God. Human history is not that of a physical world. Events since the creation have ethical meaning. The theatre for the great drama of human life was completed in creation. Since that God’s action has been the working out of the successive scenes.
3. The brief references in the other sacred writings to the physical activity of the Creator. He is not represented as creative, but as destroying, and purifying by fire. Thus we find corroborative evidence that Divine interference in the physical world is not in the form of creation.
II. The Divine contemplation of His creative work. At the close of His work all things pass before the eye of God. Everything was now complete. Everything was in subordination. Everything was ready for the higher and more glorious exercise of the divine activity in providence and grace. All was prepared for the kingdom of probation, by which the last created of the world was to be tried, disciplined, and perfected. We may learn here:—
1. Evil has no natural place in the universe.
2. Matter is not necessarily hostile to God. The Bible, in this picture of Divine contemplation, cuts away the ground from certain forms of false religion and philosophy. Divine life is not the destruction of matter, nor the rising out of the region of the sensuous; but so restoring the harmony, that God may again look upon the world, and say it is “very good.”
3. The present condition of things, so changed from that which God first looked upon, must be the result of some catastrophe.
III. The Divine Rest after His Creative Work. The rest began when the work was done. The contemplation was a part of the Sabbatic blessedness. The Sabbath:
1. It was a season of rest. It does not imply that there was weariness, but cessation from creative activity.
2. The rest was blessed by God. As He saw His work good, so He saw His rest good.
3. There was an appointment of a similar blessed rest for His creatures. “He sanctified the seventh day.” It is not for us to discuss the relations of God to labour and repose. The fact may be beyond our comprehension. It has lessons for us:—
1. There is a place and time for rest.
2. The condition on which rest may be claimed is that men work.
3. This rest should be happy. Much of the modern idea of a Sabbath is not that which God would say was blessed. The Sabbath is not a time of gloom.
4. This rest should be religious.
5. This rest is unlimited to any particular portion of the race. (Homilist.)
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Gen_2:1-3. The Sabbath:—
1. A day of rest.
2. A day for contemplation.
3. A day of peculiar sanctity.
4. A day Divinely set apart for the moral good of man.
The Sabbath:—
1. Its antiquity.
2. Its utility.
3. Its prophecy.
The finished Creation:—
1. Should attract our attention.
2. Should excite our admiration.
3. Should evoke our praise.
4. Should lead us to God.
The “host” of them:—
1. As an army Creation is large.
2. It is orderly.
3. It is independent.
4. It is triumphant.
5. It is well commanded.
6. Let no man be found in conflict with its laws.
Were finished:—
1. The work of God is progressive.
2. Concentrated.
3. Productive of result.
4. Completive.
5. Learn to finish the good works we commence, to bring them to perfection.
The Sabbath:—
1. Just in its command.
2. Beneficial in its results.
3. Imperative in its delegation.
Though God ceased from His works of creation, He ceaseth not from His work of Providence.
The worship of God ought to be man’s first care.
God desires His Sabbath to be sanctified:—
1. By secret communion.
2. By study of the Scriptures.
3. By public worship.
The law of the Sabbath:—
1. Beneficial.
2. Universal.
3. Perpetual.
Rest:—
1. Not indolence.
2. Not culpable.
3. It should be contemplative.
4. It should be sacred.
5. It is Divinely warranted.
Absolute and perfect is the frame of heaven and earth, as it cometh out of the hand of God.
Jehovah hath His hosts in heaven and earth, many and mighty.
God’s hosts should keep order in every part, and be subject to their Lord.
The seventh day bringeth God’s perfect work to the well-being of creation.
The seventh day is God’s creature.
God rested from creation of kinds, not from propagation and providence.
Reasons for the Sabbath:—
1. God’s rest.
2. God’s blessing.
3. God’s contemplation.
4. God’s sanctification.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY THE
REV. WM. ADAMSON
Six Days! Gen_2:1. Conceive of six separate pictures, in which this great work is represented in each successive stage of its progress towards completion. As the performance of the painter, though it must have natural truth for its foundation, must not be considered or judged of as a delineation of mathematical or scientific accuracy; so neither must this pictorial representation of the creation be regarded as literally and exactly true. As these few verses are but a synopsis or conspectus of Gen I., so the pictures in that chapter are but a brief description under the symbol of days of a work stretching over thousands of years
While earth throughout her farthest climes imbibed
The influence of heaven.
Sabbath! Gen_2:2. Six days had now elapsed since the work of creation was commenced, but the dawn of Sabbath was the first which had shone upon the earth as finished, and occupied by man. This completes the pictures of the young world. God hangs this on the palace walls of truth as the seventh painting; and on its imperishable canvas, traced with indelible hues, one sees man keeping a Sabbath in Paradise. What an image of blessed tranquility and rest! This was the great day of the earth’s dedication to the service of God. The earth became holy ground, and must not be polluted by any profane act. And thus paradise and the Sabbath are coeval. They stand together on the same page of the Bible. They are seen shining like twin stars in the morning sky of the world—blending their lights in one like those binary stars in the material heavens.
There is no day so glad as that,
God’s holy day of rest.
There is no day so sad as that,
Unhallowed and unblest.
Sabbath! Gen_2:2. Some one has said that a world without a Sabbath would be like a man without a smile—like a summer without flowers—like a homestead without a garden. It is the joyous day of the whole week. And yet, if there is to be the Sabbath joy in the day, there must be the Sabbath spirit in the heart. It is the heart at rest which makes the Sabbath a joy; and there can only be a true Sabbath gladness in those hearts
Where Gospel light is glowing
With pure and radiant beams,
And living waters flowing,
With soul-refreshing streams.—Wordsworth.
Sabbath! Gen_2:2. On the sides of an English coal mine, limestone is in constant process of formation, caused by the trickling of water through the rocks. This water contains a great many particles of lime, which are deposited in the mine, and, as the water passes off, these become hard, and form the limestone. This stone would always be white, like white marble, were it not that men are working in the mine, and as the black dust rises from the coal it mixes with the soft lime, and in that way a black stone is formed. Now, in the night, when there is no coal-dust rising, the stone is white; then again, the next day, when the miners are at work, another black layer is formed, and so on alternately black and white through the week until Sabbath comes. Then if the miners keep holy the Sabbath, a much larger layer of white stone will be formed than before. There will be the white stone of Saturday night, and the whole day and night of the Sabbath, so that every seventh day the white layer will be about three times as thick as any of the others. But if the men work on the Sabbath they see it marked against them in the stone. Hence the miners call it “the Sunday stone.” How they need to be very careful to observe this holy day, when they would see their violation of God’s command thus written down in stone—an image of the indelible record in heaven!
Heaven here: man on those hills of myrrh and flowers;
A gleam of glory after six days’ showers.—Vaughan.
Sabbath-symbol! Gen_2:3. It is, writes Chalmers, a favourite speculation of mine, that—if spared to sixty—we then enter upon the seventh decade of human life; and that this, if possible, should be turned into the Sabbath of our earthly pilgrimage, and spent sabbatically, as if on the shores of an eternal world, or in the outer court (as it were) of the temple that is above—the tabernacle in heaven. For
“Sabbaths are threefold, as St. Austin says,
The first of time, or Sabbath here of days;
The second is a conscience trespass free;
The last the SABBATH of ETERNITY.”—Herrick.
Sabbath-rest! Gen_2:3. Like the pilgrim, the Christian sits down by this well in the desert—for what to him is the Sabbath, but a fountain in a land of drought, a palm-tree in the midst of the great wilderness—and as he drinks of the refreshing waters of this palm-shaded fountain, he is reminded of that rest which remaineth for the people of God. When, as Cumming says, that last Sabbath comes—the Sabbath of all creation—the heart, wearied with tumultuous beatings, shall have rest; and the soul, fevered with its anxieties, shall have peace. The sun of that Sabbath will never set, nor hide his splendours in a cloud. Our earthly Sabbaths are but dim reflections of the heavenly Sabbath, cast upon the earth, dimmed by the transit of their rays from so great a height and so distant a world. They are but
“The preludes of a feast that cannot cloy,
And the bright out-courts of immortal glory!”—Barton.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 The heavens and the earth were finished when God…
Gen 2:1
The heavens and the earth were finished when God created man in His own image. Then the universe was what He designed it to be; then He could look, not upon a portion of it, but upon the whole of it, and say, "It is very good."
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I. We are told: (1) "God made man in His own image; male and female created He them;" and (2) "He made man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," The two accounts are distinct. If we had the first only, we should have the description of an ideal man, without being told that there was an actual man. The Creation in the highest sense must mean the bestowing, under whatever limitations, of a portion of God’s own life, that which corresponded with His own being. It must denote, not What we understand by putting together a material thing, but the communication of that inward power and substance without which matter is but a dream.
II. When we hear of the earth bringing forth grass, the herb yielding seed, the fishes or beasts being fruitful and multiplying, we are told of living powers which were imparted once, but which are in continual exercise and manifestation; the creative word has been uttered once, it is never for a moment suspended; never ceases to fulfil its own proclamation. Creation involves production. (1) Creation is not measured by the sun. The week was especially meant to remind the Jew of his own work and God’s work; of God’s rest and his own rest. (2) It was to bring before him the fact of his relation to God, to teach him to regard the universe not chiefly as under the government of sun or moon, or as regulated by their courses, but as an order which an unseen God had created, which included sun, moon, stars, earth, and all the living creatures that inhabit them.
III. From the first chapter of Genesis we are taught more clearly than any words can teach us what man becomes when he is a centre to himself, and supposes that all things are revolving around him. But, most of all, these chapters prepare us for the announcement of that truth which all the subsequent history is to unfold, that the Word who said, "Let there be light," and there was light, who placed the sun, and moon, and stars in their orbits and called all organised creatures into life; and who is, in the highest sense, the Light of men—the Source of their reason, the Guide of their wills—is the Head of all principalities and powers, the upholder of the whole universe.
F. D. Maurice, The Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament, p. 33.
References: Gen 2:1.—Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 136, Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xviii., p. 79. Gen 2:1-3.—S. Cox, Expositions, 1st series, p. 366; Parker, vol. i., p. 127; A. Pott, Sermons for the Festivals and Fasts, p. 1. Gen 2:2.—Parker, Hidden Springs, p. 369; G. Dawson, The Authentic Gospel, p. 176; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xii., p. 76. Gen 2:2, Gen 2:3.—E. Irving, Collected Writings, vol. iv.,p. 515; G. Moberly, Parochial Sermons, p. 61.
Gen 2:3
I. Whether the patriarchs were or were not commanded to keep the Sabbath is a thing which we can never know; it is no safe foundation for our thinking ourselves bound to keep it, that the patriarchs kept it before the Law was given, and that the commandment had existed before the time of Moses, and was only confirmed by him and repeated. For if the Law itself be done away in Christ, much more the things before the Law. The Sabbath may have been necessary to the patriarchs, for we know that it was needed even at a later time; they who had the light of the Law could not do without it. But it would by no means follow that it was needed now, when, having put away the helps of our childhood, we ought to be grown up into the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. So that the words of the text neither prove us right in keeping the Sunday, nor would they prove us wrong if we were to give up the observance of it.
II. The real question, however, is, Are we right in keeping the Sunday, or are we not right? We are bound by the spirit of the fourth commandment to keep holy the Sunday because we are not fit to do without it. As the change of the day from the seventh to the first shows us what God designed for us, shows us the heavenly liberty to which we were called, so the long and unvaried practice of the Church in keeping the first day holy shows us their sad feeling and confession that they were not fit for that liberty; that the Law, which God would fain have loosed from off them, was still needed to be their schoolmaster. The bond of the commandment broken through Christ’s spirit was through our unworthiness closed again. We still need the Law, we need its aid to our weakness; we may not refuse to listen to the wisdom of its voice because the terror of its threatenings is taken away from the true believer.
T. Arnold, Sermon, vol. iii., p. 184.
An allegory lies in this history. Every week has its Sabbath, and every Sabbath is to be a parenthesis between two weeks’ work. From the beginning of the world a seventh of time was set apart for rest. The command to keep it holy was embodied in the ceremonial law, and began with the retrospective word "Remember!" The rest of the Sabbath must be (1) real, (2) worthy, (3) complete. It must be refreshment to body, mind, and soul; it must not infringe upon the rest of others. The rest of a holy peace must be combined with the loving energies of an active body and an earnest mind.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 10th series, p. 204.
References: Gen 2:3.—R. S. Candlish, The Book of Genesis, p. 18; H. F. Burder, Sermons, p. 369. Gen 2:4.—F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 16. Gen 2:4, Gen 2:5.—H. Macmillan, Bible Teachings in Nature, p. 130. Gen 2:5.—Expositor, 1st series, vol. vii., p. 465. 2:4-3:24.—J. Monro Gibson, The Ages before Moses, p. 77.
Gen 2:7
I. We see from this text that it was the will of God that there should be between man and the other creatures He had formed an enormous gulf; that men were intended to be raised above the beasts altogether in kind; that they were to be not merely superior but different, as having a likeness which no other creature had, as being the image of God.
II. There can be no doubt that one great gift which Adam received from God was a highly intelligent mind, a mind capable of very great things; for we know what wonders the human mind is capable of now, and we cannot suppose that the mind which was given to the first man was of a lower order than that with which his fallen children have been blest. Adam also received from his Maker a heart pure and spotless, a heart which loved what was good because it was good; and in this respect his mind would be a reflection of the pure, holy mind of God.
III. Adam’s spiritual life appears to have been supported by communion with God. His natural life, too, seems to have been continued by supernatural means. Man lost by sin those supernatural means of support which he had enjoyed before. The tree of life may have been the sacramental means of preserving man from decay; so that as long as Adam and Eve were sinless and had access to the tree of life, so long, though not by nature immortal, death had no power over them. Adam held all that he possessed upon a certain condition, and that condition was obedience to God. The command was simple and easy to obey, and yet Adam broke it and lost those blessings with which he had been endowed, and that life which God had breathed into him.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 2nd series, p. 83.
Gen 2:7
(with Gen 1:27).
In studying these chapters carefully, we find some degree of difficulty in the form of the sacred story itself. There appear to be, and in a certain sense there are, three different narratives, three distinct records of creation. We have one in the first, one in the second, and one in the fifth chapter. Why is the narrative of the creation repeated three times over?
Because man needs an account of the creation from a physical, from a moral, and from a historical point of view. The physical account we find in the first chapter of Genesis. It tells us that matter is not eternal—that, go back as far as you will, at last the world which God created came from its Maker’s hand. It stands alone in its sublimity, alone in its impressive greatness, alone in its Divine and miraculous reserve. We must cling to the truth contained in the text: (1) for the answer it gives to the questions which are pressed upon every one of us by the mystery of existence; (2) for the solid hope which it gives to every one of us of a distinct, a personal and individual immortality; (3) in order to guard ourselves from the great peril of desecrating that nature which God Himself gave to us.
Bishop Alexander, Man’s Natural Life ("Norwich Cathedral Discourses," 4th series, No. 1).
References: Gen 2:7.—S. R. Driver, Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduates’ Journal, Oct. 25, 1883; J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year, vol. iii., p. 108; J. Laidlaw, The Bible Doctrine of Man, p. 48; J. Van Oosterzee, The Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 323; B. Waugh, Sunday Magazine (1887), p. 134; H. J. Van Dyke, The Reality of Religion, p. 49; R. W. Evans, Parochial Sermons, p. 293; Bishop Walsham How, Plain Words to Children, p. 29; J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 3rd series, p. 76. Gen 2:8.—T. Chamberlain, Sermons for Sundays, Festivals and Fasts, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 265; W. E. Boardman, Sunday Magazine (1876), p. 676; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 406.
Gen 2:8-9
(with Gen 3:22-24)
I. Our first parents are discovered in a state of innocence, beauty, and blessedness, which is broken up utterly by the transgression of the Divine command. (1) To Eden, as the first condition of human existence, all hearts bear witness. Two hymns are babbled by the echoes of the ages—"the good days of old," "the good days to come." They are the work-songs of humanity; the memory of a better, and the hope of a better, nerve and cheer mankind. That memory, Genesis explains; that hope, the Apocalypse assures. (2) We shall err greatly if we treat Adam’s history in Eden as nothing more than a fabled picture of the experience of man; rather is it the root out of which your experience and mine has grown, and in virtue of which they are other than they would have been had they come fresh from the hand of God. We recognise the law of headship which God has established in humanity, whereby Adam, by his own act, has placed his race in new and sadder relations to Nature and to the Lord. (3) The origin of evil may still remain a mystery, but this history of Eden stands between it and God. Eden is God’s work, the image of His thought; and man’s spirit joyfully accepts the history, and uses it as a weapon against haunting doubts about the origin of evil. (4) The sin of Adam is substantially the history of every attempt of self-will to counterwork the will of God. Every sin is a seeking for a good outside the region which, in the light of God, we know to be given us as our own.
II. This narrative presents to us the Father seeking the sinful child with blended righteousness and tenderness, assuring him of help to bear the burden which righteousness had imposed on transgression, and of redemption out of the spiritual death, which was the fruit of sin.
III. God not only, fatherlike, made wise disposition for the correction of His child, but He cast in with His child’s lot of toil and suffering, His own sympathy and hope; He made Himself a partaker in man’s new experience of pain, and, that He might destroy sin, linked the sufferer by a great promise to Himself.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Divine Life in Man, p. 1.
Gen 2:9
In the second of the three accounts of the creation we have an answer to the questions which would naturally be put by an inquiring mind, as to man’s present moral state and original moral constitution. Man, though created sinless, was, from the very fact of his creaturely existence, not self-sufficing, but dependent both in body and soul, and thus the two trees of which we read in the text corresponded to those two wants in man’s constitution. The tree of life is nowhere forbidden to our first parents. As long as man was able to repair his physical constitution by approaching to and eating of the fruit of the tree of life, so long he remained deathless. We may safely conclude that the tree of life was a natural means of sustaining natural life (and probably also a sacramental means of grace), and that from the act of tasting the other tree there would result a premature familiarity with the knowledge of good and evil.
I. A mere speculative knowledge of that which is good need not be good after all. Knowledge may be a merely barren knowledge—the knowledge which speculates and admires, but does not lead on to action.
II. Much more truly is this the case with the knowledge of moral evil. People speak of the narrative of the fall—of the temptation by means of the tree of knowledge of good and evil—as a mere myth. But it lives over again in the history of individual souls. The knowledge of evil is an irreparable thing. It lives on, and springs up again and again in the memory and the conscience.
III. Creation lies under a law of suffering. Christianity strives, and not all in vain, to alleviate this primeval curse. The universe is a grand and solemn but at present a darkened temple of the Lord God. The day is coming when we shall see it lighted up, when the Gospel of Christ will bring to this earth of ours something more precious than social improvement, great and blessed as that may be.
Bishop Alexander, Norwich Discourses, 4th series, No. 2.
Gen 2:9
I. We call the Scriptures a revelation; in other words, an unveiling. The Bible records were given to us to take away the veil which hung between heaven and earth, between man and God. Their purpose is to reveal God. The actual revelation which has been made to us is of God in His relation to the soul of man. We are not to demand, we are not to expect, any further revelation. Of the secrets of God’s power and origin we are told not a word. Such knowledge is not for us. But it does concern us to know of God’s moral nature—to know that He is all-powerful, all-good, all-loving; and of God’s power, goodness, and love, the Bible is one long and continuous revelation. The self-declared object of the Scriptures is that men should know God and know themselves.
II. But the condition on which such an object may be accomplished is this: that the Book of God should appeal to men in a form not dependent for its appreciation upon any knowledge which they may have obtained—independent, that is, of the science of any particular age or country. The setting forth of scientific truth in the pages of the Bible would have been as much a difficulty and stumbling-block to some former ages of the Church as what we call its unscientific account of natural phenomena has been to some at the present day.
III. "The tree of knowledge of good and evil." Here, so early in the sacred books, is revealed the fact of the two opposing forces of right and wrong. Take away the reality of this distinction, and the Bible and all religion falls for ever. Make its reality and importance felt in the soul of man, and you have at once whereon to build. Righteousness is the word of words throughout all Scripture. The righteousness which the Scriptures reveal is the knowledge of a communion with God. When our earth has played its part in the economy of the universe, and is seen by the few spheres which are within its ken to pass away as a wandering fire, right and wrong will not have lost their primeval significance, and the souls which have yearned and laboured for rest in the home of spirits will find that rest in Him who was and is and is to be.
A. Ainger, Sermons preached in the Temple Church, p. 280.
References: Gen 2:9.—E. H. Plumptre, Sunday Magazine (1867), p. 712; J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year (Holy Week), p. 446; J. Hamilton, Works, vol. ii., p. 147. Gen 2:10.—C. A. Fowler, Parochial Sermons, p. 151.
Gen 2:10-14
Attempts have been made to find out what rivers are here spoken of by Moses, and where they are to be found. But the description in Genesis was purposely intended to baffle and defy any geographical identification. Paradise was never meant to be trampled by the feet of them that travel for pleasure or write for gain. There is no river on earth that parts itself into four heads. Are these words, then, but solemn trifling with the natural curiosity of man, affecting to tell him something, yet really telling nothing? What are we taught by this mixture of the straightforward and matter-of-fact with the (geographically speaking) impossible?
I. They teach us by a very simple parable that Paradise is real, most real; that it is intimately connected with earthly realities, but that it is not to be realised itself on earth, not to be discovered by worldly knowledge or inherited by flesh and blood.
II. The myths of the nations, entangled with false ideas of cosmogony, are broken against the hard facts of modern lore: the record of Genesis, shaking itself free from a merely earthly geography, retains its spiritual teaching and consolation for all generations. To the simple Christian this region is very real and very clear: it is his own inheritance in Christ—not, indeed, to be sought on this earth, but to be expected in that better world.
R. Winterbotham, Sermons and Expositions, p. 1.
Reference: Gen 2:10-14.—Expositor, 3rd series, vol. v. p. 201.
Gen 2:12
I. If men so willed, gold might be won and no soul lost. And therefore we must take care to distinguish between gold and the thirst for gold. Gold is like the rest of God’s gifts, a good thing or a bad thing, according to the use made of it. And so it is no wonder that Scripture has recorded that near to Paradise was a land of gold. The land of Havilah may exist still; the fine gold and the bdellium and the onyx stone may now lie buried deep beneath its surface, or perhaps may yet be lying disregarded, like the treasures of California or Australia not many years ago.
II. Be this as it may, there is another land whose gold is good, a land farther off than the far West and the islands of the sea, and yet ever close at hand, approachable by all, attainable by all, where no rust corrupts and no thieves break through and steal. The gold of that other land is good, simply because, though the words sound like a contradiction, it is not gold. It has been changed. In the world above, that which stands for gold is more precious than gold itself, for even gold cannot purchase it, though gold may serve it.
III. The treasure of heaven is love. Love is the true gold. All else will tarnish and canker and eat into the souls of them that covet it; but Love never. It is bright and precious here in this world: fraud cannot despoil us of it; force cannot rob us of it; it is our only safe happiness here, and it is the only possession we can carry with us into the world beyond the grave.
F. E. Paget, Sermons for Special Occasions, p. 167.
References: Gen 2:15.—B. Waugh, Sunday Magazine (1887), p. 486. Gen 2:16, Gen 2:17.—A. W. Momerie, The Origin of Evil, p. 1; B. Waugh, Sunday Magazine (1887), p. 136.
Gen 2:17
These words comprehend the whole of humanity in their application; every man and woman that ever has existed or shall exist on the face of the earth. This was not a positive law, but a negative one; the law of which Adam and Eve were transgressors was a prohibition, and to that prohibition was attached a penalty.
I. Look first at the prohibition: "Thou shalt not eat of it." It is perfectly obvious, from God’s character and conduct with man up to this time, that the intention of this prohibition was somehow to confer a great benefit on man himself; otherwise, why should God have given the prohibition? In the case of all perfect beings a test is necessary if they are to attain the highest possible state of perfection. This test was put before Adam and Eve, and the prohibition was enforced and was in order to that result.
II. Look next at the penalty: "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (1) We must determine death by the nature of the subject to which it is applicable. Death is not necessarily the mere cessation of existence. Man’s life is physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual; death is the converse of life in regard to each of these particulars. Life implies the giving up of the whole man to God; death is exactly the reverse, it is the man losing all this—becoming dead, as we read, "in trespasses and sins." (2) It is said, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Adam and Eve died by becoming subject unto death. The elements of mortality were introduced, and they died spiritually by being estranged from God. In view of the redemption, in view of that Lamb who should come to die for man’s sins, the curse was thrown into abeyance, the execution was necessarily deferred. It was deferred in order that an opportunity might be given to man to become acquainted with Christ, and that Christ might accomplish the work of redemption.
C. Molyneux, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 136.
These words were fulfilled at the time they were spoken; they have been fulfilled ceaselessly thereafter. We live in a universe of death. The phenomenon is common to us, but no familiarity can rob it of its dreadfulness; for the dead, who are the more in number, have kept their awful secret unrevealed, and the child who died yesterday knows more than can be guessed at by the thousand millions of living men. Yet this death is the least and the least dreaded part of that other, that second, that spiritual death which God meant in the warning of the text.
I. Notice first the certainty of that death. Let us learn to be early undeceived about the tempter’s falsehood, "Ye shall not surely die." If a man will serve his sin, let him at least reckon upon this, that in one way or other it will be ill with him; his sin will find him out; his path will be hard; there will be to him no peace. The night of concealment may be long, but dawn comes like the Erinnys to reveal and avenge its crimes.
II. Not only is this punishment inevitable, but it is natural; not miraculous, but ordinary; not sudden, but gradual; not accidental, but necessary; not exceptional, but invariable. Retribution is the impersonal evolution of an established law.
III. Retribution takes the form which of all others the sinner would passionately deprecate, for it is homogeneous with the sins on whose practice it ensues. In lieu of death God offers us His gift of eternal life. While yet we live, while yet we hear the words of invitation, the door is not shut, and we may pass to it by the narrow way. To Eve was given the dim promise that her seed should bruise the serpent’s head; for us Christ has trampled sin and Satan under His feet.
F. W. Farrar, The Fall of Man and other Sermons, p. 27.
References: Gen 2:17.—Bishop Woodford, Sermons preached in Various Churches, p. 50; Parker, The Fountain (May 9th and May 23rd, 1878), Hidden Springs, p. 275; H. J. Stephens, Literary Churchman Sermons, p. 621. Gen 2:18.—A. Monod, Select Discourses from the French and German, pp. 17, 47; B. Waugh, Sunday Magazine (1887), p. 421; G. Calthrop, Words Spoken to my Friends, p. 163. Gen 2:23, Gen 2:24.—J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 2nd series, p. 84.
Gen 2:24
I. The gift of speech to Adam was in itself a sublime prophecy that man was not to remain alone and without a companion in the garden where God had placed him. Glorious as man’s condition was, there was yet a want—the shadow of some yearning hung upon his brow. The sleep that fell upon Adam was no common sleep, like that of wearied humanity; it was something higher. The old Greek translation has it "an ecstasy." It was a prophetic sleep. While he slept, the Lord God built for him a woman,—like some great architect, before whom the ideal of a glorious building has floated, until at last the time comes to pile it up visibly, and to rejoice in its exceeding beauty. When Adam awakes his language swells into a hymeneal first, and then into a prophecy.
II. The idea of wedded life involves three things: unity, companionship, subordination.
III. In the old classical world, woman was incredibly degraded; but corruption and false principles on this point were directly attacked by the Gospel of Christ. The tender ties of home and family were not for Him who moved in His loneliness among the sons of men; and yet He breathed with that infinite purity of His upon the flushed and passionate cheek of woman in her home, until it grew pure again. Our homes themselves repose upon the idea of marriage, which was given to man in Eden and renewed by Jesus Christ, the Second Adam.
Bishop Alexander, Norwich Discourses, 4th series, No. 3.
References: Gen 2:24.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. viii., p. 77. Gen 2, Gen 3.—S. Leathes, Studies in Genesis, p. 31.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v4 Subdivision 2. (Gen 2:4-25.)
Subdivision 2. (Gen 2:4-25.)
Relationships of the Man.
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1.
The second subdivision is not a new account of the divine work, written by another hand. Its purpose is quite different, namely, to show us the relationships of the man to the whole scene into which he is introduced, and to his Maker. This is why it is not simply "God" in this chapter, but "the Lord God." "The Lord" is here, in the original, "Jehovah." It is the title by which God entered into covenant with Israel afterward, and is expanded for us in the book of Revelation as "He who is and who was and who is to come," -the best translation of which in one word would be, as in the French, "The Eternal." But I retain for it the word "Lord," as in the Septuagint and our common version, this being in some sense sanctioned by the New Testament use, and giving more the thought of relationship, which it is evidently intended to convey. Where it stands by itself, however, I have simply transferred the Hebrew word, "Jehovah."
In the first section, we have necessarily man’s first relationship, the foundation of every other -that to God; and here, God’s breathing into him is characteristic of this. No beast has it; and although there is no direct statement, -the language is, as we say, phenomenal, -yet there is implied in this certainly some communication from God Himself, by which (and not by the bodily form,) is conveyed the idea of kinship. Yet the language is more phenomenal even than in the common version, which we have followed. It is literally, "God breathed into his nostrils the breathing of life," where indeed the fact that it is in the nostrils shows what is meant. Compare the full expression in Gen 7:22 as we have given it. Neshamah is always the activity of the ruach, whether this stands for "breath" or "spirit." The effect, and the effect as seen, is alone depicted. This is in reality favorable to the deeper thought. It is not mere "breath of life" which is imparted, but the whole living activity, as expressed in this, is the result of the divine impartation. And if man thus becomes a living soul, good reason it is why his soul should not die, as the beast does. (Mat 10:28.) In the fact of being a living soul, he does not differ from the beast, but he does in the way he becomes one.
The inbreathing is thus essential to relationship, and given for this reason in this place. But the junction of something thus in relationship to God with the dust-formed creature makes Adam in this way a proper foreshadowing of the "last Adam" (Rom 5:14), -Deity incarnate. He, however, in contrast with the first Adam, in resurrection, breathes upon His own. He uses this action, so significant in the creation of man, to symbolize the introduction of His people into a new creation, of which He is the Head: taking Himself the divine place as "quickening Spirit." (Joh 20:22; 1Co 15:45.)
2.
We have next the lesson of dependence taught man, upon One whose goodness makes the very need of His creatures the occasion of ministering care. Every thing is provided that can gratify as well as satisfy. But the tree of life shows him that he has not life in himself, and the prohibited tree of knowledge teaches him practically to recognize this dependence upon Another.
The ministry of the whole triune Godhead to man is typically indicated here. For the tree of knowledge indicates paternal government, where indeed "rule" is service (Rom 12:8); the tree of life speaks of Christ, in whom our life is; while the gushing fullness of these bounteous rivers is a plain type of the renewing power of the Holy Ghost. All this we shall find again in the paradise of God, of which this is a true picture. Would we could more enter into it!
3.
The third section shows us Adam’s relationship to his wife; and for this, he is first taken to look at the beasts, and to see that no union can be here. Man is man by that spirit by which he differs from the beast. What a prophetic rebuke to the infidel science of the day!
The application of what we have here to Christ and the Church is shown us by the apostle. Adam, to find his wife, passes through the image of death, and she is "builded" out of him, to whom she is afterward united. So are we chosen in Christ, the fruit of His death, raised up with Christ, and by the Spirit united to Christ. Here, once more, however, the last Adam shows His essential difference from the first: He will present the Church to Himself. (Eph 5:27.)
{Critical Notes
Man as a Living Soul.
The error of holding man to be soul and body only is the parent of many modern heresies. It omits just what makes him man. But why, then, is it said here, "Man became a living soul"? -why not a spirit? The question is a fair one, and should be fairly answered.
Let us note first, then, that angels are spirits and that the angels had already fallen; also that the condemnation of the devil is for pride. (1Ti 3:6.) Now all through this account there seems the constant endeavor (which, to speak humanly, is God’s, we know,) to "hide pride from man." (Job 33:17.) Thus he is called "Adam," from adamah, the ground, as if to remind him of his origin -"Dust thou art." Yet he was assuredly something more than "dust." Here, in the same way, his being a living soul reminds him of his kinship with the beasts; yet it does not show that he is not more. Among spiritual beings, this is, indeed, his real distinction, -that he is a "living soul."
The "soul" is in Scripture the seat of the passions, emotions, sensibility, as the spirit is of the mental and moral judgment. These latter, in any real sense, the beast has not. The spirit it is which is in man, which knows the things of a man. (1Co 11:1-34.) But he learns them, gathering the materials of judgment through the soul -the senses; and as the body begins to develop before even the soul, so does the soul before the spirit. Spirit in man depends, thus, really upon the soul; and it is striking that just when absent from the body his real distinction begins to manifest itself. The soul survives, indeed, the stroke of death; but man is now called, what he never was before, a "spirit." (Luk 24:37; Luk 24:39; Act 23:8-9; Heb 12:23; 1Pe 3:19.)
The Penalty on Adam.
The penalty of eating of the tree of knowledge was, for Adam, death -physical death; but this necessarily the sign of the judgment of God, of separation between himself and God, of which the other is the image. For if death is the separation between soul and body, the separation of God from the soul is death also.
But "dying, thou shalt die," which is literally the penalty here, does not convey the thought of two deaths; it is simply a very common Hebrew idiom, as, "eating, thou mayest eat," in the verse preceding, and meant to express, as all translations probably give it, the certainty of it.
Nor does "in the day" involve more than that in the day that he sinned the penalty would be certain: it does not mean necessarily that it would be inflicted then. (Comp. Eze 33:12.)
The second death, let us remember, is always for a man’s own sins, and is in contrast with the first, which it brings to an end.}
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v1 Gen 1:26 - Gen 2:3.
Genesis
THE VISION OF CREATION
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Gen 1:26 - Gen 2:3.
We are not to look to Genesis for a scientific cosmogony, and are not to be disturbed by physicists’ criticisms on it as such. Its purpose is quite another, and far more important; namely, to imprint deep and ineffaceable the conviction that the one God created all things. Nor must it be forgotten that this vision of creation was given to people ignorant of natural science, and prone to fall back into surrounding idolatry. The comparison of the creation narratives in Genesis with the cuneiform tablets, with which they evidently are most closely connected, has for its most important result the demonstration of the infinite elevation above their monstrosities and puerilities, of this solemn, steadfast attribution of the creative act to the one God. Here we can only draw out in brief the main points which the narrative brings into prominence.
1. The revelation which it gives is the truth, obscured to all other men when it was given, that one God ‘in the beginning created the heaven and the earth.’ That solemn utterance is the keynote of the whole. The rest but expands it. It was a challenge and a denial for all the beliefs of the nations, the truth of which Israel was the champion and missionary. It swept the heavens and earth clear of the crowd of gods, and showed the One enthroned above, and operative in, all things. We can scarcely estimate the grandeur, the emancipating power, the all-uniting force, of that utterance. It is a worn commonplace to us. It was a strange, thrilling novelty when it was written at the head of this narrative. Then it was in sharp opposition to beliefs that have long been dead to us; but it is still a protest against some living errors. Physical science has not spoken the final word when it has shown us how things came to be as they are. There remains the deeper question, What, or who, originated and guided the processes? And the only answer is the ancient declaration, ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’
2. The record is as emphatic and as unique in its teaching as to the mode of creation: ‘God said . . . and it was so.’ That lifts us above all the poor childish myths of the nations, some of them disgusting, many of them absurd, all of them unworthy. There was no other agency than the putting forth of the divine will. The speech of God is but a symbol of the flashing forth of His will. To us Christians the antique phrase suggests a fulness of meaning not inherent in it, for we have learned to believe that ‘all things were made by Him’ whose name is ‘The Word of God’; but, apart from that, the representation here is sublime. ‘He spake, and it was done’; that is the sign-manual of Deity.
3. The completeness of creation is emphasised. We note, not only the recurrent ‘and it was so,’ which declares the perfect correspondence of the result with the divine intention, but also the recurring ‘God saw that it was good.’ His ideals are always realised. The divine artist never finds that the embodiment of His thought falls short of His thought.
‘What act is all its thought had been?
What will but felt the fleshly screen?
But He has no hindrances nor incompletenesses in His creative work, and the very sabbath rest with which the narrative closes symbolises, not His need of repose, but His perfect accomplishment of His purpose. God ceases from His works because ‘the works were finished,’ and He saw that all was very good.
4. The progressiveness of the creative process is brought into strong relief. The work of the first four days is the preparation of the dwelling-place for the living creatures who are afterwards created to inhabit it. How far the details of these days’ work coincide with the order as science has made it out, we are not careful to ask here. The primeval chaos, the separation of the waters above from the waters beneath, the emergence of the land, the beginning of vegetation there, the shining out of the sun as the dense mists cleared, all find confirmation even in modern theories of evolution. But the intention of the whole is much rather to teach that, though the simple utterance of the divine will was the agent of creation, the manner of it was not a sudden calling of the world, as men know it, into being, but majestic, slow advance by stages, each of which rested on the preceding. To apply the old distinction between justification and sanctification, creation was a work, not an act. The Divine Workman, who is always patient, worked slowly then as He does now. Not at a leap, but by deliberate steps, the divine ideal attains realisation.
5. The creation of living creatures on the fourth and fifth days is so arranged as to lead up to the creation of man as the climax. On the fifth day sea and air are peopled, and their denizens ‘blessed,’ for the equal divine love holds every living thing to its heart. On the sixth day the earth is replenished with living creatures. Then, last of all, comes man, the apex of creation. Obviously the purpose of the whole is to concentrate the light on man; and it is a matter of no importance whether the narrative is correct according to zoology, or not. What it says is that God made all the universe, that He prepared the earth for the delight of living creatures, that the happy birds that soar and sing, and the dumb creatures that move through the paths of the seas, and the beasts of the earth, are all His creating, and that man is linked to them, being made on the same day as the latter, and by the same word, but that between man and them all there is a gulf, since he is made in the divine image. That image implies personality, the consciousness of self, the power to say ‘I,’ as well as purity. The transition from the work of the first four days to that of creating living things must have had a break. No theory has been able to bridge the chasm without admitting a divine act introducing the new element of life, and none has been able to bridge the gulf between the animal and human consciousness without admitting a divine act introducing ‘the image of God’ into the nature common to animal and man. Three facts as to humanity are thrown up into prominence: its possession of the image of God, the equality and eternal interdependence of the sexes, and the lordship over all creatures. Mark especially the remarkable wording of Gen 1:27: ‘created He him male and female created He them.’ So ‘neither is the woman without the man, nor the man without the woman.’ Each is maimed apart from the other. Both stand side by side, on one level before God. The germ of the most ‘advanced’ doctrines of the relations of the sexes is hidden here.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v4 Paradise and the Fall
Paradise and the Fall
In this famous passage we possess a wealth of moral and spiritual teaching regarding God and man. The intention of the writer is evidently to give an answer to the question: How did sin and misery find their way into the world? As is natural among Orientals he put his reply into narrative form; and though it is generally accepted that the details are to be interpreted symbolically rather than literally, yet they are in marvellous agreement with the real facts of human nature and experience. Adam is the representative of the human race. The story of his temptation, fall, and consequent forfeiture of Paradise shadows forth some of the greatest mysteries of the human lot—the strangely mingled glory and shame of man, his freedom of action, the war between the law in his members and the law of his mind. It thus comes to have a universal significance and shows each man, as in a mirror, his own experience. When he reads this narrative, his conscience says to him, like a prophet of God: 'Thou art the man; the story is told of thee 1' In Genesis 2 the nature of man is unfolded. It has two sides, a higher and a lower; on the one hand, he is connected with the material world, as made of dust of the earth: on the other hand, he is related to God, who breathes into his nostrils the breath of life. He stands above the animal creation by his endowments of reason, discrimination, and language; he gives names to the beasts. The ideal relationship of the sexes appears in the creation of woman from the side of man, and his delight in finding in her an adequate companion and helper. Special emphasis is laid upon the moral and spiritual aspects of human nature. Man is created with the faculty of holding free and trustful communion with God, and with the power of exercising freedom of choice. It is chiefly in virtue of these high prerogatives that he can be said to be created in the image of God. Liberty of choice, however, or free will, is a perilous gift. It may be used either rightly or wrongly, and so there arises the possibility of temptation, of sin, of a 'fall': see on Gen_2:14. Genesis 3 shows how man misuses his freedom. He is tempted by a mysterious power of evil, and falls before the temptation. Immediately the direst results ensue, both for his inward and outward condition. 'The fruit of man's first disobedience' is seen at once in his consciousness of guilt, his interrupted communion with God, his miserable state, and even the altered condition of the world in which he dwells. Yet God does not abandon him. He continues His care over him, and comforts him with the promise of final victory over the power of evil. See on Gen_3:15 for the significance of this passage in the light of Christianity.
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It is to be expected that, in externals at least, the Bible narrative should resemble the traditions of other Oriental peoples. Accordingly we find, as in the case of the Creation and Flood narratives, that certain parallels to the Paradise story existed among the ancient Babylonians. This, and the further fact that Eden is placed in the vicinity of the Euphrates, have been taken to suggest that the Hebrews brought the original tradition with them from their home in the plains of Babylonia. The Bible narrative, however, differs from all others in its worthy conception of the divine nature, its freedom from polytheistic and heathen associations, and its embodiment of such profound religious truths as stamp it with the mark of inspiration.
The passage (Gen_2:4 to Gen_3:24) now under consideration begins with a second account of the Creation forming an introduction to the story of man's temptation and fall. Some scholars regard this account as simply complementary to that given in Genesis 1. They maintain that it is not a separate story of the Creation, but a continuation of the former, with special reference to man's position in the universe. There are strong reasons, however, for regarding Gen_2:4-25 as a narrative independent of 1- Gen_2:4. (a) The primeval chaos, the creation of man and woman, vegetation and animals, are described, but there are striking differences in the two accounts, (b) The Creator is no longer called 'God' (Elohim) but 'The Lord Gord' (Jehovah Elohim), a fact which first suggested that the Pentateuch was compiled from different sources, and gave its name 'Jehovistic' to the continuous Primitive document of which this passage forms the commencement. (c) The writer speaks of the universe and its Author in different terms to those of Genesis 1. God is regarded as intimately concerning Himself with men rather than in His transcendental power; and this concern of His is expressed in terms which are properly applicable to the only living persons we directly know, viz. men. This anthropomorphism runs through the whole of the Paradise story (cp. Gen_2:7-8, Gen_2:19, Gen_2:21,; Gen_3:8). (d) The lordship of man over creation is expressed, not by setting him up as the goal to which all tended (cp. Gen_1:26.), but by representing him as the first created, before plants or herbs (Gen_2:4-8), the being for whom the animals were afterwards made, and finally woman as a fitting mate, (e) The formal, orderly style of Genesis 1, which characterises the Priestly document, is exchanged here for the imaginative, poetical style which marks the Primitive (cp. Gen_2:8-9, Gen_2:15, Gen_2:19, Gen_3:1-6, Gen_3:7-8). (f) Finally, if the two accounts of Creation had been originally the work of one writer, he would surely have explained that he was describing the same event from different standpoints, giving reasons for so doing. But he does not, and it is reasonable to conclude from all the variations which have been pointed out, that we possess two accounts of the Creation and of the origin of man upon earth, drawn from different sources.
4b;–7. Render, 'In the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth; and no herb of the field had yet sprung up.. the Lord God formed man,' etc. Gen_2:5-6, from 'For the Lord God,' thus form a parenthesis.
4. The Lord God] Where Lord is thus printed in capitals in the English Bible it stands for the Heb. JHVH, the sacred divine name which was probably pronounced 'Yahweh.' In later times the word was considered to be too sacred to be uttered; the title Adonai (i.e. My Lord) was substituted in reading, and thus the true pronunciation was lost. Hebrew was originally written without vowel-signs; when these were added to the MS text, the vowels of the name as read (Adonai) were attached to the consonants JHVH, and thus the artificial form 'Jehovah' was produced, which has come into common Christian use. See on Exo_3:13 for the significance of the word, which means perhaps 'The Self-existent' (or 'Self-unfolding'). Yahweh (Jehovah) is the proper name of the God of Israel rather than a title, and as such was used by other nations who regarded Jehovah as the tribal God of the Jews (cp. Isa_36:20); the name also occurs on the Moabite stone set up by Mesha (2Ki_3:4). The American revisers have substituted 'Jehovah' for 'the Lord' throughout the OT. In Genesis 2, 3 Jehovah is joined with Elohim ('the Lord God'). The latter name was probably added by the editor who combined the narratives in order to show that the Jehovah of this section (the God of Israel) is the same as the Elohim (the Creator of the world) of the previous one. The earth and the heavens] RV 'earth and heaven.' Note the difference in the order from that in Gen_1:1. The centre of interest in this chapter is man on the earth.
6. Mist] The kindred word in the Assyrian language denotes the annual inundation of the Euphrates; see on Gen_2:8 and on Gen_3:7.
7. Man] Heb. adam as in Genesis 1. AV renders the word as a proper name frequently in Genesis 2-4; RV gives 'man' throughout except Gen_3:17; Gen_4:25. Ground] Heb. adamah. A connexion is thus suggested between the two words, but the derivation of Adam is uncertain. Formed man of the dust of the ground] The lowly origin of man, and his derivation on the physical side from the lower elements of creation, are here implied. To 'become a living soul' means no more than to possess the principle of life possessed by the animals; cp. Gen_2:19, where the Heb. for 'living creature' is the same as for 'living soul' here. But it is not said of the animals that God breathed into their nostrils the breath of life, only of man: this implies that man stands in a special relation to God, and may be taken as referring to the gift of those spiritual faculties by which he holds communion with God, and possesses a 'likeness' to Him; see on Gen_1:26.
8. A garden] LXX renders by 'Paradeisos' (a Persian word meaning 'a park'), hence the English 'Paradise.' Eastward] i.e. of Palestine, such as Babylonia would be. Eden] The Heb. word eden means 'delight,' but there is a Babylonian word edinu, meaning 'plain,' and there may be a reference to the great plain in Babylonia between the Tigris and the Euphrates. In the southern portion of this plain an ancient hymn placed a garden of the gods wherein 'a dark vine grew.. its appearance as lapis lazuli.'
9. Every tree] The garden was planted with trees, like a king's pleasure park. The trees are specially mentioned, partly because they were to provide man's food, and partly because attention is directed to two of them for a particular reason. As life was to be sustained by them, so immortality was to be received through the fruit of the tree of life, and knowledge of good and evil with death in the end were the possible consequences of eating of the forbidden tree. The garden was divinely planted, and the trees bad miraculous powers of good and evil. The tree of life] The Egyptians believed that in the blissful fields of Alu in the other world grew the tree of life, which the stars gave to the departed that they might live for ever; cp. also Rev_22:2.
10-14. There are many theories regarding these rivers. Perhaps the most likely is that the ancients, with their very limited notions of geography, regarded the four great rivers known to them, Euphrates, Tigris, Indus (Pishon) and Nile (Gihon), as having a common source in some large lake in Eden. Cush will then be Ethiopia. It is possible, however, that the main river stands for the Persian Gulf, which was anciently called 'The Salt River,' and the four heads were four streams connected with it, viz. (1) the Euphrates; (2) the Hiddekel, which the Persians called the Tigra, and Greeks the Tigris; (3) the Gihon, which is said to 'compass' the land of Cush, the country of the Kashshu in W. Elam, and which may therefore be the Kerkha, which once ran with the Euphrates and Tigris into the Persian Gulf; and (4) the Pishon, which has not been identified. Havilah] the sandy region of N. Arabia, and thus not far from the other localities. Bdellium] an odoriferous transparent gum. Onyx] RM 'beryl.' Gen_2:10-14 are regarded by many as a later addition to the narrative.
15. Dress] i.e. cultivate. Keep] i.e. protect (from the beasts).
17. Knowledge of good and evil] i.e. moral consciousness issuing in moral judgment; the power to distinguish between good and evil, not in act only but in consequence as well. This faculty is necessary, in order that man may reach moral maturity. The narrative implies that it would have come gradually to man, through the teaching of God, and without the loss of his own uprightness. It is a faculty which is developed from within, not conferred from without. By discipline and self-control man gains character and moral strength, or the knowledge of good and evil, and the power to discriminate between them. Hence 'the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil' is forbidden to man, not given to him like that of the others. It can impart the knowledge of good and evil at once, without a prolonged process of discipline or education; but the attainment of it in this summary way is made an act of disobedience, perhaps to assist man's moral development by affording a test of his self-control. Man's freedom of choice, however, makes it possible for him to disobey, and so come to the required knowledge by a wrong way; for the knowledge of good and evil is bought dearly by doing ill.
Shalt surely die] Man, it is implied, was created mortal, but had the privilege of attaining immortality by means of the tree of life. But by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil man forfeited his liberty to eat of the tree of life (see Gen_3:22-24). This implies that the physical is the consequence of the moral death. 'Some of the older expositors observe that the troubles and sufferings to which man became liable through sin, are nothing else than disturbances of life, the beginning of death' (D.).*
18-25. Now the other animals and woman are formed. The order of Creation is not the same as in Gen_1:24-27.
18. Help meet] This is not one word but two, the former being the noun and the latter the qualifying adjective on which the main emphasis lies. Man might have many helps; the vegetable and animal creation might minister to his welfare and comfort. But though these are 'helps,' they are not 'meet,' i.e. suitable for him. Only a creature like himself can be an adequate companion; and so woman is formed: see Gen_2:20.
19. The giving of a name implies a power of discrimination and reflection not possessed by the lower animals. Even proper names in the Scriptures are usually significant and descriptive of some quality supposed to be possessed by the person who bears it. Cp. e.g. the importance attached to the 'name' by which God is known: see on Exo_3:13.
21. The symbolical account of the creation of woman teaches the close relationship of the sexes, and the dependence of woman on man.
23. This is now] Render, 'This time it is bone of my bones,' etc. It is Adam's cry of delight at finding a congenial, sympathising companion, after failing to find one among the animals (Gen_2:20). She shall be called Woman] The similarity of the English words 'man,' 'woman' (wife-man) is also found in the Hebrew Ish, Ishshah.
24. The creation of one man and one woman in the ideally perfect state of Eden implies that monogamy is the ideal of the married life. Polygamy and divorce were later accommodations to man's 'hardness of heart.' But 'from the beginning' (i.e. in the original purpose of the Creator) 'it was not so' (Mat_19:4, Mat_19:8).
25. See on Exo_3:7.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 14, 23 In the O.T. the same Hebrew word (qodesh) is…
sanctified
In the O.T. the same Hebrew word (qodesh) is translated sanctify, consecrate, dedicate, and holy. It means, set apart for the service of God. See refs. following "Sanctify," (See Scofield "Gen 2:3").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v4 Man in Innocency before the Fall
II. THE GENERATIONS OF THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH
Man in Innocency before the Fall
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Genesis 2:4-45
1. The earth his abode (Gen 2:4-6)
2. The creation of man (Gen 2:7)
3. The garden of Eden (Gen 2:8-14)
4. Man in the garden. His commission (Gen 2:15-17)
a. To keep the garden
b. The commandment
5. No helpmeet for Adam found (Gen 2:18-20)
6. The formation of the woman (Gen 2:21-22)
7. The union (Gen 2:23-25)
This is not a new version of the creation or a repetition of the account in the preceding chapter. The relationships of the created man to nature and to His Creator are now more specifically introduced. The name of God appears now no longer as “Elohim” but another name precedes the word Elohim; it is the name “Jehovah.” This name is used because it is the name of God in relationship with man. Jehovah is the Son of God.
In Gen 2:7 we have the creation of man revealed. Jehovah God formed him out of the dust of the earth; He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Here is that which distinguishes man from the beast. The animals also are living souls, but not immortal. Man alone became a living soul by the inbreathing of Jehovah Elohim and that constitutes man immortal.
The garden of Eden was situated in a fertile, pleasant plain, somewhere near the two streams still known by their names, the Euphrates and the Tigris (Hiddekel). The tree of life represents Christ, while the rivers of water are clearly the types of the Holy Spirit. What the tree of knowledge of good and evil was no one knows. The command was given to test man in his innocency. Adam unfallen had not the knowledge of good and evil. That knowledge was acquired by the fall. The test, therefore, involved not some great moral evil but simply the authority and right of God to prohibit something. The tree of knowledge then represented responsibility.
“Thou shalt surely die” means literally “dying thou shalt die.” This does not mean “eternal death,” but “physical death.”
The formation of the woman is highly typical. Adam is the figure of Him who was to come (Rom 5:14), the last Adam. Here Christ and the Church are foreshadowed. The deep sleep into which Adam was put by Jehovah Elohim is typical of the death of the cross, The woman, built out of his side, is the type of the Church. As the helpmeet of Adam was bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh and also the bride of Adam, so is the church the body and the bride of Christ. The woman was brought to Adam and presented to him. But Christ will present the Church to Himself (Eph 5:27). Marriage is indicated in Gen 2:24 and quoted in Mat 19:5, 1Co 6:16, and Eph 5:31. Both were naked, the suitable condition for innocence.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 8, 15, 18, 21 The Sabbath of Creation
The Sabbath of Creation
v. 1. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them. The actual work of creation had been done in six days, all the created beings in heaven and earth, angels, birds, animals, and men, all organic and inorganic matter having been called into being, and men, beasts, and plants having been endowed with the power to reproduce their own kind.
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v. 2. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all His work which he had made. The work of creation did not extend into the seventh day, but was finished at sundown of the sixth day, which marked the beginning of the seventh. God devoted the seventh day to rest after the creative activity of the preceding days. Not that God was tired out, or that He now turned from the world to devote Himself entirely to the enjoyment of the bliss of heaven, but that the work of creation was finished.
v. 3. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made. In the blessing of the seventh day as a day of rest for Himself and as a type of the great Sabbath of heaven, Heb 4:4, God blessed the entire creation, for His blessing is an imparting of the powers of salvation, of mercy, and of peace. And He hallowed, or consecrated, the day, appointing it for His own rest and intending that the peace of the Sabbath should rest upon the world until the eternal Sabbath would continue this rest, Heb 4:9. There remaineth, therefore, a rest to the people of God. God, literally, created His works to make, His divine activity remains in the world in the form of preservation, of providence.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 18, 21, 24 the heavens
the heavens
"the sky" or "the skies"
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and all the living things that filled them
"and all the many living things that are in them" or "and all the crowds of living things in them"
were finished
This can be stated in active form. AT: "God had finished creating them" (See: Active or Passive)
On the seventh day God came to the end of his work
God did not work at all on the seventh day.
came to the end of
This is an idiom. AT: "had finished" (See: Idiom)
he rested on the seventh day from all his work
"on that day he did not work"
God blessed the seventh day
Possible meanings are 1) God caused the seventh day to produce good result or 2) God said that the seventh day was good.
sanctified it
"set it apart" or "called it his own"
in it he rested from all his work
"on it he did not work"
translationWords
heaven
God
bless
sanctify
rest
create
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 23, 24, 25 2:1-3 Humankind is the high point of God’s creative…
2:1-3 Humankind is the high point of God’s creative acts (1:26-31), while day 7 is the climax of the creation week. When God rested, he endorsed all of creation—there was nothing more to do! This seven-day framework structured Israel’s week, with the seventh day as the precedent for their weekly Sabbath. The Sabbath was intended to celebrate God’s finished work; the seventh day would be set apart as holy and dedicated to the Creator, who also rested (see Exod 20:8-11; 31:12-17; cp. Matt 12:1-8; Rom 14:5-6; Col 2:16-17; Heb 4:1-11).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.