성경 주석서

(22) Be fruitful, and multiply.—This blessing shows that the earth was replenished with animal life from a limited number of progenitors, and probably from a small number of centres, both for the flora and for the fauna.

(23) The fifth day.—Upon the work of the first four days geology is virtually silent, and the theories respecting the physical formation of the world belong to other sciences. But as regards the fifth day, its testimony is ample. In the lowest strata of rocks, such as the Cambrian and Silurian, we find marine animals, mollusca, and trilobites; higher up in the Devonian rocks we find fish; in the Carbonaceous period we find reptiles; and above these, in the Permian, those mighty saurians, described in our version as great whales. Traces of birds, even in these higher strata, if existent at all, are rare, but indubitably occur in the Triassic series. We thus learn that this fifth day covers a vast space of time, and, in accordance with what has been urged before as regards vegetation, it is probable that the introduction of the various genera and species was gradual. God does nothing in haste, and our conceptions of His marvellous working are made more clear and worthy of His greatness by the evidence which geology affords.

(24) Let the earth bring forth.—Neither this, nor the corresponding phrase in Genesis 1:20, necessarily imply spontaneous generation, though such is its literal meaning. It need mean no more than that land animals, produced on the dry ground, were now to follow upon those produced in the waters. However produced, we believe that the sole active power was the creative will of God, but of His modus operandi we know nothing.

On this sixth creative day there are four words of power. By the first, the higher animals are summoned into being; by the second, man; the third provides for the continuance and increase of the beings which God had created; the fourth assigns the vegetable world both to man and animals as food.

The creation of man is thus made a distinct act; for though created on the sixth day, because he is a land animal, yet it is in the latter part of the day, and after a pause of contemplation and counsel. The reason for this, we venture to affirm, is that in man’s creation we have a far greater advance in the work of the Almighty than at any previous stage. For up to this time all has been law, and the highest point reached was instinct; we have now freedom, reason, intellect, speech. The evolutionist may give us many an interesting theory about the upgrowth of man’s physical nature, but the introduction of this moral and mental freedom places as wide a chasm in his way as the first introduction of vegetable, and then of animal life.

The living creature, or rather, the creature that lives by breathing, is divided into three classes. The first is “behêmâh,” cattle: literally, the dumb brute, but especially used of the larger ruminants, which were soon domesticated, and became man’s speechless servants. Next comes the “creeping thing,” or rather, moving thing, from a verb translated moveth in Genesis 1:21. It probably signifies the whole multitude of small animals, and not reptiles particularly. For strictly the word refers rather to their number than to their means of locomotion, and means a swarm. The third class is the “beast of the earth,” the wild animals that roam over a large extent of country, including the carnivora. But as a vegetable diet is expressly assigned in Genesis 1:30 to the “beast of the earth,” while the evidence of the rocks proves that even on the fifth day the saurians fed upon fish and upon one another, the record seems to point out a closer relation between man and the graminivora than with these fierce denizens of the forest. The narrative of the flood proves conclusively that there were no carnivora in the ark; and immediately afterwards beasts that kill men were ordered to be destroyed (Genesis 9:5-6). It is plain that from the first these beasts lay outside the covenant. But as early as the fourth century, Titus, Bishop of Bostra, in his treatise against the Manichees, showed, on other than geological grounds, that the carnivora existed before the fall, and that there was nothing inconsistent with God’s wisdom or love in their feeding upon other animals. In spite of their presence, all was good. The evidence of geology proves that in the age when the carnivora were most abundant, the graminivora were represented by species of enormous size, and that they flourished in multitudes far surpassing anything that exists in the present day.

(26) Let us make man.—Comp. Genesis 11:7. The making of man is so ushered in as to show that at length the work of creation had reached its perfection and ultimate goal. As regards the use of the plural here, Maimonides thinks that God took counsel with the earth, the latter supplying the body and Elohim the soul. But it is denied in Isaiah 40:13 that God ever took counsel with any one but Himself. The Jewish interpreters generally think that the angels are meant. More truly and more reverently we may say that this first chapter of Genesis is the chapter of mysteries, and just as “the wind of God” in Genesis 1:2 was the pregnant germ which grew into the revelation of the Holy Ghost, so in Elohim, the many powers concentrated in one being, lies the germ of the doctrine of a plurality of persons in the Divine Unity. It is not a formal proof of the Trinity, nor do believers in the inspiration of Holy Scripture so use it. What they affirm is, that from the very beginning the Bible is full of such germs, and that no one of them remains barren, but all develop, and become Christian truths. There is in this first book a vast array of figures, types, indications, yearnings, hopes, fears, promises, and express predictions, which advance onwards like an ever-deepening river, and when they all find a logical fulfilment in one way, the conclusion is that that fulfilment is not only true, but was intended.

Man.—Hebrew, Adam. In Assyrian the name for man is also adamu, or admu. In that literature, so marvellously preserved to our days, Sir H. Rawlinson thinks that he has traced the first man up to the black or Accadian race. It is hopeless to attempt any derivation of the name, as it must have existed before any of the verbs and nouns from which commentators attempt to give it a meaning; and the adâmâh, or “tilled ground,” of which we shall soon hear so much, evidently had its name from Adam.

In our image, after our likeness.—The human body is after God’s image only as being the means whereby man attains to dominion: for dominion is God’s attribute, inasmuch as He is sole Lord. Man’s body, therefore, as that of one who rules, is erect, and endowed with speech, that he may give the word of command. The soul is first, in God’s image. This, as suggesting an external likeness, may refer to man’s reason, free-will, self-consciousness, and so on. But it is, secondly, in God’s likeness, which implies something closer and more inward. It refers to man’s moral powers, and especially to his capacity of attaining unto holiness. Now man has lost neither of these two. (Comp. Genesis 9:6; 1Corinthians 11:7; James 3:9.) Both were weakened and defiled by the fall, but were still retained in a greater or less degree. In the man Christ Jesus both were perfect; and fallen man, when new-created in Christ, attains actually to that perfection which was his only potentially at his first creation, and to which Adam never did attain.

Let them have dominion.—The plural here shows that we have to do not with Adam and Eve, but with the human race generally. This, too, agrees with the whole bearing of the first chapter, which deals in a large general way with genera and species, and not with individuals. This is important as an additional proof that God’s likeness and image belong to the whole species man, and could not therefore have been lost by the fall, as St. Augustine supposed.

(27) Created.—This significant verb is thrice repeated with reference to man. It indicates, first, that man has that in him which was not a development or evolution, but something new. He is, in fact, the most perfect work of the creative energy, and differs from the animals not only in degree, but in kind, though possessing, in common with them, an organised body. And next, it indicates the rejoicing of the Deity at the completion of His purpose.

(29) Every herb bearing seed . . . every tree.—Of the three classes of plants enumerated in Genesis 1:11, the two most perfect kinds are given to man for his food; while in Genesis 1:30 the birds and animals have not merely the cryptogamous plants of the first class, but every green herb granted to them for their sustenance. We are not to suppose that they did not eat seeds and fruits, but that the fundamental supply for the maintenance of animal life was the blade and leaf, and that of human life the perfected seed and ripe fruit. Man is thus from the first pointed out as of a higher organisation than the animal; and the fact that his food is such as requires preparation and cooking has been the basis, not merely of most of the refinements of life, but even of the close union of the family. For what would become of it without the common meal?

But undoubtedly the food originally assigned to man was vegetable; nor was express leave given to eat flesh until after the flood. Nevertheless the dominion given to man, in Genesis 1:28, over fish, bird, and animal, made it lawful for him to use them for his food; and the skins with which Adam and Eve were clothed on their expulsion from Paradise prove that animals had been already killed. After the fall, Abel’s sacrifice of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof, leads irresistibly to the conclusion that the flesh was eaten by the offerer and his family. In ancient times this was the rule. Flesh was not the staple of man’s diet, but the eating of it was a religious ceremony, at which certain portions were offered to God and burnt on His altar, and the rest consumed by man as the Deity’s guests. So we may well believe that until the flood the descendants of Seth partook of flesh rarely, and only at a sacrifice, but that after the flood a more free use of it was permitted.

(31) Behold, it was very good.—This final blessing of God’s completed work on the Friday must be compared with the final words of Christ spoken of the second creation, upon the same day of the week, when He said “It is finished.” Next we must notice that this world was only good until man was placed upon it, but then became very good. This verdict, too, had respect to man as a species, and is not therefore annulled by the fall. In spite, therefore, of the serious responsibilities attendant upon the bestowal of freewill on man, we believe that the world is still for purposes of mercy, and that God not only rejoiced at first, but “shall rejoice in His works” (Psalm 104:31). (Comp. Psalm 85:10; Romans 5:15, &c.)

II.

THE SABBATH.

(1) Were finished.—The first three verses of this chapter form part of the previous narrative, and contain its Divine purpose. For the great object of this hymn of creation is to give the sanction of the Creator to the Sabbath. Hence the ascribing of rest to Him who wearies not, and hence also the description of the several stages of creation as days. Labour is, no doubt, ennobled by creation being described as work done by God; but the higher purpose of this Scripture was that for which appeal is made to it in the Fourth Commandment, namely, to ennoble man’s weekly rest. Among the Accadians, Mr. Sayce says (Chald. Genesis. p. 89), the Sabbath was observed—so ancient is its institution—but it was connected with the sun, moon, and five planets, whence even now the days of the week take their titles, though the names of Scandinavian deities have been substituted in this country for some of their old Latin appellations. Here every idolatrous tendency is guarded against, and the Sabbath is the institution of the One Almighty God.

The host of them.—The word translated host does not refer to military arrangement, but to numbers gathered in crowds. This crowded throng of heaven sometimes means the angels, as in 1Kings 22:19; oftener the stars. Here it is the host both of heaven and earth, and signifies the multitudes of living creatures which people the land, and seas, and air.