The Holy Bible, or Book, is so called by way of eminency, as it is the best book that ever was written. The great things of God’s law and gospel are here written, that they might be reduced to a greater certainty, might spread farther, remain longer, and be transmitted to distant places and ages, more pure and entire than possibly they could be by tradition. That part of the Bible which we call the Old Testament, contains the acts and monuments of the church from the creation, almost to the coming of Christ in the flesh, which was about four thousand years: the truths then revealed, the laws enacted, the prophecies given, and the chief events that concerned the church. This is called a testament or covenant, because it was a declaration of the will of God concerning man in a federal way, and had its force from the designed death of the great testator, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, Revelation 13:8-‘Tis called the Old Testament with relation to the New, which doth not cancel, but crown and perfect it, by bringing in that better hope which was typified and foretold in it. This part of the Old Testament we call the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses. These books were, probably, the first that ever were written; for we have no mention of any writing in all the book of Genesis, nor ‘till God bid Moses write, Exodus 17:14. and set him his copy in the writing of the ten commandments upon the tables of stone. However, we are sure these books are the most ancient writings now extant. The first of these, which we call Genesis, Moses probably wrote in the wilderness, after he had been in the mount with God. And as he framed the tabernacle, so he did the more excellent and durable fabric of this book, according to the pattern shewed him in the mount: into which it is better to resolve the certainty of the things herein contained, than into any tradition which possibly might be handed down to the family of Jacob.-Genesis is a name borrowed from the Greek: it signifies the original or generation: fitly is this book so called, for it is a history of originals; the creation of the world, the entrance of sin and death into it, the invention of arts, the rise of nations, and especially the planting of the church, and the state of it in its early days. ‘Tis also a history of generations, the generations of Adam, Noah, Abraham, &c.-The beginning of the New Testament is called Genesis too, Matthew 1:1, the book of the Genesis, or generation of Jesus Christ. Lord, open our eyes, that we may see the wondrous things both of thy law and gospel!
Adam Clarke
Preface to the Book of Genesis
CLA_GEN.PDF, source PDF p. 3
PREFACE TO THE BOOK OF GENESIS
EVERY believer in Divine revelation finds himself amply justified in taking for granted that the Pentateuch is the work of Moses. For more than 3000 years this has been the invariable opinion of those who were best qualified to form a correct judgment on this subject. The Jewish Church, from its most remote antiquity, has ascribed the work to no other hand; and the Christian Church, from its foundation, has attributed it to the Jewish lawgiver alone. The most respectable heathens have concurred in this testimony, and Jesus Christ and his apostles have completed the evidence, and have put the question beyond the possibility of being doubted by those who profess to believe the Divine authenticity of the New Testament. As to those who, in opposition to all these proofs, obstinately persist in their unbelief, they are worthy of little regard, as argument is lost on their unprincipled prejudices, and demonstration on their minds, because ever wilfully closed against the light. When they have proved that Moses is not the author of this work, the advocates of Divine revelation will reconsider the grounds of their faith.
That there are a few things in the Pentateuch which seem to have been added by a later hand there can be little doubt; among these some have reckoned, perhaps without reason, the following passage, Genesis 12:6: “And the Canaanite was then in the land”; but see the note on this place. Numbers 21:14, “In the book of the wars of the Lord,” was probably a marginal note, which in process of time got into the text; see the note on this passage also. To these may be added the five first verses of Deuteronomy, chap. i; the twelfth of chap. ii; and the eight concluding verses of the last chapter, in which we have an account of the death of Moses. These last words could not have been added by Moses himself, but are very probably the work of Ezra, by whom, according to uninterrupted tradition among the Jews, the various books which constitute the canon of the Old Testament were collected and arranged, and such expository notes added as were essential to connect the different parts; but as he acted under Divine inspiration, the additions may be considered of equal authority with the text. A few other places might be added, but they are of little importance, and are mentioned in the notes.
The book of GENESIS, Γενεσις, has its name from the title it bears in the Septuagint, Βιβλος Γενεσεως, (Genesis 2:4,) which signifies the book of the Generation; but it is called in Hebrew בראשית Bereshith, “In the beginning,” from its initial word. It is the most ancient history in the world; and, from the great variety of its singular details and most interesting accounts, is as far superior in its value and importance to all others, as it is in its antiquity. This book contains an account of the creation of the world, and its first inhabitants; the original innocence and fall of man; the rise of religion; the invention of arts; the general corruption and degeneracy of mankind; the universal deluge; the repeopling and division of the earth; the origin of nations and kingdoms; and a particular history of the patriarchs from Adam down to the death of Joseph; including a space, at the lowest computation, of 2369 years.
It may be asked how a detail so circumstantial and minute could have been preserved when there was no writing of any kind, and when the earth, whose history is here given, had already existed more than 2000 years. To this inquiry a very satisfactory answer may be given. There are only three ways in which these important records could have been preserved and brought down to the time of Moses: viz., writing, tradition, and Divine revelation. In the antediluvian world, when the life of man was so protracted, there was comparatively little need for writing of any kind, and perhaps no alphabetical writing then existed. Tradition answered every purpose to which writing in any kind of characters could be subservient; and the necessity of erecting monuments to perpetuate public events could scarcely have suggested itself, as during those times there could be little danger apprehended of any important fact becoming obsolete, as its history had to pass through very few hands, and all these friends and relatives in the most proper sense of the terms; for they lived in an insulated state under a patriarchal government.
Thus it was easy for Moses to be satisfied of the truth of all he relates in the book of Genesis, as the accounts came to him through the medium of very few persons. From Adam to Noah there was but one man necessary to the correct transmission of the history of this period of 1656 years. Now this history was, without doubt, perfectly known to Methuselah, who lived to see them both. In like manner Shem connected Noah and Abraham, having lived to converse with both; as Isaac did with Abraham and Joseph, from whom these things might be easily conveyed to Moses by Amram, who was contemporary with Joseph. See the plate, chap. 11. Supposing, then, all the curious facts recorded in the book of Genesis had no other authority than the tradition already referred to, they would stand upon a foundation of credibility superior to any that the most reputable of the ancient Greek and Latin historians can boast. Yet to preclude all possibility of mistake, the unerring Spirit of God directed Moses in the selection of his facts and the ascertaining of his dates. Indeed, the narrative is so simple, so much like truth, so consistent everywhere with itself, so correct in its dates, so impartial in its biography, so accurate in its philosophical details, so pure in its morality, and so benevolent in its design, as amply to demonstrate that it never could have had an earthly origin. In this case, also, Moses constructed every thing according to the pattern which God showed him in the mount.
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.
Joseph Benson
Argument
BEN_VOL1.PDF, source PDF p. 21
THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES, CALLED
GENESIS.
ARGUMENT.
IT may not be improper to observe, before we enter on the work of illustrating the Sacred Volume, that the Holy Scriptures, or Holy Writings, are termed the BIBLE, or Book, (from the Greek Βιβλος by way of eminence, as they constitute the best book that ever was written. The great things of God’s law and gospel are here recorded, that they might be reduced to a greater certainty, might spread farther, remain longer, and be transmitted to distant places and ages more pure and entire, than possibly they could be by tradition. That part of the Bible which we call the OLD TESTAMENT contains the acts and monuments of the church of God from the creation almost to the coming of Christ in the flesh, which was about four thousand years: the truths then revealed, the laws enacted, the prophecies given, and the chief events that concerned the church. This is called a Testament, or Covenant, because it was a declaration of the will of God concerning man in a federal way, and had its force from the designed death of the great Testator, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” Revelation 13:8. It is called the Old Testament with relation to the New, which doth not cancel, but crown and perfect it, by bringing in that better hope which was typified and foretold in it.
This part of the Old Testament we call the PENTATEUCH, or five-fold volume, because it contains the five books of Moses. These books were, probably, the first that ever were written; for we hear no mention of any writing in all the book of Genesis, nor till God bid Moses write, Exodus 17:14. However, we are sure these books are the most ancient writings extant. The first of them, named in the Hebrew, from the first word, Bereshith, but which we call Genesis, Moses probably wrote either while he was a shepherd in Midian, or rather, after he had been on the mount with God. And as he framed the tabernacle, so he did the more excellent and durable frame of this book, according to the pattern shown him in the mount; into which it is better to resolve the certainty of the things contained therein, than into any tradition that might be handed down to the family of Jacob. GENESIS is a name borrowed from the Greek: it signifies the original, or generation. Fitly is this book so called; for it is a narrative of originals and generations: the creation of all things; the original happiness and fall of mankind; the entrance of sin and death into the world; the fate of Adam and his posterity before the flood; the general corruption of the human race, and the deluge sent to punish it; the preservation of Noah and his family in the ark, and their repeopling the earth; the invention of arts, the rise of nations, and the confounding of languages; and especially the planting of the church, and the state of it in its early days, with God’s marvellous providences toward the families of Lot and Nahor, of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and their improvement of the same. In short, it contains a divinely-inspired, and therefore perfectly authentic history of the great and surprising events of two thousand three hundred and sixty-nine years. The beginning of the New Testament is also called GENESIS, Matthew 1:1: “The Book of the GENESIS, or GENERATION, of Jesus Christ.” Lord, open thou our eyes, that we may see the wondrous things of thy LAW and GOSPEL!
Joseph Sutcliffe
The First Book of Moses, Called Genesis.
SUT_VOL1.PDF, source PDF p. 14
Editorial note: Additional printed-edition collation — Sutcliffe, vol. 1 (1834): The printed Genesis introduction confirms בראשית and Γενεσις in their present sequence. The target readings are retained. SUT_VOL1.PDF, PDF page 14; Sutcliffe, printed Commentary, vol. 1 (1834), p. 9.
THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES,
CALLED GENESIS.
GENESIS, Γενεσις, generation, so called by the LXX, because it recites the Generation or Creation of the Heavens and the Earth; of Man, and of the animal and vegetable kingdom. The Hebrews give no distinctive title to their sacred Books, but distinguish them, as we do psalms and hymns, by the first word, phrase or sentence. The Genesis they call בראשית BERESHITH, In the Beginning; this being the initial word of the book. In the Arabic it is called “The Book of God.” In addition to the account of the creation, it details the fall of man, the promise of redemption, the depravity and destruction of the antediluvians, the preservation of Noah, the introduction of idolatry, the call of Abraham; and brings down the history of the world to the death of Joseph; comprising the whole of the Patriarchal dispensation, which extended to the year of the world 2369 and before Christ 1635 years. It comes down to us undisputed as the most ancient of all records. The Egyptians, the Chinese, the Siamese, the Hindoos, have nothing that can rival its antiquity.
Daniel Whedon
Introduction.
WHD_CO01.PDF, source PDF p. 43
Editorial note: Source collation note — paragraph 48: “appeared to the patriarchs באל שדי, in elshaddai, that is”. paragraph 63: “was? the hebrew is כל אשר בם, all which — in them”. paragraph 65: “show that the words שמים and ארץ, heavens and earth, into”. source PDF page 47: “appeared to the patriarchs שדי באל in El-Shaddai, that is,”. source PDF page 59: “was? The Hebrew is בם אשר כל all which in them.”. source PDF page 60: “show that the words שמים and ארצ heavens and earth, into”. Compared with WHD_CO01.PDF PDF p. 43, WHD_CO01.PDF PDF p. 47, WHD_CO01.PDF PDF p. 59, WHD_CO01.PDF PDF p. 60. The source-font or layout comparison does not securely establish every letter, mark or local sequence in these passages. The flagged language readings or layout are retained; the original source pages should be consulted for these specific readings. Additional-source investigation: an automated comparison of surrounding English text located possible corresponding passages in OCR from separately digitized printed volumes. The linked scan pages are research locators; their images have not been collated for this note's flagged readings. OCR agreement does not verify Greek or Hebrew letters, diacritics, word order, or table layout. The flagged readings or layout remain uncertain. WHD_CO01.PDF, PDF page 43; WHD_CO01.PDF, PDF page 47; WHD_CO01.PDF, PDF page 59; WHD_CO01.PDF, PDF page 60; Additional printed-scan page locator (OCR context only; flagged reading unverified); Additional printed-scan page locator (OCR context only; flagged reading unverified); Additional printed-scan page locator (OCR context only; flagged reading unverified).
GENESIS
INTRODUCTION.
Contents and Plan.
THE Book of Genesis lies at the basis of the Old Testament revelation, and assumes to be a record of the beginnings of human history. It consists of a series of records, arranged in a well-defined order, and exhibiting a unity and finish which prove it to have proceeded from one constructive mind. In Genesis 1:1-2:3, we have an account of the creative BEGINNING — the formation of the heavens and land, the seas, and the various classes of living creatures. This introductory narrative is followed by ten sections of varying length, each beginning with the heading, “These are the generations,” (תולדות.) The plan of the writer appears to have been, first, to describe the miraculous preparation of the sky, soil, animal tribes, and visible environments of the first man, Adam, and then to trace, from that beginning, his outgrowth and development through ten notable evolutions. The outline is as follows:
1. Here is a well defined plan, which shows that the book is no patchwork of fragments, but a carefully digested whole. The narrative of creation is so symmetrical in its construction as to be conspicuously artificial. The work of the six days is divisible into two corresponding orders:
1. Light..
2. Expanse of heaven.
3. Dry land.
4. Luminaries
5. Fowls of heaven, and living things of the waters
6. Living creatures of the land, and man.
2. We notice, next, that the first outgrowths or developments of this creation are called “generations of the heavens and of the earth,” (Genesis 2:4.) The starting point, or conceptual position of the writer, is, “a day of Jehovah-God’s making land and heavens,” when as yet no plant or herb of the new creation had begun to grow; no rain had yet fallen on that new soil, and no man to till it had yet appeared. It appears, therefore, that, at the beginning of this new section, the writer goes back in thought to the morning of the sixth day of the creative week already described. The day of Genesis 2:4, is not the whole creative week, as many suppose, for the writer is not thus careless in his use of words. It is the terminus a quo of the “generations” about to be described, the day on which, according to verse 5, the Edenic growths began, and the first human pair were brought together. Man was formed of the dust of the soil, and became (ויהי) a living soul by the breath of Jehovah-God. His formation, be it observed, is thus conceived as a generation, or birth, produced from the heavens and the land by the breath of God. A garden was planted in the eastern part of Eden to receive the man, and then the woman was formed from the man — another step in the process of these generations. Then follows the narrative of the fall, showing how primeval man was of the earth and earthy, (1 Corinthians 15:47,) and by disobedience lost his original relation to God. The first generations ran to violence and crime, and became more and more degenerate until Seth was born, and with him the history takes a new departure.
3. “The book of the generations of Adam” (Genesis 5:1) is not a record of Adam’s origin, for his birth and earliest progeny have already been conceived and treated as a generation out of the heavens and the earth by the breath of Jehovah-God. This next book of generations takes up the line of Seth, who was introduced in the previous section, (Genesis 4:25,) and looked upon as a substitute for the pious Abel. But the race again deteriorates, and the land is filled with violence.
4. “The generations of Noah” (Genesis 6:9) is the title of the section which narrates the great event of the latter part of Noah’s life, the judgment of the Deluge, in which he and his family were preserved, and the rest of mankind were wiped off from the face of the earth.
5. “The generations of Noah’s sons” (Genesis 10:1) is a table of the families and nations by whom the earth was peopled after the flood — a most ancient and venerable document, worth more for historical purposes than any oriental inscription yet deciphered.
6. Next follows the table of the generations of Shem, a succinct genealogy, (Genesis 11:10-26,) which serves to introduce us to the great ancestor of the chosen people by tracing the line of Shem down to Terah, the father of Abraham.
7. “The generations of Terah” extend to those of Ishmael, and comprise the great events of the life of Abraham.
8. The generations of Ishmael are briefly sketched, (Genesis 25:12-18,) as having no considerable importance in the author’s plan.
9. The generations of Isaac (Genesis 25:19) extend to the death of that patriarch, and include the history of Jacob and Esau to the time when the former had returned from Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan, and the latter had fixed his abode in Mount Seir.
10. The generations of Esau are next given, including his wives, his sons, and the dukes and kings who traced their lineage to him.
11. “The generations of Jacob” is the title of the last great section of the book, (beginning at Genesis 32:2,) giving in much detail the events of Jacob’s later life, the history of Joseph, the conduct and character of the fathers of the twelve tribes, and their settlement in Egypt. The patriarch’s dying prophecy (chap. 49) reveals to his sons a vivid picture of what shall befall them in after times.
It will be noticed that the length of these several sections is in proportion to their relative importance in a history which lies at the basis of God’s self-revelation to his chosen people. After the opening narrative of the creation, each series of generations goes back and attaches itself to a name or character introduced to us in the preceding section. Again and again the history, darkened by the growth and power of human wickedness, fastens upon a divinely chosen name, and from it takes a new departure. With each new departure some fresh hope or promise is given, or some great purpose of God is brought to light. While the tendency of the race is to grow worse and worse, there appears also the unwavering purpose of the Almighty to choose out and maintain a holy seed, and thus the Book of Genesis presents itself to us as an essential part of the history of redemption.
Use of the Names Elohim and Jehovah.
Of the authorship of Genesis, and the probable use of various documents and traditions in its composition, we have already sufficiently treated in discussing the Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch. But the peculiar use of the two divine names, ELOHIM and JEHOVAH, deserves some further notice. In the first section of the book, (Genesis 1:1-2:3,) which treats of the creative beginning, the name Elohim alone occurs; in the next (Genesis 2:4-4:26) the double name Jehovah-Elohim is principally used; but Elohim occurs in the conversation between Eve and the serpent, (Genesis 3:1-5,) and in Eve’s words at the birth of Seth, (Genesis 4:25;) and Jehovah alone is used elsewhere in chap. 4. In the “book of the generations of Adam” (Genesis 5:1-6:8) the use of Elohim prevails, but Jehovah occurs at Genesis 5:29, and at Genesis 6:3, 6-8. In the section devoted to the generations of Noah, (Genesis 6:9-9:29,) which contains the account of the flood, Elohim prevails almost exclusively, but Jehovah occurs seven times, namely, at Genesis 7:1, 5, 16; 8:20, 21, (bis;) 9:26. In the generations of Noah’s sons (Genesis 10:1-11:9) Jehovah is used exclusively, but the name occurs only in connexion with Nimrod (Genesis 10:9) and the tower of Babel, (Genesis 11:5-9.) In the generations of Shem, (Genesis 11:10-26,) Ishmael, (Genesis 25:12-18,) and Esau (36) no divine name occurs, but the history of Abraham, which is given under the generations of Terah, (Genesis 11:27-25:11,) is mainly Jehovistic, although Elohim and other divine names repeatedly appear, (Elohim especially in chaps. 17, 20, 21, and 22,) and the histories of Isaac and Jacob, which take up the latter half of the Book of Genesis, are mainly Elohistic. After the beginning of Abraham’s history, however, the interchange of names frequently appears, and the exclusive use of either Elohim or Jehovah in any given section is not particularly noticeable.
The critics have essayed to make a great deal more out of these names than a careful examination of their usage warrants. Outside of the first two sections, the numerous variations and the frequent interchange of one for the other are such as to cast doubt upon the current theories of Elohistic and Jehovistic sources. But the uniform use of Elohim in chaps. 1-2:3, and of Jehovah-Elohim in chap. 2, is certainly notable. When, however, we observe that the symmetrical form of statements in narrating the successive works of the six days in chap. i required the use of the same name, it is evident that any change would have been more remarkable than the uniformity, and no reason would appear to account for it. On this view the change of divine names in the first and second sections becomes of less note.
Two methods of solution have been put forward. One maintains that this diversity of names is due to the use of different written documents in the compilation of the Book of Genesis. The Elohist sections are assumed to have been written by one who never used the name Jehovah, and was, indeed, ignorant of it. This view has in itself much plausibility, and receives strength from Exodus 6:3, compared with Exodus 3:13-15. But a strict exegesis of the passages in Exodus will not sustain the position that the name Jehovah was unknown as a divine title, or a designation of God, before the time of Moses. The thought is, rather, that the significance of the name Jehovah had not been revealed before. Moreover, it is not said or implied that even Elohim had been known before, but Jehovah is represented as saying to Moses that he had appeared to the patriarchs באל שדי, in El-Shaddai, that is, in the character of El-Shaddai, or God Almighty. What titles or designations and names of Deity had been in use before the time of Moses is not the point in question, and for aught that appears Jehovah is as ancient a name as Elohim. Fair criticism also requires us to allow a writer the benefit of his own explanations, and nothing is more apparent than that the writer of the Pentateuch, whoever he was and whenever he lived, understood that the name Jehovah was in use long before the time of Moses. Abraham called the place where he was about to offer Isaac Jehovah-jireh, (Genesis 22:14,) and, as far back as the birth of Seth, men called on the name of Jehovah. Genesis 4:26. It is therefore both unnecessary and unfair to force upon Exodus 6:3, a meaning which is inconsistent with other parts of the patriarchal history, and which the writer himself evidently did not understand as involving such inconsistency. Another and all-sufficient explanation can be given. The opinion that these names denote the different sources from which the author of Genesis compiled his work, has against it the fact that the Elohistic and Jehovistic sections do not correspond with the eleven parts into which the book is divided. Whatever explanation we give to his use of the divine names, it is evident that the author constructed the plan of his work without any special deference to them. If his sources were characterized by the use of particular designations of the Deity, he himself so interchanged these terms in his own book as to make it impossible for any of his critics or readers to determine with certainty the limits of the original documents. The interchange of Jehovah, Elohim, El, and Shaddai in the other historical books, in the prophets, and in the Psalms, serves also to show that no valid conclusions can be drawn from such premises to determine the sources or the authorship of any of these books. Others find the solution in the different meanings of the divine names. Elohim is a title rather than a name, denoting Deity in general, and is often used of false gods; Jehovah, on the other hand, is a proper name. Elohim designates God as the supreme power, the creator and general ruler. The plural form of the name denotes the majesty and manifold power of the God of creation and providence. Elohim, therefore, is used exclusively in the first section of Genesis, (Genesis 1:1-2:3,) where the account of creation is given. Jehovah, on the other hand, is the name of the covenant God, and designates the Deity in those more special aspects of his character in which he reveals himself as the source of law, of grace, and of condescending relationship to his chosen people. This opinion also has its plausibility, and is not without support in the noted passage Exodus 6:3. No doubt all the divine names are capable of separate and distinct significance, just as the names Jesus and Christ in the New Testament have each a clearly distinguishable import; and there are passages and formulas in which one name is more suitable than the other. This peculiarity of meaning may largely explain the usage of Elohim and Jehovah in the first two sections of Genesis, but in other parts of the book it fails to account for the occurrence of one name rather than another. The elaborate and minute essays of Hengstenberg and others to carry out this theory are far from convincing, and many of their explanations of particular texts are manifestly far-fetched and fanciful. We may say of these two methods of solution that they both contain some elements of truth, and yet as theories they both fail to account for all the facts apparent in the use of the names. The author of Genesis was thoroughly master of his sources of information; wrought out his work upon a well defined plan and with conspicuous unity; and was farthest possible from patching together a mass of ill adjusted documents, the origin and meaning of which he himself imperfectly comprehended. Such repetitions as appear in Genesis 7:17-24, are not satisfactorily explained by supposing a conglomeration of written sources used by the compiler. If the repetition of statements be explained as a slovenly amalgamation of different documents, it involves the writer, whoever he was, in a charge of confusion and carelessness which itself, on such grounds, would sufficiently account for the repetitions in question. Surely the hypothesis of different documentary sources is not the only or the most satisfactory way of accounting for such repetition. In this passage, moreover, there is no mention of Elohim or Jehovah, or any other divine name. While, therefore, we acknowledge in portions of the Book of Genesis a peculiar use of the names Elohim and Jehovah, we believe the methods of explanation described above fail to account for all the facts involved. They may each be allowed some measure of value in the interpretation of particular passages; but there are many more passages where the occurrence of one or the other of the names is more naturally explained as having no special significance, but as arising from a familiar use of both names, just as we say Jesus, or Christ, or Jesus Christ, without being conscious of any intent to use one title rather than another. Sometimes the interchange is probably designed for the sake of variety of expression. Genuineness and Value of the Book of Genesis.
The genuineness and credibility of this book are evinced by its minute and lifelike portraiture of persons, places, and events, and by its fundamental historical relation to the entire development of the plan of human redemption. If God has revealed himself in the history, prophecy, and symbolism of the other Old Testament books, and in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it is manifest that the Book of Genesis supplies an indispensable link in this chain of revelation. The simple, straightforward, and artless manner in which the narrative portions are written, the accuracy of topographical and geographical descriptions, the incidental allusions, the genealogies and vivid outlines of personal character, are so many internal proofs of the trustworthiness of the book. These facts, taken in connexion with the other, namely, that the whole subsequent divine revelation looks back to this early history and recognises it as “the beginning,” stand opposed to all theories which would make the contents of Genesis a tissue of myths or legends.
The contents of this ancient book, whether considered as throwing invaluable light on the beginnings of human history or as revealing the preparatory steps and sublime displays of the redemption of Christ, are of unspeakable importance. We admire the lofty monotheism apparent from the beginning; the unique grandeur of the account of creation; the orderly progress and commanding wisdom which stand out so prominently in the details of the first historic week, opening with the light of God and ending with the holy Sabbath rest. The narrative of man in the garden of Eden is too simple and artless to be considered as a myth, an allegory, or a fiction. The sin and punishment of the first pair, taken in connexion with the promise of the redeeming Seed, and the symbols of final glorification and of flaming justice placed at the gate of Eden to watch the way of the tree of life, are too profound and apocalyptic to be conceptions of human origin. The same may be said of the continued contrasts between the degenerate heathen world and the chosen seed, which constitute so prominent a feature of the history.
The line of Cain stands opposed, first, to Abel, and then to Seth, who was appointed in his stead. Again the whole race run to evil and perish by the flood, but Noah and his household escape the ruin — another striking contrast. The descendants of Shem, blessed of Jehovah, rise in moral power above those of Ham and Japheth; and again of the race of Shem, Terah has pre-eminence. As the families and tribes multiply and become scattered abroad, Abraham is chosen out of country, kindred, and even his father’s house, to be the great father of a holy seed, and obtains the covenant and promise of redemption. The same great plan and purpose appear in the history of Isaac and Jacob; and, unless we keep this theocratic conception in mind, we lose much of the power and significance of the relations of these patriarchs to the nations and individuals with whom they come in contact. And with this series of contrasts and revelations how much true light is shed upon the beginnings of history! Where can be found a tablet, inscription, or record comparable for antiquarian and ethnological value with the generations of Noah’s sons in chapter x? How remarkable, that recently deciphered inscriptions from the stones of the Euphrates valley and vicinity confirm and illustrate the account of the battle of the kings narrated in chapter xiv! How the judgments of the flood and of Sodom and Gomorrah are typical of the various penal judgments of all after time! How the dreams of the patriarchs, and their migrations and sacrifices, are prophetic of the richest experiences and holiest hopes of men! Surely, he must be perversely blind who fails to see, in these and other facts of Genesis, both records and revelations of incalculable value.
The Narrative of the Creation.
The exposition of the first chapter of Genesis has occupied so large a place in modern biblical and apologetical literature as to require a fuller treatment than our notes on that chapter will allow. In order, therefore, to furnish the reader with some account of the various views which have been propounded, and at the same time not to disturb the unity of our comments on the text itself, we introduce at this place a special section on the so called “biblical cosmogony.”
That this ancient document presents grave difficulties to the exegete, no thoughtful reader questions. Long before scientific research had made evident the great age of our planet, and the order and magnitude of the solar system, discerning minds had recognised such difficulties as that of light appearing three days before the sun, and the production of dry land and vegetation before the creation of sun, moon, and stars. Augustine spoke in wonder of days without luminaries, and called them unutterable days, (dies ineffabiles.) But when the study of geology and astronomy became more fully developed, there began to be heard whisperings of an irreconcilable conflict between science and revelation, and thereupon followed a great variety of explanations and attempts to harmonize the biblical record with the testimony of the rocks and the stars. Some were bold to affirm that the fossiliferous rocks were originally created, with all their imbedded skeletons, just as they now appear. Others suggested that the fossil deposits were made during the period between the creation and the deluge; while others argued that they were caused by the deluge itself. All these notions have been effectually exploded, and are now unworthy of attention, except as indicating the history of opinion and controversy. The more recent treatment of these questions may be classified under four heads, representing so many different hypotheses or methods of explanation. We designate them, respectively, as geological, cosmological, idealistic, and grammatico-historical interpretations.
1. The first named theory has for its principal distinctive feature the idea that the days of Genesis correspond with so many long periods of geological development traceable in the crust of the earth. Some tell us that the word day is used in Scripture in a figurative way to denote an indefinite period of time, and such passages as John 8:56, and 2 Peter 3:8, are cited as examples: “Abraham rejoiced to see my day;” “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years.” Hugh Miller advanced the theory that the sacred writer saw the works of the successive days of creation pass in vision as so many pictures before his eye, and he undertook to show how the creations of the third, fifth, and sixth days of Genesis harmonized with so many periods of geological development. Of the works of the first, second, and fourth days he claimed that we should not expect to find any trace or record in the rocks. (Testimony of the Rocks, p. 159.) Prof. C.H. Hitchcock argues in favour of what he calls the symbolical theory of the six days, and regards the days not as denoting primarily long periods, but as symbolical of previous periods of unknown length. The word day is, accordingly, not taken in its literal sense, but interpreted as a time-symbol of a past aeon. (Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. 24:1867, pp. 433, 434; compare also Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. xiv, p. 81, and vol. xvii, p. 689.) We observe, in reference to these various forms of presenting the geological theory, that, with all their laboured essays to make a day mean an aeon or long period, its advocates have not been able to adduce a single parallel Scripture in which the term “day” is thus employed. The indefinite and metaphorical use of the word in such isolated texts as those above cited cannot be fairly quoted as illustrating its meaning in a straightforward narrative of the work of six successive days, which have each an evening and a morning. Moreover, this theory confessedly fails to find exact or even substantial agreement between the days of Genesis and the eras of geology. Hugh Miller’s evasion of responsibility for finding a solution of the work of three of the days is any thing but satisfactory, and shows that in practical application his theory breaks down. There is also a glaring incongruity in identifying the vegetation of the third day with the coal beds of our mountains, and the animal races of waters, sky, and land over which man was to have dominion with the monster tribes which had become largely, if not altogether, extinct before man appeared. It scarcely relieves this difficulty to say that the biblical record refers only to the periods when these several forms of vegetable and animal life first appeared, for the common understanding will still insist that the fruit tree yielding fruit for man cannot well mean the coal beds which supply his fuel, nor can the animal tribes subject to his sway be the extinct specimens found only in the fossiliferous rocks. Of what possible use could it be in the volume of divine inspiration to reveal the origin of extinct plants and animals whose existence was never recognised by man until thousands of years after his creation? The average skeptical mind will not feel much force in Professor Hitchcock’s supposition, that “the creative chapter was designed at the outset to confirm the truth of the sacred narrative in a remote skeptical age.” (Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. 24:1867, p. 436.)
2. A more fascinating and impressive method of harmonizing Genesis and science is that which employs the nebular hypothesis of the solar system as a means of solution, and identifies the days with vast cosmogonic ages of development. This theory we may appropriately designate the cosmological. It supposes that the primordial creation first brought into existence the material or substance of the universe. This was a vast nebulous mass, without form and void, inert and dark. Then motion was imparted by the divine word, and, as the necessary result of molecular action, there was cosmical light through the whole vast nebula. The systems and planets were flung off one by one, each separate mass becoming in time a sphere, and thus our planetary system was first one vast nebulous substance, from which the outer planets and their satellites were the first to become detached, and so the process continued until the sun, the remaining central mass, became too much solidified to fling off any more planets. Our earth having been, like the other planets, detached, in due time cooled until it became opaque, after which time its axial revolution would cause day and night. So the first day of creation commenced with the earliest movement of the cosmical nebula, which then included the sun and all the planets, and closed when light and darkness were divided on the earth by its diurnal rotation. The second period was one of combined igneous and aqueous action, which resulted in depositing waters on the earth’s surface, clearing a transparent space or expanse above them, and causing the exhalations to rise in clouds to the upper atmosphere, thus forming the waters below and the waters above the firmament. According to Prof. Warring, (The Mosaic Account of Creation the Miracle of To-Day, New York, 1875,) the fourth day was the epoch when the present inclination of the earth’s axis took place, resulting in a change of seasons, and unequal days and nights. Then and thus the sun and moon were appointed to measure seasons, and to rule the day and the night. This inclination he supposes to have been caused by the attraction of the sun and moon on polar upheavals during the glacial period. In treating the fifth and sixth days this theory follows essentially that of Hugh Miller and his school. This theory is ably set forth and advocated by Prof. Guyot in various essays, and in his volume on Creation; or, The Biblical Cosmogony in the Light of Modern Science, (New York, 1884.) He regards the days as vast cosmogonic ages, and calls them “organic phases of creation.” He treats the word earth as “equivalent to matter in general,” and affirms that in Genesis 1:2, it means “the primordial cosmic material out of which God was going to organize the heavens and the earth.” Other distinguished scientists of recent times (Winchell, Dana, Dawson) have favoured this cosmological method of explaining Genesis, and while each has his own way of stating his views, they agree in the main outlines given above. The chief thought with all is, cosmical and geological development.
The nebular hypothesis of the origin of the universe appears to have very much in its favour, and we see no good reason why God might not have produced the world in that way, as well as in any other imaginable. Atheistic evolution is conspicuously inconsistent not only with the beginning of Genesis, but with the entire biblical revelation; but theistic evolution is not to be condemned without a patient hearing. Our objection to this cosmical exposition of Genesis arises from no feeling that the nebular hypothesis is unsound or untenable. We believe it is not yet proven, but its main points may be true, and the theory itself may yet prove itself to be of the highest scientific value. Our conviction is, that it furnishes no sound or satisfactory explanation of the first chapter of Genesis. So far as it coincides with the geological exposition already noticed, we urge against it the same objections. It is ever twisting words out of their natural and established usage, and importing into them the conceptions of modern science. It violates one of the first principles of sound interpretation, which requires us to place ourselves in the position of the writer and his first readers; and we are not aware that any one seriously believes that the ancients entertained such conceptions as this theory attaches to the biblical record, or reads between its lines. Taking up the different views of particular writers, we find varying individual opinions, which are often difficult to accept. Prof. Warring, for example, makes the work of the first day extend from the first flash of cosmical light in the vast nebula to the time when our planet became opaque, after which the days were measured by the axial revolution of the earth. The days, he holds, are literal days, but vast cosmogonic periods are to be understood as preceding them, and terminating in them. Prof. Guyot affirms that in the first two chapters of Genesis the word “day” is used in five different senses! But not to lay stress on individual notions, we may say in general that all these writers ignore in the main the miraculous element so noticeable in the biblical narrative. Admitting that God is to be recognised as the great Cause back of all these evolutions, they nevertheless proceed to treat the creation throughout as a development from natural causes. There is such a lugging in of what may be called naturalism that we become suspicious of the whole procedure as a legitimate exposition of Scripture. We notice this tendency also in writers who do not commit themselves to any scientific theory. A leading doctrine of Tayler Lewis, in his work on the Six Days of Creation, (Schenectady, 1855,) is that these days are long, indefinite periods with supernatural beginnings, followed by natural growths. “From a higher world than the natural there was an occasional sudden flashing in of the extraordinary, of the supernatural, of a new morning after the long night of nature,” but each of these divine interpositions was “followed again by a long rest, sleep, or night, as we may call it, of nature’s tardy growth,” (page 98.) Also in an article in the Methodist Quarterly Review, (for 1865, page 207,) he calls the events of creation “a series of supernatural growths,” but explains them as natural processes. All this may not be in itself objectionable, and is as harmless as all other poetical fancies which recognise the supernatural above and beyond all natural phenomena; but when applied to the exposition of Genesis, it seems to us to make the whole record a riddle, and to resolve the interpretation into a series of transcendental fancies. We hesitate at such methods, and feel that if these modern theorists are correct the ancient writer made a great mistake in his style of recording facts. We turn away and ask, Is there not some other and better way of explaining this unique but simple narrative?
3. Another class of interpreters, not satisfied with the methods and dubious results of the theories above described, have adopted what we call the idealistic method of exposition. They lay stress upon the correspondencies of the double triad of creative days, claim a measured poetic rhythm in the construction, and conclude that the successive days of creation furnish us with an order of thought rather than of actual or accurate chronology. This view is set forth by Mr. Rorison in an essay on the “Creative Week,” (in Replies to Essays and Reviews,) and by Prof. B.F. Cocker, in his volume on The Theistic Conception of the World, (New York, 1875.) It is favoured by the manifest symmetry of the works of the several days, and a structure which conforms to some of the usual features of Hebrew parallelism. The first chapter of Genesis may, perhaps, be appropriately called the “Inspired Psalm of Creation,” and be treated as a most ancient poem, peculiarly adapted for transmission by oral tradition through many generations. But such admissions do not affect the question of the author’s meaning. The artificial form and symmetrical structure of a narrative do not change the import of a writer’s words. Mr. Rorison’s exposition transfigures the days “from registers of time into definitives of strophes or stanzas — lamps and landmarks of a creative sequence — a mystic drapery, a parabolic setting — shadowing by the sacred cycle of seven, the truths of an ordered progress, a foreknown finality, an achieved perfection, and a divine repose.” (Replies, etc., p. 290.) This style of interpretation carries its followers out of the region of fact into a realm of fancy. It opens a field for all manner of dreamy speculations, but as a fair interpretation of the language employed in Genesis i, it is utterly unsatisfactory. Our writer’s statements are too specific, and his narrative altogether too prosaic to allow an interpreter the license of “transfiguring” and “draping” his words in idealistic fancies so far removed from the range of Hebrew thought and feeling.
4. The grammatico-historical interpretation insists upon the literal and most obvious import of the words of the sacred writer. It maintains that the language employed to describe the firmament or expanse in verses 6-8, and the sun and moon in verses 16-18, is not scientific but popular, and the interpreter should not exercise his ingenuity to discover reconciliations between these phenomenal descriptions and the results of learned research, but transfer himself to the standpoint of the ancient Hebrew writer, attend to the exact meaning of his words, and obtain as far as possible the ideas he intended to express.
This method of interpretation is followed in the main by those who adopt what is commonly known as the Chalmerian hypothesis, or renovation theory of expounding Genesis and geology. This hypothesis supposes the first verse of Genesis to state the primordial creation of the universe; but between the first and the second verse it allows indefinite ages for the geological development of the earth. It maintains that between these verses, or between the first and third, we may admit the existence of as many ages and successive races or creations as the results of scientific research require, but with all this the biblical writer was not concerned. It is believed that immediately before the introduction of man upon the earth there was a period of geological catastrophe, attended by the general, if not universal, destruction of then existing vegetable and animal life. Geological science recognises several such catastrophes in long past ages, and it is assumed that the creation described in Genesis was the renovation and reconstruction of things at the beginning of the present human period. This view was set forth by Chalmers in 1804; it was ably advocated by Buckland in his Bridgewater Treatise; and is adopted by many exegetes of Germany, Great Britain, and America. We believe that no valid argument can be brought against it on the ground of grammatical exegesis, for it violates no usage of words, and conforms to established principles of interpretation. Tayler Lewis, indeed, has made the charge that such a separation between the first and second verses “violates the principles of a rational and grammatical exegesis,” (Lange’s Genesis, Am. ed., p. 168,) but the passage he cites (Job 1:1) does not fairly confirm his position, for it is perfectly supposable that many years might have elapsed between the time when Job first appeared in the land of Uz and the time when he became perfect and upright. But this question is not to be settled solely by the usage of the verb hyh. We are rather to inquire if anywhere in Hebrew usage two closely connected verbs relating to one general subject allow an indefinite period of time, and other events than those predicated, to be supposed between them. A pertinent example is Exodus 2:1, 2, where it is said in the first verse that Moses’s father “went and took a daughter of Levi,” and, in the next sentence, “and the woman conceived and bare a son.” The context shows that this son was Moses, and that many years elapsed between the two events, during which time Miriam and Aaron were born to these same parents; but who would have imagined it, from the language used in these two verses? So it is idle for any one to say that the Chalmerian hypothesis would never have been seriously maintained but for the difficulties of geology. The statement is true, but it is no valid objection; for it may as truly be said that it would never have been seriously supposed, solely from Exodus 2:1, 2, that twelve or fifteen years and the birth of two other children are to be understood as coming between these two closely connected verses.
Weightier objections are urged against this renovation theory on other grounds. It is affirmed by the highest authorities that there is no evidence of such a universal catastrophe as this exposition supposes immediately before the appearance of man on earth. If this be so, it must be seen to lie heavily against an interpretation which requires such a state of things at the beginning of the present period. It may also be urged against this theory that it imposes upon our faith a dubious strain. We are required to believe that, as preparatory to the formation of man, all the continents, islands, and oceans of our globe were at once upheaved and divided off, and all living species of fish, bird, beast, and cattle, together with all vegetable creations, in all zones and climates, were produced in two or three ordinary days. We are ever ready to accept the record of the miraculous, and can admit without scruple that, with omnipotence, all this was possible; but we frankly confess that this range and extent of miracle are out of all proportion to the conditions under which the first man appears to have been formed.
These difficulties connected with the universal renovation theory of creation led John Pye Smith to suggest a more natural explanation of the biblical narrative. In his work on the Relation Between the Holy Scriptures and Some Parts of Geological Science, (4th ed., Lond., 1848,) he showed, by a variety of evidence, “that there must have been separate original creations, perhaps at different and respectively distant epochs,” (p. 49.) He also maintained that a strict interpretation of the language of Genesis required no wider application of its terms than to “the part of our world which God was adapting for the dwelling of man and the animals connected with him. Of the spheroidal figure of the earth, it is evident that the Hebrews had not the most distant conception.” He understood the land or earth of Genesis 1 to be only “a portion of the surface of the earth, adjusted and furnished for most glorious purposes, in which a newly formed creation should be the object of those manifestations of the authority and grace of the Most High which shall, to eternity, show forth his perfections above all other methods of their display,” (pp. 189, 190.) This view of the biblical creation has not obtained general favour, but we have searched in vain to find a single valid argument against it. The only objections we have seen are, first, the a priori assumption that it belittles the idea of divine creation to limit this grand picture to a limited portion of the earth, and, second, that it is inconsistent with the words of the fourth commandment. To which it may be most effectually replied, that no interpreter has a right to come to the exposition of the first of Genesis with any a priori assumptions of what ought to be found there. Prof. Barrows says, that “it is hard to bring it into harmony with the spirit of the narrative, which almost irresistibly inclines one, in the words of Hugh Miller, ‘to look for a broader and more general meaning… than I could recognise it as forming, were I assured it referred to but one of many existing creations — a creation restricted to, mayhap, a few hundred square miles of country, and to, mayhap, a few scores of animals and plants.’” We submit that what is here called “the spirit of the narrative” is rather the spirit of the interpreter himself, who is so freighted with cosmical and geological ideas of the magnitude of the universe that he reads them into the language of the old Hebrew writer. Nothing, in fact, is more conspicuous in the treatment of this subject by modern Christian scientists than their persistent a priori assumptions that the biblical creation must needs be identical with the primordial universal cosmogony. We hope to show, in our notes on Genesis i and ii, that the language of the sacred writer does not warrant such assumptions.
The other objection is, that this limited conception is inconsistent with the words of the fourth commandment, which declares that “in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is,” (Exodus 20:11.) It might be replied that this objection comes with an ill grace from those who make the six days mean six cosmogonic aeons. They are the last exegetes who should venture to press the literal import of these words, for the obvious meaning is utterly inconsistent with their hypothesis. For if the “six days” of Exodus 20:11, mean six indefinitely long ages, the “third day” of Exodus 19:15, 16, ought to have like meaning, and untold generations should be included in the period referred to in Matthew 17:1: “After six days Jesus taketh,” etc. But when we observe the stress placed on the words “all that in them is,” we note the worthlessness of the objection. Does this mean “all that in them is,” or “all that in them” was? The Hebrew is כל אשר בם, all which — in them. There is no connecting verb expressed, and why supply is rather than was? If Jehovah, speaking at Sinai to Moses and the thousands of Israel there assembled, must be understood as affirming that in six days he made all that is in heaven and earth and sea, he must have included those Israelites, and all their cattle and effects.
Here, then, is a new revelation. We must henceforth understand between the lines of Genesis 1:24-27, not Adam and his wife only, and the cattle, etc., by which they were surrounded, and to which Adam gave names (Genesis 2:20,) but the Israelites, Egyptians, and all other things in existence at the time this commandment was uttered at Sinai! Plainly, the “all in them” of Exodus 20:11, refers to all which the creative narrative in Genesis describes, nothing more, nothing less. The words simply mean that in six days God did what he is said to have done in Genesis 1:1-2:3, and the heavens, land, sea, and all in them, mean in the one passage precisely what they do in the other. It is, therefore, begging the whole question, and carrying all the a priori assumptions named above into it, when this objection is offered. We appeal from all such assumptions and prejudgments to the strict meaning of the language of the sacred writer, and insist that before any conclusion is formed we first ascertain the usus loquendi of the Hebrew words for heavens and earth, and, as far as possible, the ancient Hebrew conceptions of the world. Nothing, in our view, seems so improper and misleading as to come to the interpretation of such an ancient writing loaded with the discoveries of modern science, and seeking to find them outlined by a writer who could have had no such knowledge. The idea that, because this record was given by inspiration of God, we may expect to find superhuman wisdom in it, is pressed altogether too far when we assume that its language is not to be interpreted in accordance with the usus loquendi of an age and people who knew little or nothing about modern science.
In the following notes on the narrative of creation, we adopt no hypothesis, and commit the exposition to no theory. We follow the grammatico-historical sense of the language, and where this involves difficulties, we make no effort to conceal them. We show that the words שמים and ארץ, heavens and earth, into which we have become so accustomed to read the stupendous results of scientific research, mean, according to the usus loquendi of the writer of Genesis, what we would now more naturally express by the terms sky and land, or climate and soil. Having once transferred ourself to the age and conceptions of the early world, there seems to us a monstrous incongruity in the interpretation which supposes the land, visible sky, surrounding waters, and vegetable and animal species by which the first man was encompassed, to mean all the continents and islands of the globe, the astronomic universe, with its cosmical history, and all the oceans, and plants, and living organisms (even of the fossiliferous rocks) which modern science has brought to our knowledge. A portion of land no larger than the Malay peninsula or the island of Ceylon would have been sufficient for the entire human race before the Noachic deluge. Why, then, load down this simple narrative by lugging into it all our modern ideas of the cosmos? The language of the writer and the very conditions of the case are against the assumption of a universal cosmogony. Far more natural is it to think here of the sky, climate, and soil where the first human pair were created. The most natural import of the narrative is, that God miraculously prepared the Edenic region for the residence of man, and that such scenery and surroundings as are described by the sacred writer were the primeval conditions under which he was placed. Subsequently, when mankind became corrupt, and that land was filled with violence, (vi, 11,) the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and that land was submerged with all its tribes except what Noah’s ark preserved. At the subsidence of the deluge, the ark rested, not again in Eden, but on the mountain of Ararat, probably far remote, perhaps thousands of miles from the place where it was builded. The original Eden was probably obliterated by the flood, but the names of its countries and rivers would have been preserved in tradition, and naturally transferred to the new land and rivers discovered and occupied by the sons of Noah.
This interpretation, as Hugh Miller observes, “virtually removes Scripture altogether out of the field of geology;” and it does so, not by erecting a hypothesis to meet supposed exigencies, but by following the strict meaning of the language. It maintains that the biblical creation is only that which attended the introduction of man upon the earth, and, therefore, essentially of limited extent. What had taken place on other portions of the globe, or what classes of living creatures existed before or at the time of this beginning of human life, are questions remote from the purpose of the biblical narrative. How and when God created matter, and what were the first forms and modes of life — whether vegetable, animal, or angelic — it appears not the purpose of revelation to inform us; but this beginning of the Bible does inform us of the miraculous creation of man in the image of God, and the conditions and environments of his first estate. As a more careful attention to the usage of Hebrew terms and the nature of things has led nearly all modern exegetes to abandon the notion that the Noachic deluge was universal, so we believe a closer study of the Hebrew text of the first and second chapters of Genesis will set aside the idea that those chapters were designed to describe a universal cosmogony. This interpretation, recognising the specific reality of all that is here recorded, maintains all the great doctrines of God the Creator as clearly as any of the more pretentious expositions, and by a more valid implication. (See concluding notes at end of chapter 2.) The entire conception is taken, not from the position of a modern scientist, nor from a heavenly point of vision as of one who observed the construction and movements of the sidereal universe, but from the position of the first man, who looked above and around him, and might well have asked the origin of the things which he beheld. Nothing in this picture of creation necessarily goes beyond what was visible from the garden of Eden. So far as the terms used indicate universality they must be understood of the whole creation as known to the first man. Tayler Lewis admits “that the author of the account in Genesis probably regarded himself as describing the creation of the all, since to his knowledge our immediate earth and heaven, with the phenomenal luminaries appearing as fixed in it and belonging to it were the all; but that he meant to tell us of the first matter even of this, or of its coming out of nothing, cannot be certainly determined by any etymology of words, or by any infallible exegesis of the passage. There are certainly some things that look the other way.” — (Lange’s Commentary on Genesis, Am. ed., p. 128.) Further on he adds: “The argument or implication is: He who made light to be at one place or time made it to be at all times, even at that time which was the absolute beginning of its existence; He who made the human spirit must have made all spirits, whether coeval with or immeasurably more ancient than man.” As to the origin of the biblical narrative of creation, and the manner in which the details were made known to man, we have no knowledge, and any reasonable hypothesis is admissible. We dismiss as unsatisfactory and inconsistent with the implication of divine revelation the theory of many modern writers, (Tuch, Dillmann, Lenormant, Ladd,) that this narrative is merely a monotheistic improvement upon the traditional cosmogonies current among the ancient nations. We may properly ask: Is this account of creation true or false? Is it a revelation of what God did, or merely the dream, the ideal conjecture, of some ancient Leibnitz or Pythagoras? Prof. Ladd, in his Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, (vol. i, p. 272,) informs us, with the air of one who seems to know all about it, that “the traditional cosmogony of the Hebrews preceding this account, probably told of eight or more separate works of creation. But this author has fused and moulded the ideas of the traditional cosmogony according to the idea of God which entered into his own exalted monotheism, and as well according to the Sabbath idea.” That is, as appears from the scope of his argument, the Hebrew writer picked up the existing heathen traditions of the East, and shaped them into what he considered a becoming form. It is, therefore, essentially a human invention, and at best only an improvement of “the cosmogonies of the other nations, which originated in their observations of nature as interpreted by philosophic and religious conceptions.” And yet the writer of the above considers the theory of Chalmers, especially as modified by Pye Smith, “dangerous to the very life of religious doctrine”(!) and suggests (p. 267) that he must be a notorious errorist who conceives “the Tohu va-bhohu of the Mosaic cosmogony” in any other light than as “representing the universal star dust from which all worlds came!” We venture to suggest that such a theory as that of Pye Smith, which makes no “attempt at reconciliation,” because it finds no “universal star dust” in the narrative or conceptions of the sacred writer, conserves “the very life of religious doctrine” far more nobly than the theory which insists on seeing “universal star dust” there, and, of course, as a necessary consequence, finds “the Mosaic cosmogony at variance with several valid conclusions of modern astronomy and geology,” and containing “many errors of fact and faults of conception,” (p. 284.) Is it not the great trouble of all this class of writers that their eyes are too full of “star dust?”
We adopt as a more reasonable hypothesis — one more in keeping with the idea of divine revelation, and far less dangerous to the life of religious doctrine — that this biblical narrative is no imitation of heathen cosmogonies, and no attempt to revise or improve them, but rather the original picture from which they were traditionally derived, and were afterward mixed with legendary and incongruous accretions. Until some valid reason to the contrary be shown, we shall accept the doctrine that man was originally created upright, in the image of God, and that this account of his creation was probably communicated to him in the same way as that by which he received the law recorded in Genesis 2:16, 17. This hypothesis, in its full analysis, logically and necessarily begins and
Outline of Contents.
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ends in supernaturalism; the other hypothesis, described above, as logically and necessarily begins and ends in naturalism.
OUTLINE OF CONTENTS.
I. The Creative Beginning, Genesis 1-2:3.
1) Light. 2) Heavens. 3) Land, Seas, and Vegetation. 4) Luminaries. 5) Fish and Fowls. 6) Animals and Man. 7) Sabbath.
II. The Generations of the Heavens and the Land, Genesis 2:4-iv, 26.
John Wesley
The First Book of Moses Called Genesis.
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THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES
CALLED GENESIS.
The Holy Bible, or Book, is so called by way of eminency, as it is the best book that ever was written. The great things of God’s law and gospel are here written, that they might be reduced to a greater certainty, might spread farther, remain longer, and be transmitted to distant places and ages, more pure and entire than possibly they could be by tradition. That part of the Bible which we call the Old Testament, contains the acts and monuments of the church from the creation, almost to the coming of Christ in the flesh, which was about four thousand years: the truths then revealed, the laws enacted, the prophecies given, and the chief events that concerned the church. This is called a testament or covenant, because it was a declaration of the will of God concerning man in a federal way, and had its force from the designed death of the great testator, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, Revelation 13:8-‘Tis called the Old Testament with relation to the New, which doth not cancel, but crown and perfect it, by bringing in that better hope which was typified and foretold in it. This part of the Old Testament we call the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses. These books were, probably, the first that ever were written; for we have no mention of any writing in all the book of Genesis, nor ‘till God bid Moses write, Exodus 17:14. and set him his copy in the writing of the ten commandments upon the tables of stone. However, we are sure these books are the most ancient writings now extant. The first of these, which we call Genesis, Moses probably wrote in the wilderness, after he had been in the mount with God. And as he framed the tabernacle, so he did the more excellent and durable fabric of this book, according to the pattern shewed him in the mount: into which it is better to resolve the certainty of the things herein contained, than into any tradition which possibly might be handed down to the family of Jacob.-Genesis is a name borrowed from the Greek: it signifies the original or generation: fitly is this book so called, for it is a history of originals; the creation of the world, the entrance of sin and death into it, the invention of arts, the rise of nations, and especially the planting of the church, and the state of it in its early days. ‘Tis also a history of generations, the generations of Adam, Noah, Abraham, &c.-The beginning of the New Testament is called Genesis too, Matthew 1:1, the book of the Genesis, or generation of Jesus Christ. Lord, open our eyes, that we may see the wondrous things both of thy law and gospel!
Adam Clarke
Preface to the Book of Genesis
CLA_GEN.PDF, source PDF p. 3
PREFACE TO THE BOOK OF GENESIS
EVERY believer in Divine revelation finds himself amply justified in taking for granted that the Pentateuch is the work of Moses. For more than 3000 years this has been the invariable opinion of those who were best qualified to form a correct judgment on this subject. The Jewish Church, from its most remote antiquity, has ascribed the work to no other hand; and the Christian Church, from its foundation, has attributed it to the Jewish lawgiver alone. The most respectable heathens have concurred in this testimony, and Jesus Christ and his apostles have completed the evidence, and have put the question beyond the possibility of being doubted by those who profess to believe the Divine authenticity of the New Testament. As to those who, in opposition to all these proofs, obstinately persist in their unbelief, they are worthy of little regard, as argument is lost on their unprincipled prejudices, and demonstration on their minds, because ever wilfully closed against the light. When they have proved that Moses is not the author of this work, the advocates of Divine revelation will reconsider the grounds of their faith.
That there are a few things in the Pentateuch which seem to have been added by a later hand there can be little doubt; among these some have reckoned, perhaps without reason, the following passage, Genesis 12:6: “And the Canaanite was then in the land”; but see the note on this place. Numbers 21:14, “In the book of the wars of the Lord,” was probably a marginal note, which in process of time got into the text; see the note on this passage also. To these may be added the five first verses of Deuteronomy, chap. i; the twelfth of chap. ii; and the eight concluding verses of the last chapter, in which we have an account of the death of Moses. These last words could not have been added by Moses himself, but are very probably the work of Ezra, by whom, according to uninterrupted tradition among the Jews, the various books which constitute the canon of the Old Testament were collected and arranged, and such expository notes added as were essential to connect the different parts; but as he acted under Divine inspiration, the additions may be considered of equal authority with the text. A few other places might be added, but they are of little importance, and are mentioned in the notes.
The book of GENESIS, Γενεσις, has its name from the title it bears in the Septuagint, Βιβλος Γενεσεως, (Genesis 2:4,) which signifies the book of the Generation; but it is called in Hebrew בראשית Bereshith, “In the beginning,” from its initial word. It is the most ancient history in the world; and, from the great variety of its singular details and most interesting accounts, is as far superior in its value and importance to all others, as it is in its antiquity. This book contains an account of the creation of the world, and its first inhabitants; the original innocence and fall of man; the rise of religion; the invention of arts; the general corruption and degeneracy of mankind; the universal deluge; the repeopling and division of the earth; the origin of nations and kingdoms; and a particular history of the patriarchs from Adam down to the death of Joseph; including a space, at the lowest computation, of 2369 years.
It may be asked how a detail so circumstantial and minute could have been preserved when there was no writing of any kind, and when the earth, whose history is here given, had already existed more than 2000 years. To this inquiry a very satisfactory answer may be given. There are only three ways in which these important records could have been preserved and brought down to the time of Moses: viz., writing, tradition, and Divine revelation. In the antediluvian world, when the life of man was so protracted, there was comparatively little need for writing of any kind, and perhaps no alphabetical writing then existed. Tradition answered every purpose to which writing in any kind of characters could be subservient; and the necessity of erecting monuments to perpetuate public events could scarcely have suggested itself, as during those times there could be little danger apprehended of any important fact becoming obsolete, as its history had to pass through very few hands, and all these friends and relatives in the most proper sense of the terms; for they lived in an insulated state under a patriarchal government.
Thus it was easy for Moses to be satisfied of the truth of all he relates in the book of Genesis, as the accounts came to him through the medium of very few persons. From Adam to Noah there was but one man necessary to the correct transmission of the history of this period of 1656 years. Now this history was, without doubt, perfectly known to Methuselah, who lived to see them both. In like manner Shem connected Noah and Abraham, having lived to converse with both; as Isaac did with Abraham and Joseph, from whom these things might be easily conveyed to Moses by Amram, who was contemporary with Joseph. See the plate, chap. 11. Supposing, then, all the curious facts recorded in the book of Genesis had no other authority than the tradition already referred to, they would stand upon a foundation of credibility superior to any that the most reputable of the ancient Greek and Latin historians can boast. Yet to preclude all possibility of mistake, the unerring Spirit of God directed Moses in the selection of his facts and the ascertaining of his dates. Indeed, the narrative is so simple, so much like truth, so consistent everywhere with itself, so correct in its dates, so impartial in its biography, so accurate in its philosophical details, so pure in its morality, and so benevolent in its design, as amply to demonstrate that it never could have had an earthly origin. In this case, also, Moses constructed every thing according to the pattern which God showed him in the mount.
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.
Joseph Benson
Argument
BEN_VOL1.PDF, source PDF p. 21
THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES, CALLED
GENESIS.
ARGUMENT.
IT may not be improper to observe, before we enter on the work of illustrating the Sacred Volume, that the Holy Scriptures, or Holy Writings, are termed the BIBLE, or Book, (from the Greek Βιβλος by way of eminence, as they constitute the best book that ever was written. The great things of God’s law and gospel are here recorded, that they might be reduced to a greater certainty, might spread farther, remain longer, and be transmitted to distant places and ages more pure and entire, than possibly they could be by tradition. That part of the Bible which we call the OLD TESTAMENT contains the acts and monuments of the church of God from the creation almost to the coming of Christ in the flesh, which was about four thousand years: the truths then revealed, the laws enacted, the prophecies given, and the chief events that concerned the church. This is called a Testament, or Covenant, because it was a declaration of the will of God concerning man in a federal way, and had its force from the designed death of the great Testator, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” Revelation 13:8. It is called the Old Testament with relation to the New, which doth not cancel, but crown and perfect it, by bringing in that better hope which was typified and foretold in it.
This part of the Old Testament we call the PENTATEUCH, or five-fold volume, because it contains the five books of Moses. These books were, probably, the first that ever were written; for we hear no mention of any writing in all the book of Genesis, nor till God bid Moses write, Exodus 17:14. However, we are sure these books are the most ancient writings extant. The first of them, named in the Hebrew, from the first word, Bereshith, but which we call Genesis, Moses probably wrote either while he was a shepherd in Midian, or rather, after he had been on the mount with God. And as he framed the tabernacle, so he did the more excellent and durable frame of this book, according to the pattern shown him in the mount; into which it is better to resolve the certainty of the things contained therein, than into any tradition that might be handed down to the family of Jacob. GENESIS is a name borrowed from the Greek: it signifies the original, or generation. Fitly is this book so called; for it is a narrative of originals and generations: the creation of all things; the original happiness and fall of mankind; the entrance of sin and death into the world; the fate of Adam and his posterity before the flood; the general corruption of the human race, and the deluge sent to punish it; the preservation of Noah and his family in the ark, and their repeopling the earth; the invention of arts, the rise of nations, and the confounding of languages; and especially the planting of the church, and the state of it in its early days, with God’s marvellous providences toward the families of Lot and Nahor, of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and their improvement of the same. In short, it contains a divinely-inspired, and therefore perfectly authentic history of the great and surprising events of two thousand three hundred and sixty-nine years. The beginning of the New Testament is also called GENESIS, Matthew 1:1: “The Book of the GENESIS, or GENERATION, of Jesus Christ.” Lord, open thou our eyes, that we may see the wondrous things of thy LAW and GOSPEL!
Joseph Sutcliffe
The First Book of Moses, Called Genesis.
SUT_VOL1.PDF, source PDF p. 14
Editorial note: Additional printed-edition collation — Sutcliffe, vol. 1 (1834): The printed Genesis introduction confirms בראשית and Γενεσις in their present sequence. The target readings are retained. SUT_VOL1.PDF, PDF page 14; Sutcliffe, printed Commentary, vol. 1 (1834), p. 9.
THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES,
CALLED GENESIS.
GENESIS, Γενεσις, generation, so called by the LXX, because it recites the Generation or Creation of the Heavens and the Earth; of Man, and of the animal and vegetable kingdom. The Hebrews give no distinctive title to their sacred Books, but distinguish them, as we do psalms and hymns, by the first word, phrase or sentence. The Genesis they call בראשית BERESHITH, In the Beginning; this being the initial word of the book. In the Arabic it is called “The Book of God.” In addition to the account of the creation, it details the fall of man, the promise of redemption, the depravity and destruction of the antediluvians, the preservation of Noah, the introduction of idolatry, the call of Abraham; and brings down the history of the world to the death of Joseph; comprising the whole of the Patriarchal dispensation, which extended to the year of the world 2369 and before Christ 1635 years. It comes down to us undisputed as the most ancient of all records. The Egyptians, the Chinese, the Siamese, the Hindoos, have nothing that can rival its antiquity.
Daniel Whedon
Introduction.
WHD_CO01.PDF, source PDF p. 43
Editorial note: Source collation note — paragraph 48: “appeared to the patriarchs באל שדי, in elshaddai, that is”. paragraph 63: “was? the hebrew is כל אשר בם, all which — in them”. paragraph 65: “show that the words שמים and ארץ, heavens and earth, into”. source PDF page 47: “appeared to the patriarchs שדי באל in El-Shaddai, that is,”. source PDF page 59: “was? The Hebrew is בם אשר כל all which in them.”. source PDF page 60: “show that the words שמים and ארצ heavens and earth, into”. Compared with WHD_CO01.PDF PDF p. 43, WHD_CO01.PDF PDF p. 47, WHD_CO01.PDF PDF p. 59, WHD_CO01.PDF PDF p. 60. The source-font or layout comparison does not securely establish every letter, mark or local sequence in these passages. The flagged language readings or layout are retained; the original source pages should be consulted for these specific readings. Additional-source investigation: an automated comparison of surrounding English text located possible corresponding passages in OCR from separately digitized printed volumes. The linked scan pages are research locators; their images have not been collated for this note's flagged readings. OCR agreement does not verify Greek or Hebrew letters, diacritics, word order, or table layout. The flagged readings or layout remain uncertain. WHD_CO01.PDF, PDF page 43; WHD_CO01.PDF, PDF page 47; WHD_CO01.PDF, PDF page 59; WHD_CO01.PDF, PDF page 60; Additional printed-scan page locator (OCR context only; flagged reading unverified); Additional printed-scan page locator (OCR context only; flagged reading unverified); Additional printed-scan page locator (OCR context only; flagged reading unverified).
GENESIS
INTRODUCTION.
Contents and Plan.
THE Book of Genesis lies at the basis of the Old Testament revelation, and assumes to be a record of the beginnings of human history. It consists of a series of records, arranged in a well-defined order, and exhibiting a unity and finish which prove it to have proceeded from one constructive mind. In Genesis 1:1-2:3, we have an account of the creative BEGINNING — the formation of the heavens and land, the seas, and the various classes of living creatures. This introductory narrative is followed by ten sections of varying length, each beginning with the heading, “These are the generations,” (תולדות.) The plan of the writer appears to have been, first, to describe the miraculous preparation of the sky, soil, animal tribes, and visible environments of the first man, Adam, and then to trace, from that beginning, his outgrowth and development through ten notable evolutions. The outline is as follows:
1. THE CREATIVE BEGINNING
Genesis 1:1-2:3.
2. THE GENERATIONS OF THE HEAVENS AND THE LAND
Genesis 2:4-4:26.
3. BOOK OF THE GENERATIONS OF ADAM
Genesis 5:1-6:8.
4. THE GENERATIONS OF NOAH
Genesis 6:9-9:29.
5. THE GENERATIONS OF SHEM, HAM, AND JAPHETH
Genesis 10:1-11:9.
6. THE GENERATIONS OF SHEM
Genesis 11:10-26.
7. THE GENERATIONS OF TERAH
Genesis 11:27-25:11.
8. THE GENERATIONS OF ISHMAEL
Genesis 25:12-18.
9. THE GENERATIONS OF ISAAC
Genesis 25:19-35:29.
10. THE GENERATIONS OF ESAU
Genesis 36:1-37:1.
11. THE GENERATIONS OF JACOB
Genesis 37:2-50:26.
1. Here is a well defined plan, which shows that the book is no patchwork of fragments, but a carefully digested whole. The narrative of creation is so symmetrical in its construction as to be conspicuously artificial. The work of the six days is divisible into two corresponding orders:
1. Light..
2. Expanse of heaven.
3. Dry land.
4. Luminaries
5. Fowls of heaven, and living things of the waters
6. Living creatures of the land, and man.
2. We notice, next, that the first outgrowths or developments of this creation are called “generations of the heavens and of the earth,” (Genesis 2:4.) The starting point, or conceptual position of the writer, is, “a day of Jehovah-God’s making land and heavens,” when as yet no plant or herb of the new creation had begun to grow; no rain had yet fallen on that new soil, and no man to till it had yet appeared. It appears, therefore, that, at the beginning of this new section, the writer goes back in thought to the morning of the sixth day of the creative week already described. The day of Genesis 2:4, is not the whole creative week, as many suppose, for the writer is not thus careless in his use of words. It is the terminus a quo of the “generations” about to be described, the day on which, according to verse 5, the Edenic growths began, and the first human pair were brought together. Man was formed of the dust of the soil, and became (ויהי) a living soul by the breath of Jehovah-God. His formation, be it observed, is thus conceived as a generation, or birth, produced from the heavens and the land by the breath of God. A garden was planted in the eastern part of Eden to receive the man, and then the woman was formed from the man — another step in the process of these generations. Then follows the narrative of the fall, showing how primeval man was of the earth and earthy, (1 Corinthians 15:47,) and by disobedience lost his original relation to God. The first generations ran to violence and crime, and became more and more degenerate until Seth was born, and with him the history takes a new departure.
3. “The book of the generations of Adam” (Genesis 5:1) is not a record of Adam’s origin, for his birth and earliest progeny have already been conceived and treated as a generation out of the heavens and the earth by the breath of Jehovah-God. This next book of generations takes up the line of Seth, who was introduced in the previous section, (Genesis 4:25,) and looked upon as a substitute for the pious Abel. But the race again deteriorates, and the land is filled with violence.
4. “The generations of Noah” (Genesis 6:9) is the title of the section which narrates the great event of the latter part of Noah’s life, the judgment of the Deluge, in which he and his family were preserved, and the rest of mankind were wiped off from the face of the earth.
5. “The generations of Noah’s sons” (Genesis 10:1) is a table of the families and nations by whom the earth was peopled after the flood — a most ancient and venerable document, worth more for historical purposes than any oriental inscription yet deciphered.
6. Next follows the table of the generations of Shem, a succinct genealogy, (Genesis 11:10-26,) which serves to introduce us to the great ancestor of the chosen people by tracing the line of Shem down to Terah, the father of Abraham.
7. “The generations of Terah” extend to those of Ishmael, and comprise the great events of the life of Abraham.
8. The generations of Ishmael are briefly sketched, (Genesis 25:12-18,) as having no considerable importance in the author’s plan.
9. The generations of Isaac (Genesis 25:19) extend to the death of that patriarch, and include the history of Jacob and Esau to the time when the former had returned from Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan, and the latter had fixed his abode in Mount Seir.
10. The generations of Esau are next given, including his wives, his sons, and the dukes and kings who traced their lineage to him.
11. “The generations of Jacob” is the title of the last great section of the book, (beginning at Genesis 32:2,) giving in much detail the events of Jacob’s later life, the history of Joseph, the conduct and character of the fathers of the twelve tribes, and their settlement in Egypt. The patriarch’s dying prophecy (chap. 49) reveals to his sons a vivid picture of what shall befall them in after times.
It will be noticed that the length of these several sections is in proportion to their relative importance in a history which lies at the basis of God’s self-revelation to his chosen people. After the opening narrative of the creation, each series of generations goes back and attaches itself to a name or character introduced to us in the preceding section. Again and again the history, darkened by the growth and power of human wickedness, fastens upon a divinely chosen name, and from it takes a new departure. With each new departure some fresh hope or promise is given, or some great purpose of God is brought to light. While the tendency of the race is to grow worse and worse, there appears also the unwavering purpose of the Almighty to choose out and maintain a holy seed, and thus the Book of Genesis presents itself to us as an essential part of the history of redemption.
Use of the Names Elohim and Jehovah.
Of the authorship of Genesis, and the probable use of various documents and traditions in its composition, we have already sufficiently treated in discussing the Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch. But the peculiar use of the two divine names, ELOHIM and JEHOVAH, deserves some further notice. In the first section of the book, (Genesis 1:1-2:3,) which treats of the creative beginning, the name Elohim alone occurs; in the next (Genesis 2:4-4:26) the double name Jehovah-Elohim is principally used; but Elohim occurs in the conversation between Eve and the serpent, (Genesis 3:1-5,) and in Eve’s words at the birth of Seth, (Genesis 4:25;) and Jehovah alone is used elsewhere in chap. 4. In the “book of the generations of Adam” (Genesis 5:1-6:8) the use of Elohim prevails, but Jehovah occurs at Genesis 5:29, and at Genesis 6:3, 6-8. In the section devoted to the generations of Noah, (Genesis 6:9-9:29,) which contains the account of the flood, Elohim prevails almost exclusively, but Jehovah occurs seven times, namely, at Genesis 7:1, 5, 16; 8:20, 21, (bis;) 9:26. In the generations of Noah’s sons (Genesis 10:1-11:9) Jehovah is used exclusively, but the name occurs only in connexion with Nimrod (Genesis 10:9) and the tower of Babel, (Genesis 11:5-9.) In the generations of Shem, (Genesis 11:10-26,) Ishmael, (Genesis 25:12-18,) and Esau (36) no divine name occurs, but the history of Abraham, which is given under the generations of Terah, (Genesis 11:27-25:11,) is mainly Jehovistic, although Elohim and other divine names repeatedly appear, (Elohim especially in chaps. 17, 20, 21, and 22,) and the histories of Isaac and Jacob, which take up the latter half of the Book of Genesis, are mainly Elohistic. After the beginning of Abraham’s history, however, the interchange of names frequently appears, and the exclusive use of either Elohim or Jehovah in any given section is not particularly noticeable.
The critics have essayed to make a great deal more out of these names than a careful examination of their usage warrants. Outside of the first two sections, the numerous variations and the frequent interchange of one for the other are such as to cast doubt upon the current theories of Elohistic and Jehovistic sources. But the uniform use of Elohim in chaps. 1-2:3, and of Jehovah-Elohim in chap. 2, is certainly notable. When, however, we observe that the symmetrical form of statements in narrating the successive works of the six days in chap. i required the use of the same name, it is evident that any change would have been more remarkable than the uniformity, and no reason would appear to account for it. On this view the change of divine names in the first and second sections becomes of less note.
Two methods of solution have been put forward. One maintains that this diversity of names is due to the use of different written documents in the compilation of the Book of Genesis. The Elohist sections are assumed to have been written by one who never used the name Jehovah, and was, indeed, ignorant of it. This view has in itself much plausibility, and receives strength from Exodus 6:3, compared with Exodus 3:13-15. But a strict exegesis of the passages in Exodus will not sustain the position that the name Jehovah was unknown as a divine title, or a designation of God, before the time of Moses. The thought is, rather, that the significance of the name Jehovah had not been revealed before. Moreover, it is not said or implied that even Elohim had been known before, but Jehovah is represented as saying to Moses that he had appeared to the patriarchs באל שדי, in El-Shaddai, that is, in the character of El-Shaddai, or God Almighty. What titles or designations and names of Deity had been in use before the time of Moses is not the point in question, and for aught that appears Jehovah is as ancient a name as Elohim. Fair criticism also requires us to allow a writer the benefit of his own explanations, and nothing is more apparent than that the writer of the Pentateuch, whoever he was and whenever he lived, understood that the name Jehovah was in use long before the time of Moses. Abraham called the place where he was about to offer Isaac Jehovah-jireh, (Genesis 22:14,) and, as far back as the birth of Seth, men called on the name of Jehovah. Genesis 4:26. It is therefore both unnecessary and unfair to force upon Exodus 6:3, a meaning which is inconsistent with other parts of the patriarchal history, and which the writer himself evidently did not understand as involving such inconsistency. Another and all-sufficient explanation can be given. The opinion that these names denote the different sources from which the author of Genesis compiled his work, has against it the fact that the Elohistic and Jehovistic sections do not correspond with the eleven parts into which the book is divided. Whatever explanation we give to his use of the divine names, it is evident that the author constructed the plan of his work without any special deference to them. If his sources were characterized by the use of particular designations of the Deity, he himself so interchanged these terms in his own book as to make it impossible for any of his critics or readers to determine with certainty the limits of the original documents. The interchange of Jehovah, Elohim, El, and Shaddai in the other historical books, in the prophets, and in the Psalms, serves also to show that no valid conclusions can be drawn from such premises to determine the sources or the authorship of any of these books. Others find the solution in the different meanings of the divine names. Elohim is a title rather than a name, denoting Deity in general, and is often used of false gods; Jehovah, on the other hand, is a proper name. Elohim designates God as the supreme power, the creator and general ruler. The plural form of the name denotes the majesty and manifold power of the God of creation and providence. Elohim, therefore, is used exclusively in the first section of Genesis, (Genesis 1:1-2:3,) where the account of creation is given. Jehovah, on the other hand, is the name of the covenant God, and designates the Deity in those more special aspects of his character in which he reveals himself as the source of law, of grace, and of condescending relationship to his chosen people. This opinion also has its plausibility, and is not without support in the noted passage Exodus 6:3. No doubt all the divine names are capable of separate and distinct significance, just as the names Jesus and Christ in the New Testament have each a clearly distinguishable import; and there are passages and formulas in which one name is more suitable than the other. This peculiarity of meaning may largely explain the usage of Elohim and Jehovah in the first two sections of Genesis, but in other parts of the book it fails to account for the occurrence of one name rather than another. The elaborate and minute essays of Hengstenberg and others to carry out this theory are far from convincing, and many of their explanations of particular texts are manifestly far-fetched and fanciful. We may say of these two methods of solution that they both contain some elements of truth, and yet as theories they both fail to account for all the facts apparent in the use of the names. The author of Genesis was thoroughly master of his sources of information; wrought out his work upon a well defined plan and with conspicuous unity; and was farthest possible from patching together a mass of ill adjusted documents, the origin and meaning of which he himself imperfectly comprehended. Such repetitions as appear in Genesis 7:17-24, are not satisfactorily explained by supposing a conglomeration of written sources used by the compiler. If the repetition of statements be explained as a slovenly amalgamation of different documents, it involves the writer, whoever he was, in a charge of confusion and carelessness which itself, on such grounds, would sufficiently account for the repetitions in question. Surely the hypothesis of different documentary sources is not the only or the most satisfactory way of accounting for such repetition. In this passage, moreover, there is no mention of Elohim or Jehovah, or any other divine name. While, therefore, we acknowledge in portions of the Book of Genesis a peculiar use of the names Elohim and Jehovah, we believe the methods of explanation described above fail to account for all the facts involved. They may each be allowed some measure of value in the interpretation of particular passages; but there are many more passages where the occurrence of one or the other of the names is more naturally explained as having no special significance, but as arising from a familiar use of both names, just as we say Jesus, or Christ, or Jesus Christ, without being conscious of any intent to use one title rather than another. Sometimes the interchange is probably designed for the sake of variety of expression. Genuineness and Value of the Book of Genesis.
The genuineness and credibility of this book are evinced by its minute and lifelike portraiture of persons, places, and events, and by its fundamental historical relation to the entire development of the plan of human redemption. If God has revealed himself in the history, prophecy, and symbolism of the other Old Testament books, and in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it is manifest that the Book of Genesis supplies an indispensable link in this chain of revelation. The simple, straightforward, and artless manner in which the narrative portions are written, the accuracy of topographical and geographical descriptions, the incidental allusions, the genealogies and vivid outlines of personal character, are so many internal proofs of the trustworthiness of the book. These facts, taken in connexion with the other, namely, that the whole subsequent divine revelation looks back to this early history and recognises it as “the beginning,” stand opposed to all theories which would make the contents of Genesis a tissue of myths or legends.
The contents of this ancient book, whether considered as throwing invaluable light on the beginnings of human history or as revealing the preparatory steps and sublime displays of the redemption of Christ, are of unspeakable importance. We admire the lofty monotheism apparent from the beginning; the unique grandeur of the account of creation; the orderly progress and commanding wisdom which stand out so prominently in the details of the first historic week, opening with the light of God and ending with the holy Sabbath rest. The narrative of man in the garden of Eden is too simple and artless to be considered as a myth, an allegory, or a fiction. The sin and punishment of the first pair, taken in connexion with the promise of the redeeming Seed, and the symbols of final glorification and of flaming justice placed at the gate of Eden to watch the way of the tree of life, are too profound and apocalyptic to be conceptions of human origin. The same may be said of the continued contrasts between the degenerate heathen world and the chosen seed, which constitute so prominent a feature of the history.
The line of Cain stands opposed, first, to Abel, and then to Seth, who was appointed in his stead. Again the whole race run to evil and perish by the flood, but Noah and his household escape the ruin — another striking contrast. The descendants of Shem, blessed of Jehovah, rise in moral power above those of Ham and Japheth; and again of the race of Shem, Terah has pre-eminence. As the families and tribes multiply and become scattered abroad, Abraham is chosen out of country, kindred, and even his father’s house, to be the great father of a holy seed, and obtains the covenant and promise of redemption. The same great plan and purpose appear in the history of Isaac and Jacob; and, unless we keep this theocratic conception in mind, we lose much of the power and significance of the relations of these patriarchs to the nations and individuals with whom they come in contact. And with this series of contrasts and revelations how much true light is shed upon the beginnings of history! Where can be found a tablet, inscription, or record comparable for antiquarian and ethnological value with the generations of Noah’s sons in chapter x? How remarkable, that recently deciphered inscriptions from the stones of the Euphrates valley and vicinity confirm and illustrate the account of the battle of the kings narrated in chapter xiv! How the judgments of the flood and of Sodom and Gomorrah are typical of the various penal judgments of all after time! How the dreams of the patriarchs, and their migrations and sacrifices, are prophetic of the richest experiences and holiest hopes of men! Surely, he must be perversely blind who fails to see, in these and other facts of Genesis, both records and revelations of incalculable value.
The Narrative of the Creation.
The exposition of the first chapter of Genesis has occupied so large a place in modern biblical and apologetical literature as to require a fuller treatment than our notes on that chapter will allow. In order, therefore, to furnish the reader with some account of the various views which have been propounded, and at the same time not to disturb the unity of our comments on the text itself, we introduce at this place a special section on the so called “biblical cosmogony.”
That this ancient document presents grave difficulties to the exegete, no thoughtful reader questions. Long before scientific research had made evident the great age of our planet, and the order and magnitude of the solar system, discerning minds had recognised such difficulties as that of light appearing three days before the sun, and the production of dry land and vegetation before the creation of sun, moon, and stars. Augustine spoke in wonder of days without luminaries, and called them unutterable days, (dies ineffabiles.) But when the study of geology and astronomy became more fully developed, there began to be heard whisperings of an irreconcilable conflict between science and revelation, and thereupon followed a great variety of explanations and attempts to harmonize the biblical record with the testimony of the rocks and the stars. Some were bold to affirm that the fossiliferous rocks were originally created, with all their imbedded skeletons, just as they now appear. Others suggested that the fossil deposits were made during the period between the creation and the deluge; while others argued that they were caused by the deluge itself. All these notions have been effectually exploded, and are now unworthy of attention, except as indicating the history of opinion and controversy. The more recent treatment of these questions may be classified under four heads, representing so many different hypotheses or methods of explanation. We designate them, respectively, as geological, cosmological, idealistic, and grammatico-historical interpretations.
1. The first named theory has for its principal distinctive feature the idea that the days of Genesis correspond with so many long periods of geological development traceable in the crust of the earth. Some tell us that the word day is used in Scripture in a figurative way to denote an indefinite period of time, and such passages as John 8:56, and 2 Peter 3:8, are cited as examples: “Abraham rejoiced to see my day;” “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years.” Hugh Miller advanced the theory that the sacred writer saw the works of the successive days of creation pass in vision as so many pictures before his eye, and he undertook to show how the creations of the third, fifth, and sixth days of Genesis harmonized with so many periods of geological development. Of the works of the first, second, and fourth days he claimed that we should not expect to find any trace or record in the rocks. (Testimony of the Rocks, p. 159.) Prof. C.H. Hitchcock argues in favour of what he calls the symbolical theory of the six days, and regards the days not as denoting primarily long periods, but as symbolical of previous periods of unknown length. The word day is, accordingly, not taken in its literal sense, but interpreted as a time-symbol of a past aeon. (Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. 24:1867, pp. 433, 434; compare also Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. xiv, p. 81, and vol. xvii, p. 689.) We observe, in reference to these various forms of presenting the geological theory, that, with all their laboured essays to make a day mean an aeon or long period, its advocates have not been able to adduce a single parallel Scripture in which the term “day” is thus employed. The indefinite and metaphorical use of the word in such isolated texts as those above cited cannot be fairly quoted as illustrating its meaning in a straightforward narrative of the work of six successive days, which have each an evening and a morning. Moreover, this theory confessedly fails to find exact or even substantial agreement between the days of Genesis and the eras of geology. Hugh Miller’s evasion of responsibility for finding a solution of the work of three of the days is any thing but satisfactory, and shows that in practical application his theory breaks down. There is also a glaring incongruity in identifying the vegetation of the third day with the coal beds of our mountains, and the animal races of waters, sky, and land over which man was to have dominion with the monster tribes which had become largely, if not altogether, extinct before man appeared. It scarcely relieves this difficulty to say that the biblical record refers only to the periods when these several forms of vegetable and animal life first appeared, for the common understanding will still insist that the fruit tree yielding fruit for man cannot well mean the coal beds which supply his fuel, nor can the animal tribes subject to his sway be the extinct specimens found only in the fossiliferous rocks. Of what possible use could it be in the volume of divine inspiration to reveal the origin of extinct plants and animals whose existence was never recognised by man until thousands of years after his creation? The average skeptical mind will not feel much force in Professor Hitchcock’s supposition, that “the creative chapter was designed at the outset to confirm the truth of the sacred narrative in a remote skeptical age.” (Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. 24:1867, p. 436.)
2. A more fascinating and impressive method of harmonizing Genesis and science is that which employs the nebular hypothesis of the solar system as a means of solution, and identifies the days with vast cosmogonic ages of development. This theory we may appropriately designate the cosmological. It supposes that the primordial creation first brought into existence the material or substance of the universe. This was a vast nebulous mass, without form and void, inert and dark. Then motion was imparted by the divine word, and, as the necessary result of molecular action, there was cosmical light through the whole vast nebula. The systems and planets were flung off one by one, each separate mass becoming in time a sphere, and thus our planetary system was first one vast nebulous substance, from which the outer planets and their satellites were the first to become detached, and so the process continued until the sun, the remaining central mass, became too much solidified to fling off any more planets. Our earth having been, like the other planets, detached, in due time cooled until it became opaque, after which time its axial revolution would cause day and night. So the first day of creation commenced with the earliest movement of the cosmical nebula, which then included the sun and all the planets, and closed when light and darkness were divided on the earth by its diurnal rotation. The second period was one of combined igneous and aqueous action, which resulted in depositing waters on the earth’s surface, clearing a transparent space or expanse above them, and causing the exhalations to rise in clouds to the upper atmosphere, thus forming the waters below and the waters above the firmament. According to Prof. Warring, (The Mosaic Account of Creation the Miracle of To-Day, New York, 1875,) the fourth day was the epoch when the present inclination of the earth’s axis took place, resulting in a change of seasons, and unequal days and nights. Then and thus the sun and moon were appointed to measure seasons, and to rule the day and the night. This inclination he supposes to have been caused by the attraction of the sun and moon on polar upheavals during the glacial period. In treating the fifth and sixth days this theory follows essentially that of Hugh Miller and his school. This theory is ably set forth and advocated by Prof. Guyot in various essays, and in his volume on Creation; or, The Biblical Cosmogony in the Light of Modern Science, (New York, 1884.) He regards the days as vast cosmogonic ages, and calls them “organic phases of creation.” He treats the word earth as “equivalent to matter in general,” and affirms that in Genesis 1:2, it means “the primordial cosmic material out of which God was going to organize the heavens and the earth.” Other distinguished scientists of recent times (Winchell, Dana, Dawson) have favoured this cosmological method of explaining Genesis, and while each has his own way of stating his views, they agree in the main outlines given above. The chief thought with all is, cosmical and geological development.
The nebular hypothesis of the origin of the universe appears to have very much in its favour, and we see no good reason why God might not have produced the world in that way, as well as in any other imaginable. Atheistic evolution is conspicuously inconsistent not only with the beginning of Genesis, but with the entire biblical revelation; but theistic evolution is not to be condemned without a patient hearing. Our objection to this cosmical exposition of Genesis arises from no feeling that the nebular hypothesis is unsound or untenable. We believe it is not yet proven, but its main points may be true, and the theory itself may yet prove itself to be of the highest scientific value. Our conviction is, that it furnishes no sound or satisfactory explanation of the first chapter of Genesis. So far as it coincides with the geological exposition already noticed, we urge against it the same objections. It is ever twisting words out of their natural and established usage, and importing into them the conceptions of modern science. It violates one of the first principles of sound interpretation, which requires us to place ourselves in the position of the writer and his first readers; and we are not aware that any one seriously believes that the ancients entertained such conceptions as this theory attaches to the biblical record, or reads between its lines. Taking up the different views of particular writers, we find varying individual opinions, which are often difficult to accept. Prof. Warring, for example, makes the work of the first day extend from the first flash of cosmical light in the vast nebula to the time when our planet became opaque, after which the days were measured by the axial revolution of the earth. The days, he holds, are literal days, but vast cosmogonic periods are to be understood as preceding them, and terminating in them. Prof. Guyot affirms that in the first two chapters of Genesis the word “day” is used in five different senses! But not to lay stress on individual notions, we may say in general that all these writers ignore in the main the miraculous element so noticeable in the biblical narrative. Admitting that God is to be recognised as the great Cause back of all these evolutions, they nevertheless proceed to treat the creation throughout as a development from natural causes. There is such a lugging in of what may be called naturalism that we become suspicious of the whole procedure as a legitimate exposition of Scripture. We notice this tendency also in writers who do not commit themselves to any scientific theory. A leading doctrine of Tayler Lewis, in his work on the Six Days of Creation, (Schenectady, 1855,) is that these days are long, indefinite periods with supernatural beginnings, followed by natural growths. “From a higher world than the natural there was an occasional sudden flashing in of the extraordinary, of the supernatural, of a new morning after the long night of nature,” but each of these divine interpositions was “followed again by a long rest, sleep, or night, as we may call it, of nature’s tardy growth,” (page 98.) Also in an article in the Methodist Quarterly Review, (for 1865, page 207,) he calls the events of creation “a series of supernatural growths,” but explains them as natural processes. All this may not be in itself objectionable, and is as harmless as all other poetical fancies which recognise the supernatural above and beyond all natural phenomena; but when applied to the exposition of Genesis, it seems to us to make the whole record a riddle, and to resolve the interpretation into a series of transcendental fancies. We hesitate at such methods, and feel that if these modern theorists are correct the ancient writer made a great mistake in his style of recording facts. We turn away and ask, Is there not some other and better way of explaining this unique but simple narrative?
3. Another class of interpreters, not satisfied with the methods and dubious results of the theories above described, have adopted what we call the idealistic method of exposition. They lay stress upon the correspondencies of the double triad of creative days, claim a measured poetic rhythm in the construction, and conclude that the successive days of creation furnish us with an order of thought rather than of actual or accurate chronology. This view is set forth by Mr. Rorison in an essay on the “Creative Week,” (in Replies to Essays and Reviews,) and by Prof. B.F. Cocker, in his volume on The Theistic Conception of the World, (New York, 1875.) It is favoured by the manifest symmetry of the works of the several days, and a structure which conforms to some of the usual features of Hebrew parallelism. The first chapter of Genesis may, perhaps, be appropriately called the “Inspired Psalm of Creation,” and be treated as a most ancient poem, peculiarly adapted for transmission by oral tradition through many generations. But such admissions do not affect the question of the author’s meaning. The artificial form and symmetrical structure of a narrative do not change the import of a writer’s words. Mr. Rorison’s exposition transfigures the days “from registers of time into definitives of strophes or stanzas — lamps and landmarks of a creative sequence — a mystic drapery, a parabolic setting — shadowing by the sacred cycle of seven, the truths of an ordered progress, a foreknown finality, an achieved perfection, and a divine repose.” (Replies, etc., p. 290.) This style of interpretation carries its followers out of the region of fact into a realm of fancy. It opens a field for all manner of dreamy speculations, but as a fair interpretation of the language employed in Genesis i, it is utterly unsatisfactory. Our writer’s statements are too specific, and his narrative altogether too prosaic to allow an interpreter the license of “transfiguring” and “draping” his words in idealistic fancies so far removed from the range of Hebrew thought and feeling.
4. The grammatico-historical interpretation insists upon the literal and most obvious import of the words of the sacred writer. It maintains that the language employed to describe the firmament or expanse in verses 6-8, and the sun and moon in verses 16-18, is not scientific but popular, and the interpreter should not exercise his ingenuity to discover reconciliations between these phenomenal descriptions and the results of learned research, but transfer himself to the standpoint of the ancient Hebrew writer, attend to the exact meaning of his words, and obtain as far as possible the ideas he intended to express.
This method of interpretation is followed in the main by those who adopt what is commonly known as the Chalmerian hypothesis, or renovation theory of expounding Genesis and geology. This hypothesis supposes the first verse of Genesis to state the primordial creation of the universe; but between the first and the second verse it allows indefinite ages for the geological development of the earth. It maintains that between these verses, or between the first and third, we may admit the existence of as many ages and successive races or creations as the results of scientific research require, but with all this the biblical writer was not concerned. It is believed that immediately before the introduction of man upon the earth there was a period of geological catastrophe, attended by the general, if not universal, destruction of then existing vegetable and animal life. Geological science recognises several such catastrophes in long past ages, and it is assumed that the creation described in Genesis was the renovation and reconstruction of things at the beginning of the present human period. This view was set forth by Chalmers in 1804; it was ably advocated by Buckland in his Bridgewater Treatise; and is adopted by many exegetes of Germany, Great Britain, and America. We believe that no valid argument can be brought against it on the ground of grammatical exegesis, for it violates no usage of words, and conforms to established principles of interpretation. Tayler Lewis, indeed, has made the charge that such a separation between the first and second verses “violates the principles of a rational and grammatical exegesis,” (Lange’s Genesis, Am. ed., p. 168,) but the passage he cites (Job 1:1) does not fairly confirm his position, for it is perfectly supposable that many years might have elapsed between the time when Job first appeared in the land of Uz and the time when he became perfect and upright. But this question is not to be settled solely by the usage of the verb hyh. We are rather to inquire if anywhere in Hebrew usage two closely connected verbs relating to one general subject allow an indefinite period of time, and other events than those predicated, to be supposed between them. A pertinent example is Exodus 2:1, 2, where it is said in the first verse that Moses’s father “went and took a daughter of Levi,” and, in the next sentence, “and the woman conceived and bare a son.” The context shows that this son was Moses, and that many years elapsed between the two events, during which time Miriam and Aaron were born to these same parents; but who would have imagined it, from the language used in these two verses? So it is idle for any one to say that the Chalmerian hypothesis would never have been seriously maintained but for the difficulties of geology. The statement is true, but it is no valid objection; for it may as truly be said that it would never have been seriously supposed, solely from Exodus 2:1, 2, that twelve or fifteen years and the birth of two other children are to be understood as coming between these two closely connected verses.
Weightier objections are urged against this renovation theory on other grounds. It is affirmed by the highest authorities that there is no evidence of such a universal catastrophe as this exposition supposes immediately before the appearance of man on earth. If this be so, it must be seen to lie heavily against an interpretation which requires such a state of things at the beginning of the present period. It may also be urged against this theory that it imposes upon our faith a dubious strain. We are required to believe that, as preparatory to the formation of man, all the continents, islands, and oceans of our globe were at once upheaved and divided off, and all living species of fish, bird, beast, and cattle, together with all vegetable creations, in all zones and climates, were produced in two or three ordinary days. We are ever ready to accept the record of the miraculous, and can admit without scruple that, with omnipotence, all this was possible; but we frankly confess that this range and extent of miracle are out of all proportion to the conditions under which the first man appears to have been formed.
These difficulties connected with the universal renovation theory of creation led John Pye Smith to suggest a more natural explanation of the biblical narrative. In his work on the Relation Between the Holy Scriptures and Some Parts of Geological Science, (4th ed., Lond., 1848,) he showed, by a variety of evidence, “that there must have been separate original creations, perhaps at different and respectively distant epochs,” (p. 49.) He also maintained that a strict interpretation of the language of Genesis required no wider application of its terms than to “the part of our world which God was adapting for the dwelling of man and the animals connected with him. Of the spheroidal figure of the earth, it is evident that the Hebrews had not the most distant conception.” He understood the land or earth of Genesis 1 to be only “a portion of the surface of the earth, adjusted and furnished for most glorious purposes, in which a newly formed creation should be the object of those manifestations of the authority and grace of the Most High which shall, to eternity, show forth his perfections above all other methods of their display,” (pp. 189, 190.) This view of the biblical creation has not obtained general favour, but we have searched in vain to find a single valid argument against it. The only objections we have seen are, first, the a priori assumption that it belittles the idea of divine creation to limit this grand picture to a limited portion of the earth, and, second, that it is inconsistent with the words of the fourth commandment. To which it may be most effectually replied, that no interpreter has a right to come to the exposition of the first of Genesis with any a priori assumptions of what ought to be found there. Prof. Barrows says, that “it is hard to bring it into harmony with the spirit of the narrative, which almost irresistibly inclines one, in the words of Hugh Miller, ‘to look for a broader and more general meaning… than I could recognise it as forming, were I assured it referred to but one of many existing creations — a creation restricted to, mayhap, a few hundred square miles of country, and to, mayhap, a few scores of animals and plants.’” We submit that what is here called “the spirit of the narrative” is rather the spirit of the interpreter himself, who is so freighted with cosmical and geological ideas of the magnitude of the universe that he reads them into the language of the old Hebrew writer. Nothing, in fact, is more conspicuous in the treatment of this subject by modern Christian scientists than their persistent a priori assumptions that the biblical creation must needs be identical with the primordial universal cosmogony. We hope to show, in our notes on Genesis i and ii, that the language of the sacred writer does not warrant such assumptions.
The other objection is, that this limited conception is inconsistent with the words of the fourth commandment, which declares that “in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is,” (Exodus 20:11.) It might be replied that this objection comes with an ill grace from those who make the six days mean six cosmogonic aeons. They are the last exegetes who should venture to press the literal import of these words, for the obvious meaning is utterly inconsistent with their hypothesis. For if the “six days” of Exodus 20:11, mean six indefinitely long ages, the “third day” of Exodus 19:15, 16, ought to have like meaning, and untold generations should be included in the period referred to in Matthew 17:1: “After six days Jesus taketh,” etc. But when we observe the stress placed on the words “all that in them is,” we note the worthlessness of the objection. Does this mean “all that in them is,” or “all that in them” was? The Hebrew is כל אשר בם, all which — in them. There is no connecting verb expressed, and why supply is rather than was? If Jehovah, speaking at Sinai to Moses and the thousands of Israel there assembled, must be understood as affirming that in six days he made all that is in heaven and earth and sea, he must have included those Israelites, and all their cattle and effects.
Here, then, is a new revelation. We must henceforth understand between the lines of Genesis 1:24-27, not Adam and his wife only, and the cattle, etc., by which they were surrounded, and to which Adam gave names (Genesis 2:20,) but the Israelites, Egyptians, and all other things in existence at the time this commandment was uttered at Sinai! Plainly, the “all in them” of Exodus 20:11, refers to all which the creative narrative in Genesis describes, nothing more, nothing less. The words simply mean that in six days God did what he is said to have done in Genesis 1:1-2:3, and the heavens, land, sea, and all in them, mean in the one passage precisely what they do in the other. It is, therefore, begging the whole question, and carrying all the a priori assumptions named above into it, when this objection is offered. We appeal from all such assumptions and prejudgments to the strict meaning of the language of the sacred writer, and insist that before any conclusion is formed we first ascertain the usus loquendi of the Hebrew words for heavens and earth, and, as far as possible, the ancient Hebrew conceptions of the world. Nothing, in our view, seems so improper and misleading as to come to the interpretation of such an ancient writing loaded with the discoveries of modern science, and seeking to find them outlined by a writer who could have had no such knowledge. The idea that, because this record was given by inspiration of God, we may expect to find superhuman wisdom in it, is pressed altogether too far when we assume that its language is not to be interpreted in accordance with the usus loquendi of an age and people who knew little or nothing about modern science.
In the following notes on the narrative of creation, we adopt no hypothesis, and commit the exposition to no theory. We follow the grammatico-historical sense of the language, and where this involves difficulties, we make no effort to conceal them. We show that the words שמים and ארץ, heavens and earth, into which we have become so accustomed to read the stupendous results of scientific research, mean, according to the usus loquendi of the writer of Genesis, what we would now more naturally express by the terms sky and land, or climate and soil. Having once transferred ourself to the age and conceptions of the early world, there seems to us a monstrous incongruity in the interpretation which supposes the land, visible sky, surrounding waters, and vegetable and animal species by which the first man was encompassed, to mean all the continents and islands of the globe, the astronomic universe, with its cosmical history, and all the oceans, and plants, and living organisms (even of the fossiliferous rocks) which modern science has brought to our knowledge. A portion of land no larger than the Malay peninsula or the island of Ceylon would have been sufficient for the entire human race before the Noachic deluge. Why, then, load down this simple narrative by lugging into it all our modern ideas of the cosmos? The language of the writer and the very conditions of the case are against the assumption of a universal cosmogony. Far more natural is it to think here of the sky, climate, and soil where the first human pair were created. The most natural import of the narrative is, that God miraculously prepared the Edenic region for the residence of man, and that such scenery and surroundings as are described by the sacred writer were the primeval conditions under which he was placed. Subsequently, when mankind became corrupt, and that land was filled with violence, (vi, 11,) the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and that land was submerged with all its tribes except what Noah’s ark preserved. At the subsidence of the deluge, the ark rested, not again in Eden, but on the mountain of Ararat, probably far remote, perhaps thousands of miles from the place where it was builded. The original Eden was probably obliterated by the flood, but the names of its countries and rivers would have been preserved in tradition, and naturally transferred to the new land and rivers discovered and occupied by the sons of Noah.
This interpretation, as Hugh Miller observes, “virtually removes Scripture altogether out of the field of geology;” and it does so, not by erecting a hypothesis to meet supposed exigencies, but by following the strict meaning of the language. It maintains that the biblical creation is only that which attended the introduction of man upon the earth, and, therefore, essentially of limited extent. What had taken place on other portions of the globe, or what classes of living creatures existed before or at the time of this beginning of human life, are questions remote from the purpose of the biblical narrative. How and when God created matter, and what were the first forms and modes of life — whether vegetable, animal, or angelic — it appears not the purpose of revelation to inform us; but this beginning of the Bible does inform us of the miraculous creation of man in the image of God, and the conditions and environments of his first estate. As a more careful attention to the usage of Hebrew terms and the nature of things has led nearly all modern exegetes to abandon the notion that the Noachic deluge was universal, so we believe a closer study of the Hebrew text of the first and second chapters of Genesis will set aside the idea that those chapters were designed to describe a universal cosmogony. This interpretation, recognising the specific reality of all that is here recorded, maintains all the great doctrines of God the Creator as clearly as any of the more pretentious expositions, and by a more valid implication. (See concluding notes at end of chapter 2.) The entire conception is taken, not from the position of a modern scientist, nor from a heavenly point of vision as of one who observed the construction and movements of the sidereal universe, but from the position of the first man, who looked above and around him, and might well have asked the origin of the things which he beheld. Nothing in this picture of creation necessarily goes beyond what was visible from the garden of Eden. So far as the terms used indicate universality they must be understood of the whole creation as known to the first man. Tayler Lewis admits “that the author of the account in Genesis probably regarded himself as describing the creation of the all, since to his knowledge our immediate earth and heaven, with the phenomenal luminaries appearing as fixed in it and belonging to it were the all; but that he meant to tell us of the first matter even of this, or of its coming out of nothing, cannot be certainly determined by any etymology of words, or by any infallible exegesis of the passage. There are certainly some things that look the other way.” — (Lange’s Commentary on Genesis, Am. ed., p. 128.) Further on he adds: “The argument or implication is: He who made light to be at one place or time made it to be at all times, even at that time which was the absolute beginning of its existence; He who made the human spirit must have made all spirits, whether coeval with or immeasurably more ancient than man.” As to the origin of the biblical narrative of creation, and the manner in which the details were made known to man, we have no knowledge, and any reasonable hypothesis is admissible. We dismiss as unsatisfactory and inconsistent with the implication of divine revelation the theory of many modern writers, (Tuch, Dillmann, Lenormant, Ladd,) that this narrative is merely a monotheistic improvement upon the traditional cosmogonies current among the ancient nations. We may properly ask: Is this account of creation true or false? Is it a revelation of what God did, or merely the dream, the ideal conjecture, of some ancient Leibnitz or Pythagoras? Prof. Ladd, in his Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, (vol. i, p. 272,) informs us, with the air of one who seems to know all about it, that “the traditional cosmogony of the Hebrews preceding this account, probably told of eight or more separate works of creation. But this author has fused and moulded the ideas of the traditional cosmogony according to the idea of God which entered into his own exalted monotheism, and as well according to the Sabbath idea.” That is, as appears from the scope of his argument, the Hebrew writer picked up the existing heathen traditions of the East, and shaped them into what he considered a becoming form. It is, therefore, essentially a human invention, and at best only an improvement of “the cosmogonies of the other nations, which originated in their observations of nature as interpreted by philosophic and religious conceptions.” And yet the writer of the above considers the theory of Chalmers, especially as modified by Pye Smith, “dangerous to the very life of religious doctrine”(!) and suggests (p. 267) that he must be a notorious errorist who conceives “the Tohu va-bhohu of the Mosaic cosmogony” in any other light than as “representing the universal star dust from which all worlds came!” We venture to suggest that such a theory as that of Pye Smith, which makes no “attempt at reconciliation,” because it finds no “universal star dust” in the narrative or conceptions of the sacred writer, conserves “the very life of religious doctrine” far more nobly than the theory which insists on seeing “universal star dust” there, and, of course, as a necessary consequence, finds “the Mosaic cosmogony at variance with several valid conclusions of modern astronomy and geology,” and containing “many errors of fact and faults of conception,” (p. 284.) Is it not the great trouble of all this class of writers that their eyes are too full of “star dust?”
We adopt as a more reasonable hypothesis — one more in keeping with the idea of divine revelation, and far less dangerous to the life of religious doctrine — that this biblical narrative is no imitation of heathen cosmogonies, and no attempt to revise or improve them, but rather the original picture from which they were traditionally derived, and were afterward mixed with legendary and incongruous accretions. Until some valid reason to the contrary be shown, we shall accept the doctrine that man was originally created upright, in the image of God, and that this account of his creation was probably communicated to him in the same way as that by which he received the law recorded in Genesis 2:16, 17. This hypothesis, in its full analysis, logically and necessarily begins and
Outline of Contents.
WHD_CO01.PDF, source PDF p. 64
ends in supernaturalism; the other hypothesis, described above, as logically and necessarily begins and ends in naturalism.
OUTLINE OF CONTENTS.
I. The Creative Beginning, Genesis 1-2:3.
1) Light. 2) Heavens. 3) Land, Seas, and Vegetation. 4) Luminaries. 5) Fish and Fowls. 6) Animals and Man. 7) Sabbath.
II. The Generations of the Heavens and the Land, Genesis 2:4-iv, 26.
Man in the Garden of Eden, Genesis 2:1-25. First Sin, Genesis 3:1-24. Cain and Abel, Genesis 4:1-15. Cainites, Genesis 4:16-24. Seth and Enos, Genesis 4:25, 26.
III. Book of the Generations of Adam, Genesis 5:1-6:8. Sethite Genealogy from Adam to Noah, Genesis 5:1-32. Antediluvian Wickedness, Genesis 6:1-8.
IV. The Generations of Noah, Genesis 6:9-9:29.
History of the Deluge, Genesis 6:9-8:22. Covenant with Noah, Genesis 9:1-17. Prophecy of Noah, Genesis 9:18-29. V. The Generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Genesis 10:1-11:9.
Genealogy of Nations Genesis 10:1-32. Confusion of Tongues, Genesis 11:1-9.
VI. The Generations of Shem, Genesis 11:10-26.
VII. The Generations of Terah, Genesis 11:27-25:11. Migration from Ur, Genesis 11:28-32. Call of Abram, Genesis 12:1-3. Abram in Canaan, Genesis 12:4-9. Abram in Egypt, Genesis 12:10-20. Return from Egypt, Genesis 13:1-4. Separation of Abram and Lot, Genesis 13:5-13. Promise Renewed to Abram, Genesis 13:14-18. Invasion of the Eastern Kings, Genesis 14:1-12. Abram’s Military Victory, Genesis 14:13-16. Abram and Melchizedek, Genesis 14:17-20. Abram and the King of Sodom, Genesis 14:21-24. God’s fuller Revelation to Abram, Genesis 15:1-21. Hagar and Ishmael, Genesis 16:1-16. The Covenant of Circumcision, Genesis 17:1-27. Entertaining Angels, Genesis 18:1-15. Abraham’s Intercession for Sodom, Genesis 18:16-33. Lot Rescued by Angels, Genesis 19:1-23. Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Genesis 19:24-28. Lot’s Infamous Daughters, Genesis 19:29-38. Abraham and Abimelech, Genesis 20:1-18. Birth of Isaac, Genesis 21:1-8. Expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael, Genesis 21:9-21. Covenant between Abraham and Abimelech, Genesis 21:22-34. Offering of Isaac, Genesis 22:1-19. Nahor’s Children, Genesis 22:20-24. Death and Burial of Sarah, Genesis 23:1-20. Isaac’s Marriage, Genesis 24:1-67. Abraham’s Sons by Keturah, Genesis 25:1-6. Death and Burial of Abraham, Genesis 25:7-11.
VIII. The Generations of Ishmael, Genesis 25:12-18. IX. The Generations of Isaac, Genesis 25:19-35:29. Birth of Esau and Jacob, Genesis 25:19-26. Sale of Esau’s Birthright, Genesis 25:27-34. Isaac and Abimelech, Genesis 26:1-33. Esau’s Marriage, Genesis 26:34, 35. Isaac Blessing his Sons, Genesis 27:1-40. Jacob’s Departure to Haran, Genesis 27:41-28:5. Esau Marries Mahalath, Genesis 28:6-9. Jacob at Bethel, Genesis 28:10-22. Jacob’s Arrival at Haran, Genesis 29:1-14. Jacob’s Double Marriage, Genesis 29:15-30. Leah’s First Four Sons, Genesis 29:31-35. Sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, Genesis 30:1-13. Other Children of Leah, Genesis 30:14-21. Birth of Joseph, Genesis 30:22-24. Laban’s New Bargain with Jacob, Genesis 30:25-36. Jacob’s Artifice, Genesis 30:37-43. Jacob’s Flight from Padan-Aram, Genesis 31:1-21. Laban’s Pursuit, and Covenant with Jacob, Genesis 31:22-55. Jacob at Mahanaim and Peniel, Genesis 32:1-32. Meeting of Jacob and Esau, Genesis 33:1-16. Jacob at Shechem, Genesis 33:17-20. Troubles with Hamor and Shechem, Genesis 34:1-31. Jacob again at Bethel, Genesis 35:1-15. Death of Rachel, Genesis 35:16-20. Reuben’s Incest, Genesis 35:21, 22. List of Jacob’s Sons, Genesis 35:23-26. Isaac’s Death and Burial, Genesis 35:27-29. X. The Generations of Esau, Genesis 36:1-43.
Esau’s Wives and Children, and their Removal to Mount Seir, Genesis 36:1-8. Sons and Grandsons of Esau as Heads of Tribes, Genesis 36:9-14. Dukes of Esau, Genesis 36:15-19. Sons of Seir the Horite, Genesis 36:20-30. Kings of Edom, Genesis 36:31-39. Dukes of Esau, after their Places, Genesis 36:40-43.
XI. The Generations of Jacob, 37-50.
Joseph and his Dreams, Genesis 37:1-11. Joseph Sold into Egypt, Genesis 37:12-36. Family of Judah, Genesis 38:1-30. Joseph in Slavery and in Prison, Genesis 39:1-23. Dreams of the Butler and of the Baker, Genesis 40:1-23. Dreams of Pharaoh, Genesis 41:1-8. Joseph Interprets Pharaoh’s Dreams, Genesis 41:9-36. Joseph Made Overseer of Egypt, Genesis 41:35-57. Joseph’s First Meeting with his Brethren, Genesis 42:1-38. Second Journey to Egypt for Food, Genesis 43:1-15. Reception and Feast at Joseph’s House, Genesis 43:16-34. Further Troubles, and Judah’s Appeal, Genesis 44:1-34. Recognition and the Message to Jacob, Genesis 45:1-28. Journey to Egypt, Genesis 46:1-7. Muster-Roll of Israel, Genesis 46:8-27. Israel in Egypt, Genesis 46:28-34. Introduction to Pharaoh and Settlement in Egypt, Genesis 47:1-12. Joseph’s Administration during the Years of Famine, Genesis 47:13-26. Jacob’s Desire to be Buried with his Fathers, Genesis 47:27-31. Adoption and Blessing of Joseph’s Sons, Genesis 48:1-22. Jacob’s Prophetic Blessing on his Sons, Genesis 49:1-27. Death of Jacob, Genesis 49:28-33. Funeral of Jacob, Genesis 50:1-14. Fears of Joseph’s Brethren, Genesis 50:15-21. Death of Joseph, Genesis 50:22-26.