• Key
 
THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES CALLED GENESIS
- Year before the common era of Christ, 4004.
- Julian Period, 710.
- Cycle of the Sun, 10.
- Dominical Letter, B.
- Cycle of the Moon, 7.
- Indiction, 5.
- Creation from Tisri or September, 1.
Verses
|-1-
|-2-
|-3-
|-4-
|-5-
|-6-
|-7-
|-8-
|-9-
|-10-
|-11-
|-12-
|-13-
|-14-
|-15-
|-16-
|-17-
|-18-
|-19-
|-20-
|-21-
|-22-
|-23-
|-24-
|-25-
|-26-
|-27-
|-28-
|-29-
|-30-
|-31-|
First day's work-Creation of the heavens and the
earth, 1,2.
Of the light and its separation from
the darkness, 3-5.
Second day's work-The creation
of the firmament, and the separation of the
waters above the firmament from those below it, 6-8.
Third day's work-The waters are separated from the
earth and formed into seas, , 9,10.
The
earth rendered fruitful, and clothed with trees, herbs,
grass, , 11-13.
Fourth day's work-Creation
of the celestial luminaries intended for the
measurement of time, the distinction of periods,
seasons, , 14;
and to illuminate the earth,
15. Distinct account of the formation of the sun,
moon, and stars, 16-19.
Fifth day's work-The
creation of fish, fowls, and reptiles in general,
20.
Of great aquatic animals, 21.
They are
blessed so as to make them very prolific, 22,23.
Sixth day's work-Wild and tame cattle created, and
all kinds of animals which derive their
nourishment from the earth, 24,25.
The creation
of man in the image and likeness of God, with the
dominion given him over the earth and all
inferior animals, 26.
Man or Adam, a general name
for human beings, including both male and
female, 27.
Their peculiar blessing, 28.
Vegetables appointed as the food of man and all other
animals, 29,30.
The judgment which God passed on
his works at the conclusion of his creative
acts, 31.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 1.
Bereshith bara Elohim eth hashshamayim veeth
haarets; GOD in the beginning created the heavens
and the earth.
Many attempts have been made to define the term GOD:
as to the word itself, it is pure Anglo-Saxon, and among
our ancestors signified, not only the Divine Being, now
commonly designated by the word, but also good;
as in their apprehensions it appeared that God
and good were correlative terms; and when they
thought or spoke of him, they were doubtless led from
the word itself to consider him as THE GOOD BEING, a
fountain of infinite benevolence and beneficence towards
his creatures.
A general definition of this great First Cause, as
far as human words dare attempt one, may be thus given:
The eternal, independent, and self-existent Being: the
Being whose purposes and actions spring from himself,
without foreign motive or influence: he who is absolute
in dominion; the most pure, the most simple, and most
spiritual of all essences; infinitely benevolent,
beneficent, true, and holy: the cause of all being, the
upholder of all things; infinitely happy, because
infinitely perfect; and eternally self-sufficient,
needing nothing that he has made: illimitable in his
immensity, inconceivable in his mode of existence, and
indescribable in his essence; known fully only to
himself, because an infinite mind can be fully
apprehended only by itself. In a word, a Being who, from
his infinite wisdom, cannot err or be deceived; and who,
from his infinite goodness, can do nothing but what is
eternally just, right, and kind. Reader, such is the God
of the Bible; but how widely different from the God of
most human creeds and apprehensions!
The original word Elohim, God, is certainly
the plural form of El, or Eloah, and has
long been supposed, by the most eminently learned and
pious men, to imply a plurality of Persons in the
Divine nature. As this plurality appears in so many
parts of the sacred writings to be confined to
three Persons, hence the doctrine of the TRINITY,
which has formed a part of the creed of all those who
have been deemed sound in the faith, from the earliest
ages of Christianity. Nor are the Christians
singular in receiving this doctrine, and in deriving it
from the first words of Divine revelation. An eminent
Jewish rabbin, Simeon ben Joachi, in his comment on the
sixth section of Leviticus, has these remarkable words:
"Come and see the mystery of the word Elohim; there are
three degrees, and each degree by itself
alone, and yet notwithstanding they are all
one, and joined together in one,
and are not divided from each other." See
Ainsworth. He must be strangely prejudiced indeed
who cannot see that the doctrine of a Trinity, and of a
Trinity in unity, is expressed in the above words. The
verb bara, he created, being joined in the
singular number with this plural noun, has been
considered as pointing out, and not obscurely, the
unity of the Divine Persons in this work of
creation. In the ever-blessed Trinity, from the infinite
and indivisible unity of the persons, there can be but
one will, one purpose, and one infinite and
uncontrollable energy.
"Let those who have any doubt whether Elohim,
when meaning the true God, Jehovah, be plural or
not, consult the following passages, where they will
find it joined with adjectives, verbs, and pronouns
plural.
Genesis
1:26; 3:22;
11:7;
20:13;
31:7,53;
35:7.
Deuteronomy
4:7; 5:23;
Joshua
24:19; 1 Samuel
4:8; 2 Samuel
7:23 Psalms
58:6; Isaiah
6:8; Jeremiah
10:10; 23:36.
"See also Proverbs
9:10; 30:3;
Psalms
149:2; Ecclesiastes
5:7; 12:1;
Job
5:1; Isaiah
6:3; 54:5;
62:5;
Hosea
11:12, or Hosea
12:1; Malachi
1:6; Daniel
5:18,20; 7:18,22."-PARKHURST.
As the word Elohim is the term by which the
Divine Being is most generally expressed in the Old
Testament, it may be necessary to consider it here more
at large. It is a maxim that admits of no controversy,
that every noun in the Hebrew language is derived from a
verb, which is usually termed the radix or
root, from which, not only the noun, but all the
different flections of the verb, spring. This radix is
the third person singular of the preterite or past
tense. The ideal meaning of this root expresses
some essential property of the thing which it
designates, or of which it is an appellative. The root
in Hebrew, and in its sister language, the
Arabic, generally consists of three
letters, and every word must be traced to its root in
order to ascertain its genuine meaning, for there alone
is this meaning to be found. In Hebrew and Arabic this
is essentially necessary, and no man can safely
criticise on any word in either of these languages who
does not carefully attend to this point.
I mention the Arabic with the Hebrew
for two reasons. 1. Because the two languages evidently
spring from the same source, and have very nearly the
same mode of construction. 2. Because the deficient
roots in the Hebrew Bible are to be sought for in the
Arabic language. The reason of this must be obvious,
when it is considered that the whole of the Hebrew
language is lost except what is in the Bible, and even a
part of this book is written in Chaldee. Now, as the
English Bible does not contain the whole of the
English language, so the Hebrew Bible does not
contain the whole of the Hebrew. If a man meet with an
English word which he cannot find in an ample
concordance or dictionary to the Bible, he must of
course seek for that word in a general English
dictionary. In like manner, if a particular form of a
Hebrew word occur that cannot be traced to a root in the
Hebrew Bible, because the word does not occur in the
third person singular of the past tense in the Bible, it
is expedient, it is perfectly lawful, and often
indispensably necessary, to seek the deficient root in
the Arabic. For as the Arabic is still a living
language, and perhaps the most copious in the universe,
it may well be expected to furnish those terms which are
deficient in the Hebrew Bible. And the reasonableness of
this is founded on another maxim, viz., that either the
Arabic was derived from the Hebrew, or the Hebrew from
the Arabic. I shall not enter into this controversy;
there are great names on both sides, and the decision of
the question in either way will have the same effect on
my argument. For if the Arabic were derived from
the Hebrew, it must have been when the Hebrew was a
living and complete language, because such
is the Arabic now; and therefore all its essential roots
we may reasonably expect to find there: but if, as Sir
William Jones supposed, the Hebrew were derived
from the Arabic, the same expectation is justified, the
deficient roots in Hebrew may be sought for in the
mother tongue. If, for example, we meet with a
term in our ancient English language the meaning of
which we find difficult to ascertain, common sense
teaches us that we should seek for it in the
Anglo-Saxon, from which our language springs;
and, if necessary, go up to the Teutonic, from
which the Anglo-Saxon was derived. No person disputes
the legitimacy of this measure, and we find it in
constant practice. I make these observations at the very
threshold of my work, because the necessity of acting on
this principle (seeking deficient Hebrew roots in the
Arabic) may often occur, and I wish to speak once
for all on the subject.
The first sentence in the Scripture shows the
propriety of having recourse to this principle. We have
seen that the word Elohim is plural; we have
traced our term God to its source, and have seen
its signification; and also a general definition of the
thing or being included under this term,
has been tremblingly attempted. We should now trace the
original to its root, but this root does
not appear in the Hebrew Bible. Were the Hebrew a
complete language, a pious reason might be given
for this omission, viz., "As God is without beginning
and without cause, as his being is infinite and
underived, the Hebrew language consults strict
propriety in giving no root whence his name can
be deduced." Mr. Parkhurst, to whose pious and
learned labours in Hebrew literature most Biblical
students are indebted, thinks he has found the root in
alah, he swore, bound himself by oath; and hence
he calls the ever-blessed Trinity Elohim, as
being bound by a conditional oath to redeem
man, . Most pious minds will revolt from such a
definition, and will be glad with me to find both the
noun and the root preserved in Arabic.
ALLAH [Arabic] is the common name for GOD in the Arabic
tongue, and often the emphatic [Arabic] is used. Now
both these words are derived from the root alaha,
he worshipped, adored, was struck with
astonishment, fear, or terror; and hence, he
adored with sacred horror and
veneration, cum sacro horrore ac veneratione
coluit, adoravit.-WILMET. Hence ilahon, fear,
veneration, and also the object of religious
fear, the Deity, the supreme God, the
tremendous Being. This is not a new idea; God was
considered in the same light among the ancient Hebrews;
and hence Jacob swears by the fear of his father
Isaac, Genesis
31:53. To complete the definition, Golius renders
alaha, juvit, liberavit, et tutatus fuit,
"he succoured, liberated, kept in safety, or defended."
Thus from the ideal meaning of this most
expressive root, we acquire the most correct notion of
the Divine nature; for we learn that God is the sole
object of adoration; that the perfections of his
nature are such as must astonish all those who
piously contemplate them, and fill with horror
all who would dare to give his glory to another,
or break his commandments; that consequently he should
be worshipped with reverence and
religious fear; and that every sincere worshipper
may expect from him help in all his weaknesses,
trials, difficulties, temptations, freedom from
the power, guilt, nature, and consequences of sin; and
to be supported, defended, and saved to
the uttermost, and to the end.
Here then is one proof, among multitudes which shall
be adduced in the course of this work, of the
importance, utility, and necessity of tracing up these
sacred words to their sources; and a proof also,
that subjects which are supposed to be out of the reach
of the common people may, with a little difficulty, be
brought on a level with the most ordinary capacity.
In the
beginning
Before the creative acts
mentioned in this chapter all was ETERNITY. Time
signifies duration measured by the revolutions of
the heavenly bodies: but prior to the creation of these
bodies there could be no measurement of duration, and
consequently no time; therefore in the
beginning must necessarily mean the commencement of
time which followed, or rather was produced by, God's
creative acts, as an effect follows or is produced by a
cause.
Created
Caused existence where previously to this moment
there was no being. The rabbins, who are legitimate
judges in a case of verbal criticism on their own
language, are unanimous in asserting that the word
bara expresses the commencement of the existence
of a thing, or egression from nonentity to entity. It
does not in its primary meaning denote the
preserving or new forming things
that had previously existed, as some imagine, but
creation in the proper sense of the term, though
it has some other acceptations in other places. The
supposition that God formed all things out of a
pre-existing, eternal nature, is certainly absurd, for
if there had been an eternal nature besides an eternal
God, there must have been two self-existing,
independent, and eternal beings, which is a most
palpable contradiction.
eth hashshamayim. The word eth, which
is generally considered as a particle, simply
denoting that the word following is in the accusative or
oblique case, is often understood by the rabbins in a
much more extensive sense. "The particle ," says Aben
Ezra, "signifies the substance of the thing." The
like definition is given by Kimchi in his Book of
Roots. "This particle," says Mr. Ainsworth,
"having the first and last letters of the
Hebrew alphabet in it, is supposed to comprise the
sum and substance of all things."
"The particle eth (says Buxtorf, Talmudic
Lexicon, sub voce) with the cabalists is often
mystically put for the beginning and the
end, as α alpha and ω omega are in the
Apocalypse." On this ground these words should be
translated, "God in the beginning created the
substance of the heavens and the substance
of the earth," i.e. the prima materia, or first
elements, out of which the heavens and the earth were
successively formed. The Syriac translator understood
the word in this sense, and to express this meaning has
used the word [Arabic] yoth, which has this
signification, and is very properly translated in
Walton's Polyglot, ESSE, caeli et ESSE
terrae, "the being or substance of
the heaven, and the being or substance of
the earth." St. Ephraim Syrus, in his comment on this
place, uses the same Syriac word, and appears to
understand it precisely in the same way. Though the
Hebrew words are certainly no more than the notation of
a case in most places, yet understood here in the
sense above, they argue a wonderful philosophic accuracy
in the statement of Moses, which brings before us, not a
finished heaven and earth, as every other
translation appears to do, though afterwards the process
of their formation is given in detail, but merely the
materials out of which God built the whole system
in the six following days.
The heaven and the
earth.
As the word shamayim is
plural, we may rest assured that it means more than the
atmosphere, to express which some have
endeavoured to restrict its meaning. Nor does it appear
that the atmosphere is particularly intended here, as
this is spoken of, Genesis
1:6, under the term firmament. The word
heavens must therefore comprehend the whole
solar system, as it is very likely the whole of
this was created in these six days; for unless the earth
had been the centre of a system, the reverse of
which is sufficiently demonstrated, it would be
unphilosophic to suppose it was created independently of
the other parts of the system, as on this supposition we
must have recourse to the almighty power of God to
suspend the influence of the earth's gravitating power
till the fourth day, when the sun was placed in the
centre, round which the earth began then to revolve. But
as the design of the inspired penman was to relate what
especially belonged to our world and its inhabitants,
therefore he passes by the rest of the planetary system,
leaving it simply included in the plural word
heavens. In the word earth every thing
relative to the terraqueaerial globe is included, that
is, all that belongs to the solid and fluid parts of our
world with its surrounding atmosphere. As therefore I
suppose the whole solar system was created at this time,
I think it perfectly in place to give here a general
view of all the planets, with every thing curious and
important hitherto known relative to their revolutions
and principal affections.
A GENERAL VIEW OF THE WHOLE SOLAR SYSTEM TABLE:
TABLE I.-THE REVOLUTIONS, DISTANCES,
TABLE II.-SATELLITES OF JUPITER
TABLE III.-SATELLITES OF SATURN
TABLE IV.-SATELLITES OF HERSCHEL, OR THE GEORGIUM
SIDUS
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRECEDING TABLES
IN Table I. the quantity or the periodic and sidereal
revolutions of the planets is expressed in common years,
each containing 365 days; as, e.g., the tropical
revolution of Jupiter is, by the table, 11 years, 315
days, 14 hours, 39 minutes, 2 seconds; i.e., the exact
number of days is equal to 11 years multiplied by 365,
and the extra 315 days added to the product, which make
In all 4330 days. The sidereal and
periodic times are also set down to the nearest
second of time, from numbers used in the construction of
the tables in the third edition of M. de la Lande's
Astronomy. The columns containing the mean
distance of the planets from the sun in English
miles, and their greatest and least
distance from the earth, are such as result from the
best observations of the two last transits of Venus,
which gave the solar parallax to be equal to 8
three-fifth seconds of a degree; and consequently the
earth's diameter, as seen from the sun, must be the
double of 8 three-fifth seconds, or 17 one-fifth
seconds. From this last quantity, compared with the
apparent diameters of the planets, as seen at a distance
equal to that of the earth at her main distance from the
sun, the diameters of the planets in English
miles, as contained in the seventh column, have been
carefully computed. In the column entitled
"Proportion of bulk, the earth being 1," the
whole numbers express the number of times the other
planet contains more cubic miles, and if the number of
cubic miles in the earth be given, the number of cubic
miles in any planet may be readily found by multiplying
the cubic miles contained in the earth by the number in
the column, and the product will be the quantity
required.
This is a small but accurate sketch of the vast solar
system; to describe it fully, even in all its
known revolutions and connections, in all its
astonishing energy and influence, in its wonderful plan,
structure, operations, and results, would require more
volumes than can be devoted to the commentary itself.
As so little can be said here on a subject so vast,
it may appear to some improper to introduce it at all;
but to any observation of this kind I must be permitted
to reply, that I should deem it unpardonable not to give
a general view of the solar system in the very place
where its creation is first introduced. If these works
be stupendous and magnificent, what must He be who
formed, guides, and supports them all by the word
of his power! Reader, stand in awe of this God, and sin
not. Make him thy friend through the Son of his love;
and, when these heavens and this earth are no more, thy
soul shall exist in consummate and unutterable felicity.
See the remarks on the sun, moon, and
stars, after Genesis
1:16. See Clarke on Genesis
1:16.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 2 . The earth was without
form and void
The original term
tohu and bohu, which we translate
without form and void, are of uncertain
etymology; but in this place, and wherever else they are
used, they convey the idea of confusion and
disorder. From these terms it is probable that
the ancient Syrians and Egyptians borrowed their gods,
Theuth and Bau, and the Greeks their
Chaos. God seems at first to have created the
elementary principles of all things; and this formed the
grand mass of matter, which in this state must be
without arrangement, or any distinction of parts:
a vast collection of indescribably confused materials,
of nameless entities strangely mixed; and wonderfully
well expressed by an ancient heathen poet:-
Ante mare et terras, et, quod tegit omnia, caelum,
Unus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe, Quem dixere
Chaos; rudis indigestaque moles, Nec quicquam nisi
pondus iners; congestaque eodem Non bene junctarum
discordia semina rerum. OVID.
Before the seas and this terrestrial ball, And
heaven's high canopy that covers all, One was the face
of nature, if a face; Rather, a rude and indigested
mass; A lifeless lump, unfashion'd and unframed, Of
jarring seeds, and justly Chaos named. DRYDEN.
The most ancient of the Greeks have spoken nearly in
the same way of this crude, indigested state of the
primitive chaotic mass.
When this congeries of elementary principles was
brought together, God was pleased to spend six days in
assimilating, assorting, and arranging the materials,
out of which he built up, not only the earth, but the
whole of the solar system.
The spirit of
God
This has been variously and
strangely understood. Some think a violent wind
is meant, because , ruach often signifies
wind, as well as spirit, as (οις ),
, does
in Greek; and the term God is connected with it
merely, as they think, to express the superlative
degree. Others understand by it an elementary
fire. Others, the sun, penetrating and drying
up the earth with his rays. Others, the angels,
who were supposed to have been employed as agents
in creation. Others, a certain occult principle,
termed the anima mundi or soul of the
world. Others, a magnetic attraction, by
which all things were caused to gravitate to a common
centre. But it is sufficiently evident from the use of
the word in other places, that the Holy Spirit of God is
intended; which our blessed Lord represents under the
notion of wind, John
3:8; and which, as a mighty rushing wind on
the day of pentecost, filled the house where the
disciples were sitting, Acts
2:2, which was immediately followed by their
speaking with other tongues, because they were filled
with the Holy Ghost, Acts
2:4. These scriptures sufficiently ascertain the
sense in which the word is used by Moses.
Moved
merachepheth, was brooding over; for
the word expresses that tremulous motion made by the hen
while either hatching her eggs or
fostering her young. It here probably signifies
the communicating a vital or prolific
principle to the waters. As the idea of
incubation, or hatching an egg, is implied in the
original word, hence probably the notion, which
prevailed among the ancients, that the world was
generated from an egg.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 3. And God said, Let
there be light
YEHI OR, vaihi
or. Nothing can be conceived more dignified than
this form of expression. It argues at once
uncontrollable authority, and omnific power; and in
human language it is scarcely possible to conceive that
God can speak more like himself. This passage, in the
Greek translation of the Septuagint, fell in the way of
Dionysius Longinus, one of the most judicious Greek
critics that ever lived, and who is highly celebrated
over the civilized world for a treatise he wrote,
entitled Ï€ÎµÏ Î¹Ï…ÏˆÎ¿Ï…Ï‚, Concerning the SUBLIME, both in
prose and poetry; of this passage, though a heathen, he
speaks in the following terms:-(οις),
"So likewise the Jewish
lawgiver (who was no ordinary man) having conceived a
just idea of the Divine power, he expressed it in a
dignified manner; for at the beginning of his laws he
thus speaks: GOD SAID-What? LET THERE BE LIGHT!
and there was light. LET THERE BE EARTH!
and there was earth."-Longinus, sect. ix.
edit. Pearce.
Many have asked, "How could light be produced on the
first day, and the sun, the fountain of
it, not created till the fourth day?" With the
various and often unphilosophical answers which have
been given to this question I will not meddle, but shall
observe that the original word signifies not only
light but fire, see Isaiah
31:9; Ezekiel
5:2. It is used for the SUN, ; Job
31:26. And for the electric fluid or
LIGHTNING, Job
37:3. And it is worthy of remark that It is used in
Isaiah
44:16, for the heat, derived from (
esh, the fire. He burneth part
thereof in the fire ( bemo esh:) yea, he
warmeth himself, and saith, Aha! I have seen the
fire, raithi ur, which a modern
philosopher who understood the language would not
scruple to translate, I have received caloric, or an
additional portion of the matter of heat. I
therefore conclude, that as God has diffused the matter
of caloric or latent heat through every
part of nature, without which there could be neither
vegetation nor animal life, that it is caloric or
latent heat which is principally intended by the
original word.
That there is latent light, which is probably
the same with latent heat, may be easily
demonstrated: take two pieces of smooth rock crystal,
agate, cornelian or flint, and rub them together briskly
in the dark, and the latent light or matter of caloric
will be immediately produced and become visible. The
light or caloric thus disengaged does not operate
in the same powerful manner as the heat or fire
which is produced by striking with flint and steel, or
that produced by electric friction. The existence
of this caloric-latent or primitive light,
may be ascertained in various other bodies; it can be
produced by the flint and steel, by rubbing two hard
sticks together, by hammering cold iron, which in a
short time becomes red hot, and by the strong and sudden
compression of atmospheric air in a tube. Friction in
general produces both fire and light. God
therefore created this universal agent on the first day,
because without It no operation of nature could be
carried on or perfected.
Light is one of the most astonishing productions of
the creative skill and power of God. It is the grand
medium by which all his other works are discovered,
examined, and understood, so far as they can be known.
Its immense diffusion and extreme velocity are alone
sufficient to demonstrate the being and wisdom of God.
Light has been proved by many experiments to travel at
the astonishing rate of 194,188 miles in one
second of time! and comes from the sun to the earth
in eight minutes 11 43/50 seconds, a
distance of 95,513,794 English miles.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 4. God divided the light
from the darkness.
This does not
imply that light and darkness are two
distinct substances, seeing darkness is only the
privation of light; but the words simply refer us
by anticipation to the rotation of the earth round its
own axis once in twenty-three hours, fifty-six
minutes, and four seconds, which is the cause
of the distinction between day and night, by bringing
the different parts of the surface of the earth
successively into and from under the solar rays; and it
was probably at this moment that God gave this rotation
to the earth, to produce this merciful provision of day
and night. For the manner in which light is
supposed to be produced, see Genesis
1:16, under the word sun.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 6. And God said, Let
there be a firmament
Our translators,
by following the firmamentum of the Vulgate,
which is a translation of the (οις),
of the
Septuagint, have deprived this passage of all sense and
meaning. The Hebrew word rakia, from raka,
to spread out as the curtains of a tent or
pavilion, simply signifies an expanse or
space, and consequently that circumambient space
or expansion separating the clouds, which are in the
higher regions of it, from the seas, below it. This we
call the atmosphere, the orb of atoms or
inconceivably small particles; but the word appears to
have been used by Moses in a more extensive sense, and
to include the whole of the planetary vortex, or the
space which is occupied by the whole solar
system.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 10. And God called the
dry land Earth; and the gathering together
of the waters called he Seas
These
two constitute what is called the terraqueous
globe, in which the earth and the water exist in a
most judicious proportion to each other. Dr. Long took
the papers which cover the surface of a seventeen inch
terrestrial globe, and having carefully separated the
land from the sea, be weighed the two collections of
papers accurately, and found that the sea papers weighed
three hundred and forty-nine grains, and the land papers
only one hundred and twenty-four; by which experiment it
appears that nearly three-fourths of the surface
of our globe, from the arctic to the antarctic polar
circles, are covered with water. The doctor did not
weigh the parts within the polar circles, because there
is no certain measurement of the proportion of land and
water which they contain. This proportion of
three-fourths water may be considered as too
great, if not useless; but Mr. Ray, by most accurate
experiments made on evaporation, has proved that it
requires so much aqueous surface to yield a
sufficiency of vapours for the purpose of cooling the
atmosphere, and watering the earth. See Ray's
Physico-theological Discourses.
An eminent chemist and philosopher, Dr.
Priestley, has very properly observed that it
seems plain that Moses considered the whole terraqueous
globe as being created in a fluid state, the
earthy and other particles of matter being mingled with
the water. The present form of the earth demonstrates
the truth of the Mosaic account; for it is well known
that if a soft or elastic globular body be rapidly
whirled round on its axis, the parts at the poles will
be flattened, and the parts on the equator, midway
between the north and south poles, will be raised up.
This is precisely the shape of our earth; it has the
figure of an oblate spheroid, a figure pretty
much resembling the shape of an orange. It has
been demonstrated by admeasurement that the earth is
flatted at the poles and raised at the equator. This was
first conjectured by Sir Isaac Newton, and afterwards
confirmed by M. Cassini and others, who measured several
degrees of latitude at the equator and near the north
pole, and found that the difference perfectly justified
Sir Isaac Newton's conjecture, and consequently
confirmed the Mosaic account. The result of the
experiments instituted to determine this point, proved
that the diameter of the earth at the equator is greater
by more than twenty-three and a half miles
than it is at the poles, allowing the polar
diameter to be 1/334th part shorter than the
equatorial, according to the recent
admeasurements of several degrees of latitude made by
Messrs. Mechain and Delambre.-L'Histoire des
Mathem. par M. de la Lande, tom. iv., part v.,
liv. 6.
And God saw that it was
good.
This is the judgment which God
pronounced on his own works. They were beautiful
and perfect in their kind, for such is the import
of the word tob. They were in weight and measure
perfect and entire, lacking nothing. But the reader will
think it strange that this approbation should be
expressed once on the first, fourth,
fifth, and sixth days; twice on the
third, and not at all on the second! I
suppose that the words, And God saw that it was
good, have been either lost from the conclusion of
the eighth verse, or that the clause in the tenth verse
originally belonged to the eighth. It appears, from the
Septuagint translation, that the words in question
existed originally at the close of the eighth verse, in
the copies which they used; for in that version we still
find, (οις),
And God saw that it was
good. This reading, however, is not acknowledged by
any of Kennicott's or De Rossi's MSS., nor by any of the
other versions. If the account of the second day stood
originally as it does now, no satisfactory reason can be
given for the omission of this expression of the Divine
approbation of the work wrought by his wisdom and power
on that day.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 11. Let the earth bring
forth grass-- herb--fruit-tree, .
In these general expressions all kinds of vegetable
productions are included. Fruit-tree is not to be
understood here in the restricted sense in which the
term is used among us; it signifies all trees, not only
those which bear fruit, which may be applied to the use
of men and cattle, but also those which had the power of
propagating themselves by seeds, to manifest himself in
the little as well as in the great, he has
shown his consummate wisdom in every part of the
vegetable creation. Who can account for, or
comprehend, the structure of a single tree or plant? The
roots, the stem, the woody fibres, the bark, the rind,
the air-vessels, the sap-vessels, the leaves, the
flowers, and the fruits, are so many mysteries. All the
skill, wisdom, and power of men and angels could not
produce a single grain of wheat: A serious and
reflecting mind can see the grandeur of God, not only in
the immense cedars on Lebanon, but also in the
endlessly varied forests that appear through the
microscope in the mould of cheese, stale paste,
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 12. Whose seed was in
itself
Which has the power of
multiplying itself by seeds, slips, roots, ad
infinitum; which contains in itself all the
rudiments of the future plant through its endless
generations. This doctrine has been abundantly confirmed
by the most accurate observations of the best modern
philosophers. The astonishing power with which God has
endued the vegetable creation to multiply its different
species, may be instanced in the seed of the elm.
This tree produces one thousand five
hundred and eighty-four millions of seeds;
and each of these seeds has the power of
producing the same number. How astonishing is
this produce! At first one seed is deposited in
the earth; from this one a tree springs, which in the
course of its vegetative life produces one thousand
five hundred and eighty-four millions of
seeds. This is the first generation. The
second generation will amount to two
trillions, five hundred and nine thousand and
fifty-six billions. The third generation
will amount to three thousand nine hundred and
seventy-four quadrillions, three hundred
and forty-four thousand seven hundred and four
trillions! And the fourth generation from
these would amount to six sextillions two hundred
and ninety-five thousand three hundred and
sixty-two quintillions, eleven thousand one
hundred and thirty-six quadrillions! Sums too
immense for the human mind to conceive; and, when we
allow the most confined space in which a tree can grow,
it appears that the seeds of the third generation
from one elm would be many myriads of times more
than sufficient to stock the whole superfices of all the
planets in the solar system! But plants multiply
themselves by slips as well as by seeds.
Sir Kenelm Digby saw in 1660 a plant of barley, in the
possession of the fathers of the Christian doctrine at
Paris, which contained 249 stalks springing from one
root or grain, and in which he counted upwards of 18,000
grains. See my experiments on Tilling in the
Methodist Magazine.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 14. And God said, Let
there be lights, .
One principal
office of these was to divide between day and night.
When night is considered a state of comparative
darkness, how can lights divide or distinguish
it? The answer is easy: The sun is the monarch of the
day, which is the state of light; the moon, of the
night, the state of darkness. The rays of the sun,
falling on the atmosphere, are refracted and diffused
over the whole of that hemisphere of the earth
immediately under his orb; while those rays of that vast
luminary which, because of the earth's smallness in
comparison of the sun, are diffused on all sides beyond
the earth, falling on the opaque disc of the moon, are
reflected back upon what may be called the lower
hemisphere, or that part of the earth which is opposite
to the part which is illuminated by the sun: and as the
earth completes a revolution on its own axis in about
twenty-four hours, consequently each hemisphere has
alternate day and night. But as the solar light
reflected from the face of the moon is computed to be
50,000 times less in intensity and effect than the light
of the sun as it comes directly from himself to our
earth, (for light decreases in its intensity as
the distance it travels from the sun increases,)
therefore a sufficient distinction is made between day
and night, or light and darkness, notwithstanding each
is ruled and determined by one of these two great
lights; the moon ruling the night, i.e., reflecting
from her own surface back on the earth the rays of light
which she receives from the sun. Thus both hemispheres
are to a certain degree illuminated: the one, on which
the sun shines, completely so; this is day: the
other, on which the sun's light is reflected by the
moon, partially; this is night. It is true that
both the planets and fixed stars afford a considerable
portion of light during the night, yet they cannot be
said to rule or to predominate by their light,
because their rays are quite lost in the superior
splendour of the moon's light.
And let them be for
signs
leothoth. Let them ever
be considered as continual tokens of God's tender care
for man, and as standing proofs of his continual
miraculous interference; for so the word
oth is often used. And is it not the almighty
energy of God that upholds them in being? The sun and
moon also serve as signs of the different changes
which take place in the atmosphere, and which are so
essential for all purposes of agriculture, commerce,
For seasons
moadim; For the determination of the times on
which the sacred festivals should be held. In
this sense the word frequently occurs; and it was right
that at the very opening of his revelation God should
inform man that there were certain festivals which
should be annually celebrated to his glory. Some think
we should understand the original word as signifying
months, for which purpose we know the moon
essentially serves through all the revolutions of time.
For days
Both the hours of the day and night, as well as the
different lengths of the days and nights, are
distinguished by the longer and shorter spaces of time
the sun is above or below the horizon.
And years.
That is, those grand divisions of time by which all
succession in the vast lapse of duration is
distinguished. This refers principally to a complete
revolution of the earth round the sun, which is
accomplished in 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 48
seconds; for though the revolution is that of the earth,
yet it cannot be determined but by the heavenly bodies.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 16. And God made two
great lights
Moses speaks of the sun
and moon here, not according to their bulk or
solid contents, but according to the
proportion of light they shed on the earth. The
expression has been cavilled at by some who are as
devoid of mental capacity as of candour. "The moon," say
they, "is not a great body; on the contrary, it
is the very smallest in our system." Well, and has Moses
said the contrary? He has said it is a great
LIGHT; had he said otherwise he had not spoken the
truth. It is, in reference to the earth, next to the sun
himself, the greatest light in the solar system;
and so true is it that the moon is a great light,
that it affords more light to the earth than all the
planets in the solar system, and all the innumerable
stars in the vault of heaven, put together. It is worthy
of remark that on the fourth day of the creation
the sun was formed, and then "first tried his beams
athwart the gloom profound;" and that at the conclusion
of the fourth millenary from the creation,
according to the Hebrew, the Sun of righteousness shone
upon the world, as deeply sunk in that mental darkness
produced by sin as the ancient world was, while teeming
darkness held the dominion, till the sun was created as
the dispenser of light. What would the natural world be
without the sun? A howling waste, in which neither
animal nor vegetable life could possibly be sustained.
And what would the moral world be without Jesus Christ,
and the light of his word and Spirit? Just what those
parts of it now are where his light has not yet shone:
"dark places of the earth, filled with the habitations
of cruelty," where error prevails without end, and
superstition, engendering false hopes and false fears,
degrades and debases the mind of man.
Many have supposed that the days of the
creation answer to so many thousands of years; and that
as God created all in six days, and rested the
seventh, so the world shall last six thousand
years, and the seventh shall be the eternal rest
that remains for the people of God. To this conclusion
they have been led by these words of the apostle, 2 Peter
3:8: One day is with the Lord as a thousand
years; and a thousand years as one day.
Secret things belong to God; those that are revealed to
us and our children.
He made the stars
also.
Or rather, He made the
lesser light, with the stars, to rule the
night. See Claudlan de Raptu PROSER., lib.
ii., v. 44.
Hic Hyperionis solem de semine nasci Fecerat, et
pariter lunam, sed dispare forma, Aurorae noctisque
duces.
From famed Hyperion did he cause to rise The sun, and
placed the moon amid the skies, With splendour robed,
but far unequal light, The radiant leaders of the day
and night.
OF THE SUN
On the nature of the sun there have been various
conjectures. It was long thought that he was a vast
globe of fire 1,384,462 times larger than the
earth, and that he was continually emitting from his
body innumerable millions of fiery particles,
which, being extremely divided, answered for the purpose
of light and heat without occasioning any
ignition or burning, except when collected
in the focus of a convex lens or burning glass. Against
this opinion, however, many serious and weighty
objections have been made; and it has been so pressed
with difficulties that philosophers have been obliged to
look for a theory less repugnant to nature and
probability. Dr. Herschel's discoveries by means of his
immensely magnifying telescopes, have, by the general
consent of philosophers, added a new habitable
world to our system, which is the SUN. Without
stopping to enter into detail, which would be
improper here, it is sufficient to say that these
discoveries tend to prove that what we call the
sun is only the atmosphere of that
luminary; "that this atmosphere consists of various
elastic fluids that are more or less lucid and
transparent; that as the clouds belonging to our earth
are probably decompositions of some of the elastic
fluids belonging to the atmosphere itself, so we may
suppose that in the vast atmosphere of the sun, similar
decompositions may take place, but with this difference,
that the decompositions of the elastic fluids of the sun
are of a phosphoric nature, and are attended by
lucid appearances, by giving out light." The body of the
sun he considers as hidden generally from us by means of
this luminous atmosphere, but what are called the
maculae or spots on the sun are real
openings in this atmosphere, through which the
opaque body of the sun becomes visible; that this
atmosphere itself is not fiery nor hot,
but is the instrument which God designed to act on the
caloric or latent heat; and that heat is only produced
by the solar light acting upon and combining with the
caloric or matter of fire contained in the air, and
other substances which are heated by it. This ingenious
theory is supported by many plausible reasons and
illustrations, which may be seen in the paper he read
before the Royal Society. On this subject See Clarke on
Genesis
1:3.
OF THE MOON
There is scarcely any doubt now remaining in the
philosophical world that the moon is a habitable
globe. The most accurate observations that have been
made with the most powerful telescopes have confirmed
the opinion. The moon seems, in almost every
respect, to be a body similar to our earth; to have its
surface diversified by hill and dale, mountains and
valleys, rivers, lakes, and seas. And there is the
fullest evidence that our earth serves as a moon to the
moon herself, differing only in this, that as the
earth's surface is thirteen times larger than the
moon's, so the moon receives from the earth a light
thirteen times greater in splendour than that
which she imparts to us; and by a very correct analogy
we are led to infer that all the planets and
their satellites, or attendant moons, are
inhabited, for matter seems only to exist for the
sake of intelligent beings.
OF THE STARS
The STARS in general are considered to be
suns, similar to that in our system, each having
an appropriate number of planets moving round it;
and, as these stars are innumerable, consequently there
are innumerable worlds, all dependent on the power,
protection, and providence of God. Where the stars are
in great abundance, Dr. Herschel supposes they form
primaries and secondaries, i.e., suns
revolving about suns, as planets revolve about
the sun in our system. He considers that this must be
the case in what is called the milky way, the
stars being there in prodigious quantity. Of this he
gives the following proof: On August 22,1792, he found
that in forty-one minutes of time not less than 258,000
stars had passed through the field of view in his
telescope. What must God be, who has made, governs, and
supports so many worlds! For the magnitudes,
distances, revolutions, , of the sun,
moon, planets, and their satellites,
see the preceding TABLES. See Clarke on Genesis
1:1.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 20. Let the waters bring
forth abundantly
There is a meaning
in these words which is seldom noticed. Innumerable
millions of animalcula are found in water. Eminent
naturalists have discovered not less than 30,000 in a
single drop! How inconceivably small must each be, and
yet each a perfect animal, furnished with the whole
apparatus of bones, muscles, nerves, heart, arteries,
veins, lungs, viscera in general, animal spirits,
the fecundity of fishes is another point
intended in the text; no creature's are so prolific as
these. A TENCH lay 1,000 eggs, a CARP 20,000, and
Leuwenhoek counted in a middling sized COD 9,384,000!
Thus, according to the purpose of God, the waters
bring forth abundantly. And what a merciful
provision is this for the necessities of man! Many
hundreds of thousands of the earth's inhabitants live
for a great part of the year on fish only. Fish
afford, not only a wholesome, but a very nutritive diet;
they are liable to few diseases, and generally come in
vast quantities to our shores when in their greatest
perfection. In this also we may see that the kind
providence of God goes hand in hand with his
creating energy. While he manifests his wisdom and his
power, he is making a permanent provision for the
sustenance of man through all his generations.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 21. And God created
great whales
hattanninim
haggedolim. Though this is generally understood by
the different versions as signifying whales, yet
the original must be understood rather as a
general than a particular term, comprising
all the great aquatic animals, such as the various
species of whales, the porpoise, the dolphin, the
monoceros or narwal, and the shark. God delights to show
himself in little as well as in great
things: hence he forms animals so minute that 30,000 can
be contained in one drop of water; and others so
great that they seem to require almost a whole
sea to float in.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 22. Let fowl multiply in
the earth.
It is truly astonishing
with what care, wisdom, and minute skill God has formed
the different genera and species of birds, whether
intended to live chiefly on land or in water. The
structure of a single feather affords a world of
wonders; and as God made the fowls that they might
fly in the firmament of heaven, Genesis
1:20, he has adapted the form of their
bodies, and the structure and disposition of their
plumage, for that very purpose. The head and neck in
flying are drawn principally within the breast-bone, so
that the whole under part exhibits the appearance of a
ship's hull. The wings are made use of as sails, or
rather oars, and the tail as a helm or rudder. By means
of these the creature is not only able to preserve the
centre of gravity, but also to go with vast speed
through the air, either straight forward, circularly, or
in any kind of angle, upwards or downwards. In these
also God has shown his skill and his power in the
great and in the little-in the vast
ostrich and cassowary, and In the
beautiful humming-bird, which in plumage excels
the splendour of the peacock, and in size is almost on a
level with the bee.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 24. Let the earth bring
forth the living creature,
nephesh
chaiyah; a general term to express all creatures
endued with animal life, in any of its infinitely varied
gradations, from the half-reasoning elephant down to the
stupid potto, or lower still, to the
polype, which seems equally to share the
vegetable and animal life. The word chaitho, in
the latter part of the verse, seems to signify all
wild animals, as lions, tigers,
carnivorous, or live on flesh, in
contradistinction from domestic animals, such as
are graminivorous, or live on grass and other
vegetables, and are capable of being tamed, and applied
to domestic purposes. See Clarke on Genesis
1:29. These latter are probably meant by
behemah in the text, which we translate cattle,
such as horses, kine, sheep, dogs, Creeping
thing, remes, all the different genera of
serpents, worms, and such animals as have no
feet. In beasts also God has shown his wondrous
skill and power; in the vast elephant, or still
more colossal mammoth or mastodon, the
whole race of which appears to be extinct, a few
skeletons only remaining. This animal, an astonishing
effect of God's power, he seems to have produced merely
to show what he could do, and after suffering a few of
them to propagate, he extinguished the race by a
merciful providence, that they might not destroy both
man and beast. The mammoth appears to have been a
carnivorous animal, as the structure of the teeth
proves, and of an immense size; from a considerable part
of a skeleton which I have seen, it is computed that the
animal to which it belonged must have been nearly
twenty-five feet high, and sixty in
length! The bones of one toe are entire; the toe upwards
of three feet in length. But this skeleton might have
belonged to the megalonyx, a kind of
sloth, or bradypus, hitherto unknown. Few
elephants have ever been found to exceed eleven feet in
height. How wondrous are the works of God! But his skill
and power are not less seen in the beautiful
chevrotin, or tragulus, a creature of the
antelope kind, the smallest of all bifid or
cloven-footed animals, whose delicate limbs are scarcely
so large as an ordinary goose quill; and also in the
shrew mouse, perhaps the smallest of the
many-toed quadrupeds. In the reptile kind we see
also the same skill and power, not only in the immense
snake called boa constrictor, the mortal
foe and conqueror of the royal tiger, but also in the
cobra de manille, a venomous serpent, only a
little larger than a common sewing needle.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 25. And God made the
beast of the earth after his kind,
.
Every thing both in the animal
and vegetable world was made so according to its
kind, both in genus and species, as to
produce its own kind through endless generations.
Thus the several races of animals and plants have been
kept distinct from the foundation of the world to the
present day. This is a proof that all future generations
of plants and animals have been seminally included in
those which God formed in the beginning.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 26. And God said, Let us
make man
It is evident that God
intends to impress the mind of man with a sense of
something extraordinary in the formation of his body and
soul, when he introduces the account of his creation
thus; Let US make man. The word Adam, which we translate
man, is intended to designate the species
of animal, as chaitho, marks the wild
beasts that live in general a solitary life;
behemah, domestic or gregarious animals; and
remes, all kinds of reptiles, from the
largest snake to the microscopic eel. Though the same
kind of organization may be found in man as appears in
the lower animals, yet there is a variety and
complication in the parts, a delicacy of structure, a
nice arrangement, a judicious adaptation of the
different members to their great offices and functions,
a dignity of mien, and a perfection of the whole, which
are sought for in vain in all other creatures. See Genesis
3:22.
In our image, after our
likeness
What is said above refers
only to the body of man, what is here said refers
to his soul. This was made in the image
and likeness of God. Now, as the Divine Being is
infinite, he is neither limited by parts, nor definable
by passions; therefore he can have no corporeal
image after which he made the body of man. The image
and likeness must necessarily be intellectual; his mind,
his soul, must have been formed after the nature and
perfections of his God. The human mind is still endowed
with most extraordinary capacities; it was more so when
issuing out of the hands of its Creator. God was now
producing a spirit, and a spirit, too, formed after the
perfections of his own nature. God is the fountain
whence this spirit issued, hence the stream must
resemble the spring which produced it. God is holy,
just, wise, good, and perfect; so must the soul be that
sprang from him: there could be in it nothing impure,
unjust, ignorant, evil, low, base, mean, or vile. It was
created after the image of God; and that image, St. Paul
tells us, consisted in righteousness, true
holiness, and knowledge, Ephesians
4:24; Colossians
3:10. Hence man was wise in his mind,
holy in his heart, and righteous in
his actions. Were even the word of God silent on
this subject, we could not infer less from the lights
held out to us by reason and common sense. The text
tells us he was the work of ELOHIM, the Divine
Plurality, marked here more distinctly by the plural
pronouns US and OUR; and to show that he was the
masterpiece of God's creation, all the persons in the
Godhead are represented as united in counsel and effort
to produce this astonishing creature.
Gregory Nyssen has very properly observed that
the superiority of man to all other parts of creation is
seen in this, that all other creatures are represented
as the effect of God's word, but man is
represented as the work of God, according to plan
and consideration: Let US make MAN in
our IMAGE, after our LIKENESS. See his Works,
vol. i., p. 52, c. 3.
And let them have
dominion
Hence we see that the
dominion was not the image. God created
man capable of governing the world, and when fitted for
the office, he fixed him in it. We see God's tender care
and parental solicitude for the comfort and well-being
of this masterpiece of his workmanship, in creating the
world previously to the creation of man. He prepared
every thing for his subsistence, convenience, and
pleasure, before he brought him into being; so that,
comparing little with great things, the house was built,
furnished, and amply stored, by the time the destined
tenant was ready to occupy it.
It has been supposed by some that God speaks here to
the angels, when he says, Let us make man; but to
make this a likely interpretation these persons must
prove, 1. That angels were then created. 2. That angels
could assist in a work of creation. 3. That angels were
themselves made in the image and likeness of God. If
they were not, it could not be said, in OUR
image, and it does not appear from any part in
the sacred writings that any creature but man was
made in the image of God. See Clarke on Psalms
8:5.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 28. And God blessed
them
Marked them as being under his
especial protection, and gave them power to propagate
and multiply their own kind on the earth. A large volume
would be insufficient to contain what we know of
the excellence and perfection of man, even in his
present degraded fallen state. Both his body and soul
are adapted with astonishing wisdom to their
residence and occupations; and also the
place of their residence, as well as the
surrounding objects, in their diversity, colour, and
mutual relations, to the mind and body of this lord of
the creation. The contrivance, arrangement, action, and
re-action of the different parts of the body, show the
admirable skill of the wondrous Creator; while the
various powers and faculties of the mind, acting on and
by the different organs of this body, proclaim the
soul's Divine origin, and demonstrate that he who
was made in the image and likeness of God, was a
transcript of his own excellency, destined to know,
love, and dwell with his Maker throughout eternity.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 29. I have given you
every herb-for meat.
It seems from
this, says an eminent philosopher, that man was
originally intended to live upon vegetables only;
and as no change was made In the structure of men's
bodies after the flood, it is not probable that any
change was made in the articles of their food. It may
also be inferred from this passage that no animal
whatever was originally designed to prey on others; for
nothing is here said to be given to any beast of the
earth besides green herbs.-Dr. Priestley.
Before sin entered into the world, there could be, at
least, no violent deaths, if any death at all.
But by the particular structure of the teeth of animals
God prepared them for that kind of aliment which they
were to subsist on after the FALL.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 31. And, behold, it
was very good.
tob meod,
Superlatively, or only good; as good as
they could be. The plan wise, the work well executed,
the different parts properly arranged; their nature,
limits, mode of existence, manner of propagation,
habits, mode of sustenance, permanently established and
secured; for every thing was formed to the utmost
perfection of its nature, so that nothing could be added
or diminished without encumbering the operations of
matter and spirit on the one hand, or rendering them
inefficient to the end proposed on the other; and God
has so done all these marvellous works as to be
glorified in all, by all, and
through all.
And the evening and the
morning were the sixth day.
The word
ereb, which we translate evening, comes from the
root arab, to mingle; and properly
signifies that state in which neither absolute
darkness nor full light prevails. It has
nearly the same grammatical signification with our
twilight, the time that elapses from the setting
of the sun till he is eighteen degrees below the horizon
and the last eighteen degrees before he arises. Thus we
have the morning and evening twilight, or mixture
of light and darkness, in which neither prevails,
because, while the sun is within eighteen degrees of the
horizon, either after his setting or before his rising,
the atmosphere has power to refract the rays of light,
and send them back on the earth. The Hebrews extended
the meaning of this term to the whole duration of night,
because it was ever a mingled state, the moon,
the planets, or the stars, tempering the darkness with
some rays of light. From the ereb of Moses came
the ÎµÏ ÎµÎ²Î¿Ï‚ Erebus, of Hesiod, Aristophanes, and
other heathens, which they deified and made, with
Nox or night, the parent of all things.
The morning- boker; From bakar,
he looked out; a beautiful figure which
represents the morning as looking out at
the east, and illuminating the whole of the upper
hemisphere.
The evening and the morning were the sixth
day.-It is somewhat remarkable that through the
whole of this chapter, whenever the division of days is
made, the evening always precedes the morning. The
reason of this may perhaps be, that darkness was
pre-existent to light, 1:2,
And darkness was upon the face of the deep,) and
therefore time is reckoned from the first act of God
towards the creation of the world, which took place
before light was called forth into existence. It is very
likely for this same reason, that the Jews began their
day at six o'clock in the evening in imitation of
Moses's division of time in this chapter. Caesar
in his Commentaries makes mention of the same
peculiarity existing among the Gauls: Galli se omnes
ab Dite patre prognatas praedicant: idque ab
Druidibus proditum dicunt: ab eam causam spatia
omnis temporis, non numero dierum, sed noctium,
finiunt; et dies natales, et mensium et annorum
initia sic observant, ut noctem dies
subsequatur; De Bell. Gall. lib. vi. Tacitus
likewise records the same of the Germans: Nec dierum
numerum, ut nos, sed noctium computant: sic
constituent, sic condicunt, nox ducere diem
videtur; De Mor. Germ. sec. ii. And there are to
this day some remains of the same custom in England, as
for instance in the word se'nnight and
fortnight. See also Aeschyl. Agamem. ver.
273,287.
Thus ends a chapter containing the most extensive,
most profound, and most sublime truths that can possibly
come within the reach of the human intellect. How
unspeakably are we indebted to God for giving us a
revelation of his WILL and of his WORKS! Is it possible
to know the mind of God but from himself? It is
impossible. Can those things and services which are
worthy of and pleasing to an infinitely pure, perfect,
and holy Spirit, be ever found out by reasoning
and conjecture? Never! for the Spirit of God
alone can know the mind of God; and by this Spirit he
has revealed himself to man; and in this revelation has
taught him, not only to know the glories and perfections
of the Creator, but also his own origin, duty, and
interest. Thus far it was essentially necessary that God
should reveal his WILL; but if he had not given a
revelation of his WORKS, the origin, constitution, and
nature of the universe could never have been adequately
known. The world by wisdom knew not God; this is
demonstrated by the writings of the most learned and
intelligent heathens. They had no just, no rational
notion of the origin and design of the universe. Moses
alone, of all ancient writers, gives a consistent and
rational account of the creation; an account which has
been confirmed by the investigation of the most accurate
philosophers. But where did he learn this? "In
Egypt." That is impossible; for the Egyptians themselves
were destitute of this knowledge. The remains we have of
their old historians, all posterior to the time of
Moses, are egregious for their contradictions and
absurdity; and the most learned of the Greeks who
borrowed from them have not been able to make out, from
their conjoint stock, any consistent and credible
account. Moses has revealed the mystery that lay hid
from all preceding ages, because he was taught it by
the inspiration of the Almighty. READER, thou
hast now before thee the most ancient and most authentic
history in the world; a history that contains the first
written discovery that God has made of himself to
man-kind; a discovery of his own being, in his
wisdom, power, and goodness, in
which thou and the whole human race are so
intimately concerned. How much thou art indebted to him
for this discovery he alone can teach thee, and cause
thy heart to feel its obligations to his wisdom and
mercy. Read so as to understand, for these things
were written for thy learning; therefore mark
what thou readest, and inwardly digest-deeply and
seriously meditate on, what thou hast marked, and
pray to the Father of lights that he may open thy
understanding, that thou mayest know these holy
Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto
salvation.
God made thee and the universe, and governs all
things according to the counsel of his will; that will
is infinite goodness, that counsel is unerring wisdom.
While under the direction of this counsel, thou canst
not err; while under the influence of this will, thou
canst not be wretched. Give thyself up to his teaching,
and submit to his authority; and, after guiding thee
here by his counsel, he will at last bring thee
to his glory. Every object that meets thy eye should
teach thee reverence, submission, and gratitude. The
earth and its productions were made for thee; and
the providence of thy heavenly Father, infinitely
diversified in its operations, watches over and provides
for thee. Behold the firmament of his power, the sun,
moon, planets, and stars, which he has formed, not for
himself, for he needs none of these things, but for his
intelligent offspring. What endless gratification has he
designed thee in placing within thy reach these
astonishing effects of his wisdom and power, and in
rendering thee capable of searching out their wonderful
relations and connections, and of knowing himself, the
source of all perfection, by having made thee in his own
image, and in his own likeness! It is true thou
art fallen; but he has found out a ransom. God so
loved thee in conjunction with the world that he gave
his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. Believe on
HIM; through him alone cometh salvation; and the
fair and holy image of God in which thou wast created
shall be again restored; he will build thee up as at the
first, restore thy judges and counsellors as at the
beginning, and in thy second creation, as in thy first,
will pronounce thee to be very good, and thou
shalt show forth the virtues of him by whom thou art
created anew in Christ Jesus. Amen.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 1.
Bereshith bara Elohim eth hashshamayim veeth
haarets; GOD in the beginning created the heavens
and the earth.
Many attempts have been made to define the term GOD:
as to the word itself, it is pure Anglo-Saxon, and among
our ancestors signified, not only the Divine Being, now
commonly designated by the word, but also good;
as in their apprehensions it appeared that God
and good were correlative terms; and when they
thought or spoke of him, they were doubtless led from
the word itself to consider him as THE GOOD BEING, a
fountain of infinite benevolence and beneficence towards
his creatures.
A general definition of this great First Cause, as
far as human words dare attempt one, may be thus given:
The eternal, independent, and self-existent Being: the
Being whose purposes and actions spring from himself,
without foreign motive or influence: he who is absolute
in dominion; the most pure, the most simple, and most
spiritual of all essences; infinitely benevolent,
beneficent, true, and holy: the cause of all being, the
upholder of all things; infinitely happy, because
infinitely perfect; and eternally self-sufficient,
needing nothing that he has made: illimitable in his
immensity, inconceivable in his mode of existence, and
indescribable in his essence; known fully only to
himself, because an infinite mind can be fully
apprehended only by itself. In a word, a Being who, from
his infinite wisdom, cannot err or be deceived; and who,
from his infinite goodness, can do nothing but what is
eternally just, right, and kind. Reader, such is the God
of the Bible; but how widely different from the God of
most human creeds and apprehensions!
The original word Elohim, God, is certainly
the plural form of El, or Eloah, and has
long been supposed, by the most eminently learned and
pious men, to imply a plurality of Persons in the
Divine nature. As this plurality appears in so many
parts of the sacred writings to be confined to
three Persons, hence the doctrine of the TRINITY,
which has formed a part of the creed of all those who
have been deemed sound in the faith, from the earliest
ages of Christianity. Nor are the Christians
singular in receiving this doctrine, and in deriving it
from the first words of Divine revelation. An eminent
Jewish rabbin, Simeon ben Joachi, in his comment on the
sixth section of Leviticus, has these remarkable words:
"Come and see the mystery of the word Elohim; there are
three degrees, and each degree by itself
alone, and yet notwithstanding they are all
one, and joined together in one,
and are not divided from each other." See
Ainsworth. He must be strangely prejudiced indeed
who cannot see that the doctrine of a Trinity, and of a
Trinity in unity, is expressed in the above words. The
verb bara, he created, being joined in the
singular number with this plural noun, has been
considered as pointing out, and not obscurely, the
unity of the Divine Persons in this work of
creation. In the ever-blessed Trinity, from the infinite
and indivisible unity of the persons, there can be but
one will, one purpose, and one infinite and
uncontrollable energy.
"Let those who have any doubt whether Elohim,
when meaning the true God, Jehovah, be plural or
not, consult the following passages, where they will
find it joined with adjectives, verbs, and pronouns
plural.
Genesis
1:26; 3:22;
11:7;
20:13;
31:7,53;
35:7.
Deuteronomy
4:7; 5:23;
Joshua
24:19; 1 Samuel
4:8; 2 Samuel
7:23 Psalms
58:6; Isaiah
6:8; Jeremiah
10:10; 23:36.
"See also Proverbs
9:10; 30:3;
Psalms
149:2; Ecclesiastes
5:7; 12:1;
Job
5:1; Isaiah
6:3; 54:5;
62:5;
Hosea
11:12, or Hosea
12:1; Malachi
1:6; Daniel
5:18,20; 7:18,22."-PARKHURST.
As the word Elohim is the term by which the
Divine Being is most generally expressed in the Old
Testament, it may be necessary to consider it here more
at large. It is a maxim that admits of no controversy,
that every noun in the Hebrew language is derived from a
verb, which is usually termed the radix or
root, from which, not only the noun, but all the
different flections of the verb, spring. This radix is
the third person singular of the preterite or past
tense. The ideal meaning of this root expresses
some essential property of the thing which it
designates, or of which it is an appellative. The root
in Hebrew, and in its sister language, the
Arabic, generally consists of three
letters, and every word must be traced to its root in
order to ascertain its genuine meaning, for there alone
is this meaning to be found. In Hebrew and Arabic this
is essentially necessary, and no man can safely
criticise on any word in either of these languages who
does not carefully attend to this point.
I mention the Arabic with the Hebrew
for two reasons. 1. Because the two languages evidently
spring from the same source, and have very nearly the
same mode of construction. 2. Because the deficient
roots in the Hebrew Bible are to be sought for in the
Arabic language. The reason of this must be obvious,
when it is considered that the whole of the Hebrew
language is lost except what is in the Bible, and even a
part of this book is written in Chaldee. Now, as the
English Bible does not contain the whole of the
English language, so the Hebrew Bible does not
contain the whole of the Hebrew. If a man meet with an
English word which he cannot find in an ample
concordance or dictionary to the Bible, he must of
course seek for that word in a general English
dictionary. In like manner, if a particular form of a
Hebrew word occur that cannot be traced to a root in the
Hebrew Bible, because the word does not occur in the
third person singular of the past tense in the Bible, it
is expedient, it is perfectly lawful, and often
indispensably necessary, to seek the deficient root in
the Arabic. For as the Arabic is still a living
language, and perhaps the most copious in the universe,
it may well be expected to furnish those terms which are
deficient in the Hebrew Bible. And the reasonableness of
this is founded on another maxim, viz., that either the
Arabic was derived from the Hebrew, or the Hebrew from
the Arabic. I shall not enter into this controversy;
there are great names on both sides, and the decision of
the question in either way will have the same effect on
my argument. For if the Arabic were derived from
the Hebrew, it must have been when the Hebrew was a
living and complete language, because such
is the Arabic now; and therefore all its essential roots
we may reasonably expect to find there: but if, as Sir
William Jones supposed, the Hebrew were derived
from the Arabic, the same expectation is justified, the
deficient roots in Hebrew may be sought for in the
mother tongue. If, for example, we meet with a
term in our ancient English language the meaning of
which we find difficult to ascertain, common sense
teaches us that we should seek for it in the
Anglo-Saxon, from which our language springs;
and, if necessary, go up to the Teutonic, from
which the Anglo-Saxon was derived. No person disputes
the legitimacy of this measure, and we find it in
constant practice. I make these observations at the very
threshold of my work, because the necessity of acting on
this principle (seeking deficient Hebrew roots in the
Arabic) may often occur, and I wish to speak once
for all on the subject.
The first sentence in the Scripture shows the
propriety of having recourse to this principle. We have
seen that the word Elohim is plural; we have
traced our term God to its source, and have seen
its signification; and also a general definition of the
thing or being included under this term,
has been tremblingly attempted. We should now trace the
original to its root, but this root does
not appear in the Hebrew Bible. Were the Hebrew a
complete language, a pious reason might be given
for this omission, viz., "As God is without beginning
and without cause, as his being is infinite and
underived, the Hebrew language consults strict
propriety in giving no root whence his name can
be deduced." Mr. Parkhurst, to whose pious and
learned labours in Hebrew literature most Biblical
students are indebted, thinks he has found the root in
alah, he swore, bound himself by oath; and hence
he calls the ever-blessed Trinity Elohim, as
being bound by a conditional oath to redeem
man, . Most pious minds will revolt from such a
definition, and will be glad with me to find both the
noun and the root preserved in Arabic.
ALLAH [Arabic] is the common name for GOD in the Arabic
tongue, and often the emphatic [Arabic] is used. Now
both these words are derived from the root alaha,
he worshipped, adored, was struck with
astonishment, fear, or terror; and hence, he
adored with sacred horror and
veneration, cum sacro horrore ac veneratione
coluit, adoravit.-WILMET. Hence ilahon, fear,
veneration, and also the object of religious
fear, the Deity, the supreme God, the
tremendous Being. This is not a new idea; God was
considered in the same light among the ancient Hebrews;
and hence Jacob swears by the fear of his father
Isaac, Genesis
31:53. To complete the definition, Golius renders
alaha, juvit, liberavit, et tutatus fuit,
"he succoured, liberated, kept in safety, or defended."
Thus from the ideal meaning of this most
expressive root, we acquire the most correct notion of
the Divine nature; for we learn that God is the sole
object of adoration; that the perfections of his
nature are such as must astonish all those who
piously contemplate them, and fill with horror
all who would dare to give his glory to another,
or break his commandments; that consequently he should
be worshipped with reverence and
religious fear; and that every sincere worshipper
may expect from him help in all his weaknesses,
trials, difficulties, temptations, freedom from
the power, guilt, nature, and consequences of sin; and
to be supported, defended, and saved to
the uttermost, and to the end.
Here then is one proof, among multitudes which shall
be adduced in the course of this work, of the
importance, utility, and necessity of tracing up these
sacred words to their sources; and a proof also,
that subjects which are supposed to be out of the reach
of the common people may, with a little difficulty, be
brought on a level with the most ordinary capacity.
In the
beginning
Before the creative acts
mentioned in this chapter all was ETERNITY. Time
signifies duration measured by the revolutions of
the heavenly bodies: but prior to the creation of these
bodies there could be no measurement of duration, and
consequently no time; therefore in the
beginning must necessarily mean the commencement of
time which followed, or rather was produced by, God's
creative acts, as an effect follows or is produced by a
cause.
Created
Caused existence where previously to this moment
there was no being. The rabbins, who are legitimate
judges in a case of verbal criticism on their own
language, are unanimous in asserting that the word
bara expresses the commencement of the existence
of a thing, or egression from nonentity to entity. It
does not in its primary meaning denote the
preserving or new forming things
that had previously existed, as some imagine, but
creation in the proper sense of the term, though
it has some other acceptations in other places. The
supposition that God formed all things out of a
pre-existing, eternal nature, is certainly absurd, for
if there had been an eternal nature besides an eternal
God, there must have been two self-existing,
independent, and eternal beings, which is a most
palpable contradiction.
eth hashshamayim. The word eth, which
is generally considered as a particle, simply
denoting that the word following is in the accusative or
oblique case, is often understood by the rabbins in a
much more extensive sense. "The particle ," says Aben
Ezra, "signifies the substance of the thing." The
like definition is given by Kimchi in his Book of
Roots. "This particle," says Mr. Ainsworth,
"having the first and last letters of the
Hebrew alphabet in it, is supposed to comprise the
sum and substance of all things."
"The particle eth (says Buxtorf, Talmudic
Lexicon, sub voce) with the cabalists is often
mystically put for the beginning and the
end, as α alpha and ω omega are in the
Apocalypse." On this ground these words should be
translated, "God in the beginning created the
substance of the heavens and the substance
of the earth," i.e. the prima materia, or first
elements, out of which the heavens and the earth were
successively formed. The Syriac translator understood
the word in this sense, and to express this meaning has
used the word [Arabic] yoth, which has this
signification, and is very properly translated in
Walton's Polyglot, ESSE, caeli et ESSE
terrae, "the being or substance of
the heaven, and the being or substance of
the earth." St. Ephraim Syrus, in his comment on this
place, uses the same Syriac word, and appears to
understand it precisely in the same way. Though the
Hebrew words are certainly no more than the notation of
a case in most places, yet understood here in the
sense above, they argue a wonderful philosophic accuracy
in the statement of Moses, which brings before us, not a
finished heaven and earth, as every other
translation appears to do, though afterwards the process
of their formation is given in detail, but merely the
materials out of which God built the whole system
in the six following days.
The heaven and the
earth.
As the word shamayim is
plural, we may rest assured that it means more than the
atmosphere, to express which some have
endeavoured to restrict its meaning. Nor does it appear
that the atmosphere is particularly intended here, as
this is spoken of, Genesis
1:6, under the term firmament. The word
heavens must therefore comprehend the whole
solar system, as it is very likely the whole of
this was created in these six days; for unless the earth
had been the centre of a system, the reverse of
which is sufficiently demonstrated, it would be
unphilosophic to suppose it was created independently of
the other parts of the system, as on this supposition we
must have recourse to the almighty power of God to
suspend the influence of the earth's gravitating power
till the fourth day, when the sun was placed in the
centre, round which the earth began then to revolve. But
as the design of the inspired penman was to relate what
especially belonged to our world and its inhabitants,
therefore he passes by the rest of the planetary system,
leaving it simply included in the plural word
heavens. In the word earth every thing
relative to the terraqueaerial globe is included, that
is, all that belongs to the solid and fluid parts of our
world with its surrounding atmosphere. As therefore I
suppose the whole solar system was created at this time,
I think it perfectly in place to give here a general
view of all the planets, with every thing curious and
important hitherto known relative to their revolutions
and principal affections.
A GENERAL VIEW OF THE WHOLE SOLAR SYSTEM TABLE:
I.-THE REVOLUTIONS, DISTANCES,
TABLE II.-SATELLITES OF JUPITER
TABLE III.-SATELLITES OF SATURN
TABLE IV.-SATELLITES OF HERSCHEL, OR THE GEORGIUM
SIDUS
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRECEDING TABLES
IN Table I. the quantity or the periodic and sidereal
revolutions of the planets is expressed in common years,
each containing 365 days; as, e.g., the tropical
revolution of Jupiter is, by the table, 11 years, 315
days, 14 hours, 39 minutes, 2 seconds; i.e., the exact
number of days is equal to 11 years multiplied by 365,
and the extra 315 days added to the product, which make
In all 4330 days. The sidereal and
periodic times are also set down to the nearest
second of time, from numbers used in the construction of
the tables in the third edition of M. de la Lande's
Astronomy. The columns containing the mean
distance of the planets from the sun in English
miles, and their greatest and least
distance from the earth, are such as result from the
best observations of the two last transits of Venus,
which gave the solar parallax to be equal to 8
three-fifth seconds of a degree; and consequently the
earth's diameter, as seen from the sun, must be the
double of 8 three-fifth seconds, or 17 one-fifth
seconds. From this last quantity, compared with the
apparent diameters of the planets, as seen at a distance
equal to that of the earth at her main distance from the
sun, the diameters of the planets in English
miles, as contained in the seventh column, have been
carefully computed. In the column entitled
"Proportion of bulk, the earth being 1," the
whole numbers express the number of times the other
planet contains more cubic miles, and if the number of
cubic miles in the earth be given, the number of cubic
miles in any planet may be readily found by multiplying
the cubic miles contained in the earth by the number in
the column, and the product will be the quantity
required.
This is a small but accurate sketch of the vast solar
system; to describe it fully, even in all its
known revolutions and connections, in all its
astonishing energy and influence, in its wonderful plan,
structure, operations, and results, would require more
volumes than can be devoted to the commentary itself.
As so little can be said here on a subject so vast,
it may appear to some improper to introduce it at all;
but to any observation of this kind I must be permitted
to reply, that I should deem it unpardonable not to give
a general view of the solar system in the very place
where its creation is first introduced. If these works
be stupendous and magnificent, what must He be who
formed, guides, and supports them all by the word
of his power! Reader, stand in awe of this God, and sin
not. Make him thy friend through the Son of his love;
and, when these heavens and this earth are no more, thy
soul shall exist in consummate and unutterable felicity.
See the remarks on the sun, moon, and
stars, after Genesis
1:16. See Clarke on Genesis
1:16.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 2 . The earth was without
form and void
The original term
tohu and bohu, which we translate
without form and void, are of uncertain
etymology; but in this place, and wherever else they are
used, they convey the idea of confusion and
disorder. From these terms it is probable that
the ancient Syrians and Egyptians borrowed their gods,
Theuth and Bau, and the Greeks their
Chaos. God seems at first to have created the
elementary principles of all things; and this formed the
grand mass of matter, which in this state must be
without arrangement, or any distinction of parts:
a vast collection of indescribably confused materials,
of nameless entities strangely mixed; and wonderfully
well expressed by an ancient heathen poet:-
Ante mare et terras, et, quod tegit omnia, caelum,
Unus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe, Quem dixere
Chaos; rudis indigestaque moles, Nec quicquam nisi
pondus iners; congestaque eodem Non bene junctarum
discordia semina rerum. OVID.
Before the seas and this terrestrial ball, And
heaven's high canopy that covers all, One was the face
of nature, if a face; Rather, a rude and indigested
mass; A lifeless lump, unfashion'd and unframed, Of
jarring seeds, and justly Chaos named. DRYDEN.
The most ancient of the Greeks have spoken nearly in
the same way of this crude, indigested state of the
primitive chaotic mass.
When this congeries of elementary principles was
brought together, God was pleased to spend six days in
assimilating, assorting, and arranging the materials,
out of which he built up, not only the earth, but the
whole of the solar system.
The spirit of
God
This has been variously and
strangely understood. Some think a violent wind
is meant, because , ruach often signifies
wind, as well as spirit, as (οις),
, does
in Greek; and the term God is connected with it
merely, as they think, to express the superlative
degree. Others understand by it an elementary
fire. Others, the sun, penetrating and drying
up the earth with his rays. Others, the angels,
who were supposed to have been employed as agents
in creation. Others, a certain occult principle,
termed the anima mundi or soul of the
world. Others, a magnetic attraction, by
which all things were caused to gravitate to a common
centre. But it is sufficiently evident from the use of
the word in other places, that the Holy Spirit of God is
intended; which our blessed Lord represents under the
notion of wind, John
3:8; and which, as a mighty rushing wind on
the day of pentecost, filled the house where the
disciples were sitting, Acts
2:2, which was immediately followed by their
speaking with other tongues, because they were filled
with the Holy Ghost, Acts
2:4. These scriptures sufficiently ascertain the
sense in which the word is used by Moses.
Moved
merachepheth, was brooding over; for
the word expresses that tremulous motion made by the hen
while either hatching her eggs or
fostering her young. It here probably signifies
the communicating a vital or prolific
principle to the waters. As the idea of
incubation, or hatching an egg, is implied in the
original word, hence probably the notion, which
prevailed among the ancients, that the world was
generated from an egg.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 3. And God said, Let
there be light
YEHI OR, vaihi
or. Nothing can be conceived more dignified than
this form of expression. It argues at once
uncontrollable authority, and omnific power; and in
human language it is scarcely possible to conceive that
God can speak more like himself. This passage, in the
Greek translation of the Septuagint, fell in the way of
Dionysius Longinus, one of the most judicious Greek
critics that ever lived, and who is highly celebrated
over the civilized world for a treatise he wrote,
entitled Ï€ÎµÏ Î¹Ï…ÏˆÎ¿Ï…Ï‚, Concerning the SUBLIME, both in
prose and poetry; of this passage, though a heathen, he
speaks in the following terms:-(οις),
"So likewise the Jewish
lawgiver (who was no ordinary man) having conceived a
just idea of the Divine power, he expressed it in a
dignified manner; for at the beginning of his laws he
thus speaks: GOD SAID-What? LET THERE BE LIGHT!
and there was light. LET THERE BE EARTH!
and there was earth."-Longinus, sect. ix.
edit. Pearce.
Many have asked, "How could light be produced on the
first day, and the sun, the fountain of
it, not created till the fourth day?" With the
various and often unphilosophical answers which have
been given to this question I will not meddle, but shall
observe that the original word signifies not only
light but fire, see Isaiah
31:9; Ezekiel
5:2. It is used for the SUN, ; Job
31:26. And for the electric fluid or
LIGHTNING, Job
37:3. And it is worthy of remark that It is used in
Isaiah
44:16, for the heat, derived from (
esh, the fire. He burneth part
thereof in the fire ( bemo esh:) yea, he
warmeth himself, and saith, Aha! I have seen the
fire, raithi ur, which a modern
philosopher who understood the language would not
scruple to translate, I have received caloric, or an
additional portion of the matter of heat. I
therefore conclude, that as God has diffused the matter
of caloric or latent heat through every
part of nature, without which there could be neither
vegetation nor animal life, that it is caloric or
latent heat which is principally intended by the
original word.
That there is latent light, which is probably
the same with latent heat, may be easily
demonstrated: take two pieces of smooth rock crystal,
agate, cornelian or flint, and rub them together briskly
in the dark, and the latent light or matter of caloric
will be immediately produced and become visible. The
light or caloric thus disengaged does not operate
in the same powerful manner as the heat or fire
which is produced by striking with flint and steel, or
that produced by electric friction. The existence
of this caloric-latent or primitive light,
may be ascertained in various other bodies; it can be
produced by the flint and steel, by rubbing two hard
sticks together, by hammering cold iron, which in a
short time becomes red hot, and by the strong and sudden
compression of atmospheric air in a tube. Friction in
general produces both fire and light. God
therefore created this universal agent on the first day,
because without It no operation of nature could be
carried on or perfected.
Light is one of the most astonishing productions of
the creative skill and power of God. It is the grand
medium by which all his other works are discovered,
examined, and understood, so far as they can be known.
Its immense diffusion and extreme velocity are alone
sufficient to demonstrate the being and wisdom of God.
Light has been proved by many experiments to travel at
the astonishing rate of 194,188 miles in one
second of time! and comes from the sun to the earth
in eight minutes 11 43/50 seconds, a
distance of 95,513,794 English miles.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 4. God divided the light
from the darkness.
This does not
imply that light and darkness are two
distinct substances, seeing darkness is only the
privation of light; but the words simply refer us
by anticipation to the rotation of the earth round its
own axis once in twenty-three hours, fifty-six
minutes, and four seconds, which is the cause
of the distinction between day and night, by bringing
the different parts of the surface of the earth
successively into and from under the solar rays; and it
was probably at this moment that God gave this rotation
to the earth, to produce this merciful provision of day
and night. For the manner in which light is
supposed to be produced, see Genesis
1:16, under the word sun.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 6. And God said, Let
there be a firmament
Our translators,
by following the firmamentum of the Vulgate,
which is a translation of the (οις),
of the
Septuagint, have deprived this passage of all sense and
meaning. The Hebrew word rakia, from raka,
to spread out as the curtains of a tent or
pavilion, simply signifies an expanse or
space, and consequently that circumambient space
or expansion separating the clouds, which are in the
higher regions of it, from the seas, below it. This we
call the atmosphere, the orb of atoms or
inconceivably small particles; but the word appears to
have been used by Moses in a more extensive sense, and
to include the whole of the planetary vortex, or the
space which is occupied by the whole solar
system.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 10. And God called the
dry land Earth; and the gathering together
of the waters called he Seas
These
two constitute what is called the terraqueous
globe, in which the earth and the water exist in a
most judicious proportion to each other. Dr. Long took
the papers which cover the surface of a seventeen inch
terrestrial globe, and having carefully separated the
land from the sea, be weighed the two collections of
papers accurately, and found that the sea papers weighed
three hundred and forty-nine grains, and the land papers
only one hundred and twenty-four; by which experiment it
appears that nearly three-fourths of the surface
of our globe, from the arctic to the antarctic polar
circles, are covered with water. The doctor did not
weigh the parts within the polar circles, because there
is no certain measurement of the proportion of land and
water which they contain. This proportion of
three-fourths water may be considered as too
great, if not useless; but Mr. Ray, by most accurate
experiments made on evaporation, has proved that it
requires so much aqueous surface to yield a
sufficiency of vapours for the purpose of cooling the
atmosphere, and watering the earth. See Ray's
Physico-theological Discourses.
An eminent chemist and philosopher, Dr.
Priestley, has very properly observed that it
seems plain that Moses considered the whole terraqueous
globe as being created in a fluid state, the
earthy and other particles of matter being mingled with
the water. The present form of the earth demonstrates
the truth of the Mosaic account; for it is well known
that if a soft or elastic globular body be rapidly
whirled round on its axis, the parts at the poles will
be flattened, and the parts on the equator, midway
between the north and south poles, will be raised up.
This is precisely the shape of our earth; it has the
figure of an oblate spheroid, a figure pretty
much resembling the shape of an orange. It has
been demonstrated by admeasurement that the earth is
flatted at the poles and raised at the equator. This was
first conjectured by Sir Isaac Newton, and afterwards
confirmed by M. Cassini and others, who measured several
degrees of latitude at the equator and near the north
pole, and found that the difference perfectly justified
Sir Isaac Newton's conjecture, and consequently
confirmed the Mosaic account. The result of the
experiments instituted to determine this point, proved
that the diameter of the earth at the equator is greater
by more than twenty-three and a half miles
than it is at the poles, allowing the polar
diameter to be 1/334th part shorter than the
equatorial, according to the recent
admeasurements of several degrees of latitude made by
Messrs. Mechain and Delambre.-L'Histoire des
Mathem. par M. de la Lande, tom. iv., part v.,
liv. 6.
And God saw that it was
good.
This is the judgment which God
pronounced on his own works. They were beautiful
and perfect in their kind, for such is the import
of the word tob. They were in weight and measure
perfect and entire, lacking nothing. But the reader will
think it strange that this approbation should be
expressed once on the first, fourth,
fifth, and sixth days; twice on the
third, and not at all on the second! I
suppose that the words, And God saw that it was
good, have been either lost from the conclusion of
the eighth verse, or that the clause in the tenth verse
originally belonged to the eighth. It appears, from the
Septuagint translation, that the words in question
existed originally at the close of the eighth verse, in
the copies which they used; for in that version we still
find, (οις),
And God saw that it was
good. This reading, however, is not acknowledged by
any of Kennicott's or De Rossi's MSS., nor by any of the
other versions. If the account of the second day stood
originally as it does now, no satisfactory reason can be
given for the omission of this expression of the Divine
approbation of the work wrought by his wisdom and power
on that day.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 11. Let the earth bring
forth grass-- herb--fruit-tree, .
In these general expressions all kinds of vegetable
productions are included. Fruit-tree is not to be
understood here in the restricted sense in which the
term is used among us; it signifies all trees, not only
those which bear fruit, which may be applied to the use
of men and cattle, but also those which had the power of
propagating themselves by seeds, to manifest himself in
the little as well as in the great, he has
shown his consummate wisdom in every part of the
vegetable creation. Who can account for, or
comprehend, the structure of a single tree or plant? The
roots, the stem, the woody fibres, the bark, the rind,
the air-vessels, the sap-vessels, the leaves, the
flowers, and the fruits, are so many mysteries. All the
skill, wisdom, and power of men and angels could not
produce a single grain of wheat: A serious and
reflecting mind can see the grandeur of God, not only in
the immense cedars on Lebanon, but also in the
endlessly varied forests that appear through the
microscope in the mould of cheese, stale paste,
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 12. Whose seed was in
itself
Which has the power of
multiplying itself by seeds, slips, roots, ad
infinitum; which contains in itself all the
rudiments of the future plant through its endless
generations. This doctrine has been abundantly confirmed
by the most accurate observations of the best modern
philosophers. The astonishing power with which God has
endued the vegetable creation to multiply its different
species, may be instanced in the seed of the elm.
This tree produces one thousand five
hundred and eighty-four millions of seeds;
and each of these seeds has the power of
producing the same number. How astonishing is
this produce! At first one seed is deposited in
the earth; from this one a tree springs, which in the
course of its vegetative life produces one thousand
five hundred and eighty-four millions of
seeds. This is the first generation. The
second generation will amount to two
trillions, five hundred and nine thousand and
fifty-six billions. The third generation
will amount to three thousand nine hundred and
seventy-four quadrillions, three hundred
and forty-four thousand seven hundred and four
trillions! And the fourth generation from
these would amount to six sextillions two hundred
and ninety-five thousand three hundred and
sixty-two quintillions, eleven thousand one
hundred and thirty-six quadrillions! Sums too
immense for the human mind to conceive; and, when we
allow the most confined space in which a tree can grow,
it appears that the seeds of the third generation
from one elm would be many myriads of times more
than sufficient to stock the whole superfices of all the
planets in the solar system! But plants multiply
themselves by slips as well as by seeds.
Sir Kenelm Digby saw in 1660 a plant of barley, in the
possession of the fathers of the Christian doctrine at
Paris, which contained 249 stalks springing from one
root or grain, and in which he counted upwards of 18,000
grains. See my experiments on Tilling in the
Methodist Magazine.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 14. And God said, Let
there be lights, .
One principal
office of these was to divide between day and night.
When night is considered a state of comparative
darkness, how can lights divide or distinguish
it? The answer is easy: The sun is the monarch of the
day, which is the state of light; the moon, of the
night, the state of darkness. The rays of the sun,
falling on the atmosphere, are refracted and diffused
over the whole of that hemisphere of the earth
immediately under his orb; while those rays of that vast
luminary which, because of the earth's smallness in
comparison of the sun, are diffused on all sides beyond
the earth, falling on the opaque disc of the moon, are
reflected back upon what may be called the lower
hemisphere, or that part of the earth which is opposite
to the part which is illuminated by the sun: and as the
earth completes a revolution on its own axis in about
twenty-four hours, consequently each hemisphere has
alternate day and night. But as the solar light
reflected from the face of the moon is computed to be
50,000 times less in intensity and effect than the light
of the sun as it comes directly from himself to our
earth, (for light decreases in its intensity as
the distance it travels from the sun increases,)
therefore a sufficient distinction is made between day
and night, or light and darkness, notwithstanding each
is ruled and determined by one of these two great
lights; the moon ruling the night, i.e., reflecting
from her own surface back on the earth the rays of light
which she receives from the sun. Thus both hemispheres
are to a certain degree illuminated: the one, on which
the sun shines, completely so; this is day: the
other, on which the sun's light is reflected by the
moon, partially; this is night. It is true that
both the planets and fixed stars afford a considerable
portion of light during the night, yet they cannot be
said to rule or to predominate by their light,
because their rays are quite lost in the superior
splendour of the moon's light.
And let them be for
signs
leothoth. Let them ever
be considered as continual tokens of God's tender care
for man, and as standing proofs of his continual
miraculous interference; for so the word
oth is often used. And is it not the almighty
energy of God that upholds them in being? The sun and
moon also serve as signs of the different changes
which take place in the atmosphere, and which are so
essential for all purposes of agriculture, commerce,
For seasons
moadim; For the determination of the times on
which the sacred festivals should be held. In
this sense the word frequently occurs; and it was right
that at the very opening of his revelation God should
inform man that there were certain festivals which
should be annually celebrated to his glory. Some think
we should understand the original word as signifying
months, for which purpose we know the moon
essentially serves through all the revolutions of time.
For days
Both the hours of the day and night, as well as the
different lengths of the days and nights, are
distinguished by the longer and shorter spaces of time
the sun is above or below the horizon.
And years.
That is, those grand divisions of time by which all
succession in the vast lapse of duration is
distinguished. This refers principally to a complete
revolution of the earth round the sun, which is
accomplished in 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 48
seconds; for though the revolution is that of the earth,
yet it cannot be determined but by the heavenly bodies.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 16. And God made two
great lights
Moses speaks of the sun
and moon here, not according to their bulk or
solid contents, but according to the
proportion of light they shed on the earth. The
expression has been cavilled at by some who are as
devoid of mental capacity as of candour. "The moon," say
they, "is not a great body; on the contrary, it
is the very smallest in our system." Well, and has Moses
said the contrary? He has said it is a great
LIGHT; had he said otherwise he had not spoken the
truth. It is, in reference to the earth, next to the sun
himself, the greatest light in the solar system;
and so true is it that the moon is a great light,
that it affords more light to the earth than all the
planets in the solar system, and all the innumerable
stars in the vault of heaven, put together. It is worthy
of remark that on the fourth day of the creation
the sun was formed, and then "first tried his beams
athwart the gloom profound;" and that at the conclusion
of the fourth millenary from the creation,
according to the Hebrew, the Sun of righteousness shone
upon the world, as deeply sunk in that mental darkness
produced by sin as the ancient world was, while teeming
darkness held the dominion, till the sun was created as
the dispenser of light. What would the natural world be
without the sun? A howling waste, in which neither
animal nor vegetable life could possibly be sustained.
And what would the moral world be without Jesus Christ,
and the light of his word and Spirit? Just what those
parts of it now are where his light has not yet shone:
"dark places of the earth, filled with the habitations
of cruelty," where error prevails without end, and
superstition, engendering false hopes and false fears,
degrades and debases the mind of man.
Many have supposed that the days of the
creation answer to so many thousands of years; and that
as God created all in six days, and rested the
seventh, so the world shall last six thousand
years, and the seventh shall be the eternal rest
that remains for the people of God. To this conclusion
they have been led by these words of the apostle, 2 Peter
3:8: One day is with the Lord as a thousand
years; and a thousand years as one day.
Secret things belong to God; those that are revealed to
us and our children.
He made the stars
also.
Or rather, He made the
lesser light, with the stars, to rule the
night. See Claudlan de Raptu PROSER., lib.
ii., v. 44.
Hic Hyperionis solem de semine nasci Fecerat, et
pariter lunam, sed dispare forma, Aurorae noctisque
duces.
From famed Hyperion did he cause to rise The sun, and
placed the moon amid the skies, With splendour robed,
but far unequal light, The radiant leaders of the day
and night.
OF THE SUN
On the nature of the sun there have been various
conjectures. It was long thought that he was a vast
globe of fire 1,384,462 times larger than the
earth, and that he was continually emitting from his
body innumerable millions of fiery particles,
which, being extremely divided, answered for the purpose
of light and heat without occasioning any
ignition or burning, except when collected
in the focus of a convex lens or burning glass. Against
this opinion, however, many serious and weighty
objections have been made; and it has been so pressed
with difficulties that philosophers have been obliged to
look for a theory less repugnant to nature and
probability. Dr. Herschel's discoveries by means of his
immensely magnifying telescopes, have, by the general
consent of philosophers, added a new habitable
world to our system, which is the SUN. Without
stopping to enter into detail, which would be
improper here, it is sufficient to say that these
discoveries tend to prove that what we call the
sun is only the atmosphere of that
luminary; "that this atmosphere consists of various
elastic fluids that are more or less lucid and
transparent; that as the clouds belonging to our earth
are probably decompositions of some of the elastic
fluids belonging to the atmosphere itself, so we may
suppose that in the vast atmosphere of the sun, similar
decompositions may take place, but with this difference,
that the decompositions of the elastic fluids of the sun
are of a phosphoric nature, and are attended by
lucid appearances, by giving out light." The body of the
sun he considers as hidden generally from us by means of
this luminous atmosphere, but what are called the
maculae or spots on the sun are real
openings in this atmosphere, through which the
opaque body of the sun becomes visible; that this
atmosphere itself is not fiery nor hot,
but is the instrument which God designed to act on the
caloric or latent heat; and that heat is only produced
by the solar light acting upon and combining with the
caloric or matter of fire contained in the air, and
other substances which are heated by it. This ingenious
theory is supported by many plausible reasons and
illustrations, which may be seen in the paper he read
before the Royal Society. On this subject See Clarke on
Genesis
1:3.
OF THE MOON
There is scarcely any doubt now remaining in the
philosophical world that the moon is a habitable
globe. The most accurate observations that have been
made with the most powerful telescopes have confirmed
the opinion. The moon seems, in almost every
respect, to be a body similar to our earth; to have its
surface diversified by hill and dale, mountains and
valleys, rivers, lakes, and seas. And there is the
fullest evidence that our earth serves as a moon to the
moon herself, differing only in this, that as the
earth's surface is thirteen times larger than the
moon's, so the moon receives from the earth a light
thirteen times greater in splendour than that
which she imparts to us; and by a very correct analogy
we are led to infer that all the planets and
their satellites, or attendant moons, are
inhabited, for matter seems only to exist for the
sake of intelligent beings.
OF THE STARS
The STARS in general are considered to be
suns, similar to that in our system, each having
an appropriate number of planets moving round it;
and, as these stars are innumerable, consequently there
are innumerable worlds, all dependent on the power,
protection, and providence of God. Where the stars are
in great abundance, Dr. Herschel supposes they form
primaries and secondaries, i.e., suns
revolving about suns, as planets revolve about
the sun in our system. He considers that this must be
the case in what is called the milky way, the
stars being there in prodigious quantity. Of this he
gives the following proof: On August 22,1792, he found
that in forty-one minutes of time not less than 258,000
stars had passed through the field of view in his
telescope. What must God be, who has made, governs, and
supports so many worlds! For the magnitudes,
distances, revolutions, , of the sun,
moon, planets, and their satellites,
see the preceding TABLES. See Clarke on Genesis
1:1.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 20. Let the waters bring
forth abundantly
There is a meaning
in these words which is seldom noticed. Innumerable
millions of animalcula are found in water. Eminent
naturalists have discovered not less than 30,000 in a
single drop! How inconceivably small must each be, and
yet each a perfect animal, furnished with the whole
apparatus of bones, muscles, nerves, heart, arteries,
veins, lungs, viscera in general, animal spirits,
the fecundity of fishes is another point
intended in the text; no creature's are so prolific as
these. A TENCH lay 1,000 eggs, a CARP 20,000, and
Leuwenhoek counted in a middling sized COD 9,384,000!
Thus, according to the purpose of God, the waters
bring forth abundantly. And what a merciful
provision is this for the necessities of man! Many
hundreds of thousands of the earth's inhabitants live
for a great part of the year on fish only. Fish
afford, not only a wholesome, but a very nutritive diet;
they are liable to few diseases, and generally come in
vast quantities to our shores when in their greatest
perfection. In this also we may see that the kind
providence of God goes hand in hand with his
creating energy. While he manifests his wisdom and his
power, he is making a permanent provision for the
sustenance of man through all his generations.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 21. And God created
great whales
hattanninim
haggedolim. Though this is generally understood by
the different versions as signifying whales, yet
the original must be understood rather as a
general than a particular term, comprising
all the great aquatic animals, such as the various
species of whales, the porpoise, the dolphin, the
monoceros or narwal, and the shark. God delights to show
himself in little as well as in great
things: hence he forms animals so minute that 30,000 can
be contained in one drop of water; and others so
great that they seem to require almost a whole
sea to float in.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 22. Let fowl multiply in
the earth.
It is truly astonishing
with what care, wisdom, and minute skill God has formed
the different genera and species of birds, whether
intended to live chiefly on land or in water. The
structure of a single feather affords a world of
wonders; and as God made the fowls that they might
fly in the firmament of heaven, Genesis
1:20, he has adapted the form of their
bodies, and the structure and disposition of their
plumage, for that very purpose. The head and neck in
flying are drawn principally within the breast-bone, so
that the whole under part exhibits the appearance of a
ship's hull. The wings are made use of as sails, or
rather oars, and the tail as a helm or rudder. By means
of these the creature is not only able to preserve the
centre of gravity, but also to go with vast speed
through the air, either straight forward, circularly, or
in any kind of angle, upwards or downwards. In these
also God has shown his skill and his power in the
great and in the little-in the vast
ostrich and cassowary, and In the
beautiful humming-bird, which in plumage excels
the splendour of the peacock, and in size is almost on a
level with the bee.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 24. Let the earth bring
forth the living creature,
nephesh
chaiyah; a general term to express all creatures
endued with animal life, in any of its infinitely varied
gradations, from the half-reasoning elephant down to the
stupid potto, or lower still, to the
polype, which seems equally to share the
vegetable and animal life. The word chaitho, in
the latter part of the verse, seems to signify all
wild animals, as lions, tigers,
carnivorous, or live on flesh, in
contradistinction from domestic animals, such as
are graminivorous, or live on grass and other
vegetables, and are capable of being tamed, and applied
to domestic purposes. See Clarke on Genesis
1:29. These latter are probably meant by
behemah in the text, which we translate cattle,
such as horses, kine, sheep, dogs, Creeping
thing, remes, all the different genera of
serpents, worms, and such animals as have no
feet. In beasts also God has shown his wondrous
skill and power; in the vast elephant, or still
more colossal mammoth or mastodon, the
whole race of which appears to be extinct, a few
skeletons only remaining. This animal, an astonishing
effect of God's power, he seems to have produced merely
to show what he could do, and after suffering a few of
them to propagate, he extinguished the race by a
merciful providence, that they might not destroy both
man and beast. The mammoth appears to have been a
carnivorous animal, as the structure of the teeth
proves, and of an immense size; from a considerable part
of a skeleton which I have seen, it is computed that the
animal to which it belonged must have been nearly
twenty-five feet high, and sixty in
length! The bones of one toe are entire; the toe upwards
of three feet in length. But this skeleton might have
belonged to the megalonyx, a kind of
sloth, or bradypus, hitherto unknown. Few
elephants have ever been found to exceed eleven feet in
height. How wondrous are the works of God! But his skill
and power are not less seen in the beautiful
chevrotin, or tragulus, a creature of the
antelope kind, the smallest of all bifid or
cloven-footed animals, whose delicate limbs are scarcely
so large as an ordinary goose quill; and also in the
shrew mouse, perhaps the smallest of the
many-toed quadrupeds. In the reptile kind we see
also the same skill and power, not only in the immense
snake called boa constrictor, the mortal
foe and conqueror of the royal tiger, but also in the
cobra de manille, a venomous serpent, only a
little larger than a common sewing needle.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 25. And God made the
beast of the earth after his kind,
.
Every thing both in the animal
and vegetable world was made so according to its
kind, both in genus and species, as to
produce its own kind through endless generations.
Thus the several races of animals and plants have been
kept distinct from the foundation of the world to the
present day. This is a proof that all future generations
of plants and animals have been seminally included in
those which God formed in the beginning.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 26. And God said, Let us
make man
It is evident that God
intends to impress the mind of man with a sense of
something extraordinary in the formation of his body and
soul, when he introduces the account of his creation
thus; Let US make man. The word Adam, which we translate
man, is intended to designate the species
of animal, as chaitho, marks the wild
beasts that live in general a solitary life;
behemah, domestic or gregarious animals; and
remes, all kinds of reptiles, from the
largest snake to the microscopic eel. Though the same
kind of organization may be found in man as appears in
the lower animals, yet there is a variety and
complication in the parts, a delicacy of structure, a
nice arrangement, a judicious adaptation of the
different members to their great offices and functions,
a dignity of mien, and a perfection of the whole, which
are sought for in vain in all other creatures. See Genesis
3:22.
In our image, after our
likeness
What is said above refers
only to the body of man, what is here said refers
to his soul. This was made in the image
and likeness of God. Now, as the Divine Being is
infinite, he is neither limited by parts, nor definable
by passions; therefore he can have no corporeal
image after which he made the body of man. The image
and likeness must necessarily be intellectual; his mind,
his soul, must have been formed after the nature and
perfections of his God. The human mind is still endowed
with most extraordinary capacities; it was more so when
issuing out of the hands of its Creator. God was now
producing a spirit, and a spirit, too, formed after the
perfections of his own nature. God is the fountain
whence this spirit issued, hence the stream must
resemble the spring which produced it. God is holy,
just, wise, good, and perfect; so must the soul be that
sprang from him: there could be in it nothing impure,
unjust, ignorant, evil, low, base, mean, or vile. It was
created after the image of God; and that image, St. Paul
tells us, consisted in righteousness, true
holiness, and knowledge, Ephesians
4:24; Colossians
3:10. Hence man was wise in his mind,
holy in his heart, and righteous in
his actions. Were even the word of God silent on
this subject, we could not infer less from the lights
held out to us by reason and common sense. The text
tells us he was the work of ELOHIM, the Divine
Plurality, marked here more distinctly by the plural
pronouns US and OUR; and to show that he was the
masterpiece of God's creation, all the persons in the
Godhead are represented as united in counsel and effort
to produce this astonishing creature.
Gregory Nyssen has very properly observed that
the superiority of man to all other parts of creation is
seen in this, that all other creatures are represented
as the effect of God's word, but man is
represented as the work of God, according to plan
and consideration: Let US make MAN in
our IMAGE, after our LIKENESS. See his Works,
vol. i., p. 52, c. 3.
And let them have
dominion
Hence we see that the
dominion was not the image. God created
man capable of governing the world, and when fitted for
the office, he fixed him in it. We see God's tender care
and parental solicitude for the comfort and well-being
of this masterpiece of his workmanship, in creating the
world previously to the creation of man. He prepared
every thing for his subsistence, convenience, and
pleasure, before he brought him into being; so that,
comparing little with great things, the house was built,
furnished, and amply stored, by the time the destined
tenant was ready to occupy it.
It has been supposed by some that God speaks here to
the angels, when he says, Let us make man; but to
make this a likely interpretation these persons must
prove, 1. That angels were then created. 2. That angels
could assist in a work of creation. 3. That angels were
themselves made in the image and likeness of God. If
they were not, it could not be said, in OUR
image, and it does not appear from any part in
the sacred writings that any creature but man was
made in the image of God. See Clarke on Psalms
8:5.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 28. And God blessed
them
Marked them as being under his
especial protection, and gave them power to propagate
and multiply their own kind on the earth. A large volume
would be insufficient to contain what we know of
the excellence and perfection of man, even in his
present degraded fallen state. Both his body and soul
are adapted with astonishing wisdom to their
residence and occupations; and also the
place of their residence, as well as the
surrounding objects, in their diversity, colour, and
mutual relations, to the mind and body of this lord of
the creation. The contrivance, arrangement, action, and
re-action of the different parts of the body, show the
admirable skill of the wondrous Creator; while the
various powers and faculties of the mind, acting on and
by the different organs of this body, proclaim the
soul's Divine origin, and demonstrate that he who
was made in the image and likeness of God, was a
transcript of his own excellency, destined to know,
love, and dwell with his Maker throughout eternity.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 29. I have given you
every herb-for meat.
It seems from
this, says an eminent philosopher, that man was
originally intended to live upon vegetables only;
and as no change was made In the structure of men's
bodies after the flood, it is not probable that any
change was made in the articles of their food. It may
also be inferred from this passage that no animal
whatever was originally designed to prey on others; for
nothing is here said to be given to any beast of the
earth besides green herbs.-Dr. Priestley.
Before sin entered into the world, there could be, at
least, no violent deaths, if any death at all.
But by the particular structure of the teeth of animals
God prepared them for that kind of aliment which they
were to subsist on after the FALL.
• AC Top â € ¢
SRB
JFB
OU
COG
Verse 31. And, behold, it
was very good.
tob meod,
Superlatively, or only good; as good as
they could be. The plan wise, the work well executed,
the different parts properly arranged; their nature,
limits, mode of existence, manner of propagation,
habits, mode of sustenance, permanently established and
secured; for every thing was formed to the utmost
perfection of its nature, so that nothing could be added
or diminished without encumbering the operations of
matter and spirit on the one hand, or rendering them
inefficient to the end proposed on the other; and God
has so done all these marvellous works as to be
glorified in all, by all, and
through all.
And the evening and the
morning were the sixth day.
The word
ereb, which we translate evening, comes from the
root arab, to mingle; and properly
signifies that state in which neither absolute
darkness nor full light prevails. It has
nearly the same grammatical signification with our
twilight, the time that elapses from the setting
of the sun till he is eighteen degrees below the horizon
and the last eighteen degrees before he arises. Thus we
have the morning and evening twilight, or mixture
of light and darkness, in which neither prevails,
because, while the sun is within eighteen degrees of the
horizon, either after his setting or before his rising,
the atmosphere has power to refract the rays of light,
and send them back on the earth. The Hebrews extended
the meaning of this term to the whole duration of night,
because it was ever a mingled state, the moon,
the planets, or the stars, tempering the darkness with
some rays of light. From the ereb of Moses came
the ÎµÏ ÎµÎ²Î¿Ï‚ Erebus, of Hesiod, Aristophanes, and
other heathens, which they deified and made, with
Nox or night, the parent of all things.
The morning- boker; From bakar,
he looked out; a beautiful figure which
represents the morning as looking out at
the east, and illuminating the whole of the upper
hemisphere.
The evening and the morning were the sixth
day.-It is somewhat remarkable that through the
whole of this chapter, whenever the division of days is
made, the evening always precedes the morning. The
reason of this may perhaps be, that darkness was
pre-existent to light, 1:2,
And darkness was upon the face of the deep,) and
therefore time is reckoned from the first act of God
towards the creation of the world, which took place
before light was called forth into existence. It is very
likely for this same reason, that the Jews began their
day at six o'clock in the evening in imitation of
Moses's division of time in this chapter. Caesar
in his Commentaries makes mention of the same
peculiarity existing among the Gauls: Galli se omnes
ab Dite patre prognatas praedicant: idque ab
Druidibus proditum dicunt: ab eam causam spatia
omnis temporis, non numero dierum, sed noctium,
finiunt; et dies natales, et mensium et annorum
initia sic observant, ut noctem dies
subsequatur; De Bell. Gall. lib. vi. Tacitus
likewise records the same of the Germans: Nec dierum
numerum, ut nos, sed noctium computant: sic
constituent, sic condicunt, nox ducere diem
videtur; De Mor. Germ. sec. ii. And there are to
this day some remains of the same custom in England, as
for instance in the word se'nnight and
fortnight. See also Aeschyl. Agamem. ver.
273,287.
Thus ends a chapter containing the most extensive,
most profound, and most sublime truths that can possibly
come within the reach of the human intellect. How
unspeakably are we indebted to God for giving us a
revelation of his WILL and of his WORKS! Is it possible
to know the mind of God but from himself? It is
impossible. Can those things and services which are
worthy of and pleasing to an infinitely pure, perfect,
and holy Spirit, be ever found out by reasoning
and conjecture? Never! for the Spirit of God
alone can know the mind of God; and by this Spirit he
has revealed himself to man; and in this revelation has
taught him, not only to know the glories and perfections
of the Creator, but also his own origin, duty, and
interest. Thus far it was essentially necessary that God
should reveal his WILL; but if he had not given a
revelation of his WORKS, the origin, constitution, and
nature of the universe could never have been adequately
known. The world by wisdom knew not God; this is
demonstrated by the writings of the most learned and
intelligent heathens. They had no just, no rational
notion of the origin and design of the universe. Moses
alone, of all ancient writers, gives a consistent and
rational account of the creation; an account which has
been confirmed by the investigation of the most accurate
philosophers. But where did he learn this? "In
Egypt." That is impossible; for the Egyptians themselves
were destitute of this knowledge. The remains we have of
their old historians, all posterior to the time of
Moses, are egregious for their contradictions and
absurdity; and the most learned of the Greeks who
borrowed from them have not been able to make out, from
their conjoint stock, any consistent and credible
account. Moses has revealed the mystery that lay hid
from all preceding ages, because he was taught it by
the inspiration of the Almighty. READER, thou
hast now before thee the most ancient and most authentic
history in the world; a history that contains the first
written discovery that God has made of himself to
man-kind; a discovery of his own being, in his
wisdom, power, and goodness, in
which thou and the whole human race are so
intimately concerned. How much thou art indebted to him
for this discovery he alone can teach thee, and cause
thy heart to feel its obligations to his wisdom and
mercy. Read so as to understand, for these things
were written for thy learning; therefore mark
what thou readest, and inwardly digest-deeply and
seriously meditate on, what thou hast marked, and
pray to the Father of lights that he may open thy
understanding, that thou mayest know these holy
Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto
salvation.
God made thee and the universe, and governs all
things according to the counsel of his will; that will
is infinite goodness, that counsel is unerring wisdom.
While under the direction of this counsel, thou canst
not err; while under the influence of this will, thou
canst not be wretched. Give thyself up to his teaching,
and submit to his authority; and, after guiding thee
here by his counsel, he will at last bring thee
to his glory. Every object that meets thy eye should
teach thee reverence, submission, and gratitude. The
earth and its productions were made for thee; and
the providence of thy heavenly Father, infinitely
diversified in its operations, watches over and provides
for thee. Behold the firmament of his power, the sun,
moon, planets, and stars, which he has formed, not for
himself, for he needs none of these things, but for his
intelligent offspring. What endless gratification has he
designed thee in placing within thy reach these
astonishing effects of his wisdom and power, and in
rendering thee capable of searching out their wonderful
relations and connections, and of knowing himself, the
source of all perfection, by having made thee in his own
image, and in his own likeness! It is true thou
art fallen; but he has found out a ransom. God so
loved thee in conjunction with the world that he gave
his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. Believe on
HIM; through him alone cometh salvation; and the
fair and holy image of God in which thou wast created
shall be again restored; he will build thee up as at the
first, restore thy judges and counsellors as at the
beginning, and in thy second creation, as in thy first,
will pronounce thee to be very good, and thou
shalt show forth the virtues of him by whom thou art
created anew in Christ Jesus. Amen.
• Key
|
SRB = Scofield References
