성경 주석서

Verse 4. - These are the generations is the usual heading for the different sections into which the Book of Genesis is divided (vial. Genesis 5:1; Genesis 6:9; Genesis 10:1; Genesis 11:10, 27; Genesis 25:12, 19; Genesis 36:1; Genesis 37:2). Misled by the LXX., who render toldoth by ἡ βίβλος γενέσεως, Ranks, Title, Havernick, Tuch, Ewald, and Stahelin disconnect the entire verse from the second section, which says nothing about the origination of the heavens and the earth, and append it to the preceding, in which their creation is described. Ilgen improves on their suggestion by transferring it to the commencement of Genesis 1, as an appropriate superscription. Dreschler, Vaihingel Bohlen, Oehler, Macdonald, et alii divide the verse into two clauses, and annex the former to what precedes, commencing the ensuing narrative with the latter. All of these proposals are, however, rendered unnecessary by simply observing that toldoth (from yaladh, to bear, to beget; hence begettings, procreations, evolutions, developments) does not describe the antecedents, but the consequents, of either thing or Person (Rosen., Keil, Kalisch). The toldoth of Noah are not the genealogical list of the patriarch's ancestry, but the tabulated register of his posterity; and so the generations of the heavens and the earth refer not to their original production (Gesenius), but to their onward movements from creation downwards (Keil). Hence with no incongruity, but with singular propriety, the first half of the present verse, ending with the words when they were created, literally, in tier creation, stands at the commencement of the section in which the forward progression of the universe is traced. The point of departure in this subsequent evolution of the material heavens and earth is further specified as being in the day that the Lord God (Jehovah Elohim) made the earth and the heavens; not the heavens and the earth, which would have signified the universe (cf. on Genesis 1:1), and carried hack the writer s thought to the initial act of creation; but the earth and the atmospheric firmament, which indicates the period embracing the second and (possibly) the third creative days as the terminus aguo of the generations to be forthwith recorded. Then it was that the heavens and the earth in their development took a clear and decided step forward in the direction of man and the human family (was it in the appearance of vegetation?); and in this thought perhaps will be found the key to the significance of the new name for the Divine Being which is used exclusively throughout the present section - Jehovah Elohim. From the frequency of its use, and the circumstance that it never has the article, Jehovah may be regarded as the proper Personal name of God. Either falsely interpreting Exodus 20:7 and Leviticus 24:11, or following some ancient superstition (mysterious names of deities were used generally in the East; the Egyptian Hermes had a name which (Cic. 'de Natura Deorum,' 8, 16) durst not be uttered: Furst), the later Hebrews invested this nomen tetra. grammaton with such sanctity that it might not bepronounced (Philo, Vit. Mosis, 3:519, 529). Accordingly, it was their custom to write it in the sacred text with the vowel points of Adonai, or, if that preceded, Elohim. Hence considerable doubt now exists as to its correct pronunciation. Etymologically viewed it is a future form of havah, an old form of hayah; uncertainty as to what future has occasioned many different suggestions as to what constituted its primitive vocalization. According to the evidence which scholars have collected, the choice lies between

(1) Jahveh (Gesenius, Ewald, Reland, Oehler, Macdonald, the Samaritan),

(2) Yehveh or Yeheveh (Furst, W. L. Alexander, in Kitto's 'Cyclopedia'), and

(3) Jehovah (Michaelis, Meyer, Stier, Hoelmann, Tregelles, Murphy). Perhaps the preponderance of authority inclines to the first; but the common punctuation is not so indefensible as some writers allege. Gesenius admits that it more satisfactorily accounts for the abbreviated syllables יִהו and יו than the pronunciation which he himself favors. Murphy thinks that the substitution of Adonai for Jehovah was facilitated by the agreement of their vowel points. The locus classicus for its signification is Exodus 3:14, in which God defines himself as "I am that I am," and commands Moses to tell the children of Israel that Ehyeh had sent him. Hengstenberg and Keil conclude that absolute self-existence is the essential idea represented by the name (cf. Exodus 3:14; ὁ ὤν, LXX.; Revelation 1:4, 8; ὁ ὥν καὶ ὁ ἠν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος, vd. Furst, 'Lex. sub nora.'). Baumgarten and Delitzsch, laying stress on its future form, regard it as = the Becoming One, with reference to the revelation, rather than the essence, of the Divine nature. Macdonald, from the circumstance that it was not used till after the fall, discovers a pointing forward to Jehovah as ὁ ἑρχόμενος in connection with redemption. Others, deriving from a hiphil future, take it as denoting "he who causes to be, the Fulfiller," and find in this an explanation of Exodus 6:3 (Exell). May not all these ideas be more or less involved in the fullness of the Divine name? As distinguished from Elohim, Deus omnipotens, the mighty One, Jehovah is the absolute, self-existent One, who manifests himself to man, and, in particular, enters into distinct covenant engagements for his redemption, which he in due time fulfils. In the present section the names are conjoined partly to identify Jehovah with Elohim, and partly because the subject of which it treats is the history of man.

Verse 5. - And every plant of the field before it was (literally, not yet) in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew (literally, had not yet sprouted). Following the LXX., the English Version suggests an intention on the writer's part to emphasize the fact that the vegetation of the globe - here comprehended under the general terms, shiah, shrub, and eseb, herb - was not a natural production, but, equally with the great earth and heavens, was the creation of Jehovah Elohim - a rendering which has the sanction of Taylor Lewis; whereas the writer's object clearly is to depict the appearance of the earth at the time when the man-ward development of the heavens and the earth began. Then not a single plant was in the ground, not a green blade was visible. The land, newly sprung from the waters, was one desolate region of bleak, bare lava-hills and extensive mud-fiats. Up to that point the absence of vegetation is accounted for by the circumstance that the presently existing atmospheric conditions of the globe had not then been established, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and the ordinary agricultural operations on which its production was afterwards to depend had not then been begun, and there was not a man to till the ground.

Verse 6. - But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. The dry land having been separated from the waters, and the atmospheric ocean uplifted above them both, vaporous exhalations began to ascend to the aerial regions, and to return again in the shape of rain upon the ground. Jehovah thus caused it to rain upon the ground, and so prepared it for the vegetation which, in obedience to the Almighty fiat, sprung up at the close of the third day, although the writer does not mention its appearance, but leaves it to be inferred from the preceding section. That soon after its emergence from the waters the land should be "dry, sterile, and sandy" will not be thought remarkable if we remember the highly igneous condition of our planet at the time when the dry land was upheaved and the waters gathered into the subsiding valleys. Nothing would more naturally follow that event than the steaming up of vapors to float in the aerial sea. In fact, the rapidity with which evaporation would be carried on would very speedily leave the newly-formed land hard and dry, baked and caked into a crust, till the atmosphere, becoming overcharged with aqueous vapor, returned it in the shape of rain. To talk of insuperable difficulty and manifest dissonance where everything is clear, natural, and harmonious is to speak at random, and betrays an anxiety to create contradictions rather than to solve them.

Verse 7. - And the Lord God (Jehovah Elohim) formed man of the dust of the ground. Literally, dust from the ground. Here, again, Bleek, Kalisch, and the theologians of their school discover contrariety between this account of man's creation and that which has been given in the preceding chapter. In that man is represented as having been created by the Divine word, in the Divine image, and male and female simultaneously; whereas in this his creation is exhibited as a painful process of elaboration from the clay by the hand of God, who works it like a potter (asah; LXX., πλάσσω), and, after having first constructed man, by a subsequent operation forms woman. But the first account does not assert that Adam and Eve were created together, and gives no details of the formation of either. These are supplied by the present narrative, which, beginning with the construction of his body from the fine dust of the ground, designedly represents it as an evolution or development of the material universe, and ends by setting it before us as animated by the breath of God, reserving for later treatment the mode of Eve's production, when the circumstances that led to it have been described. And (the Lord God) breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Literally, the breath of lives. "The formation of man from the dust and the breathing of the breath of life must not be understood in a mechanical sense, as if God first of all constructed a human figure from the dust" (still less does it admit of the idea that man's physical nature was evolved from the lower animals), "and then, by breathing his breath of life into the clod of earth which he had shaped into the form of a man, made it into a living being. The words are to be understood θεοπρεπῶς. By an act of Divine omnipotence man arose from the dust; and in the same moment in which the dust, by virtue of creative omnipotence, shaped itself into a human form, it was pervaded by the Divine breath of life, and created a living being, so that we cannot say the body was earlier than the soul" (Delitzsch). And man became a living soul. Nephesh chayyah, in Genesis 1:21, 80, is employed to designate the lower animals. Describing a being animated by a ψυχή or life principle, it does not necessarily imply that the basis of the life principle in man and the inferior animals is the same. The distinction between the two appears from the difference in the mode of their creations. The beasts arose at the almighty fiat completed beings, every one a nephesh chayyah. "The origin of their soul was coincident with that of their corporeality, and their life was merely the individualization of the universal life with which all matter was filled at the beginning by the Spirit of God" (Delitzsch). Man received his life from a distinct act of Divine inbreathing; certainly not an in-breathing of atmospheric air, but an inflatus from the Ruach Elohim, or Spirit of God, a communication from the whole personality of the Godhead. In effect man was thereby constituted a nephesh chayyah, like the lower animals; but in him the life principle conferred a personality which was wanting in them. Thus there is no real contradiction, scarcely even an "apparent dissonance," between the two accounts of man's creation. The second exhibits the foundation of that likeness to God and world-dominion ascribed to him in the first.

Verse 8. - In accordance with a well-known characteristic of Hebrew composition, the writer, having carried his subject forward to a convenient place of rest, now reverts to a point of time in the six days antecedent to man's appearance on the earth. In anticipation of his arrival, it was needful that a suitable abode should be prepared for his reception. Accordingly, having already mentioned the creation of plants, trees, and flowers, the narrative proceeds to describe the construction of Adam's early home. And the Lord God (Jehovah Elohim) planted - i.e. specially prepared - a garden (gan, a place protected by a fence, from ganan, to cover; hence a garden: cf. Deuteronomy 2:10; 1 Kings 21:2; Isaiah 51:3; LXX., παράδεισος; Vulgate, paradisus; whence English, paradise, Luke 23:43) eastward (mekedem, literally, from the front quarter, not from the beginning, - ἀπο ἀρχῆς, Aquila; ἐν πρῶτοις, Theodotion; a principio, Vulgate, - but in the region lying towards the east of Palestine - LXX., κατ ἀνατολὰς) in (not of, as Murphy, who renders "in the east of Eden") Eden (delight; Greek, ἡδονή: cf. Hedenesh, or Heden, the birthplace of Zoroaster - Kalisch). The word is not merely descriptive of the beauty and fertility of the garden (paradisus voluptatis, Vulg., cf. παράδεισος της τρυφης, LXX. (Joel 2:3). On the ground of possessing similar qualities, other districts and places were subsequently termed Edens: cf. 2 Kings 19:12; Isaiah 37:12; Isaiah 51:3; Ezekiel 27:23; Amos 1:5), but likewise indicates its locality, which is afterwards more exactly defined (vers. 10, 14). In the mean time it is simply noted that, this enchanting paradise having been specially prepared by Jehovah, there he put the man (Adam) whom he had formed.

Verse 9. - And out of the ground made the Lord God (Jehovah Elohim) to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight - literally, lovely to see; i.e. beautiful in form and color - and good for food. In the preparation of man's pristine abode respect was had to ornamentation as well as utility. Every species of vegetation that could minister to his corporeal necessities was provided. Flowers, trees, and shrubs regaled his senses with their fragrance, pleased his eye with their exquisite forms and enchanting colors, and gratified his palate with their luscious fruits. Hence the garden of the Lord became the highest ideal of earthly excellence (Isaiah 51:3). In particular it was distinguished by the presence of two trees, which occupied a central position among its multifarious productions. The tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That these were not two separate trees, but only one tree distinguished by different names, has been maintained, though with no weightier reason than the statement of Eve in Genesis 3:3. The opinion of Witsius, Luther, Kennicott, and Hengstenberg, that classes of trees, and not individual trees, are meant by the phrases "tree of life" and "tree of knowledge," is precluded by the language of Jehovah Elohim in Genesis 2:17 and Genesis 3:24. As regards their significance, consistency requires that they should both be explained on the same principle. This, accordingly, disposes of the idea that the tree of life (literally, the tree of the lives: cf. ξύλον τῆς ζωῆς, Revelation 2:7; 20:19) is simply a Hebraism for a living tree, as by no sort of ingenuity can the tree of knowledge be transformed into a knowing tree. It likewise militates against the notion that the two trees were styled from the peculiar effects of their fruits, the one conferring physical immortality on Adam's body (Scotus, Aquinas, Fairbairn, Kalisch, Luther), and the other imparting moral and intellectual intuitions to his soul (Josephus, Kalisch). But even if the life-giving properties of the one tree could be demonstrated from Genesis 3:24, proof would still be required with regard to the other, that the mere physical processes of manducation and digestion could be followed by results so immaterial as those of "rousing the slumbering intellect, teaching reason to reflect, and enabling the judgment to distinguish between moral good and moral evil" (Kalisch). Besides, if this was the immediate effect of eating the forbidden fruit, it is difficult to perceive either why it should have been prohibited to our first parents at all, it being "for their good to have their wits sharpened" (Willet); or in what respect they suffered loss through listening to the tempter, and did not rather gain (Rabbi Moses); or wherein, being destitute of both intellectual and moral discernment, they could be regarded as either guilty of transgression or responsible for obedience. Incapacity to know good and evil may be a characteristic of unconscious childhood and unreflecting youth (Deuteronomy 1:39; Isaiah 7:15; Jonah 4:11), or of debilitated age (2 Samuel 19:36), but is not conceivable in the case of one who was created in God's image, invested with world-dominion, and himself constituted the subject of moral government. Unless, therefore, with ancient Gnostics and modern Hegelians, we view the entire story of the probation as an allegorical representation of the necessary intellectual and ethical development of human nature, we must believe that Adam was acquainted with the idea of moral distinctions from the first. Hence the conclusion seems to force itself upon our minds that the first man was possessed of both immortality and knowledge irrespective altogether of the trees, and that the tree character which belonged to these trees was symbolical or sacramental, suggestive of the conditions under which he was placed in Eden. "Arbori autem vitae nomen indidit, non quod vitam homini conferrer, qua jam ante praeditus erat; sod ut symbolum ac memoriale esset vitae divinitus acceptae" (Calvin). For a further exposition of the exact significance of these trees see below on vers. 16,17.

Verse 10. - The precise locality of Eden is indicated by its relation to the great watercourses of the region. And a river (literally, a flowing water, applicable to large oceanic floods - Job 22:16; Psalm 24:2; Psalm 46:5; Jonah 2:4 - as well as to narrow streams) went out (literally, going out) of Eden to water the garden. To conclude from this that the river had its source within the limits of the garden is to infer more than the premises will warrant. Nothing more is implied in the language than that a great watercourse proceeded through the district of Eden, and served to irrigate the soil. Probably it intersected the garden, thus occasioning its remarkable fecundity and beauty. And from thence (i.e. either on emerging from which, or, taking מן in its secondary sense, outside of, or at a distance from which) it was parted (literally, divided itself), and became into four heads. Roshim, from rosh, that which is highest; either principal waters, arms or branches (Taylor Lewis, Alford), or beginnings of rivers, indicating the sources of the streams (Gesenius, Keil, Macdonald, Murphy). If the second of these interpretations be adopted, Eden must be looked for in a spot where some great flowing water is subdivided into four separate streams; if the former be regarded as the proper exegesis, then any great river which is first formed by the junction of two streams, and afterwards disperses its waters in two different directions, will meet the requirements of the case.

Verses 11, 12. - The name of the first (river is) Pishon, or "the full-flowing." This is the first of those marks by which the river, when discovered, must be identified. It was palpably a broad-bosomed stream. A second is derived from the region through which it flows. That is it which compasseth (not necessarily surrounding, but skirting in a circular or circuitous fashion - Numbers 21:4; Judges 11:8) the whole land of Havilah. Havilah itself is described by three of its productions. Where there is gold. I.e. it is a gold-producing country. And the gold of that land is good. Of the purest quality and largest quantity. There also is bdellium. Literally bedo-lach, which the manna was declared to resemble (Exodus 17:14; Numbers 11:7). The LXX., supposing it to be a precious stone, translate it by ἄνθραξ ιν the present passage, and by κρυστάλλος in Numbers 11:7 - a view supported by the Jewish Rabbis and Gesenius. The majority of modern interpreters espouse the opinion of Josephus, that it was an odorous and costly gum indigenous to India, Arabia, Babylonia, and Bactriana. The third production is the onyx (shoham, from a root signifying to be pale or delicate in color, like the finger-nails), variously conjectured to be the beryl, onyx, sardonyx, sardius, or emerald. From this description it appears that Havilah must be sought for among the gold-producing countries of Asia. Now among the sons of Joktan or primitive Arabs (Genesis 10:29) - "whose dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest, unto Sephar, a mount of the east" - are Ophir and Havilah, whence Gesenius concludes that India, including Arabia, is meant. Other countries have their advocates, such as Arabia Felix, Susiana, Colchis, &c.; and other rivers, such as the Ganges (Josephus, Eusebius), the Phasis (Reland, Jahn, Rosenmüller, Winer), the Indus (Schulthess, Kalisch).