Genesis
1
of Moses derives its title in the Hebrew Scriptures from its
initial word,
Bereshith; in the Septuagint,
which is followed by the Authorized Version,
it is designated by a term which defines its contents, Γένεσις (Genesis).
Γένεσις referring to it has been assigned as a
descriptive appellation has been
styled the Book of Origins or Beginnings
(Ewald); but since the Septuagint
employ Vedette as the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Tol’doth,
which
signifies not the causes, but the
effects, not the antecedents, but the
consequents of either thing or person (ch. 2:4: Exposition), the writing might
be more exactly characterized as the Book
of Evolutions or Developments.
creation or absolute origination of the universe, the
formation or cosmic
arrangement of this terrestrial sphere, the origin of man
and the
commencement of the human race, while it narrates the
primeval histories
of mankind in the three initial ages of the world the
Antediluvian, the
Postdiluvian, and the Patriarchal. Subsidiary to this, it
depicts the pristine
innocence of man in his first or Edenic
state; recites the story of his fall
through the temptation of an unseen adversary, with the
revelation of
Divine
mercy which was made to him in the promise of the woman’s seed,
and the consequent establishment on earth of a Church of
believing sinners,
looking forward to the consummation of that glorious
promise; traces the
onward course of the divided human family, in the deepening
impiety of the
wicked, and the decaying godliness of the righteous, till,
ripe for
destruction, the entire race, with the exception of one
pious household, is
wiped out or
washed off from the face of the ground
by the waters of a
flood; then, resuming the thread of human history, after
first sketching the
principal features of that appalling catastrophe, pursues
the fortunes of this
family in its three sons, till it sees their descendants
dividing off into
nations, and spreading far and wide across the surface of
the globe; when,
returning once more to the original center of distribution,
it takes up the
story of one of these collateral branches into which the
race has already
separated, and carries it forward through successive stages
till it connects
itself with the later history of
mentioned
aspect, as a Book of Evolutions or Developments, by which the
standpoint
of the writer is changed and brought round from the historical
to the
prophetic, from the a posteriori to the a priori, after sketching
in a
preliminary
section the original creation of the universe and the
arrangement
of the present terrestrial cosmos, in ten successive sections it
relates
the Tol’doth or generations, i.e. the
subsequent evolutions or
onward
developments of the cosmos which lead down to the point of
departure
for the history of Israel narrated in the ensuing books. The main
divisions
of the Book, according to the principle just stated, am indicated
by the
formula: “These are the generations of....” The following tabular
view of
these successive sections will afford an idea of the wide range of
topics
comprehended in the First Book of Moses:
THE PRIMEVAL AGE OF THE WORLD
FROM THE CREATION TO THE
DELUGE.
(Chapters 1-9)
THE BEGINNING (ch.1:1-2:3).
circumstance
that the occurrences it describes belong to a period of time
which
antedates the dawn of history. That it is not science is evinced by the
fact that,
in some, at least, of its particulars, it refers to a condition of our
globe
concerning which even modern research has attained to no definite
conclusions,
while in all of them it claims to be regarded not as uttering the
findings
of reason, but as declaring the course of nature. That still less can
it be myth
must be obvious to any who will carefully contrast it with those
heathen
cosmogonies which it is said to resemble. Only the
most absolute
devotion to
preconceived opinion can render one oblivious of its immense
superiority, to them in respect of both simplicity of construction and
sublimity
of conception. The absurdities, puerilities, and monstrosities that
abound in
them are conspicuously absent from it. It alone ascends to the
idea of a
creation ex nihilo, and of a SUPREME
INTELLIGENCE by whom
that
creation is effected. (And to think that in this 21st Century, the
Information
Age, men attempt to bar from public education Intelligent Design! - CY – 2015)
Unlike
them, it is destitute of either local coloring or
national
peculiarity, being no more Jewish than it is Assyrian or Indian,
Persian or
Egyptian. The inspired original, of which heathen creation stories
are the
corrupted traditions, it may be; impartial reason and honest
criticism
alike forbid its relegation to a common category with them. Since,
then, it is neither history, nor science, nor mythology, it must be
REVELATION; unless
ill-deed it be regarded as either “the recorded
intuition
of the first man, handed down by tradition,” a theory successfully
demonstrated
by Kurtz to be altogether inadequate, or the inductive
speculation
of some primitive cosmogonist, a solution of its genesis
scarcely
less satisfactory. To characterize it as a pious fraud, of post-
Mosaic
origin, written to uphold the Jewish week cycle and the institution
of the
Jewish sabbath, is not only to negate its
inspiration, but to
invalidate
the Divine authority of the whole book, to which it serves as an
introduction.
Happily its inspiration is a much less violent supposition than
its invention,
and one which is susceptible of almost perfect demonstration.
Rightly
viewed, its inspiration is involved in the simpler question of its
truthfulness.
If the Mosaic cosmogony is true, it can only have been given
by
inspiration; and that it is true may be said to be, with rapidly augmenting
emphasis,
the verdict of science. (Science and
Truth will never conflict,
except through PHILOSOPHY – What man thinks! – CY – 2015)
VISION
THEORY is perhaps, with certain modifications, the best., there is
clearly
nothing in the nature of the case to discredit the hypothesis that the far
past may
have been disclosed to the writer of this ancient document in the same
fashion as
we know the remote future was discovered to the later prophets.
On the
contrary, there is much in Scripture to warrant the assumption that,
as Daniel
heard “the speaking between
the banks of the Ulai,” and received
dream-revelations
of the four great world monarchies, and as John beheld
visions
and heard voices concerning the things which were shortly to come
to pass,
so the Jewish lawgiver, or the primitive Nabi to whom
this
revelation
was imparted, may have beheld in sublime panorama the
evolution
of the light, the uplifting of the atmosphere, the parting of the
waters,
the placing of the orbs, the filling of the land, sea, and sky with life,
while he
listened with awestruck silence to the voices of Elohim, as they
were
uttered at the opening of each creative day. Something like this,
Professor
Lewis aptly remarks, appears necessary to explain the reception
by the
prophet’s mind of those ineffable ideas of which previously he had
no types
or conceptions.
figurative
language, the present section may be truthfully described as
rhythmical
in structure, possessing an artificial and
orderly arrangement,
much
obscured by its division in the English version into chapters and
verses,
which almost justifies its designation as The Primeval Song, or
Hymn of
Creation, with which may be compared the lyric poem in Psalm
104., and
the post-Exilian ode in Psalm. 136., in both of which
a Hebrew
bard
recites the story of creation.
1 “In the
beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
In the beginning, Bereshith, is neither
“from eternity,” as in John 1:1; nor “in wisdom”
(Chaldee paraphrase), as if
parallel with Proverbs 3:19 and Psalm 104:24; nor
“by Christ,” who, in Colossians 1:18, is denominated ἀρχὴ
- archae – beginning;
original -
but “at the
commencement of time.” Without
indicating when the
beginning was, the
expression intimates that the beginning was. Exodus 20:11
seems
to imply that this was the initiation of the first day’s work. The formula, “And God said,”
with which each day opens, rather points to v. 3 as its proper terminus
a quo, which
the beginning absolute may have antedated by an indefinite
period. God
Elohim (either the highest Being to be feared, from alah, to fear,
or, more probably,
the strong and mighty One,
from aul, to be strong — is the most frequent
designation
of the Supreme Being in the Old Testament, occurring
upwards of 2000 times, and is
exclusively employed in the present section. Its plural
form is to be explained neither
as a remnant of polytheism, nor as indicating a plurality
of beings through whom the
Deity reveals Himself, nor as a plural of majesty, like the
royal “we” of earthly
potentates, a usage which the best Hebraists affirm to have
no existence in the
Scriptures, nor as a cumulative plural, answering the same
purpose as a repetition
of the Divine name; but either:
and the
multiplicity of the Divine powers, or,
the
Godhead; or
powers,
is inconsistent with neither of the above interpretations That the Divine
name
should adjust itself without difficulty to all subsequent discoveries of the
fullness
of the Divine personality and nature is only what we should expect
in a
God-given revelation. Unless where it refers to the angels (Psalm 8:5), or
to heathen
deities (ch. 31:32; Exodus 20:3; Jeremiah 16:20), or
to earthly rulers
(Exodus
22:8-9), Elohim is conjoined with verbs and adjectives in the singular,
an anomaly
in language which has been explained as suggesting the
unity of the
Godhead. Created.
Bara, one of three terms employed in this section, and in
Scripture
generally, to describe the Divine activity; the other two being yatzar,
“formed,”
and asah, “made” — both signifying to
construct out of preexisting
materials
(compare for yatzar, ch.2:7; 8:19; Psalm
33:15; Isaiah 44:9; for asah,
ch. 8:6; Exodus 5:16;
Deuteronomy 4:16), and predicable equally of God and
man. Bara
is used exclusively of God. Though not necessarily involved in its
significance,
the idea of creation ex nihilo (out
of nothing) is acknowledged by
the best
expositors to be here intended. Its employment in vs. 21, 26, though
seem ugly
against, is really in favor of a distinctively creative act; in both of
these
instances something that did not previously exist, i.e. animal life and
the human
spirit, having been called into being. In the sense of producing
what is
new it frequently occurs in Scripture (compare Psalm 51:12;
Jeremiah 31:12; Isaiah 65:18). Thus, according to the
teaching of
this
venerable document, the visible universe neither
existed from eternity,
nor was
fashioned out of pre-existing materials, nor proceeded forth as an
emanation
from the Absolute, but was summoned into being by an express
CREATIVE
FIAT! The New Testament boldly claims this as a doctrine
peculiar
to revelation (Hebrews 11:3). Modern science explicitly disavows it as
a
discovery of reason. The continuity of force admits of neither creation
nor
annihilation, but demands an unseen universe, out of which the visible
has been
produced “by an intelligent agency residing in the unseen,” and
into which
it must eventually return (‘The Unseen Universe,’ pp. 167,
170).
Whether the language of the writer to the Hebrews homologates the
dogma of
an “unseen universe” (μὴ φαινομένον – mae phainomenon –
not
appear - out of which τὸ βλεπόμενον γεγονέναι
– to blepomenon
gegonenai
– the being observed to have become - the
last result of science,
as
expressed by the authors of the above-named work, is practically an
admission
of the Biblical doctrine of creation. The
heavens and the earth
(i.e. mundus universus.
Compare ch. 2:1; 14:19, 22; Psalm 115:15; Jeremiah
23:24. The earth and the heavens always mean the
terrestrial globe with its
aerial
firmament. Compare ch. 2:4; Psalm 148:13; Zechariah
5:9). The earth
here
alluded to is manifestly not the dry land (v. 10), which was not separated
from the
waters till the third day, but the entire mass of which our planet is
composed,
including the superincumbent atmosphere, which was not
uplifted
from the chaotic deep until the second day. The heavens are the
rest of
the universe. The Hebrews were aware of other heavens than the
“firmament” or gaseous expanse which
over-arches the earth. “Tres
regiones,” says Poole, “ubi ayes,
ubi nubes, ubi sidera.” But, beyond these,
the Shemitie mind conceived of the heaven where the angels
dwell
(I Kings
22:19; Matthew 18:10), and where God specially resides
(Deuteronomy
26:15; I Kings 8:30; Psalm 2:4), if, indeed, this
latter was
not distinguished as a more exalted region than that occupied by
any
creature — as “the heaven of
heavens,” the pre-eminently sacred
abode
of the
Supreme (Deuteronomy 10:14; I Kings 8:27; Psalm 105:16). The
fundamental
idea associated with the term was that of height
(shamayim, literally, “the heights”). To the Greek
mind
heaven meant
“the boundary” (οὑρανος, - ouranos – heaven from ὁρος –
oros – raise;
rear), or, “the raised up” (from ὀρ – or - to be prominent ).
The Latin
spoke of “the con cavity” (coelum, allied to κοῖλος – koilos - hollow),
or “the
engraved” (from coelo, to engrave). The Saxon
thought of “the
heaved-up
arch.” The Hebrew imagined great spaces rising tier upon tier
above the
earth (which, m contradistinction, was named “the flats”), just
as with
regard to time he spoke of olamim (Greek
αἰῶνες - aiones – eternal;
everlasting. Though not anticipating modern astronomical
discovery, he had
yet
enlarged conceptions of the dimensions of the stellar world (ch.15:5;
Isaiah 40:26; Jeremiah 31:37; Amos 9:6); and, though
unacquainted with our
present
geographical ideas of the earth’s configuration, he was able to
represent
it as a globe, and as suspended upon
nothing (Isaiah 40:21;
Job 26:7-10; Proverbs 8:27). The connection of the present verse
with those
which follow has been much debated. The proposal of Aben
Ezra,
adopted by Calvin, to read, “In the beginning when God created the
heavens
and the earth, the earth was” is grammatically inadmissible.
Equally
objectionable on the ground of grammar is the suggestion of
Bunsen and
Ewald, to connect the first verse with the third, and make the
second
parenthetical; while it is opposed to that simplicity of construction
which
pervades the chapter. The device of Drs. Buckland and Chalmers, so
favorably
regarded by some harmonists of Scripture and geology, to read
the first
verse as a heading to the whole section, is exploded by the fact
that no
historical narration can begin with “and.” To this Exodus 1. It is no
exception,
the second book of Moses being in reality a continuation of the
first.
Honest exegesis requires that v. I shall be viewed as descriptive of
the first
of the series of Divine acts detailed in the chapter, and that v. 2,
while
admitting of an interval, shall be held as coming in
immediate
succession
— an interpretation, it may be said,
which is fatal to the theory
which
discovers the geologic ages between the creative beginning and
primeval chaos.
The
Visible Universe ( v. 1)
Ø
One. In age, origin, and nature one, “the heavens and the earth”
also
constitute one vast system. Cohering physically through the
force of
gravitation, which, in its ultimate analysis, is simply an
expression of the
Divine
power, they are unified spiritually by Christ, who is the
impersonation of the Divine wisdom and love (John 1:3, 9;
Colossians 1:15-17). Hence, as constituting one stupendous
system,
they are not independent, but mutually influential —
physically
according to science, spiritually according to Scripture
(Ephesians 3:10;
I
Peter 1:12). Yet:
Ø
Not simple, but complex,
consisting of two parts:
o
of this mundane
sphere, with its diversified contents of men,
animals, and plants; and –
o
of those shining
heavens, with their starry hosts and angelic
races.
Hence the histories of those two realms may be widely
divergent — an inference
which astronomy warrants as to their physical developments, and
revelation
endorses with regard to their spiritual experiences. Hence to argue
from the one
to
the other is to reason hypothetically; as, e.g., to conclude that the planets
must be
inhabited because the earth is, or to affirm that the Divine
treatment of the human and
angelic races must of necessity be alike.
Ø
Vast. Enlarged as were Shemitic
notions of the dimensions of God’s
universe, modern astronomy, by the grandeur and sublimity of
its
revelations, gives definite shape to what were then only
vague and
shadowy conceptions. Imagination
becomes bewildered in the attempt
to comprehend the circle of the universe. Commencing with the sun,
the central body of our planetary system, with a diameter about
three
times our distance from the moon, and passing, on her outward
journey,
no fewer than seven worlds in addition to our own, most of them
immensely larger, she only reaches the outskirts of the first department
of creation at a distance of 2,853,800,000
miles. Then, when to this is
added that the nearest fixed star is so remote that three years are
required
for its light to reach the earth (traveling at 186,282 miles a second – CY –
2015);
that from some of the more distant nebulae the light has
been traveling for millions of years; that the number of the
stars is
practically infinite; and that each of them may be the
center of a system
more resplendent than our own, — even then it is but a faint
conception
which she reaches of the dimensions of the universe (Job
26:14).
(I
recommend Fantastic Trip on You Tube –
CY – 2015) Yet:
Ø
It is not infinite. Immeasurable by man, it has
already been measured by
God (Isaiah 40:12). Undiscoverable
by science, its limits are known to
its Creator (Acts 15:18). The stars which man is unable to
compute
God
calls by their names (Psalm 147:4; Isaiah 40:26). That the
universe must have a boundary is involved in its creation.
Two finites
cannot make an infinite. Hence the measured earth
(Habakkuk 3:6) and
the bounded heavens (Job 22:14) cannot compose an
illimitable
universe. Still less can there be two infinites, one filling
all space, and
another outside of it. But ELOHIM
is such an infinite (Isaiah 57:15;
Jeremiah 23:24); hence the universe is not such another.
Ø
Old. How old God has not revealed and man has not discovered;
geology and astronomy both say millions of years; one
hundred millions
at least, Sir W. Thomson alleges the sun to have been
burning. Genesis
gives ample scope to physicists in their researches by
saying they may go
as far back as “the beginning;” only that beginning they
must find. For:
Ø
The universe is not eternal, though its
antiquity be vast. The frequency
and certainty with which Scripture enunciates the
non-eternity of the
material universe is one of its most distinguishing
characteristics (Psalm
90:1;
102:25, 26; Hebrews 1:10). This may also now be regarded as
the last word of science: “We have thus reached the
beginning as well as
the end of the present visible universe, and have come to
the conclusion
that it began in time, and will in time come to an end”
(‘The Unseen
Universe,’
p. 93).
Ø
Existent; i.e. standing out as an entity in the infinite
realm of space;
standing out from eternity in the sphere of time; and also
standing out
from God, as essentially distinct from His personality. Yet:
Ø
Not self-existent, not standing there in virtue of its own inherent energy,
being neither self-produced nor self-sustained; but standing solely and
always in obedience to the
creative fiat of ELOHIM, THE ALMIGHTY
AND
SELF-EXISTENT GOD!
2 “And the
earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon
the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of
the waters.” And the earth. Clearly the earth referred to in the preceding
verse, the present terrestrial globe with its atmospheric
firmament, and not
simply “the land” as opposed to “the skies”; certainly not
“the heavens” of v. 1
as well as the earth. It is a sound principle of exegesis
that a word shall retain
the meaning it at first possesses till either intimation is
made by the writer of a
change in its significance, or such change is imperatively
demanded by the necessities
of the context, neither of which is the case here. Was. Not “had become.”
Without form and
void. Literally, wasteness
and emptiness, tohu vabohu.
The words are employed in Isaiah 34:11 and Jeremiah 4:23 to
depict the desolation
and desertion of a ruined and depopulated land, and by many
have been pressed into
service to support the idea of a preceding cosmos, of which
the chaotic condition of
our planet was the wreck. Delitzsch
argues, on the ground that
tohu vabohu implies the ruin of a previous cosmos, that v. 2 does not
state specifically that God created the earth in this
desolate and waste
condition; and that death, which is inconceivable out of
connection with
sin, was in the world prior to the fall; that v. 2
presupposes the fall of the
angels, and adduces in support of his view Job 38:4-7 (‘Bib.
Psychology,’ sect. 1, p. 76; Clark’s ‘For. Theol. Lib.’) —
a notion which
Kalisch contemptuously classes among “the aberrations of profound
minds,” and “the endless reveries” of “far-sighted
thinkers.” Bush is
confident that Isaiah 45:18, in which Jehovah declares that
He created
not the earth roan, is conclusive against a
primeval chaos. The parallel
clause, however, shows that not the original state, but the
ultimate design
of the globe, was contemplated in Jehovah’s language: “He
created it not
tohu, He formed it to be inhabited;” i.e. the Creator did not intend the earth
to be a desolate
region, but an inhabited planet. There can scarcely be a
doubt, then, that the expression portrays the condition in
which the newly
created earth was, not innumerable ages, but very shortly,
after it was
summoned into existence. It was formless and lifeless; a
huge, shapeless,
objectless, tenantless mass
of matter, the gaseous and solid elements
commingled, in which neither organized structure, nor
animated form, nor
even distinctly-traced outline of any kind appeared. And darkness (was)
upon the face of the deep. The “deep,” from a root signifying to disturb,
is frequently applied to the sea (Psalm 42:8), and here
probably
intimates that the primordial matter of our globe existed
in a fluid, or
liquid, or molten form. Dawson distinguishes between “the
deep” and the
“waters,” making the latter refer to the liquid condition
of the globe, and
the former apply to “the atmospheric waters,” i.e. the
vaporous or aeriform
mass mantling the surface of our nascent planet, and
containing the
materials out of which the atmosphere was afterwards
elaborated (‘Origin
of the World,’ p. 105). As yet the whole was shrouded in
the thick folds of
Cimmerian gloom, giving not the slightest promise of that fair world of
light, order, and life into which it was about to be
transformed. Only one
spark of hope might have been detected in the circumstance
that the Spirit
of God moved (literally, brooding)
upon
the face of the waters. That the
Ruach Elohim, or breath of
God, was not “a great wind,” or “a wind of
God,” is determined by the non-existence of the air at this
particular stage
in the earth’s development. In accordance with Biblical
usage generally, it
must be regarded as a designation not simply “of the Divine
power, which,
like the wind and the breath, cannot be perceived”, but of the
Holy Spirit, who is uniformly represented as the source or
formative cause
of all life and order in the world, whether physical,
intellectual, or spiritual
(compare Job 26:13; 27:3; Psalm 33:6; 104:29; 143:10;
Isaiah 34:16;
61:1-3; 63:11). As it were, the mention of the Ruach Elohim is the
first out-
blossoming of the latent fullness of the Divine
personality, the initial
movement in that sublime revelation of the nature of the
Godhead, which,
advancing slowly, and at the best but indistinctly,
throughout Old
Testament times, culminated in the clear and ample
disclosures of the
gospel The special form of this Divine agent’s activity is
described as that
of” brooding’’ (merachepheth,
from raehaph, to be tremulous, as with
love; hence, in Piel, to cherish
young — Deuteronomy 32:11) or
fluttering over the liquid elements of the shapeless and
tenantless globe,
communicating to them, doubtless, those formative powers of
life and
order which were to burst forth into operation in answer to
the six words
of the six ensuing days. As might have been anticipated,
traces of this
primeval chaos are to be detected in various heathen
cosmogonies, as the
following brief extracts will show:
1. The Chaldean legend,
deciphered from the creation tablet discovered in
the palace of Assurbanipal, King of Assyria, 2. c. 885,
depicts the desolate
and void condition of the earth thus:
“When
above were not raised the heavens,
And
below on the earth a plant had not grown up;
The
abyss also had not broken up their boundaries;
The chaos (or water) tiamat (the
sea) was the producing-mother of the
whole of them,” &c. (‘Chaldean Genesis,’ p. 62.)
2. The Babylonian cosmogony, according to Berosus
(B.C. 330-260),
commences with a time “in which there existed nothing but
darkness” and
an abyss of waters, wherein resided most hideous beings,
which were
produced of a twofold principle... The person who presided
over them was
a woman named Omoroea, which in
the Chaldean language is Thalatth, in
Greek Thalassa, the sea, but which might equally be
interpreted the moon”
(‘Chaldean Genesis,’ pp. 40, 41).
3. The Egyptian account
of the origin of the universe, as given by
Diodorus Siculus, represents the heaven
and earth as blended together, till
afterwards the elements began to separate and the air to
move. According
to another idea, there was a vast abyss enveloped in
boundless darkness,
with a subtle spirit, intellectual in power, existing in
the chaos (Macdonald,
‘Creation and the Fall,’ p. 49).
4. The Phoenician cosmogony
says, “The first principle of the universe
was a dark windy air and an eternal dark chaos. Through the
love of the
Spirit to its own principles a mixture arose, and a
connection called desire,
the beginning of all things. From this connection of the
Spirit was begotten
mot, which, according to some, signifies mud, according to
others, a
corruption of a watery mixture, but is probably a feminine
form of too,
water. From this were developed creatures in the shape of
an egg, called
zophasemin (Macdonald, p. 50).
5. The Indian mythology is very striking in its resemblance to the Mosaic
narrative.” The institutes of Menu affirm’ that at first
all was dark, the
world still resting in the purpose of the Eternal, whose
first thought created
water, and in it the seed of life. This became an egg, from
which issued
Brahma, the creative power, who divided his own substance
and became
male and female. The waters were called nara,
as being the production of
Nara, or the Spirit of God, who, on account of these being
his first ayana,
or place of motion, is named Naray-na,
or moving on the waters. A
remarkable hymn from the Rig Veda, translated by Dr. Max
Muller, also
closely approximates to the Scriptural account:
“Nor
aught nor naught existed; yon bright sky
Was
not, nor heaven’s broad woof out-stretched above.
The
only one breathed breathless by itself;
Other
than it there nothing since hath been.
Darkness
there was, and all at first was veiled
In
gloom profound — an ocean without light.”
(Vid.
Macdonald’s ‘Creation,’ &c., p. 51.)
6. The description of
chaos given by Ovid is too appropriate to be
overlooked:
“Ante
mare et tellus, et, quod tegit
omnia, caelum,
Unus erat toto
naturae vultus in orbe,
Quem dixere chaos; rudis indigestaque moles quia corpere in uno
Frigida pugnabant calidis, humentia siccis,
Mollia cum duris, sine Pendere habentia pondus” (‘Metamor.,’ lib, 1:1).
Yet not more remarkable are these indirect confirmations of
the
truthfulness of the Biblical cosmogony than the direct
corroborations it
derives from the discoveries of modern science.
must yet
be admitted to possess a high degree of probability, strikingly
attests
its authenticity. That eminent astronomer demonstrated that a huge
chaotic
mass of nebulous matter, revolving in space on its own axis with a
sufficient
velocity, and gradually condensing from a high degree of heat,
would
eventually, by throwing off successive rings from the parent body,
develop
all the celestial orbs that presently compose our planetary system.
Though for
a long time regarded with suspicion by Biblical scholars, and at
the first
only tentatively thrown out by its author, Kant, yet so exactly does
it account
for the phenomena of our solar system as disclosed by the
telescope,
that it may now be said to have vindicated its claim to be
accepted
as the best solution science has to give of the formation of the
universe;
while further and more dispassionate reflection has convinced
theologians
generally, that so far from conflicting with the utterances of
inspiration,
it rather surprisingly endorses them.
hydrodynamics
have successfully established that the present form of our
earth,
that of (the solid of revolution called) an oblate spheroid, is such as
it must
necessarily have assumed had its original condition been that of a
liquid
mass revolving round its own axis.
(3) Geological
science likewise contributes its quota to
the constantly
accumulating weight of evidence in support of the Mosaic
narrative, by
announcing, as the result of its investigations in
connection with the earth’s
crust, that below a certain point, called “the stratum of
invariable
temperature,” the heat of the interior mass becomes greater
in proportion
to the depth beneath the surface, thus leading not
unnaturally to the inference that
“the earth has assumed its present state by cooling down
from an intensely heated,
or
gaseous, or fluid state” (Green’s ‘Geology,’ p. 487.).
Chaos an Emblem of the Unrenewed Soul (v. 2)
special process of rearrangement to create symmetry and beauty from its
confusion (II Corinthians 5:16).
absolutely “void” in the sense of being
untenanted by lofty thoughts,
pure emotions, holy volitions, spiritual imaginations, such
as are the
inmates of sinless and, in great part also, of renewed souls.
walking, perhaps, in the sparks that its own fire has
kindled (Isaiah 50:11),
but devoid of that true light which is from
heaven (John 1:9).
does God’s Holy Spirit hover over fallen souls, waiting, as
it were, for the
forthcoming and sounding of the commanding word to
introduce:
Ø
light,
Ø
order,
Ø
life.
Vs.
3-5
The evolution of the cosmos was accomplished by a series of
Divine formative works
which extended over a period of six successive days. In the
character of those cosmic
labors a progression is distinctly visible, though not
continuous throughout Unless,
with Aristotle, the celestial luminaries are regarded as ζῶα λογικά, - zoa logika - and
so classed in the category of organized and living beings,
it is impossible to find in
their production an advance upon the preceding vegetation.
Arbitrary
transpositions of the days, as of the third and fourth, in
order to make the
first half of the creative week an inorganic, and the
second half an organic,
era, are inadmissible. The arrangement of the days that
accords most
exactly with the requirements of the case, and most
successfully preserves
the order and connection of the record, is that which
divides them into two
triads, as exhibited underneath:
1. Light.
2. Air, Water.
3. Dry Land and
Plants.
4. Lights.
5. Fowl, Fish.
6. Animals and Man
each triad beginning with the making of light, and ending
with a double
creation, and the works performed on the second having each
a definite
relation to the labors executed on the first On the first
creative day the
formative energy of the Divine word, operating through the
agency of the
Ruach Elohim, eliminates
the light from the dark chaotic mass of earth, on
the second uplifts the atmosphere above the waters, and on
the third
distinguishes the dry land from the sea — at a later period
in this same day
clothing the dry land with vegetation, as if to prophesy
some
correspondingly higher advance in the creation work at the
close of the
second series. At this stage, instead of pressing forward
with its operations,
the demiurgic potency of the invisible Artificer appears to
pause, and,
reverting to the point from which it started, enters on its
second course of
labors. On the fourth day the light developed on the first
is concentrated
and permanently fixed in the celestial luminaries; on the
fifth the air and
waters, which were separated on the second, are filled with
fowl and fish,
their respective inhabitants; and on the sixth the dry land
of the third day is
occupied by animals, the mute prediction of the third day’s
vegetation
being fulfilled by the creation of man.
Day One.
3 “And God
said, Let there be light: and there was light.”
And God said. This
phrase,
which is ten times
repeated in the narrative of the six
days’ work, is commonly regarded
as an instance of anthropomorphism, a peculiarity of revelation,
and of this
chapter in particular, at which rationalism affects to be
offended. But any
other mode of representing the Deity would have failed to
convey to finite
minds an intelligent idea of His nature. “Touching the
Almighty, who can find Him
out?” (Job 37:23)
The most that God Himself could do in communicating to
His creature man a conception of His ineffable and
unapproachable Godhead
was to supply him with an anthropomorphic image of Himself
— “the
Word
made flesh.”
Deeper insight, however, into this sublime statement discerns
that “anthropomorphism” does not exhaust its significance.
God spoke; but
to whom? “This was an omnipotent word,” says Luther,
“spoken in the
Divine essence. No one heard this word uttered but God
Himself... The
Father spoke within.” It is observable too that every time the word goes
forth from Elohim it is
followed by instantaneous movement in the chaos,
as if the word itself were inherently creative.
Remembering, then, that the
doctrine of a personal Logos was not unknown to the later
theology of the
Old Testament (compare Psalm 33:6; 148:5), and is clearly
revealed in the
New (John 1:1; Hebrews 11:3), it is difficult to resist the
inference
that here we have its roots, and that a correct exegesis
should find in the
creative word of Elohim an adumbration of the Devar Jehovah of the
Hebrew Psalter, the Logos of John’s Gospel, and the
Rema Theou of the
writer to the Hebrews. Let there be light: and there was light. The
sublimity of these words, which arrested the attention of
the heathen,
Longinus (‘De Sublimitate,’ 9.),
and which Milton (‘Paradise Lost,’ 7.) and
Du Bartas, an elder poet (viz. Kitto in loco), have tried to reproduce, is in
great measure lost in our English version. Γενηθήτω φῶς καὶ ἐγένετω φῶς –
Genaethaeto phos kai egeneto
phos – Let there be light, and there was light
-
(Septuagint) and sit lux et fuit
lux (Vulg.) are superior translations of
יְהִי־אור וַיְהִי־אוד
which might be rendered, “Light be,
and light was.”‘
With reference to their import, the least satisfactory explanation,
notwithstanding the eminent names that have lent it their
support (Bush,
Kitto, Murphy, Wordsworth), is that which understands the sun to
have
been created a perfectly finished luminous body from the
first, though
hitherto its light had been intercepted by the earth’s
vapors, which were
now dispersed by Divine command. But the language of Elohim
is too
exalted to be applied to so familiar a phenomenon as the
dissipation of
terrestrial mists, and, besides, expressly negatives the
hypothesis in
question by affirming that the light was summoned into being,
and not
simply into appearance. The historian, too,
explicitly asserts that the light
was, i.e. began to be, and not merely to be visible.
A modification of this
view, viz., that the sun and moon were now created, but did
not become
visible until the fourth day (Inglis),
must likewise be rejected, as according
neither with v. 1, which says that the heavenly bodies were
created in the
beginning, nor with vs. 16-17, which declare that not until the fourth day
were they constituted sources of light for the earth. The
exigencies of the
text, as well as the ascertained facts of physical science,
require the first
day’s work to be the original production of light
throughout the universe,
and in particular throughout our planetary system (For an
idea of what came
to be I recommend Fantastic
Trip – You Tube – CY – 2015). Calvin, though much
more deeply concerned about the refutation of Servetus, who
maintained that the
Word only began to be with the creation of light, was able
to perceive that this light
was independent of the sun and moon; in this agreeing with
Augustine, who,
however, conjectured it to be not material, but spiritual
in its nature (‘De
Genesi ad Literam,’ lib. 1, 100. 3).
Nor does it in the slightest conflict with
v. 1 to suppose that light was now for the first time
produced, light being
a mode or condition of matter, and not a
distinct element or substance, as
was at one time believed. Luminosity is simply the result
of incandescence,
although what specific change is effected on the
constitutions or
adjustments of the molecules of a body by the process of
heating which
renders it luminous science is unable to explain. Any solid
body can be
rendered incandescent by being heated up to between 700°
and 800°
Fahrenheit. Any liquid that can absorb as great a quantity
of heat likewise
emits light. Gases do not appear to be capable of
incandescence, though
the phenomena attending their sudden condensation discover
light-
producing properties in their composition. As to how the
light of
incandescent bodies is transmitted to the eye, the
Pythagorean and
Newtonian theory of small, impalpable particles of luminous
matter being
constantly emitted from their surfaces towards the eye may
be said to have
been successfully displaced by that of Descartes, Huygens,
and Euler,
which accounts for the phenomena of vision by the existence
throughout
space, and in the interstitial spaces of bodies, of an
infinitely attenuated
ether, which is thrown
into undulations by luminous bodies precisely as the
atmosphere is made to vibrate by bodies which are
sonorous. (Dear Reader,
remember that this was written over two centuries ago. CY – 2015)
But
whichever theory be adopted to solve the mystery of its
transmission, that
of emanation or of undulation, it is
impossible to resist the conclusion that
the creation of light, which formed the opus operatum of the first day, was
in reality the evolution from the dark-robed, seething mass
of our
condensing planet (and probably from the other bodies in
our solar system)
of that luminous matter which supplies the light. It seems
unnecessary to
add that it could not have been either the subterranean
fire which produced
the igneous rocks of geology (Tayler) or caloric (Clarke);
though, as aor is
used in Scripture for heat (Isaiah 44:16), fire (Isaiah
31:9; Ezekiel 5:2), the sun
(Job 31:26), lightning
Job 37:3), and there is every reason to believe that light,
heat, and electricity are only modifications of the same
force, we may be
warranted in embracing all the three in its significance.
4 “And God
saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light
from the darkness.” And God saw the light, that it was
good. The
anthropomorphism (attribution of human form or other characteristics to
beings
other than humans,
particularly deities and animals) of this
verse is suggestive,
as teaching that from the first the absolute and
all-sufficient Elohim was an intelligent
Spectator of the operation of His own laws and forces, and
was profoundly interested
in the results which they achieved — an amount and degree
of interference
with the vast machine of nature which would satisfy any
rational theist of
today. God:
in all these respects He
pronounced it GOOD! Afterwards it is the
particular
arrangement effected, or condition induced, by the creative
word that
evokes the Divine commendation; here it is the creature
itself — “perhaps
as the one object in nature which forms the fittest
representation of the
Creator Himself, who is Light, and in whom is no darkness
at all (I John 1:5),
and of the true Light, which lighteth
every man (John 1:9)” And God divided between
the light and the
darkness. The celestial, bodies not having been constituted light-
holders for the earth until
the fourth day forbids the supposition that the luminous
matter, on being eliminated from the chaotic mass, was forthwith
transported towards
and concentrated in the sun. The sun itself, it is now well
known, is “a solid
mass of highly igneous matter engirt by a bed of dense
clouds, on the top
of which there lies, encircling all, a floating
phosphorescent or luminous
atmosphere, the lower part of it splendid, but the upper of
luster altogether
dazzling, from which streams the flood of light that
enlivens all
surrounding spheres” (Nichol’s ‘Cyclopedia,’ art. Sun). If,
therefore, with
Laplace, we may assume that the physical history of the sun
was the
archetype of that of the various planetary bodies that
compose our system,
we must think of them also, in the process of condensation,
developing
luminous atmospheres, which would continue encircling them,
and in fact
making them suns, until, through their further
condensation, those
phosphorescent bands were broken up, and, becoming disengaged
from
their parent globes, were attracted towards, and
subsequently centralized
in, the photosphere of the sun. So far as our earth is
concerned, that
happened on the fourth day. On the first day the light
would either
ensphere it in a radiant cloud, or exist apart from it, like a sun,
though
always in the plane of its orbit. If the former, then
manifestly,
though revolving on its axis, the earth would not
experience the vicissitude
of day and night, which some conjecture was not at this
time established; if
the latter, then the same succession of light and darkness
would be begun
as was afterwards rendered permanent by the fourth day’s
work. The chief
reasons for the latter alternative are the supposed
necessity of
understanding the term day as a period of twenty-four
hours, and the
apparent impossibility of explaining how the light could be
divided from
the darkness otherwise than by the diurnal revolution of
the earth. The
Hiphil of בָּדַל, however, means to
disjoin what was previously mixed, and
may simply refer to the separation of the luminous
particles from the
opaque mass. By that very act the light was divided from
the darkness. It
was henceforth to be no more commingled. The light denotes
all that is
simply illuminating in its efficacy, all the luminous
element; the darkness
denotes all that is untransparent,
dark, shadow-casting; both together
denote the polarity of the created world as it exists
between the light
formations and the night-formations — the constitution of
the day and
night.
The Value of
Light (v. 4)
Ø
Mysteriously fashioned. Philosophers can:
o
analyze light,
o
unfold the seven
prismatic hues that lie concealed in its pure
bosom,
o
theorize with much
exactitude concerning its transmission,
o
calculate its incredible
velocity,
o
elucidate the laws of
its dispersion,
o
utilize the wondrous
potencies that are treasured up in its mystic
beams;
but they can:
o
neither make light
o
nor explain its production.
Notwithstanding
all the restless activity of modern scientific discovery,
Jehovah’s
two interrogations (Job 38:19, 24) remain unanswered:
o
“Where is the way
where light dwelleth?” and,
o
“By what way is
the light parted, which scattereth the east wind
upon the earth?”
Ø
Exquisitely beautiful.
The first made of God’s creatures, it is likewise
one of the most radiantly fair. Streaming forth direct from
the golden sun,
or reflected in silver beams from the pale moon, painting
the orient dawn
with roseate hues, or bathing the western hills in a sea of
glory,
shimmering in whiteness through the summer air, or lying
across the rain-
cloud in its many-colored bow, it fascinates the eye of every intelligent
beholder with its incomparable splendor.
Ø
Essentially immaculate. “Hail, holy light, offspring of Heaven, first
born!” sings the immortal bard. “Bright effluence of bright
essence,” it
could scarce be other than stainless in its purity. It is
the one of all God’s
mundane creatures that has carried with it none of the
chaotic darkness.
Effectually
divided from the darkness at the first, it now descends upon
this lower earth from celestial realms. And being pure in
itself, wherever it
appears it communicates its own bright nature; it refines, beautifies,
and
purifies.
Ø
Absolutely incorruptible. As it brings no contamination in
its beams, so
it can receive none. The atmosphere may be polluted, the
land may be
defiled, the waters of the ocean may be rendered impure, it can in no
degree be tainted. Excluded from our presence, admitted to the darkest
and the foulest abodes, captivated and compelled to be our
servant,
absorbed by the dull sod, stored away in coal-fields — all
these it may
be, but not touched by
earth’s impurity.
Ø
A universal gift.
It belongs to no one nation, country, class, or
condition, being equally the heritage of all — the wise and
the unwise,
the unthankful and the grateful, the evil and the good
(Matthew 5:45).
It
was God’s first gift to the race.
Ø
A free gift. It
costs nothing. The poorest beggar as well as the grandest
monarch enjoys it on the same terms — “without money and without
price.” (Isaiah 55:1) So
free was it to the first man that it anticipated his
arrival on the earth; and to this day the seeing eye is ever
preceded by
the light wherewith to see. And, like the light, all God’s
gifts are free.
“He
simply gives unto all men;” and, anticipative of man’s wants,
“He
prevents us with His goodness.”
Ø
A useful gift.
Many of man’s gifts are worthless; not so this of God’s.
Directly or indirectly, all the earth’s glory is dependent on the light.
Without
light, neither would the loveliness of form be discerned, nor the
beauty of color exist. Light is indispensable for the
production,
preservation, and enjoyment of life. In almost every
department of human
industry its aid is sought. It is serviceable to the man of
science, to the
agriculturist, to the mechanic, to the sailor, to the
Traveler. “Upon whom
does not His light arise?” inquires Bildad (Job 25:3). We
may ask, “Unto
whom is not His light useful?”
Ø
A silent gift.
It is ever gentle and noiseless in its coming; with incredible
velocity rushing through the depths of space, yet with no appearance of
hurry or confusion. Almost instantaneous in its swiftness, as if, having
been the first to come in contact with the living word of
the Creator, it
had caught the Divine property of annihilating space.
Ø
A welcome gift. “Truly the light is sweet,”
&c. (Ecclesiastes 11:7).
Welcome
by all, it is specially so by them that “wait for the morning”
(Psalm
130:6).
Ø
Of God (I John 1:5), in respect of its glorious appearance, pure
essence, diffusive character, quickening influence.
Ø
Of Christ (John 8:12), as enlightening, healing, purifying,
directing.
Ø
Of the Holy
Spirit (Acts 2:3), m respect of its
celestial origin,
mysterious nature, sudden and unexpected movements.
Light
an Emblem of the Gospel
gospel resemble one another in respect of:
Ø
Their source — God.
Ø
Their purity.
Ø
Their influence.
Ø
Their gentleness.
Ø
That the world should be
filled with gospel light.
Ø
That every man should
have the light.
Ø
That Christians should
be the light.
·
APPLICATION.
Ø
Have you this light:
o
in your hearts,
o
in your families,
o
in your neighborhoods?
Ø
Are you doing what
you can to diffuse THE LIGHT?
5 “And God
called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.
And the evening and the morning were the
first day.”
And God called (literally, called
to) the light Day, and
(literally, to) the
darkness He called Night. None but superficial
thinkers, can take offence at the idea of created
things
receiving names from God. The name of a thing is the
expression of its
nature. If the name be given by man, it fixes in a word the
impression
which it makes upon the human mind; but, when given by God, it expresses
the reality, what the thing is in God’s creation, and the
place assigned it
there by the side of other things. The
things named were the light and the
darkness; not the durations, but the phenomena. The names
called were
day, yore, and night, layela,
which, again, were not time-measures, but
character-descriptions. Ainsworth suggests that yore was intended to
express “the tumult, stir, and business of the day,” in all
probability
connecting it with yam, which depicts the foaming or
the boiling of the sea;
and that layela, in which
he seems to detect the Latin ululare, is
indicative
of “the yelling or the howling of wild beasts at
night.” Gesenius derives the
former from the unused root yore, which signifies to
glow with heat, while
the latter he associates with lul,
also unused, to roll up, the idea being that
the night wraps all things in obscurity. Macdonald sees in
the naming of the
creatures an expression of sovereignty and lordship, as
when Adam named
the beasts of the field. And the evening and the morning were the first
day. Literally, And
evening was and morning was, day one. Considerable
diversity of sentiment prevails with regard to the exact
interpretation of
these words. On the one hand, it is assumed that the first
creative period is
here described as an ordinary astronomical or sidereal day
of twenty-four
hours’ duration, its constituent parts being characterized
in the usual way,
as an evening and a morning. In the judgment of Kalisch and others the
peculiar phrase, “Evening was, and morning was,” is simply
equivalent to
the later Hebrew compound “evening-morning” (Daniel 8:14),
and the
Greek νηχθήμερον – naechthaemeron – a night
and a day - (II Corinthians 11:25),
both of which denote a natural or civil day, though this is
challenged, in the case
of the Hebrew compound, by Macdonald. The language of the
fourth
commandment (Exodus 20:11) is also appealed to as removing,
it beyond the
sphere of doubt that the evening and the morning referred
to are-the component
sections of an earthly day. As to the proper terminus a
quo of this initial
day, however, the advocates of this interpretation are at
variance among
themselves; Delitzsch taking the
terms ereb (literally, “the setting,”
from
arab,
(1) to mix;
(2) to set, to
depart, like the sun)
and boker (literally,
“the breaking forth,” from bakar, to
cleave, to open) in
an active sense, and applying the former to the first
fading of the light, and
the latter to the breaking of the dawn after the first interval
of darkness has
passed, thus reckoning the creative days from daybreak to
daybreak; while
Murphy and Kalisch, who agree
with him in regarding the days as ordinary
solar days, declare they must be reckoned, Hebraico more,
from sunset to
sunset. But if the first day commenced with an evening or
obscure period
(Has ereb no
connection with arab, to mix? May it
not describe the
condition of things when light and darkness were
commingled?), that can
be discovered only in the chaotic darkness out of
which the light sprang.
Hence, on the other hand, as it seems improbable that this
was of no more
than twelve hours’ duration, and as the presumption is that
the light-period
would be commensurate in length, it has been argued that
day one was not
a sun-measured day, but a period of indefinite extent. Of
course the length
of day one practically determines the length of all the
six. If it was a solar
day, then they must be considered such. But as the present
sidereal
arrangements for the measurement of time were not then
established, it is
clearly gratuitous to proceed on the assumption that it was
hence, neither
is it to be accepted without-demonstration that they were
not likewise
periods of prolonged duration. It is obvious they were if
it was; and that it
was appears to be suggested by the terms in which it is
described. This
conclusion, that the creation days were long periods, and
not simply solar
days, is confirmed by a variety of considerations.
an obvious
latitude of meaning; standing for light as opposed to darkness
(v. 5);
day as distinguished from night; and for a period of twenty-four
hours, as in the phrase “for days and years” (v. 14); and
again for the
whole
creation period of six days, or, as is more probable, for the second
and third
days (ch.2:4).
period of
indefinite duration; g. g. Zechariah 14:6-7, which speaks of
the time
of our Lord s coming, and-indeed of the entire gospel
dispensation,
as יום אֶחָד
unus dies, i.e. a
day together unique, the only
day of its
kind (Delitzsch); and characterizes it as one of
God’s days,
“known to
the Lord,” as if to distinguish it from one of man’s ordinary civil
days
(compare Deuteronomy 9:1; Psalm 90:4; 95:8; Isaiah 49:8;
John 9:4; Hebrews 13:8; II Peter 3:8).
compressed
within the limits of a solar day. Taking the third day, e.g., if
the events
assigned to it belong exclusively to the region of the
supernatural,
nothing need prevent the belief that twenty-four hours were
sufficient
for their accomplishment; but if the Divine modus operandi
during the
first half of the creative week was through “existing causes”
(even
vastly accelerated), as geology affirms that it was during the second
half, and
as we know that it has been ever since its termination, then a
considerably
larger space of time than twice twelve hours must have been
consumed
in their execution. And the same conclusion forces itself upon
the
judgment from a consideration of the works allotted to the sixth day, in
which not
only were the animals produced and Adam made, but the
former,
being collected in Eden, were passed in review before the latter to
be named,
after which he was cast into a sleep by Jehovah Elohim, a rib
extracted
from his side and fashioned into a woman, and the woman
presented
to him as a partner.
other six.
Without anticipating the exposition of ch.2:1-4 (q.v.), it
may be
said that God’s sabbatic rest is understood by the
best interpreters
of
Scripture to have continued from creation’s close until the present hour;
so that
consistency demands the previous six days to be considered as not
of short,
but of indefinite, duration.
accordance
with the present theory, confirms the probability of its truth, If
the six
days in Exodus 20:11 are simply natural days, then the seventh
day, in
which God is represented as having rested from his creative labors,
must
likewise be a natural or solar day; and if so, it is proper to observe
what
follows. It follows:
Ø
that the events
recorded in the first five verses of Genesis must be
compressed
into a single day of twenty-four hours, so that no gap will
remain
into which the short-day advocates may thrust the geologic ages,
which
is for them an imperative necessity;
Ø
that the world is only
144 hours older than man, which is contrary to
both
science and revelation
Ø
that the statement is
incorrect that God finished all His work at the close
of
the sixth day; and
Ø
that the fossiliferous
remains which have been discovered in the earth’s
crust
have either been deposited there since man’s creation, or were
created
there at the first, both of which suppositions are untenable. But
now,
if, on the contrary, the language signifies that God labored in the
fashioning
of His cosmos through six successive periods of indefinite
duration
(olamim, aeons), and
entered on the seventh day into a
correspondingly
long period of sabbatic rest, we can hold the
opposite of
every
one of these conclusions, and find a convincing argument besides
for
the observance of the sabbath in the beautiful
analogy which subsists
between
God s great week of olamim and man’s little week of
sun-
measured
days,
condition
through a series of labors extending over indefinitely long
epochs;
and, notwithstanding the confident assertion of Kalisch
and others
that it is
hopeless to harmonize science and revelation, the correspondence
between
the contents of these geologic ages and those of the Mosaic days
is so
surprising as to induce the belief that the latter were, like the former,
extended
periods. First, according to geology, traveling backward, comes
the
Cainozoic era, with the remains of animals, but not of man next is the
Mezozoic era, with the remains of fish and fowl, but not of
animals; and
underneath
that is the Palaeozoic era, with its carboniferous
formations,
but still
with traces of aquatic life at its beginning and its end. Now,
whether
the vegetation of the third day is to be sought for in the
carboniferous
formations of the Palaeozoic age, or, as is more
probable,
in the age
which saw the formation of the metamorphic rocks, the order
disclosed
is precisely that which the Mosaic narrative affirms was observed
first
plants, then fish and fowl, and finally animals and man; so that if the
testimony
of the rocks be admissible at all upon the subject, it is unmistakably
in favor
of the long-period day.
side of
the natural-day theory. Josephus and Philo lent their sanction to the
other
view. Origen perceived the difficulty of having a first, second, and
third day,
each with an evening and a morning, without the sun, moon, and
stars, and
resolved it by saying that these celestial luminaries were
appointed "οὔκετι εἴς ἄρχας
τῆς ἠμέρας καὶ τὴς
νυκτὸς ἀλλ εἴς
τὴν ἄρχην
τῆς ἡμέρας
καὶ τῆς
νυκτός (‘Com. in Genesin,’ 1:16). Augustine similarly
writes,
“Qui dies cujusmodi sint,
ant perdifficile nobis,
ant etiam impossibile est cogitare, quanto
magis dicere Illorum autem
priores tres sine sole peracti sunt, qui quarto die factus refertur” (‘De
Civitate Dei,’ lib. 11:6, 7). Bode likewise remarks, “Fortassis hic diet
nomen totius temporis
nomen est, et omnia volumina seculorum hoc
vocabulo includit.”
confirmation
of the preceding evidence. Egyptian, Persian, Indian, and
Etruscan
legends represent the elaboration of the world as having been
accomplished
in a series of ages of prolonged duration. “God created in the
first
thousand years heaven and earth; in the second the vault of heaven; in
the third
the sea and the other waters of the earth; in the fourth the sun,
moon, and
stars; in the fifth the inhabitants of the air, of the water, and of
the land;
and in the sixth man,” is the creation story of Etruria; and
although
in itself it has no validity, yet, as a traditional reflection of the
Mosaic
narrative it is not entirely destitute of weight.
Day
Two
6 “And God said, Let there be a firmament
in the midst of the waters,
and let it divide the waters from the waters.” The work of this day consisted
in
the formation of that immense gaseous ocean, called
the atmosphere, by which
the earth is encircled. And God said, Let there be a firmament (rakiya, an expand,
from rakah, to beat out;
Septuagint, στερέωμα – stereoma; Vulgate, firmamentum)
in the midst of
the waters. The Hebrews supposed the atmospheric
heavens to be a
metallic substance (Exodus 24:10), a vault fixed on
the water-flood which surrounds
the earth (Proverbs 8:27), firm as a molten
looking-glass (Job 37:18), borne by the
highest mountains, which are therefore called the pillars
and foundations of heaven
(II Samuel 22:8), and having doors and windows (ch. 7:11; 28:17; Psalm 78:23),
is to confound poetical metaphor with literal prose,
optical and phenomenal language
with strict scientific statement. The Vulgate and
English translations of rakiya may
convey the idea of solidity, though it is doubtful if στερέωμα (Septuagint) does
not signify that which makes firm as well as that
which is made firm, thus referring
to the well-known scientific fact that the atmosphere by
its weight upon the waters
of the sea keeps them down, and by its pressure against our
bodies keeps them up;
but it is certain that not solidity, but expansiveness,
is the idea represented
by rakiya (cf.
Scottish, tax, to stretch; Job 37:18; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 40:22).
“The
firmament, expanse of liquid, pure,
Transparent,
elemental air, diffused
In circuit
to the uttermost convex Of this great round.”
(Milton, ‘Par.
Lost,’ Bk. 7.)
And let it divide
the waters from the waters. What these waters
were,
which were designed to be parted by the atmospheric
firmament, is
explained in the verse which follows.
7 “And God
made the firmament, and divided the waters which were
under the firmament from the waters which
were above the firmament:
and it was so.” And God made the
firmament. How the present
atmosphere
was evolved from the chaotic mass of waters the Mosaic
narrative does not
reveal. The primary intention of that record being not to
teach science, but
to discover religious truth, the thing of paramount importance to be
communicated
was that the firmament was of God’s construction. This, of
course, does not prevent us from believing that the
elimination of those
gases (twenty-one parts of oxygen and seventy-nine of
nitrogen, with a
small proportion of carbonic acid gas and aqueous vapor)
which compose
our atmosphere was not effected by natural means; and how
far it may
have been assisted by the action of the light upon the
condensing mass of
the globe is a problem in the solution of which science may
legitimately
take an interest. And
divided the waters which were under the
firmament from the
waters which were above the firmament. The
upper waters are not
the material of the stars, although Jupiter is of the same
density as water, and Saturn only half its density; but the
waters floating
about in the higher spaces of the air. The under waters are
not the lower
atmospheric vapors, but the oceanic and terrestrial waters.
How the waters
are collected in the upper reaches of the atmosphere,
Scripture, no less than
science, explains to be by means of evaporation (ch. 2:6; Job 36:27; 37:16).
These latter passages suggest that the clouds are balanced,
suspended, upheld
by the buoyancy of the air in exact accordance with
scientific principles.
And it was so. Six times these words occur
in the creation record. Sublimely
suggestive
of the resistless energy of the Divine word, which speaks, and it
is
done, commands, and it standeth
fast (Psalm 33:9), they
likewise remind
us of the sweet submissiveness of the creature to the all-wise Creator’s
will,
and, perhaps, are designed as well to intimate the fixed and permanent
character of those arrangements to which they are attached.
The
Atmospheric Firmament (v. 7)
Ø From God it received its being (v. 7). Not here alone, but in other
parts, Scripture declares the firmament to be the Divine handiwork
(Psalm 19:1; 104:2). Whence we may note:
o That
not it, the creature, should receive our worship, but He,
its Maker, who is God over all, blessed
forever.
o That since the firmament was made by God, it must belong to
Him. If at the present moment it is the special abode of the prince
of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2), it must be a usurped
dominion. The air with all its beams and showers, quite as much
as the earth with all its trees and flowers, is God’s property
(ch.14:22; Psalm 24:1).
o That in all its movements it only carries out the will of its Creator.
The air does nothing of itself. Under the reign of law as all created
things are, the law that reigns is itself beneath the rule of God. The
Hebrew mind never mistook things for persons, or creatures for the
Creator
(Psalm 148:8); it is only modern science (philosophy –
CY – 2015) that degrades the Creator from His throne, and puts
the creature in His seat. (a la – Mother Nature – CY – 2015)
Ø From God it received its function (v. 6), — to divide between the
upper and the lower waters, which was:
o Simple, i.e. in the sense of not being complex. Though its
uses are manifold, they are all contained in this, that it
floats up and sustains the vapors rising from the earth
at a sufficient distance from the terrestrial waters.
o Necessary. Without a clear body of atmospheric air between
the waters, human life could not have existed. And equally
without the watery clouds swimming in the atmosphere, both
vegetable and animal life would perish. “Were it absolutely
dry, it would cause the water implants to evaporate from their
leaves more rapidly than it could be supplied to them
by the soil and the roots. Thus they would speedily become
flaccid, and the whole plant would droop, wither, and die.”
Similarly, “were the air which man draws into his lungs entirely
free from watery fluid, he would soon breathe out the fluids
which fill up his tissues, and would dry up into a withered and
ghastly mummy” (‘Chemistry of Common Life,’ vol. 1. p.13).
o Beneficent. Collecting the vapors of the earth in the form of
clouds, it is thus enabled to throw them down again in the
form of rain, snow, or dew, according as it is required.
Ø From God it received its name.
o Suitable. “Heights,” significant of the reality.
o Suggestive. “The love, the power, the majesty of God, His
thoughts, His ways, His purposes when compared with man’s,
are set forth to us by the height of the heaven above the earth.”
Ø Indispensable. Without the air, man could not live. His physical being
would perish without its oxygen. Without its pressure his bodily
structure would fall to pieces.
Ø Valuable. The uses of the atmosphere to man as a resident on earth are
manifold. It supports animal and vegetable life around him. It conveys,
refracts, and decomposes light. It transmits sound. It draws up noxious
vapors from the soil, and disperses them by its winds. It assists him in a
variety of his mechanical, chemical, commercial, and scientific
enterprises.
Ø Willing. Great as are its powers of service and its capacities of rebellion
when excited with tempest, for the most part it is meek and docile, ever
ready to acknowledge man as its master, and to execute his slightest wish.
Ø Unwearied. Ever since it received its appointment from God to minister
to the happiness of man is has unrestingly performed that task, and
betrays no more signs of weariness to-day than it did at the first.
Ø Gratuitous. It gives its services, as its great Creator gives his blessings,
without money and without price.
Let us learn:
1. To be thankful for the air we breathe.
2. To admire God’s wisdom in the wonderful adjustments of the air.
3. To make the best use we can of that life which the air supports and subserves.
8
“And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the
morning were the second day.” And God called the firmament
heaven.
Literally, the heights, shamayim, as in v. 1. This may be regarded
as an intimation that no definite barrier separates our
film of atmosphere
from the boundless abyss of heaven without; and how appropriate the
designation “heights” is, as applied to the atmosphere, we
are reminded by
science, which informs us that, after rising to the height
of forty-five miles
above the earth, it becomes imperceptible, and loses itself
in the universal
ether with which it is surrounded. And the evening and the morning
were the second
day. For
the literal rendering of this clause see on v. 5,
It is observable that in connection with the second day’s
work the usual
formula, “And God saw
that it was good,” is omitted. The καὶ εἰδεν
ὁ θεος
ὅτι καλόν - kai eiden ho Theos hoti kalon - And God
saw that it was good –
of the Septuagint is unsupported by any ancient version. The conceit of the
Rabbis, that an expression of the Divine approbation was
omitted because
on this day the angels fell, requires no refutation. Aben Ezra accounts
for
its omission by making the second day’s work terminate with
v. 10. Lange asks,
“Had the prophetic author some anticipation that the blue
vault was merely an
appearance, whilst the sarans of
the Septuagint had no such anticipation, and
therefore proceeded to doctor the passage?” The explanation
of Calvin, Delitzsch,
Macdonald, and Alford, though declared by Kalisch to be of no weight, is
probably the correct one, that the work begun on the second
day was not properly
terminated till the middle of the third, at which place,
accordingly, the
expression of Divine approbation is introduced (see v. 10).
Day Three
9 “And God
said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered
together unto one place, and let the dry
land appear: and it was so.”
The distribution of land and water and the production of
vegetation on this day
engaged the formative energy of the word of Elohim. And God said, Let the
waters under
heaven be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land
appear. To explain the
second part of this phenomenon as a consequence of the first,
the disclosure of the solid ground by the retirement of the
waters from its
surface, and not rather vice versa, is to reverse
the ordinary processes of
nature. Modern analogy suggests that the breaking up of the
hitherto
universal ocean into seas, lakes, and rivers was effected
by the upheaval of
the land through the action of subterranean fires, or the
subsidence of the
earth’s crust in consequence of the cooling and shrinking
of the interior
mass. Psalm 104:7 hints at electric agency in connection
with the
elevation of the mountains and the sinking of the ocean
beds. “At thy
rebuke they (the waters) fled: at
the voice of thy thunder they hasted away
(were scattered). The
mountains rose, the valleys sank (ἀναβαίνουσιν ὄρη
καὶ καταβαίνουσι πεδία – anabainousin
orae kai katabainousi pedia - Septuagint;
ascendunt montes, et descendunt
campi — Jerome) to the place which thou
hadst established for them” (Perowne).
The gathering of the waters into one
place implies no more than that they were, from this day
forward, to be collected
into one vast body, and restrained within bounds in a place
by themselves, so as
to admit of the exposure of the earth’s soil. The “place founded for them”
was, of course, the depths and hollows in the earth’s
crust, into which they
were immediately withdrawn, not through direct supernatural
agency, but
by their own natural gravitation. The configuration of the
dry land is not
described; but there is reason to believe that the original
distribution of
land and water was the same, or nearly the same, as it is
at present.
Physical geographers have observed that the coast lines of
the great
continents and the mountain ranges generally run from
north-east to southwest,
and that these lines are in reality parts of great circles,
tangent to the
polar circle, and at right angles to a line drawn from the sun’s
center to the
moon’s, when these bodies are either in conjunction or in
opposition.
These circles, it has further been remarked, are “the lines
on which the thin
crust of a cooling globe would be most likely to be
ruptured by its internal
tidal wave.” Hence, though considerably modified by the
mighty
revolutions through which at successive periods the earth
has passed,
“these, with certain subordinate lines of fracture, have
determined the
forms of continents from the beginning” (Dawson, ‘O.W.,’ p.
184; of.
‘Green’s Geology,’ p. 512). And it was so. Though
the separation of the
dry land from the waters and the distribution of both were
effected by
Divine agency, nothing in the Mosaic narrative obliges us
to think that
these works were instantaneously completed. There is truly
no difficulty in
supposing that the formation of the hills kept on through
the succeeding
creative days. Generally the works of the single creative
days
consist only in laying foundations; the birth process that
is introduced in
each extends its efficacy beyond it. “Not how long, but how
many times, God
created is the thing intended to be set forth” by the
creative days (Hoffman). Scripture habitually represents
the world in an
aspect at once natural and supernatural, speaking of it as natura and
creatura, φύσις – phusis - natural and κτίσις – ktisis – created
and
although the latter is the view exhibited with greatest
prominence, indeed
exclusively, in the Mosaic cosmogony, yet the former is not
thereby
denied, Not immediateness, but certainty of execution, is
implied in the “it
was so” appended to the creative fiat.
10 “And
God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of
the waters called He Seas: and God saw that
it was good.”
And God called the
dry land Earth. In opposition to the
firmament, which was named” the heights” (shamayim), the dry land was
styled “the flats,” “Aretz” (of. Sansc., dhara; Pehlev., arta; Latin, terra;
Gothic, airtha; Scottish, yird; English, earth; rid. Gesenius). Originally
applied to the dry ground as distinguished from the seas,
as soon as it was
understood that the solid earth was continuous beneath the
water masses,
by an easy extension of meaning it came to signify the
whole surface of the
globe. And the
gathering together of the waters called he Seas. Yamim,
from yom, to boil or foam,
is applied in Scripture to any large collection of
water (compare ch.14:3; Numbers 34:11; Deuteronomy 4:49;
Joel 2:20).
The plural form seas shows that the one place
consists of
several basins. And
God saw that it was good. The
waters
having been permanently withdrawn to the place founded for
them by the
upheaval of the great mountain ranges, and the elevation of
the continental
areas, the work thus accomplished is sealed by the Divine
approval. The
separation of the land and water was good, as a
decided advance towards
the completion of the cosmos, as the proper
termination of the work
commenced upon the previous day, as the production of two
elements in
themselves beautiful, and in separation useful as abodes of
life, with which
they were in due course to be replenished. To our view that
primeval dry land
would scarcely have seemed good. It was a world of bare,
rocky peaks and
verdureless valleys — here active volcanoes, with their heaps of
scoriae, and
scarcely cooled lava currents — there vast mudflats,
recently upheaved from
the bottom of the waters — nowhere even a blade of grass or
a clinging lichen.
Yet it was good in the view of its Maker, who could see it
in relation to the uses
for which he had made it, and as a fit preparatory step to
the new wonders He was
soon to introduce.
Besides, the first dry land may have presented crags, and peaks,
and ravines, and volcanic cones in a more marvelous and
perfect manner than
any succeeding continents, even as the dry and barren moon
now, in this
respect, far surpasses the earth.
11 “And God said, Let the
earth bring forth grass, the herb
yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his
kind, whose
seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.” Three terms are employed
to describe the vegetation here summoned into existence. Kalisch regards
the first as a generic term, including the second and the
third; but they are
better understood as distinct classes:
(1) grass, deshe, first sprouts of
the earth, tender herb, in which the seed is
not noticed, as not being obvious to the eye; “tenera herha sine semine
saltem conspicuo” (Rosenmüller);
probably the various kinds of grasses
that supply food for the lower animals (compare Psalm
23:2);
(2) “the herb (eseb) yielding
seed,” the more mature herbage, in which the
seed is the most striking characteristic; the larger
description of plants and
vegetables (compare ch.9:3); and
(3) “the fruit tree
yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon
(or above) the earth.” The first clause
describes its specific nature —
“fruit-bearing;” the second, its peculiar
characteristic — enclosing the
seed in its fruit; the third, its external appearance — rising
above the
ground. This division is simple and natural. It proceeds
upon two
concurrent marks, the structure and the seed. In the first
the green blade is
prominent; in the second, the stalk; in the third, the
woody texture. In the
first the seed is not conspicuous; in the second it is
conspicuous; in the
third it is enclosed in a fruit which is conspicuous. The
phrase
“after his
kind”, appended to the second and third, seems to indicate that the
different species of plants were already fixed. The modern
dogma of the
origin of species by development would thus be declared to
be un-biblical,
as it has not yet been
proved to be scientific. The utmost that can be
claimed as established is that “species,” qua species,
have the power of
variation along the line of certain characteristics
belonging to themselves,
but not that any absolutely new species has ever been
developed with
power indefinitely to multiply its kind.
12 “And
the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his
kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose
seed was in itself, after his
kind: and God saw that it was good.” It is
noticeable that the vegetation of the
third day sprang
from the soil in the same natural manner in which
all subsequent
vegetation has done, viz., by growth, which seems to resolve the
well-known
problem of whether the tree was before the seed, or the seed before
the tree, in
favor of the latter alternative, although in the order of
nature the parent is
always before the offspring. In all probability the seed
forms were in the
soil from the first, only waiting to be vitalized by the Ruach Elohim — The
Spirit of God; or they may have been then created. Certainly they were
not
evolved from the dead matter of the dry land. Scripture, no
more than
science, is acquainted with Abiogenesis. Believing that “if
it were given to
her to- look beyond the abyss of geologically recorded
time, she might
“witness the evolution of living protoplasm from not living
matter,” science
yet honestly affirms “that she sees no reason for believing
that the feat (of
vitalizing dead matter) has been performed yet” (Huxley’s
‘Brit.
Association Address, 1871); and Scripture is emphatic that,
if it is
protoplasm which makes organized beings, the power which
manufactures
protoplasm is the Ruach Elohim, acting in obedience
to the Divine Logos.
The time when the earth put forth its verdure, viz., towards
the close of the
third day, after light, air, earth, and water had been
prepared and so
adjusted as to minister to the life of plants, was a signal
proof of the
wisdom of the Creator and of the naturalness of His working.
Sea, Land, and Vegetation, Contrasted and Compared. (vs. 9-12)
Ø Their constitutions; — sea being matter liquid and mobile, land matter
solid and dry, vegetation matter organized and living. All God’s creatures
have their own peculiar natures and characteristic structures. Each one’s
nature is that which makes it what it is. A change of constitutional
characteristics would be equivalent to an alteration of
being. The nature
and structure of each are assigned it by God. Whence may be gathered:
o that if all creatures are not the same, it is because God has so
willed it;
o that God has so willed it, for this among other reasons, that He
delights in variety;
o that no separate creature can be other than its individual nature
will allow;
o
that to wish to be
different from what God has made us is to be
guilty of a foolish as well as sinful discontent; and
o that a creature’s highest function is to act in accordance with its
God assigned nature.
Ø
Their situations;
which were all different, yet all adapted to their
respective natures and uses, and all wisely appointed. The waters were
gathered into the earth’s hollows, the lands raised above the ocean’s
surface, the plants spread upon the ground. It is the nature of water
to seek the lowest levels; and, collected into ocean, lake, and riverbeds,
it is of infinitely greater value than it would have been had it continued
to overspread the globe. Similarly, Submerged beneath the waters,
neither could the land have been arrayed in verdure, or made a habitation
for the beasts, much less a home for man; nor could the plant, have grown
withouta dry soil to root in, while their beauty would have been concealed
and their utility destroyed. And then each one has the place assigned it by
God, out of which it cannot move, and against which it need not fret. The
place founded for the waters has received them, and God has set a bound
to them that they cannot pass. The dry land still maintains its elevation
above the sea; and, as if in obedience to the Divine Creator’s will, the
waves are continually building up terraces and raised beaches in
compensation for those they are taking down, Nor does it seem possible
to shake off the vegetation from the soil. Scarcely has a square inch of
ground been recovered from the waters, than it begins to deck itself in
green. Let us learn here:
o that every creature of God, man included, has its own place;
which is best suited to its nature, functions, and uses on the earth;
and assigned it by God. Also
o that to vacate that place would be to run counter to God’s
ordinance and to God’s wisdom, as well as to its own nature
and usefulness; and
o that it becomes every one to abide in that sphere of life in which
he has been placed by God contentedly, cheerfully and diligently
seeking to glorify his Creator.
Ø Their operations; which are as diversified as are their natures and places.
The sea moves, the land rests, the plant grows. The sea fertilizes and
beautifies the soil, the soil sustains and nourishes the plant, the plant
decorates the land and gives food to man and beast. The sea fills
the clouds, the clouds fill the rivers and the streams, the rivers and the
streams slake the thirst of the valleys, the valleys, yield their substance to
the corn and the wine and the oil, and these again deliver up their treasures
to their master — man. The sea divides the land into continents, which, in
turn, are broken up into countries by rivers; and thus nationalities are
formed, and peace promoted by division. As the great highway of the
nations, too, the sea helps to diffuse abroad the blessings of civilization,
and to teach men their interdependence. So, likewise, the land has its
specific functions in the economy of nature, being assigned to support,
sustain, enrich, instruct, and comfort man. And different from both are
the uses of the plants. All which is fitted to suggest wisdom:
o That each separate creature has its own separate work to do,
for which it has been fitted with appropriate powers —
a lesson of diligence.
o That there are many different ways of serving God in this
world – a lesson of charity.
o That
God does not wish all His creatures either to be or to
serve alike-a lesson of contentment.
o That
the best way to serve God is to be ourselves and use the
powers we possess, without condescending to imitate our
neighbors-a lesson of individuality.
o That
though each separate creature has its own nature, place,
And power, yet each is subservient to the other, and all to the
whole-a lesson of cooperation.
Ø Their natures, as being God’s creatures. Land, sea, and vegetation all
owe their existence to His Almighty fiat, and all equally proclaim
themselves to be His handiwork. Hence they are all God’s property —
the earth with its fullness, the sea with its treasures, the plants with
their virtues. Consequently man should
o reverently worship him who made the sea and formed the dry
land, and caused the grass to grow;
o thankfully receive those highly serviceable creatures at God’s
hand; and,
o remembering whose they are and that himself is but a steward,
faithfully employ them for their Creator’s glory.
Ø
Their characters, as being obedient to the Divine word.
“Gathered
be
the seas,” said the word, and the seas were
gathered. “Let the dry land
appear,” and it appeared. “Let the grass grow.” And the grass grew. Let
the land, sea, and plants be our teachers. Obedience the first duty of a
creature. Nothing can compensate for its lack (I Samuel 15:22). And
this obedience must be prompt, complete, and continual, like that of sea,
land, and vegetation.
Ø Their varieties. The seas were divided into oceans, lakes, rivers; the land
into mountains, hills, and valleys the plants into grasses, herbs, and trees.
God loves diversity in unity. As in a great house there are vessels of small
quantity and vessels of large quantity (Isaiah 22:24), so in the world are
the creatures divided into more important and less. In society men are
distributed into ranks and classes according to their greatness and ability;
in the Church there are “babes” and there are “perfect men” in Christ;
there are those possessed of many talents and much grace, and those
whose endowments and acquirements are of smaller dimensions.
Ø Their qualities, as being all good in their Creator’s estimation. The
highest excellence of a creature is to be approved by its Maker, rot
simply commended by its fellow-creature; to be good in the judgment
of God, and not merely in the sight of men.
13 “And the evening and
the morning were the third day.” For
exposition vid. v. 5. Has modern geological research
any trace of this
third day s vegetation? The late Hugh Miller identified the
long-continued
epoch of profuse vegetation, since then unparalleled in
rapidity and
luxuriance, which deposited the coal-measures of the
carboniferous system,
with the latter half of this Mosaic day. Dana, Dawson, and
others, rejecting
this conclusion of the eminent geologist on the ground that
the underlying
Devonian, Silurian, and Cambrian systems yield abundant
fossiliferous
remains of aquatic life, infer that the third day’s
vegetation is to be sought
for among the “unresolved schists” of the Azoic period. The
metamorphic
rocks, it is true, have not as yet yielded any absolutely
certain traces of
vegetable life; and. indeed, it is an open question, among
geologists
whether any of the earliest formed metamorphic rocks now
remain (cf.
Green’s ‘Geology,’ p. 308); but still it is susceptible of
almost perfect
demonstration that plants preceded animals upon the earth.
graphite
have been discovered, both of these being of organic origin.
life a
long time before animals could have existed.
subsequent
introduction of animal life by ridding the atmosphere of
carbonic
acid, so by the presence of plants must the ocean have been fitted
to be the
abode of aquatic life.
had a
previous existence. On these grounds Professor Dana concludes that
the latter
part of the Azoic age of geology corresponds with the latter half
of the
third creative day. In the Creation Series of Chaldean tablets are two
fragments,
which George Smith conjectures have a reference to the first
part of
the third day’s work. The one is:
Ø
When the foundation of
the ground of rock (thou didst make)
Ø
The foundation of the
ground thou didst call…
Ø
Thou didst beautify
the heaven…
Ø
To the face of the
heaven…
Ø
Thou didst give…
Ø
The other, which is
much more mutilated and obscure, describes the god
Sat
(or Assur) as saying —
Ø
Above the sea which is
the sea of…
Ø
In front of the esara (firmament) which I have made.
Ø
Below the place I
strengthen it
Ø
Let there be made also
e-lu (earth?) for the dwelling of [man?]
(‘Chaldean
Genesis,’ p. 68. )
Day
Four
14 “And
God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to
divide the day from the night; and let them
be for signs, and for
seasons, and for days, and years: 15 And let them be for lights in the
firmament of the heaven to give light upon
the earth: and it was so.”
With this day begins the second half of the creative week,
whose works have a
striking correspondence with the labors of the first.
Having perfected the main
structural arrangements of the globe by the elimination
from primeval chaos of the
four fundamental elements of light, air, water, and land,
the formative energy of
the Divine word reverts to its initial point of departure,
and, in a second series of
operations, carries each of these forward to completion —
the light by
permanently settling it in the sun, the air and water by
filling therewith fowl
and fish, and the land by making animals and man. The first
of these
engaged the Divine Artificer’s attention on the fourth
creative day. And
God said, Let
there be lights (literally, places where light is, light-holders,
φωστῆρες – phostaeres - Septuagint; luminaria, Vulgate; spoken of
lamps and candlesticks, Exodus 25:6: Numbers 4:9, 16) in the
firmament (literally the expanse) of the heaven. יִהִי in the singular with מְאֹרֹת in
the plural is explained by Gesenius
on the ground that the predicate precedes the
subject (vid. ‘Gram.,’ §147). The scientific
accuracy of the language here used to
describe the celestial luminaries relieves the Mosaic
cosmogony of at least one
supposed irreconcilable contradiction, that of representing
light as having an
existence independent of the sun. Equally does it dispense exegesis from the
necessity of accounting for what appears a threefold
creation of the heavenly bodies —
in the beginning (v.
1), on the first day (v. 3), and again on the fourth (v. 14). The
reference in the last of these verses is not to the original
creation of the
matter of the supra mundane spheres (Gerlach),
which was performed in
the beginning, nor to the first production of light, which
was the specific
work of day one; but to the permanent appointment of the
former to be the
place, or center of radiation, for the latter. The purpose
for which this
arrangement was designed, so far, at least, as the earth
was concerned, was
threefold:
night; or,
as in v. 18, to divide the light from the darkness to continue
and render
permanent the separation and distinction which was effected on
the first
day.
The
celestial lights were to serve:
Ø
For signs. Othoth,
from oth, anything engraved, hence a mark
(ch. 4:15; II Kings 20:8), is employed to designate a
portent,
or
sign of wanting or instruction (Psalm 61:8; Isaiah 8:18; 20.
Septuagint,
σημεῖον – saemeion – sign - compare Luke 21:25;
Acts
2:19), and here probably refers to the subsequent employment
of
the heavenly bodies as marks or signs of important changes and
occurrences in the kingdom of
Providence. They may have been
designed also to subserve
important purposes in the -various economy
of human life, as in affording signs to the
mariner and husbandman,
is not improbable, though this is not so
strictly the import of the original.
Still less, of course, does the word refer to
mediaeval astrology or to
modern meteorology.
Ø
For seasons.
Moradhim, set times, from ya’ad,
to indicate, define, fix,
is
used of yearly returning periods (ch.17:21; 18:14) — the time
of
the migration of birds (Jeremiah 8:7), the time of festivals (Psalm
104:19;
Zechariah 8:19).
Ø
For days and years, i.e. for the calculation of time, the
simplest, and,
most
probably, the correct interpretation.
light upon the earth. Not to introduce
light for the first time to this lower
world, but
to serve as a new and permanent arrangement for the
distribution
of the light already called into existence. And it was so. Like
every
other command which Elohim issued, this was in due time followed
by
COMPLETE REALIZATION!
16 “And
God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day,
and the lesser light to rule the night: He
made the stars also.
And God made two
great lights. Perhaps no part of
the material universe more
irresistibly demands a Supreme
Intelligence as its only proper origin and cause.
“Elegantissima haecce solis, planetarum
et cometarum compages non
nisi consilio
et domino entis intelligentis et potentis oriri potuit” (Newton,
‘Principia,’ lib. 3.
sub fin. Ed. of Le Seur and Jacquier, vol. 2. p. 199). The greater light to rule (literally,
to make like; hence to judge; then to rule. Mashal; the day, and the lesser light to rule
the night. The greater light is obviously the sun, which is sometimes denominated
chammah, “the warm”(Psalm 19:6; Isaiah
30:26); sometimes there, “the glistering”
(Job 9:7); but usually shemesh,
“the minister (Deuteronomy 4:19;
33:14). Here it is described by its bulk or magnitude,
which is larger than
that of the moon, the second of the two luminaries, which
is also spoken of
as great relatively to the stars, which, though in reality
immensely
exceeding it in size, yet appear like little bails of light
(kokhavim)
bestudding the blue canopy of night, and are so depicted — the
Biblical
narrative being geocentric and phenomenal, not heliocentric
or scientific.
How the work of this day was effected does not fall within
the writer’s
scope to declare, the precise object of revelation being to teach not
astronomy, or any other merely human gnosis, but religion.
Accepting,
however, the guidance of physical astronomy, we may imagine
that the
cosmical light of day one, which had up to this point continued
either
encompassing our globe like a luminous atmosphere, or
existing at a
distance from it, but in the plane of the earth’s orbit,
was now, if in the first
of these positions, gradually broken up, doubtless through
the shrinking of
the earth’s mass and the consequent lessening of its power
Of attraction,
and slowly drawn off towards, and finally concentrated, as
a photosphere
round the sun, which was thereby constituted chief luminary
or “light-holder”
the system, the moon and planets becoming, as a necessary
consequence, “light-holders” in the secondary sense of “light-reflectors.” It
is interesting to note that some such explanation as this
appears to have
suggested itself to Willet, who wrote before the birth of
Newton, and at a
time when solar physics and spectrum analysis were things
of the remote
future. It is not unlike, says he, “but that this light (of
the first day), after
the creation of the celestial bodies, might be drawn upward
and have his
reflection upon the beame of the sunne and of other starres” And
again,
“Whereas the light created the first day is called or, but the starres
(meaning the heavenly bodies) are called meoroth, as of the light, hence it
may appear that these lightsome (i.e. luminous)
bodies were made the
receptacles of that light thou created, which was now
increased and united
to these lights” (‘Hexapla,’ vers. 3, 14, London, 1632); an explanation
which, though certainly hypothetical, must be regarded as
much more in
accordance with the requirements of the sacred text than
that which
discovers in the making of the lights only a further
dissipation of terrestrial
mists so as to admit not the light-bringing beams of the
celestial bodies
alone, but the forms of those shining orbs themselves
(‘Speaker’s
Commentary’). He
made the stars also. Though the stars are introduced
solely because of their relation to the earth as dispensers
of light, and no
account is taken of their constitution as suns and planets,
it is admissible to
entertain the opinion that, in their case, as in that of
the chief luminary of
our tellurian heavens, the
process of “sun” making reached its
culmination
on the fourth day. Perhaps the chief reason for their
parenthetical
introduction in this place was
to guard against the notion that there were
any luminaries which were not the work of Elohim, and in particular
to
prevent the Hebrews, for whom the work was written, from
yielding to the
heathen practices of star-gazing and star-worship. “The superstition of
reading the destiny of man in the stars never took root
among the
Israelites; astrology is excluded by the first principle of
Mosaism — the
belief in one all-ruling God, who is subject to no
necessity, no fate, no
other will. Jeremiah warns the Hebrews not to be afraid of
the ‘signs of
heaven,’ before which the heathen tremble in vain terror (Jeremiah
10:2);
and Isaiah speaks with taunting irony against the
astrologers, stargazers,
and monthly prognosticators, in whose counsel it is folly
and
wickedness to rely (Isaiah 47:13). But the Israelites had not moral
strength enough to resist the example of star-worship in
general; they could
not keep aloof from an aberration which formed the very
focus of the
principal Eastern religions; they yielded to that tempting
influence, and
ignominious incense rose profusely in honor of the sun and
the hosts of
heaven — Jeremiah 19:13;
Ezekiel 8:16; Zephaniah 1:5; Wisdom of
Solomon 13:2.
The
Celestial Luminaries (v. 16)
(Psalm 19:1). M. Comte believed they declared no other glory than that
of Hipparchus, Kepler,
the Hebrew poet (vid. Expos. on v. 16). The astronomical argument in
behalf of theism has always been impressive, if not absolutely conclusive.
Certainly,
granting the Divine existence, nowhere does God’s glory shine
out more conspicuously; and perhaps the attribute which most
imperiously
arrests attention is that of wisdom. This would seem to be the aspect of the
Divine glory which a contemplation of the midnight heavens discovered to
the writer of Psalm 104:24, which is introduced after a poetic
version of the fourth day’s work) and of Psalm 136:7 in the same
connection; compare Proverbs 3:19; 8:27; Jeremiah 51:15). Many things
about the orbs of heaven evince their Creator’s wisdom: these specially:
Ø Their formation, as explained by the highly credible teachings of
physical astronomy.
Ø Their varieties — consisting of sun, moon, planets, comets, nebulas.
Ø Their motions: in elliptical and parabolic orbits.
Ø Their dispositions: the suns, moons, and planets in systems; the stars in constellations, clusters, galaxies.
purpose the celestial orbs were designed to serve:
Ø To give light upon the earth. Even the stars could scarcely be
dispensed with without a sense of loss. Feeble as their light is,
owing to their immense distance from the earth, they are yet
invaluable to voyagers and travelers (Acts 27:20). (See again
Fantastic Trip – You Tube – CY – 2015) Still less could the
moon’s light, so pale and silvery in its whiteness, be spared.
The night without its chaste beams would be shrouded in thick
gloom, while with them an air of cheerfulness is imparted to the
darkened earth. And, of course, least of all could the sun
be wanted!
Ø To distinguish day and night. The beneficence of this arrangement
appears by reflecting on the inconvenience of either of the other two
alternatives, perpetual day and perpetual night. The disadvantages
of the latter have been indicated; those of the former are scarcely
less numerous.The alternation of darkness:
o Introduces variety in nature, which is always pleasing.
continuous day would be in danger of becoming monotonous,
at least in this mundane world, if not in the celestial (Isaiah
60:20; Revelation 22:5).
o Meets the necessities of creature life, by supplying constantly-
recurring periods of repose, which are eminently beneficial
for the growth of plants, animals, and man. “Vegetable sleep
is that relaxation of the vital processes which is indicated by
the folding together and drooping of the leaves as night
approaches” (Leo Grindon, ‘Life: its Nature,’ &c., p. 306). The
animal tribes generally, with the exception of the wild beasts
(Psalm104:20), seek repose with the shades of evening. And man,
without the recuperative slumber which darkness brings, would
speedily exhaust his energies.
o Solemnizes the mind of man, by suggesting thoughts of his frailty,
of his end in the sleep of death, but also of his resurrection to the
light of a better morning.
Ø To mark times and seasons. That the different seasons of the year are
somehow connected with the celestial bodies is perhaps all that the
Mosaic narrative can be made to teach. But we know them to be
dependent on the earth’s revolution round the sun. And the fact that
God has so arranged the earth’s relation to the sun as to
produce these
seasons is a signal proof of the Divine goodness. Another is that God
has so fixed and determined their movements as to enable man to
measure time by their means. Without the help of sun, moon, and
stars chronology would be impossible.
astronomy enables us to realize the
physical omnipotence of the Deity.
Imagination becomes bewildered by the effort to represent the quantity of
force required to propel a globe like our earth through the depths of splice
at the immense velocity of 65,000 miles an hour. What, then, must be the
strength of that arm which, in addition, hurls Jupiter, equal in weight to
1400 earths, along his orbit with a velocity of 29,000 miles an hour? And
not Jupiter alone, but suns immensely greater, at rates
of motion that
transcend
conception. Well said Job (Job 26:14). Yet,
perhaps, the
Divine
power is as much evinced by the perpetuation of these celestial
masses and movements as by
their first production. Not only has God made
the sidereal firmament, with its stupendous globes and
amazing velocities,
but he has so established them that since the beginning they
have kept on
their mystic paths without rebellion and without confusion (Psalm 147:5).
counterpart of glory in the Creator is beauty in the creature. The celestial
luminaries were approved as good, doubtless, for their uses, but likewise
for themselves, as being of incomparable splendor. “God hath made
everything beautiful in his time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Nothing that God
does make can be otherwise than beautiful; and by their splendor, their
order, their unity, they seem to mirror forth the majesty and purity, and
oneness of Him to whom they owe their being.
17 “And
God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to
rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light
from the darkness: and God saw that it was
good.” And God set (literally, gave)
them (i.e. sun, moon, and stars) in the firmament of the heaven to give light
upon the
earth, and to rule over the day and ever the
night, and to divide the light from
the darkness. An intimation that on
this day the astronomical
arrangements for the illumination of the globe and the
measurement of time
were PERMANENTLY SETTLED
And
God saw that it was good.
Laplace was
inclined to question (???? – CY - 2015) the Divine verdict
with regard at least to the
moon, which he thought might have been so placed as to be
always full, whereas,
at its present distance from the earth, we are sometimes
deprived of both
its light and the sun’s together. But not to dwell upon the
fact that to
remove the moon four times its present distance from the
earth, which it
would require to be in order to be always full, would
necessitate important
changes in the other members of the solar system which
might not be for
the earth’s advantage, the immediate effect of such a
disposition of the
lunar orb would be to give us a moon of only one sixteenth
the size of that
which now dispenses its silver beams upon our darkened
globe (Job 11:12).
19 “And
the evening and the morning were the fourth day.”
The Scripture references to this day’s work are both
numerous and
instructive (compare Job 9:9; 37:21; Psalms 8; 19; 104;
147). The Hebrew
writers supply no information as to the astronomical
theories which were
prevalent in their time; yet “from other sources we have facts
leading to the
belief that even in the time of Moses there was not a
little practical
astronomy in the East, and some good theory. The Chaldeans
at a very
early period had ascertained the principal circles of the
sphere, the position
of the poles, and the nature of the apparent motions of the
heavens as the
results of revolution on an inclined axis. The Egyptian
astronomers, whom
we know through Thales, 640 B.C., taught the true nature of
the moon’s
light, the sphericity of the
earth, and the position of its five zones.
Pythagoras, 580 B.C., knew, in addition, the obliquity of
the ecliptic, the
identity of the evening and morning star, and the earth’s
revolution round
the sun” (Dawson, ‘O.W.,’ p. 207). Modern astronomy, though
possessed
of highly probable theories as to the formation of the
universe, is still
unable to speak with absolute precision with regard to this
fourth day’s
work. Yet them are not wanting indirect corroborations of
the truth of the
Mosaic narrative from both it and geology. According to the
sacred writer,
the presently existing atmosphere, the distribution of land
and water, the
succession of day and night, and the regular alternation of
the seasons,
were established prior to the introduction of animal life
upon the earth; and
Sir Charles Lyell has demonstrated nothing more
successfully than the
dominion of “existing causes” from the Eozoic era downwards, and the
sufficiency of these causes to account for all the changes
which have taken
place in the earth’s crust. Again, geology attests the
prevalence on our
globe in prehistoric times of a much more uniform and high
temperature
than it now possesses, so late as the Miocene era a genial
tropical climate
having extended up beyond the Arctic circle, and in the
earliest eras of the
history of the globe, in all probability, the entire sphere
bring so favored
with excessive heat. Different causes have been suggested
for this
phenomenon; as, e.g., the greater heat of the cooling globe
(the earliest
geologists), a different distribution of land and water
(Lyell), variations in
the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit (Herschell
and. Croll), changes in the
earth’s axis (Evans, Drayson,
Bell), and the greater intensity of the sun’s
heat; Sir W Thomson, ‘Trans. Geolog.
Soc.,’ Glasgow, 1877). The Biblical
narrative, by distinctly teaching that the sun was
perfected on the fourth
day, renders it intelligible that it’s influence on the
surface of the earth was
then at its greatest, causing tropical climates to prevail
and tropical
vegetation to abound, both of which have gradually
disappeared from the
polar regions in consequence of the sun’s diminished heat.
It remains only
to note that the Chaldean Genesis preserves a striking
reminiscence of this
day’s work; the obverse of the fifth creation tablet
reading:
1. It was delightful,
all that was fixed by the great gods,
2. Stars, their
appearance (in figures) of animals he arranged.
3. To fix the year
through the observation .of their constellations.
4. Twelve months (or
signs) of stars in three rows he arranged.
5. From the day when
the year commences unto the close.
6. He marked the
positions of the wandering stars (planets) to shine in their
courses.
. . . . . . . . . . .
12. The god Uru (the moon) he caused to rise out, the night he
overshadowed,
. . . . . . . . . . .
13. To fix it also for
the light of the night, until the shining of the day.
19. When the god Shamas (the sun) in the horizon of heaven in the east.
20. . . . formed
beautifully and . .
21. . . .
to the
orbit Shamas was perfected.
“It appears
that the Chaldean record con talus the review and expression of
satisfaction at the head of each tablet, while the Hebrew
has it at the close of
each act” (‘Chaldean Genesis,’ pp. 69-73).
The Fourth Day (vs. 14-19)
Notice:
·
GOD PREPARES HEAVEN AND EARTH FOR MAN. Light needed
for the vegetable world. But when the higher life is introduced, then there
is an order which implies intelligence and active rational
existence. The
signs are for those that can observe the signs. The seasons,
days, and years
for the being who consciously divides his life.
·
THE LUMINARIES ARE SAID TO RULE THE DAY AND NIGHT.
The concentration of light is
the appointed method of its diffusion, and
adaptation to the purposes of man’s existence. So in the moral world
and
in the spiritual world. There must be rule, system,
diversities of gifts,
diversities of operations. Distinctions of glory —
of the sun, moon, stars.
As the light, so is the rule.
Those possessed of much power to enlighten
others ought to be rulers by their Divinely-appointed place and
work. But
all the light which flows from heavenly bodies has first been communicated
to them. We give out to others what we receive.
·
This
setting out of time reminds us that THE EARTHLY
EXISTENCE
IS NOT SUPREME, but ruled over until it is itself lifted up
into the higher state where day and night and diurnal changes
are no more.
The life of man is governed here
largely by the order of the material
universe. But as he grows into the true child of God he rises to a
dominion
over sun, moon, and stars. (Psalm 8)
Ø
Intellectual. By becoming master of many of the secrets of nature.
Ø
Moral. The consciousness of fellowship with God is a sense of
moral
superiority to material things. The sanctified will and affections have a
sphere of rule wider than the physical universe, outlasting
the
perishable
earth and sky.
Ø
Spiritual. Man is earthly first, and then heavenly. Human nature is
developed under the rule of sun, moon, and stars. In the world where
there shall be no more night the consciousness of man will be
that of a
spirit, not unwitting of the material, but ruling it with angelic
freedom
and power.
Day
Five
20 “And
God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature
that hath life, and fowl that may fly above
the earth in the open firmament of
heaven.” The
waters and the air, separated on the second day, are on this filled with
their respective inhabitants. And God said. Nature never makes an onward
movement, in the sense of an absolutely new departure,
unless under the
impulse of the word of
Elohim. These words distinctly claim
that the
creatures of the sea and of the air, even if evolved from
material elements,
were produced in obedience to Divine command, and not spontaneously
generated by the potentia
vitae of either land, sea, or sky. Let
the waters
bring forth
abundantly the moving creature. Literally, swarm with
swarmers, or crawl with crawlers. The fundamental signification of sharatz
is to creep or swarm, and hence to multiply (Gesenius); or, vice versa, to
multiply in masses, and hence to swarm or abound (Furst; compare ch. 8:17;
Exodus 1:7; 8:3). The sheretzim,
though including small aquatic
creatures that have short or no legs, are obviously “all
kinds of living
creatures inhabiting either land or water which are
oviparous and
remarkable for fecundity” (Bush). We may, therefore,
understand the
creative fiat of the fifth day as summoning first into
existence the insect
creation (in Leviticus 11:20-23 defined as flying sheretzim), the fishes
of the sea (sheretzim of
the waters, Ibid. vs. 9-10), and the
reptiles
and saurians of sea and land (sheretzim of the land, Ibid. vs. 41-42).
Dawson concludes that “the prolific animals of the fifth
day’s creation
belonged to the three Cuvierian
sub-kingdoms of the radiata articulata,
mollusca, and to the classes of fish and reptiles among the
vertebrata. That
hath life. Nephesh chayyah; literally,
a living breath. Here the creatures of
the sea are distinguished from all previous creations, and
in particular from
vegetation, as being possessed of a vital principle. This
does not, of course,
contradict the well-known truth that plants are living organisms.
Only the
life principle of the animal creation is different from
that of the vegetable
kingdom. It may be impossible by the most acute microscopic
analysis to
differentiate the protoplasmic cell of vegetable matter
from that of animal
organisms, and plants may appear to be possessed of
functions that
resemble those of animals, yet the two are generically
different —
vegetable protoplasm never weaving animal texture, and
plant fiber never
issuing from the loom of animal protoplasm. That which
constitutes an
animal is the possession of respiratory organs, to which,
doubtless. there is
a reference in the term nephesh from naphash, to breathe. And fowl that
may fly. Literally, let “winged creatures” fly. The fowls include
all tribes
covered with feathers that can raise themselves into the
air. The English
version produces the impression that they were made from
the waters,
which is contrary to ch. 2:19.
The correct rendering disposes of
the difficulty. Above
the earth in the open firmament of heaven. Not
above the firmament like the clouds but in the concave
vault, or before
the surface of the expanse.
21 “And
God created great whales, and every living creature that
moveth, which the waters brought forth
abundantly, after their
kind, and every winged fowl after his kind:
and God saw that it
was good.”
And God created (bara,
is in v. 1, to indicate the
introduction of an absolutely new thing, viz., the principle of animal life)
great whales. Tanninim, from tanan; Greek, τείνω - teino - tan, to stretch.
These were the first of the two classes into which the sheretzim of the
previous verse were divided. The word is used of serpents
(Exodus 7:9; Deuteronomy 32:33; Psalm 91:13; Jeremiah
51:34), of the
crocodile (Ezekiel 29:3; 32:2), and may therefore here
describe “great sea
monsters” in general: τὰ κ´τη
τὰ μεγάλα
– ta k’tae ta
megala – the large
sea creatures (Septuagint); “monstrous
crawlers that wriggle through the water or
scud along the
banks; whales, crocodiles, and other sea
monsters; gigantic aquatic
and amphibious
reptiles, are various interpretations. And
every
living creature (nephesh chayyah) which
moveth. Literally, the moving,
from ramas, to move or
creep. This is the second class of sheretzim.
The
term remes is
specially descriptive. of creeping animals (ch. 9:2),
either on land (ch.7:14) or in water (Psalm 69:34), though
here it clearly signifies aquatic tribes. Which the waters brought forth
abundantly after
their kind. The generic terms
are thus seen to include
many distinct orders and species, created each after its
kind. And every
winged fowl after
his kind. Why fowls and fish were
created on the same
day is rot to be explained by any supposed similarity
between the air and
the water or any fancied
resemblance between the bodily organisms of
birds and fishes, but by the circumstance that the
firmament and the waters
were separated on the second day, to which it was designed
that this day
should have a correspondence. And God saw that it
was good. As in every
other instance, the productions of this day approve themselves to the Divine
Creator’s judgment; but on this day He marks His complacency by a step
which He takes for the first time, viz., that of pronouncing a benediction on
the newly-created tribes. Nothing could more
evince the importance which,
in the Creator’s judgment, attached to this day’s work.
22 “And
God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill
the waters in the seas, and let fowl
multiply in the earth.”
And God blessed
them. To bless is to wish
well to (ch.27:4; Numbers 6:23).
In the case of God blessing inanimate things, it signifies
to make them to prosper
and be abundant (Exodus 23:25; Job 1:10; Psalm 65:11). The
nature of the
blessing pronounced upon the animal creation had reference
to their
propagation and increase. Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters
in the seas, and
let fowl multiply in the earth. The paronomastic
combination, be fruitful and multiply, became a
regular formula of blessing
(compare ch.24:60; 35:11; 48:4; Psalm 128:3-4). The Divine
benediction was
not simply a wish; but, by the bare intimation of His
purpose He effects what
men seek by entreaty.
Nor was it meaningless that the words of benediction
were addressed to the creatures; it was designed to teach
that the force of the
Divine word was not meant to be transient, but, being
infused into their natures,
to
take root and constantly bear fruit” (Calvin).
The Mystery
of Life (vs. 20-22)
Ø
Not dead matter. Scripture, equally with science, represents life as
having a physical basis; but, unlike modern evolutionists,
never
confounds vital force with the material mechanism in which
it
resides, and through which it operates. Advanced biologists
account
for life by molecular arrangement, chemical combination,
spontaneous
generation, or some such equally insufficient hypothesis.
The rigorous
necessities of truth and logic, however, compel them to
admit that
neither the action of material forces nor the ingenuity of
man has been
able to produce a bioplasmic cell.
“The chasm between the not living
and the living the present state of knowledge cannot bridge”
(Huxley).
“Most
naturalists of our time have given up the attempt to account for
the origin
of life by natural causes “(Haeckel). But:
Ø
The Living God. All existing life has proceeded from some antecedent
life, is the latest verdict of biological science. Every bioplast has been
produced by a previous bioplast: omnis cellula e cellula. Essentially
that is the teaching of revelation. The Maker of the
first bioplast was
GOD! If the present narrative appears to recognize the doctrine of
mediate creation by saying, “Let the waters bring forth,” “Let the earth
bring forth,” it is
careful to affirm that, in so far as material forces
contributed to the production of life, they were directly
impelled thereto,
and energized therefore, by the creative word. The
hypothesis that matter
was originally possessed of, or endowed with, “the potency
of life”
(Tyndall)
is expressly negated by v.21, which represents life as
the immediate creation of ELOHIM!
the vis viva (living force) of organized beings.
Beyond characterizing the
beings themselves as “living creatures.” it leaves the
subject wrapped in
profoundest mystery. And the
veil of that mystery science has not been able
to penetrate. The microscope has indeed conclusively shown that living
matter, or bioplasm, is that which
weaves the endlessly varied structures of
animal forms; but as to what that is which imparts to the
transparent,
structureless, albuminous
fluid, called bioplasm, the power of self-
multiplication and organization it is silent. “We fail to
detect any
organization in the bioplasmic
mass, but there are movements in it and life”
(Huxley).
The utmost that science can give as its definition of life is, “that
which originates and directs the movements of bioplasm” (cf. ‘Beale on
Protoplasm;’
Cook’s ‘Lectures on Biology’). Scripture
advances a step
beyond science, and affirms that life in its last analysis is THE
POWER
OF
GOD! (Psalm 104:30; Isaiah 38:16).
Ø
Abundant. The creatures of the sea were produced in swarms, and
probably the birds appeared in flocks. This was:
o
Predictive of their
natures as gregarious animals. Though
afterwards prolific, they might have been created in small
numbers; but, as if to maintain a correspondence between
the characteristic properties of the creatures and their
first
production, they were made, the fish in shoals, the
fowl in broods.
o
Expressive of the
Creator’s joy. God finds a part of His
happiness in surrounding Himself with
living creatures.
Had
there been no other end to serve by the fish and fowl
of the fifth day, this would have been cause
sufficient for their creation.
o
Anticipative of man’s arrival on the scene. Not only was it a step
in advance on the work of the previous day, and as such
preliminary to the advent of man, but the aquatic and aerial
creatures were designed to be subservient to man’s needs
and uses.
Ø
Varied.
o
In its form. The
living creatures of the fifth day were diverse in
their physical structures. Though in the initial stages of
their
embryonic condition fish and fowl may not be widely
dissimilar,
yet their completed organisms are not the same.
Each class, too,
consists of an endlessly diversified array of species, and
the
variations among individual members of the same species are
practically limitless.
(And to think down the road would be
man, each person distinct in every way, DNA, fingerprints,
etc.
not to mention every leaf on a tree is different and every
snow-
flake its own different symmetry. All glory to God
may we
give and
recognize Him for His uniqueness and power! CY –
2015)
o
In its functions.
Although all living creatures have certain
essential characteristics in common, resembling one another
in their chemical constituents, in their living by
respiration,
in their growth by intersusception
of nutriment, in their capability
of reproduction, yet the ordinary functions they are meant
to
perform through their respective organs are different in
different
kinds of animals. The fowls, e.g. were designed to fly
through the
atmosphere; the fish to swim in water.
o
In its sphere. The
different living creatures are differently located,
the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, — each one’s
sphere being
adapted to its nature.
Ø
Progressive. Science, no less than Scripture, attests that in the
introduction of life to our globe there has been a regular
and continuous
gradation from lower to higher forms of organization, and
has ventured
to propose, as its solution of the problem of vital
progression, external
conditions, embryonic phases, use and disuse of organs,
natural selection,
etc. These theories, however, are declared by competent
authorities to be
insufficient. The solution of Scripture — SPECIAL CREATION —
has at least the merit
of being sufficient, and has not yet been disproved
or displaced by modern research.
Ø
As the handiwork of God. Nothing that God makes can be otherwise
than beautiful and good (Ecclesiastes 3:11; I Timothy 4:4).
Ø
As an ornament to nature. Without the vegetation of the third day the
world would present an extremely uninteresting and
uninviting
appearance. Much more
would it be devoid of attraction and
cheerfulness if the myriads of sentient beings with which it
is
peopled were absent.
(You and I like to landscape our properties;
SO DID GOD! CY – 2015)
Ø
As the servant of man. From the first it was prepared
with the express
intention of being subjected to man’s dominion, and doubtless the
Creator’s
approbation had regard to this beneficent design.
origination of living matter,” says Huxley, “we know
absolutely nothing;
but, postulating the existence of living matter endowed with
that power of
hereditary transmission and with that tendency to vary which
is found in all
matter, Mr. Darwin has shown good reason for believing that
the
interaction between living matter and surrounding
conditions, which results
in the survival of the fittest, is sufficient to account for
the gradual
evolution of plants and animals from their simplest to their
most complex
forms” (‘Ency. Brit.,’ art. Biology).
Moses accounts for the origination of
living creatures by a
Divine creation, and for their
continuance by the
Divine
benediction which made it the law of
their being to propagate their
kind and to multiply in masses. The remarkable fecundity
which by the
blessing of Elohim was conferred
upon both fish and fowl is graphically
portrayed by Milton (‘Par. Lost,’ 7:387).
That from neither the aquatic nor
aerial creatures has this power of kind-multiplication
departed naturalists
attest. “All organized beings have enormous powers of
multiplication.
Even man,
who increases slower than all other animals, could, under the
most favorable circumstances, double his numbers every
fifteen years, or a
hundred-fold in a century. Many animals and plants could
increase their
numbers from ten to a thousand-fold every year” (Wallace ‘on
Natural
Selection,’
p. 265).
Ø
Adore Him who is the
Author and Preserver of all life in the creatures.
Ø
Respect the mystery of
life; and what we cannot give let us be careful
not to destroy.
Ø
Appreciate the value
of the living creatures.
23 “And the evening and
the morning were the fifth day.” If of
the previous creative days geological science has only
doubtful traces, of
this it bears irrefragable witness. When the first animal
life was introduced
upon our globe may be said to be as yet sub judice. Principal Dawson
inclines to claim for the gigantic foraminifer, eozoon canadense,
of the
Laurentian rocks, the honor of being one of the first
aquatic creatures that
swarmed in terrestrial waters, though Professor Huxley
believes that the
earliest life is not represented by the oldest known fossils
(‘Critiques and
Addresses,’ 9:1873); but, whether then or at some point of
time anterior
introduced, geology can trace it upwards through the
Paleozoic and
Mesozoic eras with the result that is here so exactly
defined. Throughout
the long ages that fill the interval between the Azoic
period of our earth’s
history and that which witnessed the appearance of the
higher animals she
is able to detect an unbroken succession of aquatic life,
rising gradually
from lower to higher forms — from the trilobites and
mollusks of the
Cambrian and Silurian systems, up through the ganoid fishes
of the
Devonian and the amphibians of the Carboniferous to the
saurian reptiles
of the Permian periods. At this point certain ornithic tracks in the
superincumbent Triassic strata reveal the introduction upon
the scene of
winged creatures, and with this accession to its strength
and Volume the
stream of life flows on till the higher animals appear.
Thus geology
confirms the Scripture record by attesting:
(1) the priority of
marine animals and birds to land animals;
(2) the existence of
a period when the great sea monsters, with the smaller
aquatic tribes and winged fowls of the air, were the sole
living creatures on
the globe; and
(3) that, precisely as
Elohim designed life has continued in unbroken
succession since the time of its first introduction. It may
also be noted that
the Palaeontological history of
the earth’s crust suggests a number of
considerations that enable us to form a conception of the
fifth day’s work,
which, though not contravened by the Mosaic narrative, is
yet by it not
explicitly disclosed. For example, whereas it might seem to
be the teaching
of the inspired writer that the tanninim,
the tomes, and the birds were
created simultaneously, and so were synchronous in their
appearance, the
testimony of the rocks rather points to a series of
creative acts in which
successive species of living creatures were summoned into
being, as the
necessary conditions of existence were prepared for their
reception, and
indeed with emphasis asserts that the order of creation was
not, as in v.21,
first the great sea monsters, and then the creepers, and
then the birds;
but first the smaller aquatic tribes, and then the monsters
of the deep, and
finally the winged creatures of the air. This, however, is
not to contradict,
but
to elucidate, the word of God.
The Fifth
Day (vs. 20-23)
Ø
Abundance. Swarming waters, swarming air? preparing for the
swarming earth. “Be fruitful, and multiply.” The
absence of all
restraint because as yet the absence of sin. God’s law is liberty.
The
law of life is the primary law. If there be in man’s world a
contradiction between the multiplication of life and the
happiness
of life, it is a sign of departure from the original order.
(THUS
THE GREAT GUILT OF ABORTION! – CY – 2015)
Ø
Growth, improvement, advancement towards perfection. The fish,
fowl, beast, man exist in a scheme of things; the type of
animal life
is carried up higher. The multiplication is not for its own
sake, BUT
FOR THE FUTURE! Generations
pass away, yet there is an abiding
blessing. Death is not real, though seeming, destruction. There is a
higher nature which is being matured.
Ø
Service of the lower for the higher. God blesses the animal races for the
sake of man, the interpreter of creation, the voice of its
praise. He
blesses the lower part of human life for the sake of the
soul.
productiveness of nature would become a curse, not a
blessing, unless
restrained by its own laws. The swarming seas and air
represent at once
unbounded activity and universal control by mutual
dependence and
interaction. So in the moral world.
It is not life, existence, alone that
betokens the blessing of God,
but the disposition of life to fulfill its
highest
end. We should not desire
abundance without the grace which orders its
use and controls its enjoyment. (This is the great mistake of a spoiled
nation like the
Day Six
24 “And
God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his
kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast
of the earth after his
kind: and it was so.” Like day three,
this is distinguished by a double
creative act, the production of the higher or land animals
and the creation
of man, of the latter of which it is perhaps permissible to
see a mute
prediction in the vegetation which closed the first half of
the creative week.
And God said, Let
the earth bring forth the living creature after his
kind. In these words the land animals are generically
characterized as
nephesh chayyah, or animated beings; in the terms which follow they are
subdivided into three well-defined species or classes. Cattle. Behemah;
literally, the dumb animal, i.e. the larger
grass-eating quadrupeds. And
creeping thing. Remes; the moving animal, i.e. the smaller animals that
move either without feet or with feet that are scarcely
perceptible, such as
worms, insects, reptiles. Here it is land-creepers that are
meant, the remes
of the sea having been created on the previous day. And beast of the
earth (chayyah
of the earth) after his kind.
i.e. wild, roving, carnivorous
beasts of the forest. In these three comprehensive orders
was the earth
commanded to produce its occupants; which, however, no more
implied
that the animals were to be developed from the soil than
were the finny
tribes generated by the sea. Simply
in obedience to the Divine call, and as
the product of creative energy, they were to spring from the plastic dust as
being
essentially earth-born creatures. And it was so. Modern evolutionists
believe they can conceive — they have
never yet been able to demonstrate
— the modus operandi of the supreme Artificer in the
execution of this
part of the sixth day’s work. Revelation has not deemed it needful to do
more than simply state that they were — not, by an evolutionary process
carried on through inconceivably long periods of time,
developed from the
creatures of the fifth day, but — produced directly from
the soil by the fiat
of Elohim.
25 “And
God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after
their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind:
and God saw that it was good.” And God made (asah,
not beta, the principle
of
life being not now introduced for the first time, as in v. 21) the beast of the
earth (the chayyah) after his kind, and cattle (behemah) after
their kind, and
every thing that creepeth on the earth (literally, every reraes
of the
ground) after his
kind. The order of creation here differs from that in
which they were summoned into existence (v. 24). The latter
may be the
order of time, the former the order of rank; or there may
have been two
divisions of the work, in the former of which the herbivora took the lead,
and in the latter the carnivora.
According to the witness of geology, “the
quadrupeds did not all come forth together. Large and
powerful herbivore
first take the field, with only a few carnivora.
These pass away. Other
herbivora, with a larger proportion of carnivora,
next appear. These also
are exterminated, and so with others. Then the carnivora appear in vast
numbers and power, and the herbivore also abound.
Moreover, these races
attain a magnitude and number far surpassing all that now
exist. As the
mammalian age draws to a close, the ancient carnivora and herbivora
of
that era all pass away, excepting, it is believed, a few
that are useful to
man. New creations of smaller size people the groves”
(Dana. Quoted by
Dawson, ‘O.W.’ p. 224). And God saw that it was good.
As in the third
day’s work each branch is sealed by the Divine approbation,
so in this. The
creation of the higher animals completed the earth’s preparation for the
ADVENT OF MAN;
to which, doubtless, the Creator’s commendation of His
finished work had a special reference. Everything was in
readiness for the
magnum opus which was
to close His creative labor and crown his
completed cosmos.
(To this I would like to add, just for thought, on the
specialty of man, to add the comment on Psalm 119:73, taken
from
The Treasury of David by C.H. Spurgeon – CY – 2015):
Psalm 119:73 “Thy hands have made me and fashioned me:” It is profitable to
remember our creation, it is pleasant to see that the divine
hand has had
much to do with us, for it never moves apart from the
divine thought. It
excites reverence, gratitude, and
affection towards God when we view him
as our Maker, putting forth the careful skill and
power of His hands in our
forming and fashioning. He took a
personal interest in us, making us with
His own hands; He was doubly thoughtful,
for He is represented both as
making and molding us. In both giving existence and arranging
existence
He manifested love and wisdom; and therefore we find reasons for praise,
confidence, and expectation in our being
and well being - “give me
understanding, that I may learn thy commandments.” As thou hast
made me, teach me. Here is the vessel
which thou hast fashioned; Lord, fill
it. Thou hast given me both soul and body; grant me now thy grace that my
soul may know thy will, and my body may
join in the performance of it.
The plea is very forcible; it is an
enlargement of the cry, "Forsake not
the
work
of thine own hands"
(ch.
138:8). Without
understanding the divine law
and
rendering obedience to it we
are imperfect and useless; but we may
reasonably hope that the great Potter
will complete His work and give the
finishing touch to it by imparting to it
sacred knowledge and holy practice.
If God had roughly made us, and had not
also elaborately fashioned us, this
argument would lose much of its force;
but surely from the delicate art and
marvelous skill which the Lord has shown
in the formation of the human
body, we may infer that He is prepared to take equal pains with the
soul till
it shall perfectly bear His image. (An
interesting but unsubstantial note
here: Thy hands. Hilary and Ambrose think that by the plural "hands" is intimated
that there is a more exact and perfect
workmanship in man, and as if it were with
greater labor and skill he had been formed
by God, because after the image and
likeness to God: and that it is not
written that any other thing but man was made by
God with both hands, for he saith in Isaiah, "Mine hand also hath laid the
foundation of the earth": Isaiah 48:13. — John Lorinus, 1569-1634.
This, however, is an error, as Augustine
notes; for it is written, "The
heavens
are the work of thine hands." (ch.102:25. — C.H.S.)
A man without a mind is an idiot, the
mere mockery of a man;
and a mind
without grace is wicked, the sad perversion
of a mind. We pray
that we
may not be left without a spiritual
judgment: for this the Psalmist prayed in
v.66, and he here pleads for it again;
there is no true knowing and
keeping of the commandments without it.
Fools can sin; but only
those
who are taught of God can be holy. We often speak of gifted men; but he
has the best gifts to whom God has given
a sanctified understanding
wherewith to know and prize the ways of
the Lord. Note well that
David's
prayer for understanding is not for the
sake of speculative knowledge, and
the gratification of his curiosity: he desires an enlightened judgment that
he
may learn God's commandments, and so
become obedient and holy. This is
the best of learning. A man may abide in
the College where this science is
taught all his days, and yet cry out for
ability to learn more. The
commandment of God is exceeding broad (v. 96), and so it affords
scope for
the most vigorous and instructed mind:
in fact, no man has by nature an
understanding capable of compassing so
wide a field, and hence the prayer,
"give
me understanding";
— as much as to say— I can learn other things
with the mind I have, but thy law is so pure, so perfect, spiritual
and
sublime, that I need to have my mind enlarged before I can become
proficient in it. He appeals to his Maker to do this, as
if he felt that no
power short of that which made him could
make him wise unto holiness.
We need a new creation (II Corinthians 5:17), and
who can grant us that
but the Creator Himself? He who made us
to live must make us to learn; He
who gave us power to stand must give us
grace to understand. Let us
each
one breathe to heaven the prayer of this
verse ere we advance a step further,
for we shall be lost even in these
petitions unless we pray our way through them,
and cry to God for understanding.
26 “And
God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:
and let them have dominion over the fish of
the sea, and over the
fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over
all the earth, and over
every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth.”
The importance assigned in the Biblical record to the
creation
of man is indicated by the manner in which it is
introduced. And God said,
Let us make man. Having already explained the significance of the term
Elohim, as suggesting
the fullness of the Divine personality, and
foreshadowing the doctrine of the Trinity (v. 1), other interpretations,
such as that God takes counsel with the angels, or with the earth, or with
Himself, must be set aside in favor of that which detects
in the peculiar
phraseology an allusion to a sublime concilium
among the persons of the
Godhead. The object which this concilium
(a
convocation of three or more experts
to confer and give advice) contemplated was the construction
of
a new creature to be named Adam; descriptive of either his color,
from adam,
to
be red, (Josephus, Gesenius, Tuch, Hupfeld); or his appearance,
from a root in
Arabic which signifies “to shine,” thus making Adam
“the brilliant one;” or his
compactness, both as an individual and as a race, from another
Arabic root which
means “to bring or hold together”; or his nature as God’s
image, from
dam, likeness; or, and most probably, his origin, from adamah, the ground.
In
our image, after our likeness. The precise relationship in which the nature of the
Adam about to be
produced should stand to Elohim was to be that of a tselem
(shadow — vid.
Psalm 39:7; Greek, σκιά σκίασμα – skia skiasma) and a damuth
(likeness, from damah, to bring together, to compare Isaiah 40:8.
As nearly as possible the terms are synonymous. If any
distinction does
exist between them, perhaps tselem
(image) denotes the shadow outline of
a figure, and damuth (likeness)
the correspondence or resemblance of that
shadow to the figure. The early Fathers were of opinion
that the words
were expressive of separate ideas: image, of the
body, which by reason of
its beauty, intelligent aspect, and erect stature was an
adumbration of God;
likeness, of the soul,
or the intellectual and moral nature. According to
Augustine image had reference to the cognitio veritatis;
likeness to amor
virtutis. Irenaeus, Clement, and Origen saw in the first man nature
as
originally created, and in the second what that nature
might become
through personal ethical conflict, or through the influence
of grace.
Bellarmine thought “imaginem in natura, similitudinem in probitate et
justitia sitam esse,”
and conceived that “Adamum peccando
non imaginem
Dei, sed similitudinero
perdidisse.” Havernick
suggests that image is the
concrete, and likeness the abstract designation of
the idea. Modern
expositors generally discover no distinction whatever
between the words;
in this respect following Luther, who renders an image
that is like, and
Calvin, who denies that any difference exists between the
two. As to what
in man constituted the imago Dei, the reformed
theologians commonly
held it to have consisted:
(1) in the spirituality of his being, as an intelligent and free
agent;
(2) in the moral
integrity and holiness of his nature; and
(3) in his dominion over the creatures.
In this connection the profound thought of Maimonides,
elaborated by
Tayler Lewis (vial. Lunge, in loco),
should not be overlooked, that tselem
is the specific, as
opposed to the architectural, form of a thing; that which
inwardly makes a thing what it is, as opposed to that
external configuration
which it actually possesses. It corresponds to the rain,
or kind, which
determines species among animals. It is that which
constitutes the genus
homo. And
let them have dominion. The relationship of
man to the rest
of creation is now defined to be one of rule and supremacy.
The
employment of the plural is the first indication that not
simply an individual
was about to be called into existence, but a race,
comprising many
individuals The range of man’s authority is farther
specified, and the sphere
of his lordship traced by an enumeration in ascending
order, from the
lowest to the highest, of the subjects placed beneath his
sway. His
dominion should extend over
the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the
air (literally, the
heavens), and over the cattle (the
behemah), and over
all the earth, and
over every creeping thing (romeo) that creepeth
upon the earth.
27 “So God
created man in His own image, in the image of God created
He him; male and female created He them.” So (or and) God
created (bars,
as
in vs. 1, 21, q.v.) man (literally;
the Adam referred to in v. 26) in His own image,
in the image
of God created He him; male
and female created He them. The
threefold repetition of the term “created” should be observed as a
significant negation of modern evolution theories as to the descent of
man,
and
AN EMPHATIC PROCLAMATION OF HIS DIVINE
ORIGINAL! The
threefold parallelism of the members of this verse is likewise
suggestive, of the
jubilation with which the writer contemplates the crowning work of
Elohim’s
creative word. Murphy notices two stages in man s creation, the
general fact being
stated in the first clause of this triumphal song, and the two
particulars — first his
relation to his Maker, and second his
sexual distinction (very meaningful in
this
day
of trans-gender and homosexual audacity – CY – 2015) in its other
members. In the third clause Luther sees an intimation “that the woman
also was created by God, and made a partaker of the Divine
image, and of
dominion over all.”
The
Creation of Man (vs. 26-27)
Take it:
Ø
As a revelation of God
in His relation to man.
Ø
As a revelation of man
to himself.
Ø
As the Father as well as Creator. As to the rest of creation, it is said,
“Let
be,” and “it was.” As to many “Let us make in
our image.”
Closely
kin by original nature, man is invited to interact with the
Divine.
Ø
The spirituality
of God’s highest creature is the bond
of union and
fellowship. The languages “Let us make,” suggests
the conception of
a heavenly council or conference preparatory to the creation
of man;
and the new description of the being to be created points to
the
introduction of a new order of life the spiritual life, as above the
vegetable and animal.
Ø
God entrusts dominion and authority to man in
the earth. Man holds
from the first the position of a vicegerent for God. There
is trust,
obedience, responsibility, recognition of Divine supremacy,
therefore
all the essential elements of religion, in the original
constitution and
appointment of our nature and position among the creatures.
Ø
The ultimate destiny of man is included in the account of his beginning.
He
who made him in His image, “one
of us,” will call him upward to be
among the super-earthly beings surrounding the throne of the
Highest.
The possession of a Divine image is the pledge of eternal
approximation
to the Divine presence. The Father calls
the children about Himself.
What does
that contain? There is the ideal humanity.
Ø
There is an affinity in the intellectual nature between the human and the
Divine.
In every rational being, though feeble in amount of mental
capacity, there is a sense of eternal necessary truth. On
some lines the
creature and the Creator think under the same laws of
thought, though
the distance be immeasurable. (“For as the heavens are higher than
the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my
thoughts
than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9)
Ø
Man is by original
creation absolutely free from moral taint. He is
therefore a fallen being in so far as he is a morally imperfect being.
He
was made like God in purity, innocence, goodness.
Ø
The resemblance must
be in
spirit as well as in intellect and moral
nature. Man was made to
be the companion of God and angels,
therefore there is in his earthly existence a super-earthly,
spiritual
nature which must be ultimately revealed.
Ø
Place and vocation are assigned to man on earth, and
that in immediate
connection with his likeness to God. He is ruler here that
he may be
prepared for higher rule elsewhere. He is put in his rank
among God’s
creatures that he may see himself on the ascent to God. Man
belongs to
two worlds. He is like God, and yet he is male and female,
like the lower
animals, he is blessed as other creatures with productive
power to fill the
earth, but he is blessed for the sake of his special
vocation, to subdue the
earth, not for himself, but for God.
Ø
Here is the end of all our
endeavor and desire — to be
perfect men by
being like God. Let us be thankful that there is a God-man (Jesus Christ)
in whom we are able to find our ideal realized. We grow up
into Him
who is our Head. We see Jesus crowned with glory and honor.
When all
things are put under Him, man will see the original
perfection of his
creation restored.
Ø
Man is taught that
he need not leave the earthly sphere to be like God.
There
has been a grand preparation of his habitation. From a mere
chaotic mass the earth has by progressive stages reached a
state when
it can become the scene of a great moral experiment for
man’s
instruction. The god-like
is to rule over all other creatures, that he may
learn the superiority of the spiritual. Heavenly life,
communion, society,
and all that is included in the fellowship of man with God,
may be
developed in the condition of earth. Grievous error in early
Church
and Eastern philosophy — confusion of the material and evil.
Purity
does not require an immaterial mode of existence. Perfection
of man
is perfection of his dominion over earthly conditions,
matter in
subjection to spirit. Abnormal methods, asceticism, self-crucifixion,
are mere violence to original constitution of man. The “second
Adam” overcame the world not by forsaking it, but by being in
it,
and yet not of it.
Ø
God’s commandments to
man are commandments of Fatherly love.
“Behold, I have given you,”
&c. He not only appoints the service,
but He provides the sustenance. “Seek ye first the
(Matthew
6:33) Here is the union of creative
power and providential
goodness. We are blessed in an earthly life just as we take
it from the
hand of God as a trust to be fulfilled for Him. And in that
obedience
and dependence we shall best be able to reach the ideal
humanity. The
fallen world has been degrading man, physically, morally,
spiritually;
he has been
less and less what God made him to be.
But He who has
come to restore the
the earth with blessedness.
The
Greatness of Man (v. 27)
was produced towards the close of the era that witnessed the
introduction
upon our globe of the higher animals. Taking either view of
the length of
the creative day, it may be supposed that in the evening the
animals went
forth “to roar after their prey, and seek their
meat from God,” and that in
the morning man arose upon the variegated scene, “going
forth to his work
and to his labor until the evening” (Psalm 104:20-23). In this there was
a special fitness, each being created at the time
most appropriate to its
nature. Man’s works are often mistimed; God’s never.
Likewise in man’s
being ushered last upon the scene there was peculiar
significance; it was a
virtual proclamation of his greatness.
Divine
consultation: “Let us make
man,” (v. 26). The language of:
Ø
Resolution. As if, in the production of the other creatures, the
all-wise
Artificer
had been scarcely conscious of an effort, but must now bestir
Himself to the performance of His last and greatest work.
Ø
Forethought. As if His previous makings had been, in comparison with
this, of so subordinate importance that they might be
executed
instantaneously and, as it were, without premeditation,
whereas this
required intelligent arrangement and wise consideration
beforehand.
Ø
Solicitude. As if the insignificance of these other labors made no
special
call upon His personal, care and attention, whereas the
vastness of the
present undertaking demanded the utmost possible
watchfulness and
caution.
Ø
Delight. As if the fashioning and beautifying of the globe and its
replenishing with sentient beings, unspeakably glorious as
these
achievements were afforded Him no satisfaction in comparison
with
this which He contemplated, the creating of man in His own
image
(compare Proverbs 8:31).
likeness,” suggesting ideas of:
Ø
Affinity, or kinship. The
resplendent universe, with its suns and systems,
its aerial canopy and green-mantled ground, its Alps and
oceans, rivers, streams, was only as plastic clay in the
hands of a skilful
potter. Even the innumerable tribes of living creatures that
had been let
loose to swarm the deep, to cleave the sky, to roam the
earth, were
animated by a principle of being that had no closer
connection with the
Deity
than that which effect has with cause; but the life which inspired
man was a veritable outcome from the personality of God (ch. 2:7).
Hence
man was something higher than a creature. As imago Dei he was
God’s
son (Malachi 2:10; Acts 17:28).
Ø
Resemblance. A distinct advance upon the previous thought, although
implied in it. This likeness or similitude consisted in:
o
Personality. Light, air, land, sea, sun, moon, stars were “things.”
Plants,
fishes, fowls, animals were “lives,” although the first
are never so characterized in Scripture. Man was a “person.”
o
Purity. The image of absolute holiness must itself be immaculate.
In
this sense Christ was “the express image of God’s person”
(Hebrews
1:3); and though man is not now a complete likeness
of his Maker in the moral purity of his nature, when he came
from the Creator’s hand he
was. It is the object of Christ’s work
to renew in man
THE IMAGE OF HIS MAKER!
(Ephesians
4:24).
o
Power. That man’s Creator was a God of power was implied
in His name, ELOHIM, and demonstrated by His works.
Even
fallen man we can perceive to be possessed of many
elements of power that are the shadows of that which
resided
in Elohim — the power of self-government, and of lordship
over the creatures, of language and of thought, of volition
and
of action, of originating, at least in a secondary sense,
and of
combining and arranging. In the first man they resided in
perfection.
Ø
Representation. Man was created in God’s
image that he might be a
visible embodiment of the Supreme to surrounding creatures.
“The
material world, with its objects sublimely great or meanly
little, as we
judge them; its atoms of dust, its orbs of fire; the rock
that stands by
the seashore, the water that wears it away; the worm, a
birth of
yesterday, which we trample underfoot; the sheets of the
constellations
that gleam perennial overhead; the aspiring palm tree fixed
to one spot,
and the lions that are sent out free — these incarnate and
make visible
all of God their natures will admit.” Man in his nature
was intended as
the highest representation of God that was possible short of
THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD HIMSELF!
God’s image
in respect of royalty and lordship; and as no one can play the
monarch without a kingdom and without subjects, God gave him
both an
empire and a people.
Ø
An empire.
o Of wide extent. In
the regal charter reaching to the utmost
bounds of this terrestrial sphere (v. 26).
o
Of available
character. Not a region that was
practically
unconquerable, but every square inch of it capable of
subjugation and occupation.
o
Of vast resources. Everything in heaven, earth and sea was
placed at his command.
(Psalm 8)
o
Of incalculable
value. Nothing was absolutely useless,
and
many things were precious beyond compare.
o
Of perfect
security. God had
given’
it to him. The grant was
absolute, the gift was sure.
Ø
A people.
o
Numerous. Every living thing was subjected to his sway.
o
Varied. The fishes, fowls, and beasts were his servants
o
Submissive. As yet they had not broken loose against their master.
o
Given. They were not acquired by the sword, but donated by
their Maker.
28 “And God
blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and
multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it:
and have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the
fowl of the air, and
over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
And God blessed
them. Not
him, as the Septuagint. As on the
introduction of animal life the Divine Creator conferred on the
creatures His
blessing, so when the first pair
of human beings are formed they are
likewise enriched by their Creator’s
benediction. And God said unto
them, Be fruitful, and multiply. As in the case of the lower creatures the
Divine blessing had respect in the first instance to the
propagation and
perpetuation of the species, “which blessing,” says
Calvin, “may be
regarded as the source from which the human race has
flowed,” a thought
in
full accord with Scripture teaching generally (compare Psalm 127:3); yet
by making one man and one woman an important distinction
was drawn
between men and beasts as regards the development of their
races and the
multiplication of their kind. “Carte fraenum
viris et
mulieribus non laxavit, at in vagus libidines ruerent, absque delectu et
pudore; seda sancto
castoque conjugio incipiens, descendit ad
generationem” (Calvin). And
replenish the earth. The
new-created race
was intended to occupy the earth. (Isaiah 45:18) How far during the first age
of
the world this Divine purpose was realized continues matter of debate
(Genesis 10 – I highly recommend a study of this chapter in
Henry Morris’
The Genesis Record
– CY – 2015). After the Flood the confusion of tongues
effected a dispersion of the nations over the three great
continents of the old world.
At the present day man has wandered to the ends of the
earth. Yet vast realms lie
unexplored, waiting his arrival. This clause may be described as the
colonist’s charter.
And subdue it. (“find
out its secrets” – Marion Duncan – 1969)
The commission
thus received was to utilize for his necessities the vast resources of the
earth, by
agricultural and mining operations, by geographical research,
scientific discovery, and
mechanical invention. And
have dominion over the fish of the sea, &c. i.e. over the
inhabitants of all the elements. The Divine intention with
regard to His
creation was thus minutely fulfilled by His investiture with
supremacy over
all the other works of the Divine hand. Psalm 8. is the
“lyric echo” of this
original sovereignty bestowed on man.
29 “And
God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed,
which is upon the face of all the earth, and
every tree, in the which
is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you
it shall be for meat.”
Provision for the sustenance of the newly-appointed monarch
and his subjects is next made. And God said, Behold, I have given you
every herb bearing
seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and
every tree, in the
which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it
shall be for meat. Of the three classes
into which the vegetable creation
was
divided, grass, herbs, and trees (v. 12), the two last were assigned to
man for food. Macdonald thinks that without this express
conveyance man
would have been warranted to partake of them for
nourishment, warranted
by the necessities of his nature. The same reasoning,
however, would have
entitled him to kill the lower animals if he judged them
useful for his
support. Murphy with more truth remarks, “Of two things
proceeding from
the same creative hand, neither has any original or
inherent right to
interfere in any way with the other. The absolute right to
each lies in the
Creator alone. The one, it is true, may need the other to
support its life, as
fruit is needful to man; and, therefore, the just Creator
cannot make one
creature dependent for subsistence on another without
granting to it the
use of that other. But this is a matter between Creator and
creature, and
not by any means between creature and creature.” The
primitive charter of
man’s common property in the earth, and all that it
contains, is the present
section of this ancient document. Among other reasons for
the formal
conveyance to man of the herbs and trees may be noted a desire to keep
him mindful of his dependent condition. Though lord of the creation, he
was yet to draw the means of his subsistence from the
creature which he
ruled. Whether man was a vegetarian prior to the fall is
debated. On the
one hand it is contended that the original grant does not
formally exclude
the
animals, and, in fact, says nothing about man’s relation to the animals;
that we cannot positively affirm that man’s dominion over
the
animals did not involve the use of them for food; and that as
men offered sacrifices from their flocks, it .is probable
they ate the flesh of
the
victims. On the other hand it is argued
that the Divine
language cannot be held as importing more than it really says, and
that
ch.9:3 distinctly teaches that man’s right to the animal
creation
dates from the time of Noah. Almost all nations have traditions
of a golden age
of
innocence, when men abstained from killing animals (cf. Ovid, ‘Met.,’
1:103-106).
Scripture alone anticipates a. time when such shall again
be a characteristic of earth’s
inhabitants (Isaiah 11:7; 65:25).
30 “And to every beast of
the earth, and to every fowl of the
air, and to every thing that creepeth
upon the earth, wherein there is
life, I have given every green herb for meat.” The first of the three classes
of plants, grass, was assigned to the animals for food.
From this Delitzsch
infers that prior to the introduction of sin the animals
were not predaceous.
The geological evidence of the existence of death in
prehistoric times is,
however, too powerful to be resisted; and the Biblical
record itself
enumerates among the pre-adamic
animals the chayyah of the field, which
clearly belonged to the carnivora.
Perhaps the most that can be safely
concluded from the language is “that it indicates merely
the general fact
that the support of the whole animal kingdom is based on
vegetation”
(Dawson).
31 “And
God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was
very good. And the evening and the morning were
the sixth day.”
And God saw every
thing that he had made, and, behold,
it was very good. Literally, lo! good
very! Not simply good, but good
exceedingly. It is not man alone
that God surveys, but the completed
cosmos, with man as its crown and glory, decu, set tutamen.
“It is not
merely a benediction which He utters, but an expression of
admiration, as
we
may say without any fear of the anthropomorphism — Euge, bone
proclare!” (T. Lewis). And the evening and the morning were the
sixth
day. It seems unnecessary to add that this day corresponds to
the
Cainozoic or tertiary era of geology, the Palaeontological remains of which
sufficiently attest the truth of the Divine record in
asserting that animals
were anterior to man in their appearance on the earth, and that man is of
comparatively recent origin.
The alleged evidence of prehistoric man is too
fragmentary and hypothetical to be accepted as conclusive;
and yet, so far
as the cosmogony of the present chapter is concerned, there
is nothing to
prevent the belief that man is of a much more remote
antiquity than 6000
years. As of the other days, so of this the Chaldean
tablets preserve an
interesting monument. The seventh in the creation series,
of which a
fragment was discovered in one of the trenches at Konyunjik, runs:
1. When the gods in
their assembly had created....
2. Were delightful the
strong monsters…
3. They caused to be
living creatures...
4. Cattle of the
field, beasts of the field, and creeping things of the field
....
5. They fixed for the
living creatures…
6. Cattle and creeping
thing of the city they fixed....
And the god Nin-si-ku (the lord
of noble face) caused to be two… in
which it is not difficult to trace an account of the
creation of the animal
kingdom, and of the first pair of human beings.
The Sixth
Day (vs. 24-31)
We pass from the sea and air to the earth. We are being led
to man. Notice:
human being, it brings forth all the other creatures, and
God sees that they
are good — good in His sight, good for man.
thing, beast of the earth. So man would see them
distinguished — the wild
from the domestic, the creeping from the roaming, the clean
from the
unclean. The division itself suggests THE IMMENSE VARIETY OF THE
DIVINE PROVISION for man’s wants.
A TESTIMONY TO
THE GREATNESS OF MAN’S SPIRITUAL
NATURE; for in comparison with the animal races he is in many
respects
inferior — in strength, swiftness, and generally in the
powers which we call
instinct. Yet his appearance is the climax of the earth’s
creation. “Man is
one world, and hath another to attend him.” Vegetable,
marine, animal life
generally, the whole earth filled with what God “saw to be good,” waits for
the rational and spiritual creature who shall be able to
recognize their order
and wield dominion over them. Steps and stages in creation
lead up to the
climax, the “paragon of animals,” the god-like creature,
made to be king on
the earth.
Perfection
(v. 31)
The first chapter closes with a review of the whole work of
the six days.
God saw it. Behold, it was very
good!
the highest earthly being. For God’s “good” is not, like
man’s “good” a
compromise, too often, between the really good and the
really evil, but the
attainment of the highest — the fulfillment of His
Divine idea, the top-stone
placed upon the temple with shoutings:
“Grace,
grace unto it.”
(Zechariah 4:7)
NIGHT OF ‘THE INFINITE PAST CAME FORTH THE DAWN OF
THE INTELLECTUAL
AND SPIRITUAL WORLD. And when God
saw that, then He said, It is very good. So let us let our
faces towards that light
(One time
I was driving to
I saw,
planted in the median, a great number of sunflowers. Every one of them
had their head turned toward the sun. That should be the practice of every
human being that is made in the image of God! Each individual
looking to Jesus!
I like to
take pictures. Why I did not stop I have
never figured out but
wished I had many times!
It would make a great pictorial illustration to include
here! CY – 2015) of
heaven on earth, the day of Divine revelation, Divine
intercourse with man, the pure and perfect bliss of an
everlasting paradise, in
which God and man shall find unbroken rest and joy in one
another.
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(I highly recommend The Genesis Record by Henry Morris –
CY – 2015)