Commentari biblici

And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

Ver. 24, 25. Let the earth, … — Lo here the earth, in itself a dead element, brings forth, at God’s command, living creatures, tame, wild, and creeping. "Why then should it be thought a thing incredible," that the same earth, at God’s command, should bring forth again our dead bodies restored to life, at the last day? Acts 26:8 Surely if that speech of Christ, "Lazarus, Come forth," John 11:43 had been directed to all the dead, they had all presently risen. If he speak to the rocks, they rend; if to the mountains, they melt; if to the earth, it opens; if to the sea, it yields up her dead; if to the whole host of heaven, they tremble and stand amazed, waiting his pleasure. And shall he not prevail by his mighty power, the same that he put forth in the raising of his Son Christ, Ephesians 1:19 to raise us from the death of sin; and of carnal, to make us a people created again? Psalms 102:18 Doth he not "plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, that he may say to Zion, Thou art my people?" Isaiah 51:16 "Empty man would be wise," saith Zophar, Job 11:12 "though man be born like a wild ass-colt." Man’s heart is a mere emptiness, a very Tohu vabohu , as void of matter to make him a new creature of, as the hollow of a tree is of heart of oak. God, therefore, creates in his people clean hearts. Psalms 51:10 And, as in the first creation, Lightf. Miscel. so in the new creature, the first day, as it were, God works light of knowledge; the second day, the firmament of faith; the third day seas and trees, that is, repentant tears, and worthy fruits; the fourth day, the sun, joining light and heat together, heat of zeal with light of knowledge; the fifth day, fishes to play, and fowls to fly, so to live and rejoice in a sea of troubles, and fly heavenward by prayer and contemplation; the sixth day God makes beasts and man, yea, of a wild ass-colt, a man in Christ, with whom "old things are past, all things are become new," 2 Corinthians 5:17 and to whom, besides that they are all taught of God θεοδιδακτοι , 1 Thessalonians 4:9 the very beasts Isaiah 1:2 and birds Jeremiah 8:7 do read a divinity lecture. "Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee, and the fowls of the air, they shall tell thee". Job 12:7 The whole world is nothing else, saith one, but Anton. Eremita ap Aug. l. 3. De Doctr. Chris. Neceph. l. 8. c. 40. Clem. Alex. "God expressed," so that we cannot plead ignorance; for all are, or may be, book-learned in the creature. This is the shepherd’s calendar, the ploughman’s alphabet; we may run and read in this great book, which hath three leaves - heaven, earth, sea. "A brutish man knoweth not, neither doth a fool understand this". Psalms 92:6 They stand gazing and gaping on the outside of things only, but ask not who is their Father, their Creator; like little children, which when they find a picture in their book, they gaze and make sport with it, but never consider it. Either their minds are like a clock that is over-wound above the ordinary pitch, and so stands still; their thoughts are amazed for a time; they are like a block, thinking nothing at all, or else they think, atheistically, that all comes by nature; but "hast thou not known?" saith the prophet, "hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator?" … Isaiah 40:28 Or, at best, as the common passenger looks only at the hand of the dial to see what of the clock it is, but takes no notice of the clockwork within, the wheels and poises and various turnings and windings in the work; so it is here with the man that is no more than a mere "natural." "But he that is spiritual discerneth all things"; 2 Corinthians 2:15 he entereth into the clock-house, as it were, and views every motion, beginning at the great wheel, and ending in the least and last that is moved. He studies the glory of God revealed in this great book of nature, and praiseth his power, wisdom, goodness, … And for that in these things "he cannot order his speech, because of darkness," Job 37:19 he begs of God a larger heart, and better language, and cries out continually with David, "Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. And blessed be his glorious name for ever and ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and Amen". Psalms 72:18-19

return to '

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.

And all creeping things of the earth. — God assigns the parts of the people as of the gnat, saith an ancient. Disponit Deus membra publicis et culicis. And the wisdom of men and angels, saith a modern writer, cannot mend the least thing in a fly. The figure, colour, quality, quantity of every worm, and every flower, with what exactness is it ordered! as if God nod nothing else to do, but to bring forth such a creature into the world, as the product of his infinite wisdom. The devil, with all his skill, could not create a louse. Exodus 8:18 Myrmecides spent more time to make an artificial bee, than some do to build a house. Pliny Plin. l. xi. c. 9. makes mention of one who had spent sixty-eight years in searching out the nature of the bee, and yet had not fully found it out. God is the greatest in the smallest matters. Deus est maximus in mininis. Holy Mr Dod, being at Holmeby, and invited by an honourable person to see that once stately house, desired to be excused, and to sit still, looking on a flower which he had in his hand. "In this flower," saith he, "I can see more of God than in all the beautiful buildings in the world." Full. Chur. Hist. p. 210.

return to '

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

And God said, Let us make man. — Man is the masterpiece of God’s handiwork. Sun, moon, and stars are but "the work of his fingers," Psalms 8:3 but man the work of his hands. He is made of divine nature, cura divini ingenii made by counsel at first, "Let us make," …; and his body, which is but the soul’s sheath Animae vaginae. Daniel 7:15 is still "curiously wrought in the lower parts of the earth," that is, in the womb; comp. Psalms 139:15 Ephesians 4:9 as curious workmen, when they have some choice piece in hand, they perfect it in private, and then bring it forth to light for men to gaze at. "Thine hands have made me" (or took special pains about me), "and fashioned me," saith Job. Job 19:8 "Thou hast formed me by the book," saith David, Psalms 139:16 yea, embroidered me with nerves, veins, and variety of limbs, Psalms 139:15 miracles enough, saith one, beteen head and foot, to fill a volume. There are six hundred muscles, saith another out of Galen, in the body of man; and every one fitted for ten uses: so for bones, nerves, arteries, and veins, whosoever observeth their use, situation, and correspondency of them, cannot but fall into admiration of the wisdom of the Maker; who hath thus exactly framed all things at first out of nothing; and still out of the froth of the blood. Man, saith a heathen, is the bold attempt of daring nature; τοληροτατης της φυσεως αγαλμα - Trismegls. the fair workmanship of a wise artificer,’ Sοφου τεκτονος καλον ποικιλμα - Eurip. Tεχνημα σοφουντος δημιουργου και φιλοξωου - Xenoph. saith another; the greatest of all miracles, Miraculorum omnium maximum. - Stoici. saith a third. And surely should a man be born into the world but once in a hundred years, all the world would run to see the wonder. Sed miracula assiduitate vilescunt. Galen, Gal. l. iii. De usu partium. l. xi. and xvii. that profane man, was forced, upon the description of man and the parts of his body only, to sing a hymn to the Creator, whom yet he knew not. I make here, saith he, a true hymn in the honour of our Maker; whose service, I believe verily, consisteth not in the sacrificing of hecatombs, or in burning great heaps of frankincense before him, but in acknowledging the greatness of his wisdom, power, and goodness; and in making the same known to others, … And, in another place, Who is he, saith Galen, which, looking but only upon the skin of a thing, wondereth not at the cunning of the Creator? Yet, notwithstanding, he dissembleth not that he had tried by all means to find some reason of the composing of living creatures; and that he would rather have fathered the doing thereof upon nature, than upon the very Author of nature. And in the end, l. xv. concludeth thus: I confess that I know not what the soul is, though I have sought very narrowly for it. Favorinus the philosopher was wont to say, The greatest thing in this world is man, and the greatest thing in man is his soul. Nihil in terra magnum praeter hominem, nihil in homine praeter mentem. It is an abridgment of the invisible world, as the body is of the visible. Hence, man is called by the Hebrews, Gnolam hakkaton , and by the Greeks, microcosmus, a little world. And it was a witty essay of him, Favorinus Gell. who styled woman the second edition of the epitome of the whole world. The soul is set in the body of them both, as a little god in this little world, as Jehovah is a great God in the great world. Whence Proclus the philosopher could say, that the mind that is in us is an image of the first mind, that is, of God.

In our image, after our likeness, — that is, as like us as may be, to come as near us as is possible; for these two expressions signify but one and the same thing; and, therefore, Genesis 1:27 ; Genesis 5:1 ; Genesis 9:6 one of them only is used: howbeit, Basil refers image to the reasonable soul in man, similitude to a conformity to God in holy actions. Some of the fathers had a conceit that Christ made man’s body with his own hands according to the form and likeness of that body which himself would afterwards assume and suffer in. We deny not that man’s body also is God’s image, as it is a little world; and so the idea or example of the world, that was in God from all eternity, is, as it were, briefly and summarily expressed by God in man’s body. But far be it from us to conceive of God as a bodily substance, to think him like unto us, as we are very apt to do. God made man in his own image; and men, of the other side, quasi ad hostimentum , would make God after their image. Molinaeus. De Cogn. Dei. It was seriously disputed by the monks of Egypt, A.D. 493, Funcius. Chro. in Commentar. and much ado there was about it, whether God were not a bodily substance, having bands, eyes, ears, and other parts, as we have. For so the simpler sort among them were clearly of opinion. And in the second Council of Nice under Irene, Heylin’s Geog. [Cosmography] , p. 533. John, one of the legates of the Eastern Churches, proved Aeute obtusi. the making of images lawful, because God had said in this text, "Let us make man after our own image." And it was there decreed that they should be reverenced and adored in as ample and pious manner as the glorious Trinity. But "God is a Spirit," John 4:24 saith our Saviour, who best knew, for he came out of his Father’s bosom. And man’s soul is a spirit likewise, invisible, immaterial, immortal, distinguished into. three powers, which ali make up one spirit. Spirit signifies breath; Omnis nominis Jehovae literae sunt spirituales, ut denotetur Deum esse spiritum. - Insted . which, indeed, is a body. But because it is the finest body, the most subtile and most invisible, therefore immaterial substances, which we are not able to conceive, are represented unto us under this name. Such is the soul of man, which, for the worth of it, the Stoics called the whole of man. Solam mentem dignam esse quae homo appelletur, Stoici statuunt. Sic Plato scripsit Oυκ εστιν ανθρωπος το ορωμενον The body is but the sheath of the soul, said Daniel; the shell of it, said Zoroastes; the servant, Corpus sire corpor quasi cordispor, i.e. puer sire famulus. - Camerarius . yea, the sepulchre σωμα quasi σημα. Dεμας , i.e. vinculum, sc. animae. Maerob. Som. Scip., l. i., c. 11. of it, say others. Compared to the soul, it is but as a clay wall that encompasseth a treasure; as a wooden box of a jeweller; as a coarse case to a rich instrument; or as a mask to a beautiful face. He that alone knew, and went to the worth of souls, hath told us, that a soul is more worth than all the world besides, because infused by God, aud stamped with, his image and superscription. Now, if we must give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, και τα του θεου τω θεω , three articles, for one in the former clause; Matthew 22:21 Gaspar Ens says - why give we not our souls to God, since they are made in his image? Cur non etnos animam nostram, Dei imaginen, soli Deo consignemus?

Why "present we not our bodies" also to God, "a living sacrifice," since Romans 12:1 it is so curiously wrought, so neatly made up? Luther, upon the Fourth Commandment, tells of two cardinals, in the time of the Council of Constance, who, riding thither, saw a shepherd weeping bitterly; they pressed him to tell the cause. He said, "I, looking upon this toad, considered that I never praised God as I ought, for making me a comely and reasonable creature, and not a toad." See Trapp on " Genesis 1:28 "

return to '

So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

So God created man in his own image. — There is a double image of God in the soul. One in the substance of it, whereof I have spoken in the former verse. The other in the qualities and supernatural graces, of knowledge in the understanding, rightness or straitness in the will, and holiness in the affections. In all these, man, when he came first out of God’s mint, shone most gloriously. O! quantum haec Niobe, … But now, Oh, think of this burnt temple, and mourn, as they in Ezra Ezra 3:12 Ebur candidissimum, adhibito igne, nigrescit.

return to '

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Subdue the earth, and have dominion. — Make it habitable by driving out the wild beasts that infest and annoy it. Make it arable also, and useful to yourselves and yours. The creatures are man’s servants and household stuff. "God hath put all things under his feet," Psalms 8:1-9 that be may raise himself thereby to God his maker. Qui dominari in caetera possit, natus homo est. A wise philosopher could say, that man is the end of all things in a semicircle; that is, all things in the world are made for him, and he is made for God; to know and acknowledge him, to serve and express him, to say to him as David, and that Son of David, Lord, "a body (a soul) hast thou given me; behold I come to do thy will, O God" Hebrews 10:5 Psalms 40:6 The very Manichees, that denied God to be the author of the body, fasted on Sundays, and in fasting, exercised a humiliation of the body. The Paternians are not worth speaking of, who held this heresy Alsted. Chron. p. 387. in the year of Christ 387, that the lower parts of man’s body were not made by God, but by the devil; and therefore allowing liberty of all wickedness to those parts, they lived most impurely. But if superstitious persons must reckon for it, that punish their bodies Colossians 2:22 without commandment from God, where shall those beasts appear that defile their bodies, and damn their soul? How shall all the creatures, instead of serving them, take up arms for God, and serve against them, yea, rise up in judgment and condemn them, for that when all other things keep their fit and proper places in the frame, and observe their peculiar ends and uses whereunto they were created, men only, as so many Heteroclites and Irregulars, should prove unprofitable, unuseful, nay, hurtful to the whole frame, causing vanity and misery to the poor creature which groans under it, and so defiling the very visible heavens, that they must be purged by the last fire, as those vessels were in the law that held the sin-offering! As for those that are in Christ, they are restored to the privileges of their first creation, as fellowship with God, dominion over the creatures, … Romans 8:1-39 , as appears by comparing Psalms 8:6 Hebrews 2:6-7 , …, where whatever is spoken of man is applied to Christ, and so is proper to the Church, which is Christ mystical, union being the ground of communion. Christ is married to his people in faithfulness, and as part of a jointure, he hath taken and bound over the best of the creatures to serve them, and bring them in provision Hosea 2:20-22

return to '

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which [is] upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which [is] the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

Behold, I have given you. — By this "behold," God stirs up them and us to confidence, thankfulness, Psalms 16:1-11 and obedience to so liberal a Lord, so bountiful a benefactor. And surely as iron put into the fire seems to be nothing but fire, so Adam, thus beloved of God, was turned into a lump of love, and bethinks himself what to do by way of retribution. All other creatures also willingly submitted to God’s ordinance and man’s service, well apaid of God’s provision, that great housekeeper of the world, that hath continually so many millions at bed and board. This is intimated in that last clause.

return to '

And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein [there is] life, [I have given] every green herb for meat: and it was so.

And it was so. — Both man and beast were well paid of God’s appointment, as good cause they had; for he is no penny father, but openeth his hand, and filleth with his blessing every thing living. Psalms 145:16 "And it was so"; an undoubted argument surely of God’s infinite goodness, thus to have provided for so divers natures and appetites, divers food, remedies, and armour; Psalms 104:1-35 for men, especially, "filling their hearts with food and gladness" Acts 14:17

return to '

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

All the host of them. — His upper and nether forces, his horse and foot, as it were, all creatures in heaven, earth, or under earth; called God’s host, for their (1) number, (2) order, (3) obedience. These the Rabbins Kimchi call magnleh cheloth, and matteh cheloth, the upper and lower troops ready pressed.

return to '