Commentaires bibliques

31. and, behold, it was very good] The work of the six days’ Creation having been completed, God, as it were, contemplates the universe both in its details and in its entirety. That which He saw to be “good,” on each separate day, was but a fragment; that which He sees to be “very good,” on the sixth day, is the vast ordered whole, in which the separate parts are combined. The Divine approval of the material universe constitutes one of the most instructive traits of the Hebrew cosmogony. According to it, matter is not something hostile to God, independent of Him, or inherently evil, but made by Him, ordered by Him, good in itself, and good in its relation to the purpose and plan of the Creator. The adjective “good” should not therefore be limited in meaning to the sense of “suitable,” or “fitting.” There is nothing “evil” in the Divinely-created universe: it is “very good” (LXX καλὰ λίαν: Lat. valde bona).

Ch. Genesis 2:4 b– Genesis 3:24 (J). The Story of Paradise: I. The Creation of Man (Genesis 2:4-25). II. The Fall of Man (Genesis 3:1-24)

I.  The Creation of Man (Genesis 2:4-25).

4b–7.  The Creation of Man.

8–9.  The Garden in Eden.

10–14.  Its geographical situation.

15–17.  The Trees of Life and of the Knowledge of good and evil.

18–20.  The Creation of the Animals.

21–25.  The Creation of Woman.

In this passage the compiler has had before him another account of the Creation. The earliest part dealing with the formation of the earth, the heavens, and the seas, he has omitted. The account in the previous chapter was evidently deemed to be sufficient. The description, however, of the origin of man and woman and of the animals is quite different from that given in ch. 1. The narrative goes into greater details; and events are described in a different order. It cannot escape the reader’s notice that, whereas in ch. 1 all the living creatures are created before man and woman, in ch. 2 man is first created (Genesis 2:6-7), the animals are created afterwards as companions to him (Genesis 2:18-20), and that woman, last of all, is created out of his rib to be his wife (Genesis 2:21-25). The picture, therefore, presented in this chapter comes from a different source from that in ch. 1; and the fact is shewn not only by the variety in the treatment of the subject matter, but also by the unmistakable variety in the style and vocabulary. Some of the more noteworthy instances will be commented upon.

Ch. Genesis 2:1-4 a. The Seventh Day: (a) The Cessation from Work; (b) The Hallowing of the Day

1. were finished] In these verses the repetition of the words “finish,” “work,” “seventh day,” “made,” is probably intended to heighten the solemnity connected with the seventh day; see also note on Genesis 1:27, and Introduction, on the characteristics of P.

and all the host of them] The word “host” is noteworthy. The Hebrew is ṣâbâ, “army,” the plural of which is the word “Sabaoth” (= ṣ’bâôth = “hosts”) familiar to us in the Te Deum. Here, as applied to the countless forces of the universe, its use is metaphorical. In the ancient world a great army represented the ideal of an organized multitude: and the designation of “host” (ṣâbâ) is often given in the O.T. to the heavenly bodies (e.g. 2 Kings 17:16). The LXX ὁ κόσμος αὐτῶν, = “their order, beauty, or array,” is reproduced in the Lat. ornatus eorum = “their splendour,” missing the significance of the original. Upon this error of the Vulgate St Thomas Aquinas based his division of the works of Creation into “opera distinctionis” and “opera ornatus.”

NOTE ON THE SABBATH

In connexion with the Institution of the Sabbath recorded in Genesis 2:1-3 the following points deserve to be noticed.

1. The writer gives the reason for the sanctity among the Hebrews of the Seventh Day, or Sabbath. As, in chap. 17, he supplies an answer to the question: What is the origin of the Hebrew sacred rite of circumcision? so, here, he gives an answer to the question: What is the origin of the observance of the Sabbath?

2. Whereas the Hebrew rite of circumcision is described as having its origin in the command of God delivered to Abraham, the Father of the Chosen People, the origin of the Sabbath is treated as more ancient and uniquely sacred. As an institution, it follows at once upon the work of Creation. Whatever its import, therefore, may be, it is regarded by the writer as universal in its application. The Divine rest from Creation, like the Divine work of Creation, was a pledge of Divine Love, not to the Jew only, but to the whole world.

3. From the first, God is said to have “blessed” and “sanctified” the seventh day. In other words, he invested the seventh day with the quality of highest value and advantage to those who observed it; stamped its observance with the seal of Divine approbation; and “set it apart,” as distinct from the other six days, for sacred purposes.

4. The account of the origin of the Sabbath, given in this passage, is followed in the legislation, Exodus 31:17 (P), and seems to have supplied the appendix to the primitive form of the Fourth Commandment as found in the Decalogue of Exodus (Genesis 20:11).

In the Deuteronomic Decalogue (Deuteronomy 5:12-15) the observance of the Sabbath is enjoined, without any reference to the days of Creation, but with an appendix explaining its humanitarian purpose. “And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God brought thee out thence by a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.”

A similar explanation for the observance of the Sabbath is found in the so-called Book of the Covenant (Exodus 20:22 to Exodus 23:33 E), which contains the earliest collection of Hebrew laws: “Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may have rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed” (Exodus 23:12). In the old ritual laws of Exodus 34:10-28, the observance of the seventh day is commanded as a duty with which no pressure of field labour is to interfere: “Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest; in plowing time and in harvest thou shalt rest” (Genesis 2:21).

What relation exists between the Hebrew institution of the Sabbath and Babylonian usage is a question which has been much discussed in recent years. It has sometimes been too hastily assumed that the Hebrew ordinance has been directly imported from Babylonia. For a full discussion, see Driver (D.B. s.v. Sabbath); Gordon, Early Traditions of Genesis, pp. 216–223; the Commentaries by Driver and Skinner; Meinhold, Sabbath u. Woche im A.T. The following points may here be noticed:

(a) The Assyrian word shabattu appears in a cuneiform syllabary (ii Rawlinson 32, 16 a, b) with the equivalent ûm nûḥ libbi (ilâni), i.e. “day of resting (satisfying or appeasing) the heart of the gods.”

(b) In a tablet, discovered in 1904 by Pinches, the word shapattu appears to have been applied to the 15th day, or full-moon day, of the month (P.S.B.A. xxvi. 51 ff.).

(c) There is evidence which shews that the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th days, and also the 19th (i.e. the 49th = 7 × 7th, from the commencement of the preceding month) were in certain, if not in all, of the Babylonian months, regarded as “unlucky” days. The following quotation is from a calendar of the intercalated month of Elul. “On the 7th day, supplication to Marduk and Sarpanitum, a favourable day (sc. may it be). An evil day. The shepherd of many nations is not to eat meat roasted by the fire, or any food prepared by the fire. The clothes of his body he is not to change, fine dress (?) he is not to put on. Sacrifices he is not to bring, nor is the king to ride in his chariot. He is not to hold court, nor is the priest to seek an oracle for him in the holy of holies. The physician is not to be brought to the sick room. The day is not suitable for invoking curses. At night, in the presence of Marduk and Ishtar, the king is to bring his gift. Then he is to offer sacrifices so that his prayer may be acceptable” (M. Jastrow’s Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 376, 377).

(d) It is only on the side of prohibition that we can here see any resemblance between the Babylonian treatment of the seventh day and the Hebrew Sabbath of every seventh day. Of course it is possible that if the use of the Babylonian word shapattu for “full-moon” day is sustained, it may be a survival of Semitic lunar sacred days, the observance of which, though dropped by Babylonian usage, was retained by Hebrew legislation and given a new religious significance.

(e) In the pre-exilic writings of the O.T. (2 Kings 4:23; Isaiah 1:13; Hosea 2:11; Amos 8:5) we notice the joint mention of the New Moon and the Sabbath as sacred festivals observed by the people; but the conjecture of Meinhold, that the Sabbath was originally the Hebrew name of the Full Moon Festival, seems very improbable. That there is some underlying connexion between the Babylonian shabattu and the Hebrew shabbath is highly probable. At present, there is no evidence to shew that the Hebrew usage is borrowed from Babylonian. Nor does the language of the post-exilic writers suggest that the Hebrew observance of the Sabbath was one which they associated with Babylonian religion.

2. on the seventh day] Some misunderstanding arose in very early times in consequence of these words. Jealous for the sanctity of the Sabbath, men said, “No, not on the seventh day, but on the sixth day, God finished the work of creation.” So we find “on the sixth day” is the reading of the Samaritan, the LXX, and the Syriac Peshitto. The mistake was not unnatural: it was not perceived that the conclusion of work was identical with the cessation from work. God wrought no work on the seventh day; therefore, it is said, He brought His work to an end on the seventh day. The reading, “on the sixth day,” may be dismissed as an erroneous correction made in the interests of keeping the Sabbath. All reference to the sixth day was concluded in ch. Genesis 1:31.

his work] LXX τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ, “his works.” The same Hebrew word as in the Fourth Commandment, Exodus 20:9, “all thy work”; it denotes not so much the “result” of labour, as its “process,” or “occupation.” Driver renders by “business.”

rested] LXX κατέπαυσε = “ceased,” Lat. requierit. Heb. shâbath has strictly the sense of “ceasing,” or “desisting.” It is this thought rather than that of “resting” after labour, which is here prominent. Elsewhere, the idea that God rested on the seventh day, is more directly expressed, e.g. Exodus 31:17, “And on the seventh day he (the Lord) rested (shâbath, ‘desisted’) and was refreshed.” The idea of “cessation” from the employment of the six days suggested the conception of “rest,” which is mentioned, both in Exodus 20:11; Exodus 31:17, as the sanction for the observance of the Sabbath. Rest in the best sense is not idleness, but alteration in the direction of activity.

3. And God blessed the seventh day) It was the belief of the devout Israelite that in some mysterious way God at the beginning conferred His special favour upon the seventh day. The writer does not in this passage mention the name “Sabbath,” but the reference to the Israelite Sabbath is indisputable. A play on the word “Sabbath “is evidently intended by the use of the word shâbath. The Hebrew cosmogony traced back the observance of the Sabbath to the Divine example on the seventh day of the creative week. Whether its observance was followed by the Israelites before the time of Moses, has been much disputed. No reference to it occurs in the Patriarchal narratives: but the intervals of seven days occurring in the story of the Flood (Genesis 7:10, Genesis 8:10; Genesis 8:12 J) may indicate the belief in the primitive recognition of the “week” as a sacred division of time. The reference to the Sabbath in Exodus 16:23 ff. has led many commentators to suppose that the opening word (“Remember”) of the Fourth Commandment assumes the primitive recognition of the institution. See Special Note on Genesis 2:1-3.

hallowed) viz. separated from common and profane usage. LXX ἡγίασεν: Lat. sanctificavit. This is the first mention of the idea of holiness, which in Holy Scripture occupies such an important place in the description of religious worship and godly life.

We may be unable fully to discern what was intended by the writer, when he spoke of God “hallowing” or “making separate” the seventh day. But it conveys to us the thought that God from the first, set His seal upon “time” as well as His blessing upon matter; and this consecration of the seventh day should serve as the continual reminder that as “the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof,” so time is of the Lord and the opportunities thereof. The Sabbath is the sacrament of time: its rest is the symbol of the consecration of work. The worship of the Creator made a demand for the consecration of time as well as of place. Notice the absence of the formula, “There was evening and there was morning, the seventh day.” This omission led some to suppose that the seventh, or rest, day of God is not yet ended; and that, when the work of Creation was finished, there began on the seventh day the different task of the maintenance of the universe. But it seems more probable that by the reference to the seventh day in Genesis 2:2, and by the blessing of the seventh day in Genesis 2:3, the writer intended that the seven days should be regarded as completed, and as presenting the Divine type for every week of seven days. After the seventh day came another phase of Divine activity, the unceasing operation of Divine laws. The Immanence of Creative Love and Wisdom needs to be acknowledged no less than their Transcendence; cf., especially, John 5:17, “My Father worketh even until now, and I work.” In that conception of Divine work, there is no room for the thought of cessation.

4. These are the generations … created] These words, as they stand here, seem to form a summary of the preceding account of the Creation. Elsewhere, however, the phrase “These are the generations, &c.” is the formula employed in P as a heading, title, or superscription, to introduce the passage that follows. Cf. Genesis 5:1, “The generations of Adam,” Genesis 6:9 (Noah), Genesis 10:1 (The Sons of Noah), Genesis 11:10 (Shem), 27 (Terah), Genesis 25:12 (Ishmael). The conjecture has been made that the formula “These are the generations, &c.” originally stood at the beginning of ch. 1, and was transferred to its present place, either, in order that the book might begin with the word b’rêshîth (= “In the beginning”), or to obtain a sentence which would serve both as an epitome of the opening section and as a link with the one that follows.

generations] Heb. tô-l’-dôth = “successions by descent,” usually meaning “the chronicles,” or “genealogies,” of persons and families, is here metaphorically applied to “the heaven and the earth” in the sense of the “history” of their origin and their offspring. LXX, therefore, gives an explanatory rendering, αὕτη ἡ βίβλος γενέσεως οὐρανοῦ καὶ γῆς.

It is quite a different word from that found, e.g. in Genesis 15:16, “in the fourth generation” (Heb. dôr, LXX γενέα).

created] This word closes the first section of the book, and there should be a full stop after it. The next section, giving another narrative, at of the creation of man and of Paradise, opens with the words “In the day that.”

The first section has been derived from the materials of the Priestly Code (P), the second is from the Prophetic Writing (J). The styles which characterize the two sources offer a marked contrast.

4b–7. The Creation of Man

4. in the day that] There is no allusion here to the Days of Creation. It is simply the vivid Hebrew idiom for “at the time when.”

the Lord God] The Hebrew words “Jahveh Elohim” are used in this section for the Almighty. On the Sacred Names, see Introduction. The use of JHVH, the Name of the God of Israel (Exodus 3) which the Jews in reverence forbore to pronounce, and which received, in the 16th century, the wholly erroneous pronunciation of “Jehovah,” is one of the characteristics of the writing of J. In the previous section, Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 2:4 a, the Sacred Name is “Elohim” = “God”; and the use of “Elohim” is prevalent in the P Narratives of Gen. In the present section, Genesis 2:4 b–3:24, the Sacred Name is a combination of Jahveh and Elohim, i.e. Jehovah (= Lord) and “God.” In the next section, the story of Cain and Abel, Jehovah alone is used; throughout the rest of Genesis we find either Jehovah or Elohim alone. The combination of the two Sacred Names is elsewhere of exceedingly rare occurrence. How to account for it in the present passage, is a problem to which no certain answer can be given. The theory that “God” (Elohim) is used for the God of Nature, and Lord (Jehovah) for the God of Revelation, in unsupported by the facts: e.g. “God” (Elohim) is the name used of the Deity in ch. 17 at the establishment of the covenant of circumcision: the Lord (Jahveh) is the name used at the destruction of the cities or the Plain (Genesis 19:1-28, see note on Genesis 19:29). There seems no reason to assign any doctrinal ground for the exceptional usage.

It should most probably be attributed to the handiwork of the compiler. On the first occasion in which the sacred title of the God or Israel was used, he wished to emphasize the fact that Jehovah and the Elohim of Creation were one and the same.

Another suggestion has been made, that the Paradise Narrative was current in two versions, in one of which the Sacred Name was Jahveh, in the other Elohim, and that the compiler who was acquainted with both versions left a trace of the fact in the combined names. But the compiler has not resorted to any such expedient elsewhere.

earth and heaven] An unusual order of words, found only in Psalm 148:13.

5. And no plant, &c.] If, as is possible, Genesis 2:5-6 are a parenthesis then Genesis 2:7 carries on the sentence of Genesis 2:4 b. The whole sentence would then run, “At the time when Jehovah Elohim made earth and heaven (there was as yet no plant of the field … face of the ground), Jehovah Elohim formed man.” But this arrangement is too cumbrous to be probable. Moreover, the state of things described in Genesis 2:5-6 is evidently one of considerable duration; it intervenes between the making of the earth and the heavens (Genesis 2:4 b) and the formation of man (Genesis 2:7). It is better to regard Genesis 2:5 as the apodosis to Genesis 2:4 b, “At the time when Jehovah Elohim made, &c., (5) there was as yet no plant, &c., (6) but a mist (or, flood) used to come up, &c.”

plant of the field … herb of the field] The word “plant “is the same in the original as that rendered “shrub” in Genesis 21:15, the stunted growth of the desert under which Hagar cast her child, and “bushes” in Job 30:4; Job 30:7. The “herb” is the vegetation useful for food and requiring cultivation. There was no “plant” or “bush,” because the Lord God had not yet caused it to rain: there was no “herb,” because there was no man to prepare the ground. In the absence of rain and of tillage there was no vegetation. The ground originally was desert, without tree, bush, or grass.

6. there went up] or “there used to go up,” i.e. periodically. The frequentative idea of the verb is given in the LXX ἀνέβαινεν, Lat. ascendebat.

a mist] Heb. ’êd, a word found elsewhere in the O.T. only in Job 36:27, where it is rendered “vapour.” Here the meaning is not certain: the versions (LXX πηγή: Lat. fons: Targum “cloud”) reflect the doubt. The English versions follow the Targum. Recently, Assyriologists have compared the Babylonian êdû, meaning a “flood” or “overflowing.” It is possible that the rendering “spring” or “stream” maybe more accurate than “mist”; that in Job 36:27 ’êd may denote the “source” of the waters above the heavens; and that here it may refer to the hidden source of the rivers of the world. No account is given of the origin of rain.

watered] Literally, “gave to drink”; an expression better suited to a “stream” than to a “mist”: cf. Genesis 2:10, where it is used of a river. “The ground,” the face of which was watered by it, was “the cultivable soil” (adâmah).