Text -- Genesis 1:1 (NET)

The Creation of the World

1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Wesley: Gen 1:1

Observe here. 1. The effect produced, The heaven and the earth - That is, the world, including the whole frame and furniture of the universe. But 'tis only the visible part of the creation that Moses designs to give an account of. Yet even in this there are secrets which cannot be fathomed, nor accounted for. But from what we see of heaven and earth, we may infer the eternal power and godhead of the great Creator. And let our make and place, as men, mind us of our duty, as Christians, which is always to keep heaven in our eye, and the earth under our feet.

Observe 2. The author and cause of this great work, God. The Hebrew word is Elohim; which (1.) seems to mean The Covenant God, being derived from a word that signifies to swear. (2.) The plurality of persons in the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The plural name of God in Hebrew, which speaks of him as many, tho' he be but one, was to the Gentiles perhaps a favour of death unto death, hardening them in their idolatry; but it is to us a favour of life unto life, confirming our faith in the doctrine of the Trinity, which, tho' but darkly intimated in the Old Testament, is clearly revealed in the New.

Observe 3. The manner how this work was effected; God created, that is, made it out of nothing.

Wesley: Gen 1:1

existent matter out of which the world was produced. The fish and fowl were indeed produced out of the waters, and the beasts and man out of the earth; but that earth and those waters were made out of nothing.

Observe 4.

Wesley: Gen 1:1

That is, in the beginning of time. Time began with the production of those beings that are measured by time. Before the beginning of time there was none but that Infinite Being that inhabits eternity. Should we ask why God made the world no sooner, we should but darken counsel by words without knowledge; for how could there be sooner or later in eternity?

JFB: Gen 1:1

A period of remote and unknown antiquity, hid in the depths of eternal ages; and so the phrase is used in Pro 8:22-23.

JFB: Gen 1:1

The name of the Supreme Being, signifying in Hebrew, "Strong," "Mighty." It is expressive of omnipotent power; and by its use here in the plural form, is obscurely taught at the opening of the Bible, a doctrine clearly revealed in other parts of it, namely, that though God is one, there is a plurality of persons in the Godhead--Father, Son, and Spirit, who were engaged in the creative work (Pro 8:27; Joh 1:3, Joh 1:10; Eph 3:9; Heb 1:2; Job 26:13).

JFB: Gen 1:1

Not formed from any pre-existing materials, but made out of nothing.

JFB: Gen 1:1

The universe. This first verse is a general introduction to the inspired volume, declaring the great and important truth that all things had a beginning; that nothing throughout the wide extent of nature existed from eternity, originated by chance, or from the skill of any inferior agent; but that the whole universe was produced by the creative power of God (Act 17:24; Rom 11:36). After this preface, the narrative is confined to the earth.

Clarke: Gen 1:1

God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth - בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ Bereshith bara Elohim eth hashshamayim veeth haarets ; God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth

Many attempts have been made to define the term God: as to the word itself, it is pure Anglo-Saxon, and among our ancestors signified, not only the Divine Being, now commonly designated by the word, but also good; as in their apprehensions it appeared that God and good were correlative terms; and when they thought or spoke of him, they were doubtless led from the word itself to consider him as The Good Being, a fountain of infinite benevolence and beneficence towards his creatures

A general definition of this great First Cause, as far as human words dare attempt one, may be thus given: The eternal, independent, and self-existent Being: the Being whose purposes and actions spring from himself, without foreign motive or influence: he who is absolute in dominion; the most pure, the most simple, and most spiritual of all essences; infinitely benevolent, beneficent, true, and holy: the cause of all being, the upholder of all things; infinitely happy, because infinitely perfect; and eternally self-sufficient, needing nothing that he has made: illimitable in his immensity, inconceivable in his mode of existence, and indescribable in his essence; known fully only to himself, because an infinite mind can be fully apprehended only by itself. In a word, a Being who, from his infinite wisdom, cannot err or be deceived; and who, from his infinite goodness, can do nothing but what is eternally just, right, and kind. Reader, such is the God of the Bible; but how widely different from the God of most human creeds and apprehensions

The original word אלהים Elohim , God, is certainly the plural form of אל El , or אלה Eloah , and has long been supposed, by the most eminently learned and pious men, to imply a plurality of Persons in the Divine nature. As this plurality appears in so many parts of the sacred writings to be confined to three Persons, hence the doctrine of the Trinity, which has formed a part of the creed of all those who have been deemed sound in the faith, from the earliest ages of Christianity. Nor are the Christians singular in receiving this doctrine, and in deriving it from the first words of Divine revelation. An eminent Jewish rabbi, Simeon ben Joachi, in his comment on the sixth section of Leviticus, has these remarkable words: "Come and see the mystery of the word Elohim; there are three degrees, and each degree by itself alone, and yet notwithstanding they are all one, and joined together in one, and are not divided from each other."See Ainsworth. He must be strangely prejudiced indeed who cannot see that the doctrine of a Trinity, and of a Trinity in unity, is expressed in the above words. The verb ברא bara , he created, being joined in the singular number with this plural noun, has been considered as pointing out, and not obscurely, the unity of the Divine Persons in this work of creation. In the ever-blessed Trinity, from the infinite and indivisible unity of the persons, there can be but one will, one purpose, and one infinite and uncontrollable energy

"Let those who have any doubt whether אלהים Elohim , when meaning the true God, Jehovah, be plural or not, consult the following passages, where they will find it joined with adjectives, verbs, and pronouns plural

"Gen 1:26 Gen 3:22 Gen 11:7 Gen 20:13 Gen 31:7, Gen 31:53 Gen 35:7. "Deu 4:7 Deu 5:23; Jos 24:19 1Sa 4:8; 2Sa 7:23; "Psa 58:6; Isa 6:8; Jer 10:10, Jer 23:36. "See also Pro 9:10, Pro 30:3; Psa 149:2; Ecc 5:7, Ecc 12:1; Job 5:1; Isa 6:3, Isa 54:5, Isa 62:5; Hos 11:12, or Hos 12:1; Mal 1:6; Dan 5:18, Dan 5:20, and Dan 7:18, Dan 7:22."- Parkhurst

As the word Elohim is the term by which the Divine Being is most generally expressed in the Old Testament, it may be necessary to consider it here more at large. It is a maxim that admits of no controversy, that every noun in the Hebrew language is derived from a verb, which is usually termed the radix or root, from which, not only the noun, but all the different flections of the verb, spring. This radix is the third person singular of the preterite or past tense. The ideal meaning of this root expresses some essential property of the thing which it designates, or of which it is an appellative. The root in Hebrew, and in its sister language, the Arabic, generally consists of three letters, and every word must be traced to its root in order to ascertain its genuine meaning, for there alone is this meaning to be found. In Hebrew and Arabic this is essentially necessary, and no man can safely criticise on any word in either of these languages who does not carefully attend to this point

I mention the Arabic with the Hebrew for two reasons

1.    Because the two languages evidently spring from the same source, and have very nearly the same mode of construction

2.    Because the deficient roots in the Hebrew Bible are to be sought for in the Arabic language. The reason of this must be obvious, when it is considered that the whole of the Hebrew language is lost except what is in the Bible, and even a part of this book is written in Chaldee

Now, as the English Bible does not contain the whole of the English language, so the Hebrew Bible does not contain the whole of the Hebrew. If a man meet with an English word which he cannot find in an ample concordance or dictionary to the Bible, he must of course seek for that word in a general English dictionary. In like manner, if a particular form of a Hebrew word occur that cannot be traced to a root in the Hebrew Bible, because the word does not occur in the third person singular of the past tense in the Bible, it is expedient, it is perfectly lawful, and often indispensably necessary, to seek the deficient root in the Arabic. For as the Arabic is still a living language, and perhaps the most copious in the universe, it may well be expected to furnish those terms which are deficient in the Hebrew Bible. And the reasonableness of this is founded on another maxim, viz., that either the Arabic was derived from the Hebrew, or the Hebrew from the Arabic. I shall not enter into this controversy; there are great names on both sides, and the decision of the question in either way will have the same effect on my argument. For if the Arabic were derived from the Hebrew, it must have been when the Hebrew was a living and complete language, because such is the Arabic now; and therefore all its essential roots we may reasonably expect to find there: but if, as Sir William Jones supposed, the Hebrew were derived from the Arabic, the same expectation is justified, the deficient roots in Hebrew may be sought for in the mother tongue. If, for example, we meet with a term in our ancient English language the meaning of which we find difficult to ascertain, common sense teaches us that we should seek for it in the Anglo-Saxon, from which our language springs; and, if necessary, go up to the Teutonic, from which the Anglo-Saxon was derived. No person disputes the legitimacy of this measure, and we find it in constant practice. I make these observations at the very threshold of my work, because the necessity of acting on this principle (seeking deficient Hebrew roots in the Arabic) may often occur, and I wish to speak once for all on the subject

The first sentence in the Scripture shows the propriety of having recourse to this principle. We have seen that the word אלהים Elohim is plural; we have traced our term God to its source, and have seen its signification; and also a general definition of the thing or being included under this term, has been tremblingly attempted. We should now trace the original to its root, but this root does not appear in the Hebrew Bible. Were the Hebrew a complete language, a pious reason might be given for this omission, viz., "As God is without beginning and without cause, as his being is infinite and underived, the Hebrew language consults strict propriety in giving no root whence his name can be deduced."Mr. Parkhurst, to whose pious and learned labors in Hebrew literature most Biblical students are indebted, thinks he has found the root in אלה alah , he swore, bound himself by oath; and hence he calls the ever-blessed Trinity אלהים Elohim , as being bound by a conditional oath to redeem man, etc., etc. Most pious minds will revolt from such a definition, and will be glad with me to find both the noun and the root preserved in Arabic. Allah is the common name for God in the Arabic tongue, and often the emphatic is used. Now both these words are derived from the root alaha, he worshipped, adored, was struck with astonishment, fear, or terror; and hence, he adored with sacred horror and veneration, cum sacro horrore ac veneratione coluit, adoravit - Wilmet. Hence ilahon, fear, veneration, and also the object of religious fear, the Deity, the supreme God, the tremendous Being. This is not a new idea; God was considered in the same light among the ancient Hebrews; and hence Jacob swears by the fear of his father Isaac, Gen 31:53. To complete the definition, Golius renders alaha, juvit, liberavit, et tutatus fuit , "he succoured, liberated, kept in safety, or defended."Thus from the ideal meaning of this most expressive root, we acquire the most correct notion of the Divine nature; for we learn that God is the sole object of adoration; that the perfections of his nature are such as must astonish all those who piously contemplate them, and fill with horror all who would dare to give his glory to another, or break his commandments; that consequently he should be worshipped with reverence and religious fear; and that every sincere worshipper may expect from him help in all his weaknesses, trials, difficulties, temptations, etc.,; freedom from the power, guilt, nature, and consequences of sin; and to be supported, defended, and saved to the uttermost, and to the end

Here then is one proof, among multitudes which shall be adduced in the course of this work, of the importance, utility, and necessity of tracing up these sacred words to their sources; and a proof also, that subjects which are supposed to be out of the reach of the common people may, with a little difficulty, be brought on a level with the most ordinary capacity

Clarke: Gen 1:1

In the beginning - Before the creative acts mentioned in this chapter all was Eternity. Time signifies duration measured by the revolutions of the heavenly bodies: but prior to the creation of these bodies there could be no measurement of duration, and consequently no time; therefore in the beginning must necessarily mean the commencement of time which followed, or rather was produced by, God’ s creative acts, as an effect follows or is produced by a cause

Clarke: Gen 1:1

Created - Caused existence where previously to this moment there was no being. The rabbins, who are legitimate judges in a case of verbal criticism on their own language, are unanimous in asserting that the word ברא bara expresses the commencement of the existence of a thing, or egression from nonentity to entity. It does not in its primary meaning denote the preserving or new forming things that had previously existed, as some imagine, but creation in the proper sense of the term, though it has some other acceptations in other places. The supposition that God formed all things out of a pre-existing, eternal nature, is certainly absurd, for if there had been an eternal nature besides an eternal God, there must have been two self-existing, independent, and eternal beings, which is a most palpable contradiction

את השמים eth hashshamayim . The word את eth , which is generally considered as a particle, simply denoting that the word following is in the accusative or oblique case, is often understood by the rabbins in a much more extensive sense. "The particle את ,"says Aben Ezra, "signifies the substance of the thing."The like definition is given by Kimchi in his Book of Roots. "This particle,"says Mr. Ainsworth, "having the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet in it, is supposed to comprise the sum and substance of all things.""The particle את eth (says Buxtorf, Talmudic Lexicon, sub voce) with the cabalists is often mystically put for the beginning and the end, as α alpha and ω omega are in the Apocalypse."On this ground these words should be translated, "God in the beginning created the substance of the heavens and the substance of the earth,"i.e. the prima materia , or first elements, out of which the heavens and the earth were successively formed. The Syriac translator understood the word in this sense, and to express this meaning has used the word yoth , which has this signification, and is very properly translated in Walton’ s Polyglot, Esse, caeli et Esse terrae , "the being or substance of the heaven, and the being or substance of the earth."St. Ephraim Syrus, in his comment on this place, uses the same Syriac word, and appears to understand it precisely in the same way. Though the Hebrew words are certainly no more than the notation of a case in most places, yet understood here in the sense above, they argue a wonderful philosophic accuracy in the statement of Moses, which brings before us, not a finished heaven and earth, as every other translation appears to do, though afterwards the process of their formation is given in detail, but merely the materials out of which God built the whole system in the six following days

Clarke: Gen 1:1

The heaven and the earth - As the word שמים shamayim is plural, we may rest assured that it means more than the atmosphere, to express which some have endeavored to restrict its meaning. Nor does it appear that the atmosphere is particularly intended here, as this is spoken of, Gen 1:6, under the term firmament. The word heavens must therefore comprehend the whole solar system, as it is very likely the whole of this was created in these six days; for unless the earth had been the center of a system, the reverse of which is sufficiently demonstrated, it would be unphilosophic to suppose it was created independently of the other parts of the system, as on this supposition we must have recourse to the almighty power of God to suspend the influence of the earth’ s gravitating power till the fourth day, when the sun was placed in the center, round which the earth began then to revolve. But as the design of the inspired penman was to relate what especially belonged to our world and its inhabitants, therefore he passes by the rest of the planetary system, leaving it simply included in the plural word heavens. In the word earth every thing relative to the terraqueaerial globe is included, that is, all that belongs to the solid and fluid parts of our world with its surrounding atmosphere. As therefore I suppose the whole solar system was created at this time, I think it perfectly in place to give here a general view of all the planets, with every thing curious and important hitherto known relative to their revolutions and principal affections

Observations On The Preceding Table

(Editor’ s Note: These tables were omitted due to outdated information

In Table I. the quantity or the periodic and sidereal revolutions of the planets is expressed in common years, each containing 365 days; as, e.g., the tropical revolution of Jupiter is, by the table, 11 years, 315 days, 14 hours, 39 minutes, 2 seconds; i.e., the exact number of days is equal to 11 years multiplied by 365, and the extra 315 days added to the product, which make In all 4330 days. The sidereal and periodic times are also set down to the nearest second of time, from numbers used in the construction of the tables in the third edition of M. de la Lande’ s Astronomy. The columns containing the mean distance of the planets from the sun in English miles, and their greatest and least distance from the earth, are such as result from the best observations of the two last transits of Venus, which gave the solar parallax to be equal to 8 three-fifth seconds of a degree; and consequently the earth’ s diameter, as seen from the sun, must be the double of 8 three-fifth seconds, or 17 one-fifth seconds. From this last quantity, compared with the apparent diameters of the planets, as seen at a distance equal to that of the earth at her main distance from the sun, the diameters of the planets in English miles, as contained in the seventh column, have been carefully computed. In the column entitled "Proportion of bulk, the earth being 1,"the whole numbers express the number of times the other planet contains more cubic miles, etc., than the earth; and if the number of cubic miles in the earth be given, the number of cubic miles in any planet may be readily found by multiplying the cubic miles contained in the earth by the number in the column, and the product will be the quantity required

This is a small but accurate sketch of the vast solar system; to describe it fully, even in all its known revolutions and connections, in all its astonishing energy and influence, in its wonderful plan, structure, operations, and results, would require more volumes than can be devoted to the commentary itself

As so little can be said here on a subject so vast, it may appear to some improper to introduce it at all; but to any observation of this kind I must be permitted to reply, that I should deem it unpardonable not to give a general view of the solar system in the very place where its creation is first introduced. If these works be stupendous and magnificent, what must He be who formed, guides, and supports them all by the word of his power! Reader, stand in awe of this God, and sin not. Make him thy friend through the Son of his love; and, when these heavens and this earth are no more, thy soul shall exist in consummate and unutterable felicity

See the remarks on the sun, moon, and stars, after Gen 1:16. See Clarke’ s note on Gen 1:16.

Calvin: Gen 1:1

1.In the beginning To expound the term “beginning,” of Christ, is altogether frivolous. For Moses simply intends to assert that the world was not perfected at its very commencement, in the manner in which it is now seen, but that it was created an empty chaos of heaven and earth. His language therefore may be thus explained. When God in the beginning created the heaven and the earth, the earth was empty and waste. ³⁵ He moreover teaches by the word “created,” that what before did not exist was now made; for he has not used the term יצר , ( yatsar,) which signifies to frame or forms but ברא , ( bara,) which signifies to create. ³⁶ Therefore his meaning is, that the world was made out of nothing. Hence the folly of those is refuted who imagine that unformed matter existed from eternity; and who gather nothing else from the narration of Moses than that the world was furnished with new ornaments, and received a form of which it was before destitute. This indeed was formerly a common fable among heathens, ³⁷ who had received only an obscure report of the creation, and who, according to custom, adulterated the truth of God with strange figments; but for Christian men to labor (as Steuchus does ³⁸) in maintaining this gross error is absurd and intolerable. Let this, then be maintained in the first place, ³⁹ that the world is not eternal but was created by God. There is no doubt that Moses gives the name of heaven and earth to that confused mass which he, shortly afterwards, (Gen 1:2.) denominates waters. The reason of which is, that this matter was to be the seed of the whole world. Besides, this is the generally recognized division of the world. ⁴⁰

God Moses has it Elohim, a noun of the plural number. Whence the inference is drawn, that the three Persons of the Godhead are here noted; but since, as a proof of so great a matter, it appears to me to have little solidity, will not insist upon the word; but rather caution readers to beware of violent glosses of this, kind. ⁴¹ They think that they have testimony against the Arians, to prove the Deity of the Son and of the Spirit, but in the meantime they involve themselves in the error of Sabellius, ⁴² because Moses afterwards subjoins that the Elohim had spoken, and that the Spirit of the Elohim rested upon the waters. If we suppose three persons to be here denoted, there will be no distinction between them. For it will follow, both that the Son is begotten by himself, and that the Spirit is not of the Father, but of himself. For me it is sufficient that the plural number expresses those powers which God exercised in creating the world. Moreover I acknowledge that the Scripture, although it recites many powers of the Godhead, yet always recalls us to the Father, and his Word, and spirit, as we shall shortly see. But those absurdities, to which I have alluded, forbid us with subtlety to distort what Moses simply declares concerning God himself, by applying it to the separate Persons of the Godhead. This, however, I regard as beyond controversy, that from the peculiar circumstance of the passage itself, a title is here ascribed to God, expressive of that powers which was previously in some way included in his eternal essence. ⁴³

Defender: Gen 1:1

This opening verse of the Bible is unique, the foundation of foundations, probably the first words ever written down, either revealed to Adam, or even written directly by God Himself. One who really believes Gen 1:1 will have no difficulty believing the rest of Scripture. God (Elohim) is eternal, existing before the universe, and is omnipotent, having created the universe. Therefore, nothing is impossible with God, and He alone gives meaning to everything. No attempt is made in this verse to prove God; it was recorded in the beginning when no one doubted God.

Defender: Gen 1:1

No other cosmogony, whether in ancient paganism or modern naturalism, even mentions the absolute origin of the universe. All begin with the space/time/matter universe, already existing in a primeval state of chaos, then attempt to speculate how it might have "evolved" into its present form. Modern evolutionism begins with elementary particles of matter evolving out of nothing in a "big bang" and then developing through natural forces into complex systems. Pagan pantheism also begins with elementary matter in various forms evolving into complex systems by the forces of nature personified as different gods and goddesses. But, very significantly, the concept of the special creation of the universe of space and time itself is found nowhere in all religion or philosophy, ancient or modern, except here in Gen 1:1.

Appropriately, therefore, this verse records the creation of space ("the heaven"), of time ("in the beginning") and of matter ("the earth"), the tri-universe, the space/time/matter continuum which constitutes our physical cosmos. The Creator of this tri-universe is the triune God, Elohim, the uni-plural Old Testament name for the divine "Godhead," a name which is plural in form (with its Hebrew "im" ending) but commonly singular in meaning.

The existence of a transcendent Creator and the necessity of a primeval special creation of the universe is confirmed by the most basic principles of nature discovered by scientists:

(1) The law of causality, that no effect can be greater than its cause, is basic in all scientific investigation and human experience. A universe comprising an array of intelligible and complex effects, including living systems and conscious personalities, is itself proof of an intelligent, complex, living, conscious Person as its Cause.

(2) The laws of thermodynamics are the most universal and best-proved generalizations of science, applicable to every process and system of any kind, the First Law stating that no matter/energy is now being created or destroyed, and the Second Law stating that all existing matter/energy is proceeding irreversibly toward ultimate equilibrium and cessation of all processes. Since this eventual death of the universe has not yet occurred and since it will occur in time, if these processes continue, the Second Law proves that time (and therefore, the space/matter/time universe) had a beginning. The universe must have been created, but the First Law precludes the possibility of its self-creation. The only resolution of the dilemma posed by the First and Second Laws is that "in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." The so-called big bang theory of the origin of the cosmos, postulating a primeval explosion of the space/mass/time continuum at the start, beginning with a state of nothingness and then rapidly expanding into the present complex universe, contradicts both these basic laws as well as Scripture."

TSK: Gen 1:1

Num 1:21, Num 1:42, Num 2:28, Num 4:36, Num 7:17, Num 7:73, Num 10:14, Num 26:51, Num 31:32, Num 35:4; 2Ch 9:1; Ezr 1:11; Ecc 11:1; Eze 43:14; Deu 11:29

beginning : Pro 8:22-24, Pro 16:4; Mar 13:19; Joh 1:1-3; Heb 1:10; 1Jo 1:1

God : Exo 20:11, Exo 31:18; 1Ch 16:26; Neh 9:6; Job 26:13, Job 38:4; Psa 8:3, Psa 33:6, Psa 33:9; Psa 89:11, Psa 89:12, Psa 96:5, Psa 102:25, Psa 104:24, Psa 104:30, Psa 115:15, Psa 121:2, Psa 124:8, Psa 134:3; Psa 136:5, Psa 146:6, Psa 148:4, Psa 148:5; Pro 3:19, Pro 8:22-30; Ecc 12:1; Isa 37:16, Isa 40:26; Isa 40:28, Isa 42:5, Isa 44:24, Isa 45:18, Isa 51:13, Isa 51:16, Isa 65:17; Jer 10:12, Jer 32:17; Jer 51:15; Zec 12:1; Mat 11:25; Act 4:24, Act 14:15, Act 17:24; Rom 1:19, Rom 1:20; Rom 11:36; 1Co 8:6; Eph 3:9; Col 1:16, Col 1:17; Heb 1:2, Heb 3:4, Heb 11:3; 2Pe 3:5; Rev 3:14, Rev 4:11, Rev 10:6, Rev 14:7, Rev 21:6, Rev 22:13

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Gen 1:1

- Section I - The Creation

- The Absolute Creation

ראשׁית rḕshı̂̂yt , the "head-part, beginning"of a thing, in point of time Gen 10:10, or value Pro 1:7. Its opposite is אחרית 'achărı̂̂yth Isa 46:10. בראשׁית rê'shı̂̂yth , "in the beginning,"is always used in reference to time. Here only is it taken absolutely.

ברא bārā' , "create, give being to something new."It always has God for its subject. Its object may be anything: matter Gen 1:1; animal life Gen 1:21; spiritual life Gen 1:27. Hence, creation is not confined to a single point of time. Whenever anything absolutely new - that is, not involved in anything previously extant - is called into existence, there is creation Num 16:30. Any thing or event may also be said to be created by Him, who created the whole system of nature to which it belongs Mal 2:10. The verb in its simple form occurs forty-eight times (of which eleven are in Genesis, fourteen in the whole Pentateuch, and twenty-one in Isaiah), and always in one sense.

אלהים 'ĕlohı̂̂m , "God."The noun אלוה 'elôah or אלה 'eloah is found in the Hebrew scriptures fifty-seven times in the singular (of which two are in Deuteronomy, and forty-one in the book of Job), and about three thousand times in the plural, of which seventeen are in Job. The Chaldee form אלה 'elâh occurs about seventy-four times in the singular, and ten in the plural. The Hebrew letter ה ( h )is proved to be radical, not only by bearing mappiq, but also by keeping its ground before a formative ending. The Arabic verb, with the same radicals, seems rather to borrow from it than to lend the meaning coluit, "worshipped,"which it sometimes has. The root probably means to be "lasting, binding, firm, strong."Hence, the noun means the Everlasting, and in the plural, the Eternal Powers. It is correctly rendered God, the name of the Eternal and Supreme Being in our language, which perhaps originally meant lord or ruler. And, like this, it is a common or appellative noun. This is evinced by its direct use and indirect applications.

Its direct use is either proper or improper, according to the object to which it is applied. Every instance of its proper use manifestly determines its meaning to be the Eternal, the Almighty, who is Himself without beginning, and has within Himself the power of causing other things, personal and impersonal, to be, and on this event is the sole object of reverence and primary obedience to His intelligent creation.

Its improper use arose from the lapse of man into false notions of the object of worship. Many real or imaginary beings came to be regarded as possessed of the attributes, and therefore entitled to the reverence belonging to Deity, and were in consequence called gods by their mistaken votaries, and by others who had occasion to speak of them. This usage at once proves it to be a common noun, and corroborates its proper meaning. When thus employed, however, it immediately loses most of its inherent grandeur, and sometimes dwindles down to the bare notion of the supernatural or the extramundane. In this manner it seems to be applied by the witch of Endor to the unexpected apparition that presented itself to her 1Sa 28:13.

Its indirect applications point with equal steadiness to this primary and fundamental meaning. Thus, it is employed in a relative and well-defined sense to denote one appointed of God to stand in a certain divine relation to another. This relation is that of authoritative revealer or administrator of the will of God. Thus, we are told Joh 10:34 that "he called them gods, to whom the word of God came."Thus, Moses became related to Aaron as God to His prophet Exo 4:16, and to Pharaoh as God to His creature Exo 7:1. Accordingly, in Psa 82:6, we find this principle generalized: "I had said, gods are ye, and sons of the Highest all of you."Here the divine authority vested in Moses is expressly recognized in those who sit in Moses’ seat as judges for God. They exercised a function of God among the people, and so were in God’ s stead to them. Man, indeed, was originally adapted for ruling, being made in the image of God, and commanded to have dominion over the inferior creatures. The parent also is instead of God in some respect to his children, and the sovereign holds the relation of patriarch to his subjects. Still, however, we are not fully warranted in translating אלהים 'ĕlohı̂ym , "judges"in Exo 21:6; Exo 22:7-8, Exo 22:27 (Hebrew versification: 8, 9, 28), because a more easy, exact, and impressive sense is obtained from the proper rendering.

The word מלאך m^e l'āk , "angel,"as a relative or official term, is sometimes applied to a person of the Godhead; but the process is not reversed. The Septuagint indeed translates אלהים 'ĕlohı̂ym in several instances by ἄγγελοι angeloi Psa 8:6; Psa 97:7; Psa 138:1. The correctness of this is seemingly supported by the quotations in Heb 1:6. and Heb 2:7. These, however, do not imply that the renderings are absolutely correct, but only suffiently so for the purpose of the writer. And it is evident they are so, because the original is a highly imaginative figure, by which a class is conceived to exist, of which in reality only one of the kind is or can be. Now the Septuagint, either imagining, from the occasional application of the official term "angel"to God, that the angelic office somehow or sometimes involved the divine nature, or viewing some of the false gods of the pagan as really angels, and therefore seemingly wishing to give a literal turn to the figure, substituted the word ἄγγελοι angeloi as an interpretation for אלהים 'ĕlohı̂ym . This free translation was sufficient for the purpose of the inspired author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, inasmuch as the worship of all angels Heb 1:6 in the Septuagintal sense of the term was that of the highest rank of dignitaries under God; and the argument in the latter passage Heb 2:7 turns not on the words, "thou madest him a little lower than the angels,"but upon the sentence, "thou hast put all things under his feet."Moreover, the Septuagint is by no means consistent in this rendering of the word in Similar passages (see Psa 82:1; Psa 97:1; 1Sa 28:13).

With regard to the use of the word, it is to be observed that the plural of the Chaldee form is uniformly plural in sense. The English version of בר־אלהין bar - 'elâhı̂yn , "the Son of God"Dan 3:25 is the only exception to this. But since it is the phrase of a pagan, the real meaning may be, "a son of the gods."On the contrary, the plural of the Hebrew form is generally employed to denote the one God. The singular form, when applied to the true God, is naturally suggested by the prominent thought of his being the only one. The plural, when so applied, is generally accompanied with singular conjuncts, and conveys the predominant conception of a plurality in the one God - a plurality which must be perfectly consistent with his being the only possible one of his kind. The explanations of this use of the plural - namely, that it is a relic of polytheism, that it indicates the association of the angels with the one God in a common or collective appellation, and that it expresses the multiplicity of attributes subsisting in him - are not satisfactory. All we can say is, that it indicates such a plurality in the only one God as makes his nature complete and creation possible. Such a plurality in unity must have dawned upon the mind of Adam. It is afterward, we conceive, definitely revealed in the doctrine of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

שׁמים shāmayı̂m , "skies, heavens,"being the "high"( shamay , "be high,"Arabic) or the "airy"region; the overarching dome of space, with all its revolving orbs.

ארץ 'erets , "land, earth, the low or the hard."The underlying surface of land.

The verb is in the perfect form, denoting a completed act. The adverbial note of time, "in the beginning,"determines it to belong to the past. To suit our idiom it may, therefore, be strictly rendered "had created."The skies and the land are the universe divided into its two natural parts by an earthly spectator. The absolute beginning of time, and the creation of all things, mutually determine each other.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"Gen 1:1. This great introductory sentence of the book of God is equal in weight to the whole of its subsequent communications concerning the kingdom of nature.

Gen 1:1 assumes the existence of God, for it is He who in the beginning creates. It assumes His eternity, for He is before all things: and since nothing comes from nothing, He Himself must have always been. It implies His omnipotence, for He creates the universe of things. It implies His absolute freedom, for He begins a new course of action. It implies His infinite wisdom, for a κόσμος kosmos , "an order of matter and mind,"can only come from a being of absolute intelligence. It implies His essential goodness, for the Sole, Eternal, Almighty, All-wise, and All-sufficient Being has no reason, no motive, and no capacity for evil. It presumes Him to be beyond all limit of time and place, since He is before all time and place.

It asserts the creation of the heavens and the earth; that is, of the universe of mind and matter. This creating is the omnipotent act of giving existence to things which before had no existence. This is the first great mystery of things; as the end is the second. Natural science observes things as they are, when they have already laid hold of existence. It ascends into the past as far as observation will reach, and penetrates into the future as far as experience will guide. But it does not touch the beginning or the end. This first sentence of revelation, however, records the beginning. At the same time it involves the progressive development of what is begun, and so contains within its bosom the whole of what is revealed in the Book of God. It is thus historical of the beginning, and prophetical of the whole of time. It is, therefore, equivalent to all the rest of revelation taken together, which merely records the evolutions of one sphere of creation, and nearly and more nearly anticipates the end of present things.

This sentence Gen 1:1 assumes the being of God, and asserts the beginning of things. Hence, it intimates that the existence of God is more immediately patent to the reason of man than the creation of the universe. And this is agreeable to the philosophy of things, for the existence of God is a necessary and eternal truth, more and more self-evident to the intellect as it rises to maturity. But the beginning of things is, by its very nature, a contingent event, which once was not and then came to be contingent on the free will of the Eternal, and, therefore, not evident to reason itself, but made known to the understanding by testimony and the reality of things. This sentence is the testimony, and the actual world in us and around us is the reality. Faith takes account of the one, observation of the other.

It bears on the very face of it the indication that it was written by man, and for man, for it divides all things into the heavens and the earth. Such a division evidently suits those only who are inhabitants of the earth. Accordingly, this sentence Gen 1:1 is the foundation-stone of the history, not of the universe at large, of the sun, of any other planet, but of the earth, and of man its rational inhabitant. The primeval event which it records may be far distant, in point of time, from the next event in such a history; as the earth may have existed myriads of ages, and undergone many vicissitudes in its condition, before it became the home of the human race. And, for ought we know, the history of other planets, even of the solar system, may yet be unwritten, because there has been as yet no rational inhabitant to compose or peruse the record. We have no intimation of the interval of time that elapsed between the beginning of things narrated in this prefatory sentence and that state of things which is announced in the following verse, Gen 1:2.

With no less clearness, however, does it show that it was dictated by superhuman knowledge. For it records the beginning of things of which natural science can take no cognizance. Man observes certain laws of nature, and, guided by these, may trace the current of physical events backward and forward, but without being able to fix any limit to the course of nature in either direction. And not only this sentence, but the main part of this and the following chapter communicates events that occurred before man made his appearance on the stage of things; and therefore before he could either witness or record them. And in harmony with all this, the whole volume is proved by the topics chosen, the revelations made, the views entertained, the ends contemplated, and the means of information possessed, to be derived from a higher source than man.

This simple sentence Gen 1:1 denies atheism, for it assumes the being of God. It denies polytheism, and, among its various forms, the doctrine of two eternal principles, the one good and the other evil, for it confesses the one Eternal Creator. It denies materialism, for it asserts the creation of matter. It denies pantheism, for it assumes the existence of God before all things, and apart from them. It denies fatalism, for it involves the freedom of the Eternal Being.

It indicates the relative superiority, in point of magnitude, of the heavens to the earth, by giving the former the first place in the order of words. It is thus in accordance with the first elements of astronomical science.

It is therefore pregnant with physical and metaphysical, with ethical and theological instruction for the first man, for the predecessors and contemporaries of Moses, and for all the succeeding generations of mankind.

This verse forms an integral part of the narrative, and not a mere heading as some have imagined. This is abundantly evident from the following reasons: 1. It has the form of a narrative, not of a superscription. 2. The conjunctive particle connects the second verse with it; which could not be if it were a heading. 3. The very next sentence speaks of the earth as already in existence, and therefore its creation must be recorded in the first verse. 4. In the first verse the heavens take precedence of the earth; but in the following verses all things, even the sun, moon, and stars seem to be but appendages to the earth. Thus, if it were a heading, it would not correspond with the narrative. 5. If the first verse belongs to the narrative, order pervades the whole recital; whereas; if it is a heading, the most hopeless confusion enters. Light is called into being before the sun, moon, and stars. The earth takes precedence of the heavenly luminaries. The stars, which are coordinate with the sun, and preordinate to the moon, occupy the third place in the narrative of their manifestation. For any or all of these reasons it is obvious that the first verse forms a part of the narrative.

As soon as it is settled that the narrative begins in the first verse, another question comes up for determination; namely, whether the heavens here mean the heavenly bodies that circle in their courses through the realms of space, or the mere space itself which they occupy with their perambulations. It is manifest that the heavens here denote the heavenly orbs themselves - the celestial mansions with their existing inhabitants - for the following cogent reasons:

1. Creation implies something created, and not mere space, which is nothing, and cannot be said to be created.

2. Since "the earth"here obviously means the substance of the planet we inhabit, so, by parity of reason, the heavens must mean the substance of the celestial luminaries, the heavenly hosts of stars and spirits.

3. "The heavens"are placed before "the earth,"and therefore must mean that reality which is greater than the earth, for if they meant "space,"and nothing real, they ought not to be before the earth.

4. "The heavens"are actually mentioned in the verse, and therefore must mean a real thing, for if they meant nothing at all, they ought not to be mentioned.

5. The heavens must denote the heavenly realities, because this imparts a rational order to the whole chapter; whereas an unaccountable derangement appears if the sun, moon, and stars do not come into existence till the fourth day, though the sun is the center of light and the measurer of the daily period.

For any or all of these reasons, it is undeniable that the heavens in the first verse mean the fixed and planetary orbs of space; and, consequently, that these uncounted tenants of the skies, along with our own planet, are all declared to be in existence before the commencement of the six days’ creation.

Hence, it appears that the first verse records an event antecedent to those described in the subsequent verses. This is the absolute and aboriginal creation of the heavens and all that in them is, and of the earth in its primeval state. The former includes all those resplendent spheres which are spread before the wondering eye of man, as well as those hosts of planets and of spiritual and angelic beings which are beyond the range of his natural vision. This brings a simple, unforced meaning out of the whole chapter, and discloses a beauty and a harmony in the narrative which no other interpretation can afford. In this way the subsequent verses reveal a new effort of creative power, by which the pre-Adamic earth, in the condition in which it appears in the second verse, is prepared for the residence of a fresh animal creation, including the human race. The process is represented as it would appear to primeval man in his infantile simplicity, with whom his own position would naturally be the fixed point to which everything else was to be referred.

Poole: Gen 1:1

BC 4004

In the beginning to wit, of time and things, in the first place, before things were distinguished and perfected in manner hereafter expressed. Or the sense is this, The beginning of the world was thus. And this phrase further informeth us, that the world, and all things in it, had a beginning, and were not from eternity, as some philosophers dreamed.

God created the heaven and the earth made out of nothing, either,

1. The heaven and earth as now they are with their inhabitants. So this verse is a summary or brief of what is particularly declared in the rest of this chapter. Or,

2. The substance and common matter of heaven and earth. Which seems more probably by comparing this verse with the next, where the earth here mentioned is declared to be without form, and the heavens without light; as also with Gen 2:1 , where the heavens and the earth, here only said to be created, are said to be finished or perfected. Yet I conceive the third heaven to be included under the title of the heaven, and to have been created and perfected the first day, together with its blessed inhabitants the holy angels, as may be collected from Job 33:6-7. But the Scripture being written for men, and not for angels, the Holy Ghost thought it sufficient to comprehend them and their dwelling-place under that general term of the heavens, and proceedeth to give a more particular account of the visible heavens and earth, which were created for the use of man. In the Hebrew it is, the heavens and the earth. For there are three heavens mentioned in Scripture: the aerial; the place of birds, clouds, and meteors, Mat 26:64 Rev 19:17 Rev 20:9 . The starry; the region of the sun, the moon, and stars, Gen 22:17 . The highest or third heaven, 2Co 12:2 ; the dwelling of the blessed angels.

PBC: Gen 1:1

"In the beginning "

to wit, of time and things, in the first place, before things were distinguished and perfected in manner hereafter expressed. Or the sense is this, The beginning of the world was thus. And this phrase further informeth us, that the world, and all things in it, had a beginning, and were not from eternity, as some philosophers dreamed. POOLE

Before the creative acts mentioned in this chapter all was ETERNITY. Time signifies duration measured by the revolutions of the heavenly bodies: but prior to the creation of these bodies there could be no measurement of duration, and consequently no time; therefore in the beginning must necessarily mean the commencement of time which followed, or rather was produced by, God’s creative acts, as an effect follows or is produced by a cause. CLARKE

The phrase "in the beginning" (berêshîth) refers to the absolute beginning of created things, to the Uranfang. This fact is supported by the following arguments in the face of many and strong claims to the contrary. 1. The corresponding phrase in Greek, en arch, which the Septuagint translators used here and which appears at the beginning of John’s Gospel, is plainly a reference to the absolute beginning. 2. The noun rêshîth appears without the article, appearing in use practically as a proper noun, Absolute Beginning (K. S. 294g). The Greek Hexapla of Orion supports this, for its transliteration with few exceptions gives bohsin, seldom baohshn. 3. The rendering which takes the expression as referring to the absolute beginning of things makes for a simple, natural progression of thought and avoids that peculiar periodic sentence structure, which shall presently be discussed as highly unnatural.

Because this noun berêshîth is without the article, that does not allow for its being taken as a genitive or construct case, viz. "in the beginning of God’s creating," etc., for with that rendering attention is at once centred on the second verse and no reason appears for mentioning "the beginning" at all.

Here, then, at the opening statement of sacred Scripture we are taken back to that point to which the human mind naturally will revert and in reference to which it asks: "What was the beginning of things?" This solemn and pithy statement gives man the information: the beginning was made by God in His creation of heaven and earth. As far as this world is concerned, it simply had no existence before this time. LEOPOLD

"God"

He that did the creative work is said to be God, ’elohîm. This Hebrew name is to be derived from a root found in the Arabic meaning "to fear" or "to reverence." It, therefore, conceives of God as the one who by His nature .and His works rouses man’s fear and reverence. It is used 2,570 times (KTAT-(K) p. 144). This name is not a characteristic mark of a particular source as E, or in a measure also P, as Old Testament criticism is in the habit of claiming. It is used by Moses in accordance with its meaning. The work recorded in chapter one in a very outstanding way sets forth God’s mighty works of power and majesty. God’s omnipotence outshines all other attributes in this account. Omnipotence rouses man’s reverence and holy fear rather than his love. In other words, it brings the Creator to man’s notice rather as ’Elohîm than from any other point of view. In stressing this we are not blind to the fact that this chapter also shows forth God as Yahweh, the faithful, merciful one. The claim, however, , that Yahweh might just as Well be employed as ’Elohîm, if the meaning of these names is to be considered, really ignores the facts we have just emphasized above —facts which criticism, by the way, gives heed to far less carefully than conservative writers give attention to the arguments in favour of the various sources, E, J, P, D, etc.

A thought by Procksch should be noted here: "It so happens very appropriately that the first named subject of Genesis as well as of the Bible is ‘God’." LEOPOLD

"created"

The verb describing God’s initial work is "created" (bara’). This verb is correctly defined as expressing the origination of something great, new and "epoch-making," as only God can do it, whether it be in the realm of the physical or of the spiritual. The verb bara’ does not of itself and absolutely preclude the use Of existing material; cf. Isa 65:18b: "Behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy." Also note Ge 1:27. However, when no existing material is mentioned as to be worked over, no such material is implied. Consequently, this passage teaches creatio ex nihilo, "creation out of nothing," a doctrine otherwise also clearly taught by the Scriptures; (Ro 4:17; Heb 11:3); cf. also (Ps 33:6,9; Am 4:13). The verb is never used of other than DIVINE activity.

The berõ’, which Kit. proposes in the margin in conformity with the claims of many, for bara’, i.e. the infinitive for the finite verb, and which yields the translation, "in the beginning of God’s creating," etc., is not only entirely unnecessary but unfortunately, leads to an involved and confused sentence structure in place of a simple and a clear one. Besides, such a change is born entirely out of the desire to make room for a particular interpretation, viz. the interpretation that claims long ages of the earth’s existence prior to the creative work here to be described. To use this change of vowels is the equivalent of substituting a confused road for a straight and a simple one.

Now is this first verse a heading or a title? By no means; for how could the second verse attach itself to a heading by an "and"? Or is this first verse a summary statement akin to a title, after the Hebrew manner of narrative which likes to present a summary account like a newspaper heading, giving the gist of the entire event? Again, No. For if creation began with light and then with the organizing of existing material, the question would crowd persistently to the forefront: but how did this original material come into being? for Ge 1:1 could not be a record of its origin, because it would be counted as a summary account of the things unfolded throughout the rest of the chapter. Ge 1:1 is the record of the first part of the work brought into being on the first day: first the heavens and the earth in a basic form as to their material, then light. These two things constitute what God created on the first day. The Hebrew style of narrative just referred to may or may not be employed on occasion, depending on the author’s choice. Here it does not happen to be used. LEOPOLD

The supposition that God formed all things out of a pre-existing, eternal nature, is certainly absurd, for if there had been an eternal nature besides an eternal God, there must have been two self-existing, independent, and eternal beings, which is a most palpable contradiction. CLARKE

"God created the heaven and the earth"

made out of nothing, either,

1. The heaven and earth as now they are with their inhabitants. So this verse is a summary or brief of what is particularly declared in the rest of this chapter. Or,

2. The substance and common matter of heaven and earth. Which seems more probably by comparing this verse with the next, where the earth here mentioned is declared to be without form, and the heavens without light; as also with Ge 2:1. POOLE

Haydock: Gen 1:1

Beginning. As St. Matthew begins his Gospel with the same title as this work, the Book of the Generation, or Genesis, so St. John adopts the first words of Moses, in the beginning; but he considers a much higher order of things, even the consubstantial Son of God, the same with God from all eternity, forming the universe, in the beginning of time, in conjunction with the other two Divine Persons, by the word of his power; for all things were made by Him, the Undivided Deity. (Haydock) ---

Elohim, the Judges or Gods, denoting plurality, is joined with a verb singular, he created, whence many, after Peter Lombard, have inferred, that in this first verse of Genesis the adorable mystery of the Blessed Trinity is insinuated, as they also gather from various other passages of the Old Testament, though it was not clearly revealed till our Saviour came himself to be the finisher of our faith. (Calmet) ---

The Jews being a carnal people and prone to idolatry, might have been in danger of misapplying this great mystery, and therefore an explicit belief of it was not required of them in general. See Collet. &c. (Haydock) ---

The word bara , created, is here determined by tradition and by reason to mean a production out of nothing, though it be used also to signify the forming of a thing out of pre-existing matter. (ver. 21, 27.) (Calmet) ---

The first cause of all things must be God, who, in a moment, spoke, and heaven and earth were made, heaven with all the Angels; and the whole mass of the elements, in a state of confusion, and blended together, out of which the beautiful order, which was afterwards so admirable, arose in the space of six days: thus God was pleased to manifest his free choice in opposition to those Pagans who attributed all to blind chance or fate. Heaven is here placed first, and is not declared empty and dark like the earth; that we may learn to raise our minds and hearts above this land of trial, to that our true country, where we may enjoy God for ever. (Haydock)

Gill: Gen 1:1

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. By the heaven some understand the supreme heaven, the heaven of heavens, the habitation of God, and of the holy angels; and this being made perfect at once, no mention is after made of it, as of the earth; and it is supposed that the angels were at this time created, since they were present at the laying of the foundation of the earth, Job 38:6 but rather the lower and visible heavens are meant, at least are not excluded, that is, the substance of them; as yet being imperfect and unadorned; the expanse not yet made, or the ether and air not yet stretched out; nor any light placed in them, or adorned with the sun, moon, and stars: so the earth is to be understood, not of that properly so called, as separated from the waters, that is, the dry land afterwards made to appear; but the whole mass of earth and water before their separation, and when in their unformed and unadorned state, described in the next verse: in short, these words represent the visible heavens and the terraqueous globe, in their chaotic state, as they were first brought into being by almighty power. The ה prefixed to both words is, as Aben Ezra observes, expressive of notification or demonstration, as pointing at "those" heavens, and "this earth"; and shows that things visible are here spoken of, whatever is above us, or below us to be seen: for in the Arabic language, as he also observes, the word for "heaven", comes from one which signifies high or above ^a; as that for "earth" from one that signifies low and beneath, or under ^b. Now it was the matter or substance of these that was first created; for the word את set before them signifies substance, as both Aben Ezra and ^c Kimchi affirm. Maimonides ^d observes, that this particle, according to their wise men, is the same as "with"; and then the sense is, God created with the heavens whatsoever are in the heavens, and with the earth whatsoever are in the earth; that is, the substance of all things in them; or all things in them were seminally together: for so he illustrates it by an husbandman sowing seeds of divers kinds in the earth, at one and the same time; some of which come up after one day, and some after two days, and some after three days, though all sown together. These are said to be "created", that is, to be made out of nothing; for what pre-existent matter to this chaos could there be out of which they could be formed? And the apostle says, "through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear", Heb 11:3. And though this word is sometimes used, and even in this chapter, of the production of creatures out of pre-existent matter, as in Gen 1:21 yet, as Nachmanides observes, there is not in the holy language any word but this here used, by which is signified the bringing anything into being out of nothing; and many of the Jewish interpreters, as Aben Ezra, understand by creation here, a production of something into being out of nothing; and Kimchi says ^e that creation is a making some new thing, and a bringing something out of nothing: and it deserves notice, that this word is only used of God; and creation must be the work of God, for none but an almighty power could produce something out of nothing. The word used is Elohimö, which some derive from another, which signifies power, creation being an act of almighty power: but it is rather to be derived from the root in the Arabic language, which signifies to worship ^f, God being the object of all religious worship and adoration; and very properly does Moses make use of this appellation here, to teach us, that he who is the Creator of the heavens and the earth is the sole object of worship; as he was of the worship of the Jewish nation, at the head of which Moses was. It is in the plural number, and being joined to a verb of the singular, is thought by many to be designed to point unto us the mystery of a plurality, or trinity of persons in the unity of the divine essence: but whether or no this is sufficient to support that doctrine, which is to be established without it; yet there is no doubt to be made, that all the three Persons in the Godhead were concerned in the creation of all things, see Psa 33:6. The Heathen poet Orpheus has a notion somewhat similar to this, who writes, that all things were made by one Godhead of three names, and that this God is all things ^g: and now all these things, the heaven and the earth, were made by God "in the beginning", either in the beginning of time, or when time began, as it did with the creatures, it being nothing but the measure of a creature's duration, and therefore could not be until such existed; or as Jarchi interprets it, in the beginning of the creation, when God first began to create; and is best explained by our Lord, "the beginning of the creation which God created", Mar 13:19 and the sense is, either that as soon as God created, or the first he did create were the heavens and the earth; to which agrees the Arabic version; not anything was created before them: or in connection with the following words, thus, "when first", or "in the beginning", when "God created the heavens and the earth", then "the earth was without form", &c ^h. The Jerusalem Targum renders it, "in wisdom God created"; see Pro 3:19 and some of the ancients have interpreted it of the wisdom of God, the Logos and Son of God. From hence we learn, that the world was not eternal, either as to the matter or form of it, as Aristotle, and some other philosophers, have asserted, but had a beginning; and that its being is not owing to the fortuitous motion and conjunction of atoms, but to the power and wisdom of God, the first cause and sole author of all things; and that there was not any thing created before the heaven and the earth were: hence those phrases, before the foundation of the world, and before the world began, &c. are expressive of eternity: this utterly destroys the notion of the pre-existence of the souls of men, or of the soul of the Messiah: false therefore is what the Jews say ⁱ, that paradise, the righteous, Israel, Jerusalem, &c. were created before the world; unless they mean, that these were foreordained by God to be, which perhaps is their sense.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Gen 1:1

¹ tn The translation assumes that the form translated “beginning” is in the absolute state rather than the construct (“in the beginning of,” or “when God created”). In other words, the clause in v. 1 is a main clause, v. 2 has three clauses that are descriptive and supply background information, and v. 3 begins the narrative sequence proper. The referent of the word “beginning” has to be defined from the context since there is no beginning or ending with God.

sn In the beginning. The verse refers to the beginning of the world as we know it; it affirms that it is entirely the product of the creation of God. But there are two ways that this verse can be interpreted: (1) It may be taken to refer to the original act of creation with the rest of the events on the days of creation completing it. This would mean that the disjunctive clauses of v. 2 break the sequence of the creative work of the first day. (2) It may be taken as a summary statement of what the chapter will record, that is, vv. 3-31 are about God’s creating the world as we know it. If the first view is adopted, then we have a reference here to original creation; if the second view is taken, then Genesis itself does not account for the original creation of matter. To follow this view does not deny that the Bible teaches that God created everything out of nothing (cf. John 1:3) – it simply says that Genesis is not making that affirmation. This second view presupposes the existence of pre-existent matter, when God said, “Let there be light.” The first view includes the description of the primordial state as part of the events of day one. The following narrative strongly favors the second view, for the “heavens/sky” did not exist prior to the second day of creation (see v. 8) and “earth/dry land” did not exist, at least as we know it, prior to the third day of creation (see v. 10).

² sn God. This frequently used Hebrew name for God (אֱלֹהִים,’elohim ) is a plural form. When it refers to the one true God, the singular verb is normally used, as here. The plural form indicates majesty; the name stresses God’s sovereignty and incomparability – he is the “God of gods.”

³ tn The English verb “create” captures well the meaning of the Hebrew term in this context. The verb בָּרָא (bara’) always describes the divine activity of fashioning something new, fresh, and perfect. The verb does not necessarily describe creation out of nothing (see, for example, v. 27, where it refers to the creation of man); it often stresses forming anew, reforming, renewing (see Ps 51:10; Isa 43:15, 65:17).

⁴ tn Or “the entire universe”; or “the sky and the dry land.” This phrase is often interpreted as a merism, referring to the entire ordered universe, including the heavens and the earth and everything in them. The “heavens and the earth” were completed in seven days (see Gen 2:1) and are characterized by fixed laws (see Jer 33:25). “Heavens” refers specifically to the sky, created on the second day (see v. 8), while “earth” refers specifically to the dry land, created on the third day (see v. 10). Both are distinct from the sea/seas (see v. 10 and Exod 20:11).

Geneva Bible: Gen 1:1

In the ^{( a )} beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

The Argument - Moses in effect declares three things, which are in this book chiefly to be considered: First, that the world and all things in it were created by God, and to praise his Name for the infinite graces, with which he had endued him, fell willingly from God through disobedience, who yet for his own mercies sake restored him to life, and confirmed him in the same by his promise of Christ to come, by whom he should overcome Satan, death and hell. Secondly, that the wicked, unmindful of God's most excellent benefits, remained still in their wickedness, and so falling most horribly from sin to sin, provoked God (who by his preachers called them continually to repentance) at length to destroy the whole world. Thirdly, he assures us by the examples of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the rest of the patriarchs, that his mercies never fail those whom he chooses to be his Church, and to profess his Name in earth, but in all their afflictions and persecutions he assists them, sends comfort, and delivers them, so that the beginning, increase, preservation and success of it might be attributed to God only. Moses shows by the examples of Cain, Ishmael, Esau and others, who were noble in man's judgment, that this Church depends not on the estimation and nobility of the world: and also by the fewness of those, who have at all times worshipped him purely according to his word that it stands not in the multitude, but in the poor and despised, in the small flock and little number, that man in his wisdom might be confounded, and the name of God praised forever.

^{( a )} First of all, and before any creature was, God made heaven and earth out of nothing.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Gen 1:1-31

1 God creates heaven and earth;

3 the light;

6 the firmament;

9 separates the dry land;

14 forms the sun, moon, and stars;

20 fishes and fowls;

24 cattle, wild beasts, and creeping things;

26 creates man in his own image, blesses him;

29 grants the fruits of the earth for food.

Maclaren: Gen 1:1-26

Genesis 1:1-26; 2:3

We are not to look to Genesis for a scientific cosmogony, and are not to be disturbed by physicists' criticisms on it as such. Its purpose is quite another, and far more important; namely, to imprint deep and ineffaceable the conviction that the one God created all things. Nor must it be forgotten that this vision of creation was given to people ignorant of natural science, and prong to fall back into surrounding idolatry. The comparison of the creation narratives in Genesis with the cuneiform tablets, with which they evidently are most closely connected, has for its most important result the demonstration of the infinite elevation above their monstrosities and puerility's, of this solemn, steadfast attribution of the creative act to the one God. Here we can only draw out in brief the main points which the narrative brings into prominence.

1. The Revelation Which It Gives Is The Truth,

Obscured to all other men when it was given, that one God in the beginning created the heaven and the earth.' That solemn utterance is the keynote of the whole. The rest but expands it. It was a challenge and a denial for all the beliefs of the nations, the truth of which Israel was the champion and missionary. It swept the heavens and earth clear of the crowd of gods, and showed the One enthroned above, and operative in, all things. We can scarcely estimate the grandeur, the emancipating power, the all-uniting force, of that utterance. It is a worn commonplace to us. It was a strange, thrilling novelty when it was written at the head of this narrative. Then it was in sharp opposition to beliefs that have long been dead to us; but it is still a protest against some living errors. Physical science has not spoken the final word when it has shown us how things came to be as they are. There remains the deeper question, What, or who, originated and guided the processes? And the only answer is the ancient declaration, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.'

2. Teaching As To The Mode Of Creation.

The record is as emphatic and as unique in its teaching as to the mode of creation: God said … and it was so.' That lifts us above all the poor childish myths of the nations, some of them disgusting. many of them absurd, all of them unworthy. There was no other agency than the putting forth of the divine will. The speech of God is but a symbol of the flashing forth of His will. To us Christians the antique phrase suggests a fulness of meaning not inherent in it, for we have learned to believe that all things were made by Him' whose name is The Word of God'; but, apart from that, the representation here is sublime. He spake, and it was done'; that is the sign-manual of Deity.

3. The Completeness Of Creation Is Emphasized.

We note, not only the recurrent and it was so,' which declares the perfect correspondence of the result with the divine intention, but also the recurring' God saw that it was good.' His ideals are always realized. The divine artist never finds that the embodiment of His thought falls short of His thought.

What act is all its thought had been?What will but felt the fleshly screen?'

But He has no hindrances nor incompleteness in His creative work, and the very Sabbath rest with which the narrative closes symbolizes, not His need of repose, but His perfect accomplishment of His purpose. God ceases from His works because the works were finished,' and He saw that all was very good.

4. The Progressiveness Of The Creative Process Is Brought Into Strong Relief.

The work of the first four days is the preparation of the dwelling-place for the living creatures who are afterwards created to inhabit it. How far the details of these days' work coincide with the order as science has made it out, we are not careful to ask here. The primeval chaos, the separation of the waters above from the waters beneath, the emergence of the land, the beginning of vegetation there, the shining out of the sun as the dense mists cleared, all find confirmation even in modern theories of evolution. But the intention of the whole is much rather to teach that, though the simple utterance of the divine will was the agent of creation, the manner of it was not a sudden calling of the world, as men know it, into being, but majestic, slow advance by stages, each of which rested on the preceding. To apply the old distinction between justification and sanctification, creation was a work, not an act. The Divine Workman, who is always patient, worked slowly then as He does now. Not at a leap, but by deliberate steps, the divine ideal attains realization.

5. The Creation Of Living Creatures On The Fourth And Fifth Days.

The creation of living creatures on the fourth and fifth days is so arranged as to lead up to the creation of man as the climax. On the fifth day sea and air are peopled, and their denizens blessed,' for the equal divine love holds every living thing to its heart. On the sixth day the earth is replenished with living creatures. Then, last of all, comes man, the apex of creation. Obviously the purpose of the whole is to concentrate the light on man; and it is a matter of no importance whether the narrative is correct according to zoology, or not. What it says is that God made all the universe, that He prepared the earth for the delight of living creatures, that the happy birds that soar and sing, and the dumb creatures that move through the paths of the seas, and the beasts of the earth, are all His creating, and that man is linked to them, being made on the same day as the latter, and by the same word, but that between man and them all there is a gulf, since he is made in the divine image. That image implies personality, the consciousness of self, the power to say I,' as well as purity. The transition from the work of the first four days to that of creating living things must have had a break No theory has been able to bridge the chasm without admitting a divine act introducing the new element of life, and none has been able to bridge the gulf between the animal and human consciousness without admitting a divine act introducing the image of God' into the nature common to animal and man. Three facts as to humanity are thrown up into prominence: its possession of the image of God, the equality and eternal interdependence of the sexes, and the lordship over all creatures. Mark especially the remarkable wording of Gen. 1:27: created He him; male and female created He them.' So neither is the woman without the man, nor the man without the woman.' Each is maimed apart from the other. Both stand side by side, on one level before God. The germ of the most advanced' doctrines of the relations of the sexes is hidden here.

MHCC: Gen 1:1-2

The first verse of the Bible gives us a satisfying and useful account of the origin of the earth and the heavens. The faith of humble Christians understands this better than the fancy of the most learned men. From what we see of heaven and earth, we learn the power of the great Creator. And let our make and place as men, remind us of our duty as Christians, always to keep heaven in our eye, and the earth under our feet. The Son of God, one with the Father, was with him when he made the world; nay, we are often told that the world was made by him, and nothing was made without him. Oh, what high thoughts should there be in our minds, of that great God whom we worship, and of that great Mediator in whose name we pray! And here, at the beginning of the sacred volume, we read of that Divine Spirit, whose work upon the heart of man is so often mentioned in other parts of the Bible. Observe, that at first there was nothing desirable to be seen, for the world was without form, and void; it was confusion, and emptiness. In like manner the work of grace in the soul is a new creation: and in a graceless soul, one that is not born again, there is disorder, confusion, and every evil work: it is empty of all good, for it is without God; it is dark, it is darkness itself: this is our condition by nature, till Almighty grace works a change in us.

Matthew Henry: Gen 1:1-2

In these verses we have the work of creation in its epitome and in its embryo.

I. In its epitome, Gen 1:1, where we find, to our comfort, the first article of our creed, that God the Father Almighty is the Maker of heaven and earth, and as such we believe in him.

1. Observe, in this verse, four things: -

(1.) The effect produced - the heaven and the earth, that is, the world, including the whole frame and furniture of the universe, the world and all things therein, Act 17:24. The world is a great house, consisting of upper and lower stories, the structure stately and magnificent, uniform and convenient, and every room well and wisely furnished. It is the visible part of the creation that Moses here designs to account for; therefore he mentions not the creation of angels. But as the earth has not only its surface adorned with grass and flowers, but also its bowels enriched with metals and precious stones (which partake more of its solid nature and more valuable, though the creation of them is not mentioned here), so the heavens are not only beautified to our eye with glorious lamps which garnish its outside, of whose creation we here read, but they are within replenished with glorious beings, out of our sight, more celestial, and more surpassing them in worth and excellency than the gold or sapphires surpass the lilies of the field. In the visible world it is easy to observe, [1.] Great variety, several sorts of beings vastly differing in their nature and constitution from each other. Lord, how manifold are thy works, and all good! [2.] Great beauty. The azure sky and verdant earth are charming to the eye of the curious spectator, much more the ornaments of both. How transcendent then must the beauty of the Creator be! [3.] Great exactness and accuracy. To those that, with the help of microscopes, narrowly look into the works of nature, they appear far more fine than any of the works of art. [4.] Great power. It is not a lump of dead and inactive matter, but there is virtue, more or less, in every creature: the earth itself has a magnetic power. [5.] Great order, a mutual dependence of beings, an exact harmony of motions, and an admirable chain and connection of causes. [6.] Great mystery. There are phenomena in nature which cannot be solved, secrets which cannot be fathomed nor accounted for. But from what we see of heaven and earth we may easily enough infer the eternal power and Godhead of the great Creator, and may furnish ourselves with abundant matter for his praises. And let our make and place, as men, remind us of our duty as Christians, which is always to keep heaven in our eye and the earth under our feet.

(2.) The author and cause of this great work - God. The Hebrew word is Elohim , which bespeaks, [1.] The power of God the Creator. El signifies the strong God; and what less than almighty strength could bring all things out of nothing? [2.] The plurality of persons in the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This plural name of God, in Hebrew, which speaks of him as many though he is one, was to the Gentiles perhaps a savour of death unto death, hardening them in their idolatry; but it is to us a savour of life unto life, confirming our faith in the doctrine of the Trinity, which, though but darkly intimated in the Old Testament, is clearly revealed in the New. The Son of God, the eternal Word and Wisdom of the Father, was with him when he made the world (Pro 8:30), nay, we are often told that the world was made by him, and nothing made without him, Joh 1:3, Joh 1:10; Eph 3:9; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2. O what high thoughts should this form in our minds of that great God whom we draw nigh to in religious worship, and that great Mediator in whose name we draw nigh!

(3.) The manner in which this work was effected: God created it, that is, made it out of nothing. There was not any pre-existent matter out of which the world was produced. The fish and fowl were indeed produced out of the waters and the beasts and man out of the earth; but that earth and those waters were made out of nothing. By the ordinary power of nature, it is impossible that any thing should be made out of nothing; no artificer can work, unless he has something to work on. But by the almighty power of God it is not only possible that something should be made of nothing (the God of nature is not subject to the laws of nature), but in the creation it is impossible it should be otherwise, for nothing is more injurious to the honour of the Eternal Mind than the supposition of eternal matter. Thus the excellency of the power is of God and all the glory is to him.

(4.) When this work was produced: In the beginning, that is, in the beginning of time, when that clock was first set a going: time began with the production of those beings that are measured by time. Before the beginning of time there was none but that Infinite Being that inhabits eternity. Should we ask why God made the world no sooner, we should but darken counsel by words without knowledge; for how could there be sooner or later in eternity? And he did make it in the beginning of time, according to his eternal counsels before all time. The Jewish Rabbies have a saying, that there were seven things which God created before the world, by which they only mean to express the excellency of these things: - The law, repentance, paradise, hell, the throne of glory, the house of the sanctuary, and the name of the Messiah. But to us it is enough to say, In the beginning was the Word, Joh 1:1.

2. Let us learn hence, (1.) That atheism is folly, and atheists are the greatest fools in nature; for they see there is a world that could not make itself, and yet they will not own there is a God that made it. Doubtless, they are without excuse, but the god of this world has blinded their minds. (2.) That God is sovereign Lord of all by an incontestable right. If he is the Creator, no doubt he is the owner and possessor of heaven and earth. (3.) That with God all things are possible, and therefore happy are the people that have him for their God, and whose help and hope stand in his name, Psa 121:2; Psa 124:8. (4.) That the God we serve is worthy of, and yet is exalted far above, all blessing and praise, Neh 9:5, Neh 9:6. If he made the world, he needs not our services, nor can be benefited by them (Act 17:24, Act 17:25), and yet he justly requires them, and deserves our praise, Rev 4:11. If all is of him, all must be to him.

II. Here is the work of creation in its embryo, Gen 1:2, where we have an account of the first matter and the first mover.

1. A chaos was the first matter. It is here called the earth (though the earth, properly taken, was not made till the third day Gen 1:10), because it did most resemble that which afterwards was called earth, mere earth, destitute of its ornaments, such a heavy unwieldy mass was it; it is also called the deep, both for its vastness and because the waters which were afterwards separated from the earth were now mixed with it. This immense mass of matter was it out of which all bodies, even the firmament and visible heavens themselves, were afterwards produced by the power of the Eternal Word. The Creator could have made his work perfect at first, but by this gradual proceeding he would show what is, ordinarily, the method of his providence and grace. Observe the description of this chaos. (1.) There was nothing in it desirable to be seen, for it was without form and void. Toho and Bohu , confusion and emptiness; so these words are rendered, Isa 34:11. It was shapeless, it was useless, it was without inhabitants, without ornaments, the shadow or rough draught of things to come, and not the image of the things, Heb 10:1. The earth is almost reduced to the same condition again by the sin of man, under which the creation groans. See Jer 4:23, I beheld the earth, and lo it was without form, and void. To those who have their hearts in heaven this lower world, in comparison with that upper, still appears to be nothing but confusion and emptiness. There is no true beauty to be seen, no satisfying fulness to be enjoyed, in this earth, but in God only. (2.) If there had been any thing desirable to be seen, yet there was no light to see it by; for darkness, thick darkness, was upon the face of the deep. God did not create this darkness (as he is said to create the darkness of affliction, Isa 45:7), for it was only the want of light, which yet could not be said to be wanted till something was made that might be seen by it; nor needs the want of it be much complained of, when there was nothing to be seen but confusion and emptiness. If the work of grace in the soul is a new creation, this chaos represents the state of an unregenerate graceless soul: there is disorder, confusion, and every evil work; it is empty of all good, for it is without God; it is dark, it is darkness itself. This is our condition by nature, till almighty grace effects a blessed change.

2. The Spirit of God was the first mover: He moved upon the face of the waters. When we consider the earth without form and void, methinks it is like the valley full of dead and dry bones. Can these live? Can this confused mass of matter be formed into a beautiful world? Yes, if a spirit of life from God enter into it, Eze 37:9. Now there is hope concerning this thing; for the Spirit of God begins to work, and, if he work, who or what shall hinder? God is said to make the world by his Spirit, Psa 33:6; Job 26:13; and by the same mighty worker the new creation is effected. He moved upon the face of the deep, as Elijah stretched himself upon the dead child, - as the hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and hovers over them, to warm and cherish them, Mat 23:37, - as the eagle stirs up her nest, and flutters over her young (it is the same world that is here used), Deu 32:11. Learn hence, That God is not only the author of all being, but the fountain of life and spring of motion. Dead matter would be for ever dead if he did not quicken it. And this makes it credible to us that God should raise the dead. That power which brought such a world as this out of confusion, emptiness, and darkness, at the beginning of time, can, at the end of time, bring our vile bodies out of the grave, though it is a land of darkness as darkness itself, and without any order (Job 10:22), and can make them glorious bodies.

Keil-Delitzsch: Gen 1:1

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." - Heaven and earth have not existed from all eternity, but had a beginning; nor did they arise by emanation from an absolute substance, but were created by God. This sentence, which stands at the head of the records of revelation, is not a mere heading, nor a summary of the history of the creation, but a declaration of the primeval act of God, by which the universe was called into being. That this verse is not a heading merely, is evident from the fact that the following account of the course of the creation commences with w ( and ), which connects the different acts of creation with the fact expressed in Gen 1:1, as the primary foundation upon which they rest. בּרשׁיח (in the beginning) is used absolutely, like ἐν ἀρχῇ in Joh 1:1, and מראשׁיח in Isa 46:10. The following clause cannot be treated as subordinate, either by rendering it, "in the beginning when God created ..., the earth was,"etc., or "in the beginning when God created...(but the earth was then a chaos, etc.), God said, Let there be light"( Ewald and Bunsen ). The first is opposed to the grammar of the language, which would require Gen 1:2 to commence with הארץ ותּהי ; the second to the simplicity of style which pervades the whole chapter, and to which so involved a sentence would be intolerable, apart altogether from the fact that this construction is invented for the simple purpose of getting rid of the doctrine of a creatio ex nihilo , which is so repulsive to modern Pantheism. ראשׁיח in itself is a relative notion, indicating the commencement of a series of things or events; but here the context gives it the meaning of the very first beginning, the commencement of the world, when time itself began. The statement, that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, not only precludes the idea of the eternity of the world a parte ante , but shows that the creation of the heaven and the earth was the actual beginning of all things. The verb בּרא , indeed, to judge from its use in Jos 17:15, Jos 17:18, where it occurs in the Piel (to hew out), means literally "to cut, or new,"but in Kal it always means to create , and is only applied to a divine creation, the production of that which had no existence before. It is never joined with an accusative of the material, although it does not exclude a pre-existent material unconditionally, but is used for the creation of man (Gen 1:27; Gen 5:1-2), and of everything new that God creates, whether in the kingdom of nature (Num 16:30) or of that of grace (Exo 34:10; Psa 51:10, etc.). In this verse, however, the existence of any primeval material is precluded by the object created: "the heaven and the earth."This expression is frequently employed to denote the world, or universe, for which there was no single word in the Hebrew language; the universe consisting of a twofold whole, and the distinction between heaven and earth being essentially connected with the notion of the world, the fundamental condition of its historical development (vid., Gen 14:19, Gen 14:22; Exo 31:17). In the earthly creation this division is repeated in the distinction between spirit and nature; and in man, as the microcosm, in that between spirit and body. Through sin this distinction was changed into an actual opposition between heaven and earth, flesh and spirit; but with the complete removal of sin, this opposition will cease again, though the distinction between heaven and earth, spirit and body, will remain, in such a way, however, that the earthly and corporeal will be completely pervaded by the heavenly and spiritual, the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, and the earthly body being transfigured into a spiritual body (Rev 21:1-2; 1Co 15:35.). Hence, if in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, "there is nothing belonging to the composition of the universe, either in material or form, which had an existence out of God prior to this divine act in the beginning"( Delitzsch ). This is also shown in the connection between our verse and the one which follows: "and the earth was without form and void," not before, but when, or after God created it. From this it is evident that the void and formless state of the earth was not uncreated, or without beginning. At the same time it is obvious from the creative acts which follow (vv. 3-18), that the heaven and earth, as God created them in the beginning, were not the well-ordered universe, but the world in its elementary form; just as Euripides applies the expression οὐρανὸς καὶ γαῖα to the undivided mass ( οπφὴμία ), which was afterwards formed into heaven and earth.

Constable: Gen 1:1--11:27

I. PRIMEVAL EVENTS 1:1--11:26

Chapters 1-11 provide an introduction to the Book of Genesis, the Pentateuch, and the whole Bible.

"What we find in chaps. 1-11 is the divine initiation of blessing, which is compromised by human sin followed by gracious preservation of the promise: blessing-sin-grace."¹⁵

"His [Moses'] theological perspective can be summarized in two points. First, the author intends to draw a line connecting the God of the Fathers and the God of the Sinai covenant with the God who created the world. Second, the author intends to show that the call of the patriarchs and the Sinai covenant have as their ultimate goal the reestablishment of God's original purpose in Creation."¹⁶

"Evidently an interest in the way in which the world and humankind came into existence and in the history of the earliest times was characteristic of the ancient civilized world. At any rate, various origin stories' or creation myths' about the activities of a variety of creator-gods are still extant in what remains of the literatures of ancient Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia. But the combination of such accounts with narratives about more recent times testifies to an additional motivation. The aim of such works was to give their readers--or to strengthen--a sense of national or ethnic identity, particularly at a time when there was for some reason a degree of uncertainty or hesitation about this. . . .

"The placing of Gen. 1-11 as a prologue to the main body of the work also afforded the opportunity to express certain distinctively Israelite articles of faith which it would have been more difficult to introduce into the later narratives, particularly with regard to the doctrine of God."¹⁷

"Gen 1-11 as we read it is a commentary, often highly critical, on ideas current in the ancient world about the natural and supernatural world. Both individual stories as well as the final completed work seem to be a polemic against many of the commonly received notions about the gods and man. But the clear polemical thrust of Gen 1-11 must not obscure the fact that at certain points biblical and extrabiblical thought are in clear agreement. Indeed Genesis and the ancient Near East probably have more in common with each other than either has with modern secular thought."¹⁸

Constable: Gen 1:1--2:4

A. The story of creation 1:1-2:3

God created the entire universe and then formed and filled it in six days. He brought order and fullness for humankind to enjoy and to rule over. He then blessed and set apart the seventh day as a memorial of His creative work.¹⁹ The God of Israel, the deliverer of His people, is the creator of all that exists.

". . . Gen 1:1-2:4a is clearly recognizable as a unit of historical narrative. It has an introduction (1:1), a body (1:2-2:3) and a conclusion (2:4a)."²⁰

"The creation account is theocentric, not creature centered. Its purpose is to glorify the Creator by magnifying him through the majesty of the created order. The passage is doxological as well as didactic, hymnic as well as history. God' is the grammatical subject of the first sentence (1:1) and continues as the thematic subject throughout the account."²¹

Constable: Gen 1:1

1. An initial statement of creation 1:1

There are three major views concerning the relationship of 1:1 to the rest of the creation account.

1. Verse 1 describes an original creation of the universe. God began fashioning the earth as we know it in verse 2 or verse 3. This view may or may not involve a gap in time between verses 1 and 2.²² Some advocates of this view believe that the original creation became chaotic as a result of divine judgment.²³

2. Verse 1 describes part of what God did on the first day of creation (1:1-5). It is a general statement followed by specific details.²⁴

3. Verse 1 describes what God did on the six days of creation (1:2-31). It is a topic sentence that introduces the whole creation account that follows.²⁵

The "beginning" is the beginning of the creation of the cosmos, not the beginning of all things (cf. Mark 1:1; John 1:1). This appears to be clear from the context.

The "heavens and earth" refer to the universe as we know it (i.e., the sky above with all that is in it and the earth below). There is no one word in Hebrew for "universe." This is a figure of speech (merism) for totality. God created everything. The translators often rendered the Hebrew word eres (earth) as "land." By translating it this way here we can see that Moses wanted his readers to realize that God created and therefore owned all land (cf. 12:7 and all subsequent references to the Promised Land; Ps. 24:1).²⁶

This verse is important because it contradicts six popular philosophies:

1. Atheism--God does exist.

2. Pantheism--God is distinct from His creation.

3. Polytheism--"Created" is singular in the text.²⁷

4. Radical materialism (matter is eternal)--Matter had a supernatural origin (emphasis on origin).

5. Naturalism (evolutionism)--Creation took place when someone outside nature intervened (emphasis on process).

6. Fatalism--A personal God freely chose to create.

God created the universe from nothing (Latin ex nihilo). While the text does not state this fact per se, the reader can deduce it from the following evidence. The phrase "in the beginning" implies it as do the Hebrew word for "create" (bara) and the expression "formless and void." New Testament passages also support this conclusion (e.g., John 1:3; Rom. 4:17; and Heb. 11:3).²⁸

The emphasis in this verse is on the origin of the universe. God created it.²⁹ He alone is eternal, and everything else owes its origin and existence to Him.³⁰

Guzik: Gen 1:1-31

Genesis 1 - The Account of God's Creation

A. Thoughts to begin with as we study the Bible: how do we approach the Bible?

1. We come to the Bible knowing there is a God.

a. The Bible does not make elaborate arguments for the existence of God. However, it does tell us how we can know God exists.

b. The Bible tells us we can know God exists because of what we see in creation.

i. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. (Psalm 19:1-4)

ii. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)

c. Though many seek to deny the effectiveness of the teleological argument for the existence of God (the understanding that there must be a purposeful intelligence Who created this world), it still remains unanswered by the atheist or the agnostic.

2. We come to the Bible believing it is the place where God has spoken to man, perfectly and comprehensively.

a. We believe 2 Timothy 3:16-17: All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

i. We can study God, but we can't put Him under a microscope. We can only confidently know about Him what He chooses to reveal to us. What He chooses to tell us is profitable and useful for us.

b. We believe the Bible must be understood literally, that is, as straightforward and true according to its literary context.

i. The Bible is much more than a book; it is a library of books, and books written in different literary forms. Some portions of the Bible give a historical account, others are poetic, and some are prophetic.

ii. We must understand the Bible literally according to its literary context. For example, when David wrote in Psalm 6:6 "All night I make my bed swim; I drench my couch with my tears," he used a poetic literary form. We understand he didn't literally mean he cried so much that he flooded his room and set his bed afloat.

iii. But when the Bible speaks in a historical narrative, we understand it as literal history, not as make-believe fables and myths meant only to tell a spiritual story.

iv. If we don't approach the Bible this way, then how will we approach it? Then it is all up to how anyone "feels" about the text. Though the teachings of Scripture may have infinite applications, they only have one true interpretation.

v. "The only proper way to interpret Genesis 1 is not to 'interpret' it at all. That is, we accept the fact that it was meant to say exactly what it says." (Morris)

c. We believe the Bible is not a book of science; yet where it touches science, it speaks the truth. After all, if the Bible is false in regard to science or other things that we can prove, then we cannot regard it as reliable in regard to spiritual matters that we cannot prove.

3. We come to the Bible knowing the copies we have in our hands are reliable duplicates (though not perfect duplicates) of the exact writings, which God perfectly inspired.

a. We can know this about the Old Testament by seeing the incredible care and reliability of the ancient Jewish scribes, demonstrated by the Dead Sea Scroll discoveries.

b. We can know this about the New Testament by knowing that because of earlier manuscripts, and a greater number of ancient manuscripts, the New Testament is by far the most reliable and exhaustively crosschecked ancient document we possess. Really, no more than one one-thousandth of the New Testament text is in question.

4. We come to the Bible knowing the unique importance of the Book of Genesis.

a. The Bible would be incomplete and perhaps incomprehensible without the Book of Genesis. It sets the stage for the entire drama of redemption, which unfolds in the rest of the book.

b. Almost all important doctrines and teachings have their foundation in the Book of Genesis: the doctrines of sin, redemption, justification, Jesus Christ, the personality and personhood of God, the kingdom of God, the fall, Israel, the promise of the Messiah, and more.

i. Genesis shows us the origins of the universe, order and complexity, the solar system, the atmosphere and hydrosphere, the origin of life, man, marriage, evil, language, government, culture, nations, religion. It is precisely because people have abandoned the truth of Genesis that society is in such disarray.

c. Genesis is important to the New Testament. There are at least 165 passages in Genesis either directly quoted or clearly referred to in the New Testament; many of these are quoted more than once, so there are at least 200 quotations or allusions to Genesis in the New Testament.

i. Jesus declared the importance of believing what Moses wrote: "For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?" (John 5:46-47) We can't say we believe in Jesus if we don't believe in the Book of Genesis.

d. "I beg and faithfully warn every pious Christian not to stumble at the simplicity of the language and stories that will often meet him there [in Genesis]. He should not doubt that, however simple they may seem, these are the very words, works, judgments, and deeds of the high majesty, power, and wisdom of God." (Luther, cited in Boice)

5. According to the New Testament, Moses wrote the Book of Genesis (Luke 24:27, Luke 24:44). We can surmise that he did this with help from actual written records from the past God had preserved. There are indicators of where these records begin and end. Note the phrasing of Genesis 2:4, 5:1, 6:9, 10:1, 11:10, 11:27, 25:12, 25:19, 36:1, 36:9, 37:2.

a. "Thus it is probable that the Book of Genesis was written originally by actual eyewitnesses of the events reported therein. Probably the original narratives were recorded on tables of stone or clay, in common practice of early times, and then handed down from father to son, finally coming into the possession of Moses. Moses perhaps selected the appropriate sections for compilation, inserted his own editorial additions and comments, and provided smooth transitions from one document to the next, with the final result being the Book of Genesis as we have received it." (Morris)

B. The first five days of creation.

1. The philosophical importance of knowing God as creator.

a. The philosopher Jean-Paul Sarte stated the essential problem of philosophy: there is something, instead of nothing. Why? Everything else in our life flows from the answer to this question.

i. If everything around us, including ourselves, is the result of random, meaningless occurrences apart from the work of a creating God, then it says something about who I am, and where I, and the whole universe, are going. Then the only dignity or honor we bestow upon men is pure sentimentality, because I don't have any more significance than an amoebae; then there is no greater law in the universe than survival of the fittest.

b. Some 100 years ago, there was a great German philosopher named Arthur Schopenhauer. By habit, he usually dressed like a vagrant, and one day he sat on a park bench in Berlin, deep in thought. His appearance made a policeman suspicious, so the policeman asked the philosopher "Who are you?" Schopenhauer answered, "I would to God I knew."

i. And the only way we can ever really find out who we are is from God. The best place to find out begins in Genesis.

c. There are many possible answers to the question of how everything came into being. Some say, once there was absolutely nothing, and now there is something. Others (including the Bible) say before there was anything created, there was a Personal Being.

d. One day, students in one of Albert Einstein's classes were saying they had decided there was no God. Einstein asked them how much of all the knowledge in the world they had among themselves collectively, as a class. The students discussed it for a while and decided they had 5% of all human knowledge among themselves. Einstein thought their estimate was a little generous, but he replied: "Is it possible God exists in the 95% you don't know?"

2. (1) A simple factual statement regarding God work as creator.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

a. God created: This summary statement will be detailed in the following verses, but the Bible simply and straightforwardly declares the world did not create itself or come about by chance. It was created by God, who, by definition, is eternal and has always been.

i. "It is no accident that God is the subject of the first sentence of the Bible, for this word dominates the whole chapter and catches the eye at every point of the page: it is used some thirty-five times in as many verses of the story." (Kidner)

ii. If you believe Genesis 1:1, you really have no problem believing the rest of the Bible.

b. God: This is the ancient Hebrew word Elohim. Grammatically it is a plural word used as if it were singular. The verbs and pronouns used with Elohim should be in the plural, but when Elohim refers to the LORD God the verbs and pronouns are in the singular.

i. Rabbi Simeon ben Joachi, commenting on the word Elohim: "Come and see the mystery of the word Elohim; there are three degrees, and each degree by itself alone, and yet notwithstanding they are all one, and joined together in one, and are not divided from each other." Clarke adds: "He must be strangely prejudiced indeed who cannot see that the doctrine of a Trinity, and of a Trinity in unity, is expressed in the above words."

ii. Leupold quoting Luther on Elohim: "But we have clear testimony that Moses aimed to indicate the Trinity or the three persons in the one divine nature."

c. God created the heavens: The simple fact of God's creation is even more amazing when we consider the greatness of God's universe.

i. A typical galaxy contains billions of individual stars; our galaxy alone (the Milky Way) contains 200 billion stars. Our galaxy is shaped like a giant spiral, rotating in space, with arms reaching out like a pinwheel, and our sun is one star on one arm of the pinwheel. It would take 250 million years for the pinwheel to make one full rotation. But this is only our galaxy; there are many other galaxies with many other shapes, including spirals, spherical clusters, and flat pancakes. The average distance between one galaxy and another is about 20 million trillion miles. Our closest galaxy is the Andromeda Galaxy, about 12 million trillion miles away.

ii. For every patch of sky the size of the moon, if you could look very deep, you would see about a million galaxies.

iii. But God did all this Himself: "Indeed My hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and My right hand has stretched out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand up together." (Isaiah 48:13)

iv. But God is bigger and greater than all His creation: Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, measured heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? (Isaiah 40:12)

d. God created the heavens and the earth: If God created the heavens and the earth, then we must forever put away the idea that anything happens by chance. "Chance" merely describes the statistical probability of something happening. Chance itself can "do" nothing.

i. People who are otherwise intelligent often fall into this delusion. Jacques Monod, a biochemist, wrote: "Chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution."

ii. But assigning such power to "chance" is crazy. Chance has no power. For example, when a coin is flipped, the chance it will land "heads" is 50%; however, "chance" does not make it land heads. Whether or not it lands heads or tails is due to the strength with which the coin is flipped, the strength of air currents and air pressure as it flies through the air, where it is caught, and if it is flipped over once it is caught. Chance doesn't "do" anything but describe a probability.

iii. When Carl Sagan petitioned the federal government for a grant to search for intelligent life in outer space, how did he hope to find it? By using a super sensitive instrument to pick up radio signals from distant space. When he received those radio signals, he looked for order and pattern, which would demonstrate the signals were transmitted by intelligent life. In the same way, the order and pattern of the whole universe demonstrates that it was fashioned by intelligent life, not by "chance." Scientists detect "chance" in the radio signals constantly (in the form of unpatterned static), but it tells them nothing.

iv. Therefore, when someone says the universe or anything else came about by chance, they are extremely ignorant, superstitious, or just repeating a line they have heard before and have unthinkingly accepted.

e. God created: Inherent in the idea of God is that He is an intelligent designer. Only an intelligent designer could create a just-right universe, not "chance." Our universe is a just-right universe.

i. The universe has a just-right gravitational force.

· If it were larger, the stars would be too hot and would burn up too quickly and too unevenly to support life

· If it were smaller, the stars would remain so cool, nuclear fusion would never ignite, and there would be no heat and light

ii. The universe has a just-right speed of light.

· If it were larger, stars would send out too much light

· If it were smaller, stars would not send out enough light

iii. The universe has a just-right average distance between the stars.

· If it were larger, the heavy element density would be too thin for rocky planets to form, and there would only be gaseous planets

· If it were smaller, planetary orbits would become destabilized because of the gravitational pull from other stars

iv. The universe has a just-right polarity of the water molecule.

· If it were greater, the heat of fusion and vaporization would be too great for life to exist

· If it were smaller, the heat of fusion and vaporization would be too small for life's existence, liquid water would become too inferior a solvent for life chemistry to proceed, ice would not float, leading to a runaway freeze-up

v. We could conclude that there is no chance that such a universe could create itself, apart from an intelligent designer.

f. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth: This tells us that God used no pre-existing material to create the earth. The ancient Hebrew word bara (created) is specific. It means to create out of nothing, showing that that God created the world out of nothing, not out of Himself. God is separate from His creation. Unlike Eastern and pantheistic perceptions of god, the Bible teaches the universe could perish yet He would remain.

i. Men cannot "create" in the sense the term is used in Genesis 1:1. We can only "fashion" or "form" things out of existing material. The closest we come to creating is in reproducing ourselves sexually. This is perhaps one reason why Satan wants to pervert and destroy God's plan and standard for sexuality; it is deeply connected to our being made in the image of God.

ii. Ginzberg has a fascinating legend on how the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet all wanted to begin the Bible, but in the end, the letter "bet" was allowed, because he said, "O Lord of the world! May it be Thy will to create Thy world through me, seeing that all the dwellers of the world give praise daily unto Thee through me, as it is said, Blessed be the Lord forever. Amen, and Amen." So, the Hebrew Book of Genesis begins, "Bereshit God created the heaven and the earth."

3. The Bible's clear teaching of God's creation and the uncertainty of modern science.

a. Some scientists often act certain in their knowledge about the origin of the universe, but their constant "revolutionary discoveries" prove they are really just groping in the dark. Honest scientists, those not puffed up with a proud arrogance, will admit this.

b. Some scientists may be arrogant when it comes to what can be known of the universe, but we do not have to accept such arrogance. The constantly changing scene of science is illustrated in a sidebar to a science article in the Los Angeles Times titled, "The Big Bang and What Followed It":

In the beginning, there was light - but also quarks and electrons. The Big Bang spewed out energy that condensed into radiation and particles. The quarks joined into protons and careened wildly about in a hot, dense, glowing goop as opaque as a star.

Time (300,000 years or so) passed. Space expanded. Matter cooled. The electrons and protons, electrically irresistible to each other, merged into neutral hydrogen, and from this marriage, the first atoms were born. Space between atoms became as transparent as crystal - pretty much the way it looks today.

The rest, as they say, is history. Atoms merged to form dust clouds, which grew into stars and galaxies and clusters. Stars used up their nuclear fuel, collapsed and exploded in recurring cycles, fusing elements in the process.

Occasionally, a stable planet condensed around a second-generation star, where carbon-based life forms grew into, among other things, cosmologists, the better to contemplate it all.

c. In 1913, an astronomer in Arizona discovered stars appeared to be moving away from the earth at tremendous speeds, up to two million miles an hour. In 1919, another American astronomer named Edwin Hubble used this information to develop a theory of an expanding universe, which is the foundation of the "Big Bang" idea. Early on, other scientists discovered background radiation from all parts of the universe, which they suppose is the leftover "noise" from the first great explosion. But scientists are really not much closer at all to knowing anything about this instant beginning to the universe.

d. In fact, the more they find out, the more they discover how much they don't know. Astrophysicists are faced with another challenge: trying to figure out what "dark matter" is. Dark matter is a term scientists use to explain an enormous apparent excess of gravity in the universe. Dark matter may make up 99.9% of everything in the universe, but no one knows what it is. Though suggestions are offered, they are only suggestions. David O. Caldwell of the University of California at Santa Barbara says, "When it comes to dark matter, the only thing that we are convinced of at the moment is that it's there." But actually, scientists cannot even agree on that! Michael S. Turner, an astrophysics professor at the University of Chicago, said: "It's very humbling. The origin, composition, energy and mass of the most common matter in the entire universe is unknown."

e. This uncertainty is shown in a March 6, 1995, front-page article in the Los Angeles Times headlined, "Rethinking Cosmic Questions":

Ever since people first stood up amid the tall grasses and looked about the world in wonder, religion, mythology and science all have struggled to explain how the world came to be. But when it comes to creation stories, few can hold a candle to the tale cooked up by modern cosmologists.

Dialing back the cosmic clock about 15 billion years, they depict a time before time, a place before space existed. Out of nothing and nowhere, all the energy and matter in the universe exploded into existence in an event that came to be called . . . the Big Bang.

While masterfully spinning ideas out of faith and equations, cosmologists were pitifully short on data. They could not see or measure the phenomena they were trying to explain. "Twenty-five years ago, cosmology was very close to religion," said physicist Roberto Peccei of UCLA.

Experimental cosmologist Chris Stubbs of the University of Washington, "You've got these things that are ridiculously far away and ridiculously faint, and . . . you've got to make sense out of it."

"At times, I miss the old days when I could just work in my office and not worry that someone would disprove my theory in a few weeks" said Rocky Kold of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois.

"Many of us who have worked in this field for decades still worry that the whole house of cards is going to collapse," said Princeton cosmologist David Wilkinson.

Recent observations, for example, suggest that the universe is younger than its oldest stars - an enigma that has astronomers scrambling for explanations.

The biggest mystery, however, strikes even scientists as so astonishing as to be absurd: 99% of the universe, according to some estimates, is made of totally unfamiliar stuff. Commonly known as dark matter, it is actually mostly transparent; it neither shines nor casts a shadow. Whatever it is, it is not like us . . . According to some theories, it also is the glue that holds the universe together, and keeps it from expanding forever into endless space.

f. "The study of human origins seems to be a field in which each discovery raises the debate to a more sophisticated level of uncertainty." (Christopher Stringer of the Natural Museum of London)

4. One may doubt the ability of many modern scientists to answer the question of origins. But that does not automatically give us confidence to the answer in found in the Book of Genesis. Some believe that Genesis only records a "creation myth," meant only to show the greatness of God in poetic grandeur. Though there are poetic elements to the account, we believe it was still written to record a historical reality. Other Scriptures, in their approach to Genesis 1, demonstrate this.

a. Psalm 136 connects the Genesis account of creation with the rest of Israel's history in a seamless fabric. The creation account is not put in a category of "historical fiction."

b. Jesus quoted Genesis as if it were a purely historical record (Matthew 19:4-6 and 23:35).

c. C.S. Lewis wrote that when he heard a Biblical scholar say the Genesis creation account was a myth, he didn't want to know about the man's credentials as a Biblical scholar. He wanted to know how many myths the man had read. Myths were Lewis' business as a literary scholar, and he could see the Biblical account of creation was unlike mythical accounts.

d. It is true that Genesis was not written primarily as a scientific document. But if God gave us a truly scientific, detailed account of creation, written in scientific language, there would be no one who could understand it and no end to the length of such an account. Even if it were written in simple, 20th-century scientific language, it would have made no sense to all previous generations and no sense to future generations either.

e. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter (Proverbs 25:2). Scientific inquiry is the glory of man; yet it must all be done with utmost humility, realizing God conceals these matters for man to search out.

5. God did all this in the beginning, yet there was much before the beginning.

a. God Himself was before the beginning: Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting (Psalm 93:2). Some are troubled by the questions, "Where did God come from?" and "Who created God?" The answer is found in the definition of God - that God is the uncreated Being, eternal, and without beginning or end.

i. This is demonstrated in several passages of Scripture. LORD, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God. (Psalm 90:1-2)

ii. J. Edwin Orr used a memorable definition of God, which was thoroughly Biblical: God is the only infinite, eternal, and unchangable spirit, the perfect being in whom all things begin, and continue, and end.

b. God was in three Persons before the beginning, and the Persons shared a relationship of love and fellowship: "Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was . . . for You loved Me before the foundation of the world." (John 17:5, 17:24)

c. Before the beginning, there was an eternal purpose in the heart of God (Ephesians 3:11) to gather together in one all things in Christ (Ephesians 1:10). God's purpose was to "resolve" or "sum up" all things in Jesus, as if Jesus Himself were the answer to a great and complex problem God wrote out on the "blackboard" of the universe.

d. Before the beginning, God had a specific plan to fulfill this eternal purpose, with many different aspects revealed to us:

i. The mission of Jesus was foreordained before the foundation of the world: He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. (1 Peter 1:20)

ii. Eternal life was promised before time began: in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began. (Titus 1:2)

iii. The mystery of the gospel (the cross) was foreordained before the ages: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory. (1 Corinthians 2:7)

iv. The grace given unto us was given before the world began: who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. (2 Timothy 1:9)

v. Believers in Jesus Christ were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world: just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. (Ephesians 1:4)

e. At some time before the beginning, God created the angels, because they witnessed the creation of the heavens and the earth (Job 38:7).

6. (2) The state of the earth before God organized creation.

The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

a. The earth was without form, and void: Some translate the idea in this verse as the earth became without form and void. Their thinking is the earth was originally created not without form and void, but it became without form and void through the destructive work of Satan. However, this is not the plain grammatical sense of the ancient Hebrew.

i. Those who follow this idea look to Isaiah 45:18: For thus says the LORD, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: "I am the LORD, and there is no other." The idea is God here says He did not create the world in vain (the Hebrew word is the same as the word for void in Genesis 1:1).

ii. Based on these ideas, some have advanced what has been called the "Gap Theory." It is the idea that there was a long and indefinite chronological gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. Most "Gap Theory" adherents use the theory to explain the fossil record, assigning old and extinct fossils to this indefinite gap.

iii. Whatever merit the gap theory may have, it cannot explain the extinction and fossilization of ancient animals. The Bible says plainly death came by Adam (Romans 5:12), and since fossils are the result of death, they could not have happened before Adam's time.

b. Darkness was on the face of the deep: This may describe a sense of resistance to the moving of the Holy Spirit on the earth. Some speculate this was because Satan was cast down to the earth (Isaiah 14:12; Ezekiel 28:16) and resisted God's plan, though his resistance was futile.

i. Leupold on the Spirit of God was hovering: "The verb . . . signifies a vibrant moving, a protective hovering . . . His was the preparatory work for leading over from the inorganic to the organic."

ii. "Any impression of Olympian detachment which the rest of the chapter might have conveyed is forestalled by the simile of the mother-bird 'hovering' (Moffatt) or fluttering by her brood. The verb reappears in Deuteronomy 32:11 to describe the eagle's movements in stirring its young into flight." (Kidner)

c. When God created the earth, He quite likely built an "old" earth, creating things in the midst of a time sequence, with age "built in."

i. For example, Adam was already of mature age when he was created; there was age "built in." Likewise, the trees in the Garden of Eden had rings in them, and there were undoubtedly canyons and sand beaches in Adam's world.

7. (3-5) The first day of creation: light is created and divided from the darkness.

Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

a. Let there be light: The first step from chaos to order is to bring light. This is also the way God works in our life.

i. Paul speaks about the light brought to us by the gospel: But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:3-6)

b. Then God said: God did not have to fashion light with His hands. It was enough for God to merely speak the words, "Light be!" and there was light.

i. Because God created things by speaking them into existence, some have said we can operate on the same principle, speaking things into existence by faith.

ii. This is based on a wrong understanding of Hebrews 11:3 (by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God), which is taken to say God Himself used faith in creating the world. Instead, it says it is by faith we understand God created the world.

iii. Also, some have a wrong understanding of Mark 11:22 which is taken to literally mean "have God's faith" as if we are to have the same faith God has. But the words Jesus answered and said to them, "Have faith in God" cannot mean this, because faith, as Hebrews 11:1 tells us, is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. What does God "hope" for? What does He not see? An omnipotent, omniscient Being certainly does not need faith. He is the object of faith.

c. There was light: Genesis tells us that light, day, and night each existed before the sun and the moon were created on the fourth day (Genesis 1:14-19). This shows us that light is more than a physical substance; it also has a supernatural aspect. In the new heavens and the new earth, there won't be any sun or moon. God Himself will be the light (Revelation 22:5).

ii. The darkness God sent upon the Egyptians (Exodus 10:21) had a tangible quality to it, far beyond what we usually think of as being associated with darkness; it could be felt. This demonstrates a certain supernatural element, which can be related to light and darkness.

d. So the evening and the morning were the first day: Many wonder if this was a literal day (in the sense we think of a day) or if it was a geological age. Some say that God created the world in six days, and others say He created it in six vast geological ages. Though there is disagreement among Christians on this, the most plain and simple meaning of the text is that He created in six days as we think of days.

i. "If the days were not days at all, would God have countenanced the word? Does He trade in inaccuracies, however edifying? The question hinges on the proper use of language." (Kidner)

ii. "There ought to be no need of refuting the idea that yom means period. Reputable dictionaries . . . know nothing of this notion. Hebrew dictionaries are our primary source of reliable information concerning Hebrew words." (Leupold)

8. (6-8) The second day of creation: God makes an atmospheric division.

Then God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters." Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.

a. Let there be a firmament: The idea of a firmament is of an expanse (NIV, NAS) or space (NLT). The waters of the land are separated from the water vapor in the sky.

b. The waters which were above the firmament: Here, the Bible recognizes the existence of water vapor in the sky. "The waters above the firmament thus probably constituted a vast blanket of water vapor above the troposphere and possibly above the stratosphere as well, in the high temperature region now known as the ionosphere, and extending far into space." (Morris) Such a vapor blanket would greatly change the ecology of the earth, and Henry Morris suggests several effects of a vapor blanket.

i. It would serve as a global greenhouse, maintaining an essentially uniformly pleasant temperature all over the world.

ii. Without great temperature variations, there would be no significant winds, and the water-rain cycle could not form. There would be no rain as we know it today.

iii. There would be lush, tropical-like vegetation, all over the world, fed not by rain, but by a rich evaporation and condensation cycle, resulting in heavy dew or ground-fog.

iv. The vapor blanket would filter out ultraviolet radiation, cosmic rays, and other destructive energies bombarding the planet. These are known to be the cause of mutations, which decrease human longevity. Human and animal life spans would be greatly increased.

v. A vapor blanket would provide the necessary reservoir for a potential worldwide flood.

9. (9-13) The third day of creation: the land is divided from the sea; plants and all types of vegetation are created.

Then God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth"; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the third day.

a. Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together: The idea is that before this, the earth was covered with water. Now the waters are gathered together into one place, and dry land appears.

b. Let the earth bring forth grass: All this happened before the creation of the Sun (the fourth day of creation, Genesis 1:14-19). This means the plants must have had sufficient nourishment because of the light God had created before the sun and the moon.

i. Those who propose these days of creation were not literal days, but successive "ages" of slow, evolutionary development have a real problem here. It is hard to explain how plants and all vegetation could grow and thrive eons before the sun and the moon. No modern evolutionist would argue plant life is older than the sun or the moon, but this is what the Genesis record tells us.

ii. Many wonder how the sun, moon, and stars were created on the fourth day when light (including day and night) was created on the first day. Many have suggested the problem is solved by saying these heavenly bodies were created on the first day, but were not specifically visible, or not finally formed, until the fourth. But Revelation tells us of a coming day when we won't need the sun, moon, and stars any longer (Revelation 21:23). There's no reason why God couldn't have started creation in the same way He will end it.

b. And it was so: This is the beginning of life on planet earth, directly created by God, not slowly evolving over millions of years.

i. Some scientists now say life on earth began when immense meteorites carrying amino acids impacted earth at a time when the sun was cooler and the earth was a watery ball covered with ice up to 1,000 feet thick. The idea is that a meteor hits the ice, breaks through, and "seeds" the water underneath with the building blocks of life, which assemble into an "organic soup." However the process was triggered, the scientists said life on earth began in "a geological instant." But by an instant, they mean 10 million years or less. It takes more faith to believe this than to believe in Genesis.

ii. The fossil evidence also demonstrates life exploded into existence on earth, instead of slowly evolving.

c. The earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed . . . and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself: The plants were created not as seeds, but as full-grown plants each bearing seeds. They were thus created as mature plants, having the "appearance" of age. The chicken really did come before the egg.

d. According to its kind: This phrase appears ten times in Genesis chapter 1. It means God allows variation within a kind, but something of one kind will never develop into something of another kind.

e. And God saw that it was good: God knows what is good. He is not some vague moral neutral. He knows what is good and organizes His creation to result in something good.

i. God does not call the earth good until it has become habitable, a place where man can live.

f. Let the earth bring forth . . . every herb that yields seed . . . the herb that yields seed according to its kind . . . And God saw that it was good: Some use this passage to justify the use of drugs (especially marijuana) because grass and every herb came forth at God's command. But certainly, not every herb is good for every purpose. Hemlock is natural, but not good.

i. In fact, the use of drugs in this manner is nowhere approved and is always condemned in the Bible. The wrong use of drugs is often associated with sorcery and the occult.

ii. Sorcery is universally condemned in the Bible (Exodus 22:18, Deuteronomy 18:10, 2 Chronicles 33:6, Revelation 21:8 and 22:15). In both the Old and New Testaments, the word sorcery was connected with the making and taking of drugs.

10. (14-19) The fourth day of creation: the sun, moon, and stars.

Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

a. Let them be for signs and seasons: God made the sun and the moon - these lights in the firmament of the heavens to be for signs and seasons. Since the beginning, man has used God's provision of the sun, moon, and stars to mark and measure time and direction.

b. God set them in the firmament of the heavens: God knew exactly how far to set the sun from the earth. A few million miles more or less and life as we know it would be impossible.

i. The intricate balance of our ecosystem argues strongly for the existence of a Creator. We live in a very complex world.

ii. Ginzberg quotes a Jewish legend connecting the movement of the sun to the praise of God (as in Psalms 113:3, 50:1, and 148:3): "The progress of the sun in his circuit is an uninterrupted song of praise to God. And this song alone makes his motion possible. Therefore, when Joshua wanted to bid the sun stand still, he had to command him to be silent. His song of praise hushed, the sun stood still."

c. Let them be for signs and seasons: When God set the lights in the heavens to be for signs, it probably includes what we commonly call the zodiac, but was called by the ancient Hebrews the Mazzaroth (Job 38:31-32).

i. Significantly, the sequence of the zodiac is the same in every language and culture, even if the specific names of the constellations change. Also, we know the figures of the constellations suggested to us don't look like those things at all, and, they never did. Yet the names for the figures of the constellations are the same in all cultures. This points to a common, pre-Babel beginning for all these things, before the truth of the constellations was corrupted.

ii. Luke 1:70 and Acts 3:21 speak of holy prophets since the world began. These prophets may be the stars themselves. Psalm 147:4 and Isaiah 40:26 tell us God has the stars all numbered and God has a name for them all. Psalm 19:1-6 tells us the heavens contain a message from God.

iii. Astrology is a satanic corruption of God's original "message in the stars," a message outlining His plan of redemption. Because astrology is a corruption, it is to be avoided always by man (Isaiah 47:12-15).

d. He made the stars also: With all the other stars in our universe, we often wonder if there is life on other planets.

i. When you take into account all that is necessary for the sustenance of life as we know it, there are few planets able to support life. Taking into account factors such as our galaxy type, star location, star age, star mass, star color, distance from star, axis tilt, rotation period, surface gravity, tidal force, magnetic field, oxygen quantity in atmosphere, atmospheric pressure, and 20 other important factors, the probability of all 33 occurrences happening on any one planet is one in 10 to the 42 power. The total number of possible planets in the universe is 10 to the 22 power.

ii. The U.S. government spends $100 million a year looking for extraterrestrial intelligence. It might be wiser to spend the money cultivating intelligent life in Washington.

11. (20-23) The fifth day of creation: birds and sea creatures are created.

Then God said, "Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens." So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

a. Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures: We see the great variety of birds and sea creatures were created at the same time, not evolving slowly over millions of years. Even though plant life was created before animal life, animal life was not created out of plant life.

i. Among the diversity of animals, many share similar structures: birds, reptiles, mammals, and so forth. This argues at least as persuasively for a common Designer as it does for a common life source. All life did not come from the same primordial cell, but it did all come from the same Designer.

b. According to their kind: Again, all animal life is created according to its kind. God deliberately structured plenty of variation within a kind, but one "kind" does not become another.

i. For example, structure among dogs is diverse. The teacup poodle is very different from the Great Dane, but they are both dogs. However, they won't become mice, no matter how much breeding is done.

ii. Evolutionists often give convincing examples of microevolution, the variation of a kind within its kind, adapting to the environment. For example, the ratio of black to white peppered moths may increase when pollution makes it easier for dark moths to escape detection; or finches may develop different beaks in response to their distinctive environment. But the moths are still moths, and the finches are still finches. There has been no change outside of the kind. Microevolution does not prove macroevolution.

12. Doesn't the fossil record show these creatures slowly evolved into existence, instead of suddenly appearing?

a. Most people are unaware that Darwin's strongest opponents were not clergymen, but fossil experts. Darwin admitted the state of the fossil evidence was "the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory," and because of the fossil evidence, "all the most eminent paleontologists . . . and all our greatest geologists . . . have unanimously, often vehemently, maintained" that the species do not change.

b. The fossil record is marked by two great principles: first, stasis, which means most species are unchanged in all their documented history. The way they look when they first appear in the fossil record is the way they look when last appearing in the fossil record. They have not changed. Second, sudden appearance, which means in any local area, a species does not arise gradually, but appears all at once and "fully formed."

i. Philip Johnson: "If evolution means the gradual change of one kind of organism into another kind, the outstanding characteristic of the fossil record is the absence of evidence for evolution."

c. The Bighorn Basin in Wyoming contains a continuous record of fossil deposits for what geologists say is five million years. Because this record is so complete, paleontologists assumed a positive trail of evolution could be found. Instead, "the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another." (Johnson)

i. Evolutionist Nile Eldredge writes: "We paleontologists have said that the history of life [in the fossil record] supports [the story of gradual evolution], all the while knowing that it does not." (Johnson)

d. Either evolution happened slowly, with each tiny change building on the last, over billions of years; or the changes came as quick leaps: something like a mouse coming out of a snake's egg.

i. The fossil record totally rejects the idea of millions of tiny changes; the quick leaps are a way of attributing miraculous power to "chance" or "nature" instead of God. While admiring the faith of those who believe in such hopeful monsters, it seems far more rational to believe in a wise, creating, designing God.

C. The sixth day of creation: the creation of man.

1. (24-25) God makes land animals.

Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind"; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

a. Let the earth bring forth the living creature: On the fifth day of creation, God made birds and sea animals, but now God turns His creative attention towards land animals of various types.

b. God made the beast of the earth according to its kind: When we look at the infinite variety of the animal kingdom (both living and extinct), we must be impressed with God's creative power, as well as His sense of humor. Any Being who makes the giraffe, the platypus, and the peacock is a God of joy and humor.

i. To a peahen, the most attractive peacocks are the ones with the biggest fans, but the big fan on the tail makes it difficult to escape a predator. Therefore, the peahen rewards the peacock with the least chance of survival. This is a great problem for the idea of "survival of the fittest."

c. According to its kind: Again, this important phrase is emphasized. God allows tremendous variation within a kind, but one "kind" will never become another "kind."

2. (26) God plans to make man in His image.

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

a. Let Us make man in Our image: The use of the plural (Let Us . . . in Our image, according to Our likeness) is consistent with the idea that there is One God in three Persons, what we know as the Trinity.

i. Leupold does a good job showing that the plurality of let Us make cannot be merely the plurality of royalty, nor can it be God speaking with and to the angels. It is an indicator of the Trinity, though not clearly spelled out.

b. In Our image: An understanding of who man is begins with knowing we are made in the image of God. Man is different from every other order of created being because He has a created consistency with God.

i. This means there is an unbridgeable gap between human life and animal life. Though we are biologically similar to certain animals, we are distinct in our moral, intellectual, and spiritual capabilities.

ii. This means there is also an unbridgeable gap between human life and angelic life. Nowhere are we told the angels are made in the image of God. Angels cannot have the same kind of relationship of love and fellowship with God we can have.

iii. This means the incarnation was truly possible. God (in the Second Person of the Trinity) could really become man, because although deity and humanity are not the same, they are compatible.

iv. This means human life has intrinsic value, quite apart from the "quality of life" experienced by any individual, because human life is made in the image of God.

c. In Our image: There are several specific things in man that show him to be made in the image of God.

· Man alone has a natural countenance looking upward

· Man alone has such a variety of facial expressions

· Man alone has a sense of shame expressing itself in a blush

· Man alone speaks

· Man alone possesses personality, morality, and spirituality

d. In Our image: There are at least three aspects to the idea that we are made in the image of God.

· It means humans possess personality: knowledge, feelings, and a will. This sets man apart from all animals and plants

· It means humans possess morality: we are able to make moral judgments and have a conscience

· It means humans possess spirituality: man is made for communion with God. It is on the level of spirit we communicate with God

e. In Our image: This does not mean that God has a physical or human body. God is a Spirit (John 4:24). Though God does not have a physical body, He designed man so man's physical body could do many of the things God does: see, hear, smell, touch, speak, think, plan, and so forth.

i. "It will hardly be safe to say that the body of man is patterned after God, because God, being an incorporeal spirit, cannot have what we term a material body. Yet the body of man must at least be regarded as the fittest receptacle for the man's spirit and so must bear at least an analogy that is so close that God and His angels choose to appear in human form when they appear to men." (Leupold)

f. In Our image, according to Our likeness: The terms for image and likeness are slightly different. Image has more to do with appearance, and likeness has more to do with an abstract similarity, but they both essentially mean the same thing here in this context.

g. Let them have dominion: Before God ever created man He decreed man would have dominion over the earth. Man's pre-eminence of the created order and his ability to affect his environment is no accident; it is part of God's plan for man and the earth.

i. In this sense, it is sin if man does not use this dominion responsibly, in the sense of a proper regard for stewardship on this earth.

3. (27-31) God's creation of man and initial commission to Adam.

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." And God said, "See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food"; and it was so. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

a. So God created man in His own image: God created man according to His plan as described in Genesis 1:26. The concept of man being created in the image of God is repeated to give emphasis to the idea.

i. We are plainly told God created man fully formed, and created him in one day, not gradually over millions of years of progressive evolution. The idea that a slow, progressive evolution could produce a complex mechanism like the human body just doesn't hold up.

ii. It is said there would be at least 40 different stages of evolution required to form an eye. What possible benefit could there be for the first 39 stages? The mathematician D.S. Ulam argues it was highly improbable for the eye to evolve by the accumulation of small mutations, because the number of mutations must be so large and the time available was not nearly long enough for them to appear. Evolutionist Ernst Mayr commented: "Somehow or other by adjusting these figures we will come out all right. We are comforted by the fact that evolution has occurred." Johnson observes: "Darwinism to them was not a theory open to refutation but a fact to be accounted for." (Johnson)

iii. Darwin wrote: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." Professor Richard Goldschmidt, a geneticist at the University of California at Berkley, listed a series of complex structures (from the hair of mammals to hemoglobin) he thought could not have been produced by thousands of years of small mutations. "The Darwinists met this fantastic suggestion with savage ridicule. As Goldschmidt put it, 'This time I was not only crazy but almost a criminal.' . . . To suppose that such a random event could reconstruct even a single complex organ like a liver or kidney is about as reasonable as to suppose that an improved watch can be designed by throwing an old one against the wall." (Johnson)

b. Male and female He created them: This should not be construed to mean Adam was originally some type of androgynous being, being both male and female. This passage of Genesis gives us an overview of God's creation of man, and Genesis 2 will explain how exactly God created male and female.

i. In our day, many say there is no real difference between men and women. This makes sense if we are the result of mindless evolution, but not it is true that male and female He created them. To God, the differences between men and women are not accidents. Since He created them, the differences are good and meaningful.

ii. Men are not women, and women are not men. One of the saddest signs of our culture's depravity is the amount and the degree of gender confusion today.

iii. It is vain to wonder if men or women are superior to the other. A man is absolutely superior at being a man. A woman is absolutely superior at being a woman. But when a man tries to be a woman or a woman tries to be a man, you have something inferior.

c. Then God blessed them: the first thing God did for man was to bless him. Without the goodness of God's blessing, human life would be not only unbearable, but also impossible.

d. Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion: God also gives man a job to do: fulfill God's intention of man's exercise of dominion over the earth. Inherent in this command is that man should be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Man cannot fulfill God's plan for him on the earth unless he populates it.

i. Additionally, God gave mankind a desire for sex, which would make the populating of the earth quick and likely.

ii. However, many have thought that being fruitful and multiplying was God's only or main purpose for sex, but this isn't the case. The primary reason God created sex was to contribute to the bonding of a one-flesh relationship.

iii. Animals have sexual relations only for reproduction, but human sexual response is different from animal sexual response in many ways. Human ovulation has no outward sign; humans have sex in private; humans have secondary sexual characteristics (only in humans do females develop breasts before the first birth). Only humans demonstrate a constant availability for and interest in sex, as opposed to a "heat" season in animals. In humans, the duration of the sexual interlude is longer and the intensity of the pleasure of sex is stronger, and only humans continue to have intercourse after the end of fertility. None of these specifically human dimensions of sex are required for reproduction, but all of them are useful for sex as a tool of bonding.

e. To you it shall be for food: God gave man dominion over the whole earth, but only vegetation is specifically mentioned as being for food. Seemingly, before the flood, the human race was vegetarian, but after the flood, man was given permission to eat the flesh of animals (Genesis 9:3).

f. God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good: God's final analysis of His work of creation is that it was very good. God was pleased with His creation, and so are we!

i. When God pronounced the creation good, He really meant it. At the time, it was entirely good; there was no death or decay on earth at all.

4. The fossil discoveries of our "human ancestors" such as Australopithecus afarensis, Australopithecus africanus, Homo habilis, and Homo Erectus show that the search for our "human ancestors" has been one filled with dishonest science and wishful thinking.

a. Quoting Johnson: "The psychological atmosphere that surrounds the viewing of hominid fossils is uncannily reminiscent of the veneration of relics at a medieval shrine." In 1984, the American Museum of Natural History held an unprecedented showing of original fossils said to depict human evolution titled Ancestors.

b. From Johnson: "The 'priceless and fragile relics' were carried by anxious curators in first-class airplane seats and brought to the Museum in a VIP motorcade of limousines with police escort. Inside the Museum, the relics were placed behind bullet-proof glass to be admired by a select preview audience of anthropologists, who spoke in hushed voices because 'It was like discussing theology in a cathedral.' A sociologist observing this ritual of the anthropologist tribe remarked, 'Sounds like ancestor worship to me.' "

c. Solly Zuckerman is a committed evolutionist and one of Britain's most influential scientists. He also regards much of the fossil evidence for human evolution as nonsense. Zuckerman has subjected key fossils to years of biometric testing and declares that the idea that they walked and ran upright is flimsy wishful thinking. He remarked that the record of reckless speculation in the field of human origins "is so astonishing that it is legitimate to ask whether much science is yet to be found in this field at all." (Johnson)

d. "The story of human descent from apes is not merely a scientific hypothesis; it is the secular equivalent of the story of Adam and Eve, and a matter of immense cultural importance. Propagating the story requires illustrations, museum exhibits, and television reenactments. It also requires a priesthood, in the form of thousands of researchers, teachers, and artists who provide realistic and imaginative detail and carry the story out to the general public . . .. The scientific priesthood that has authority to interpret the official creation story gains immense cultural influence thereby, which it might lose if the story were called into question. The experts therefore have a vested interest in protecting the story, and in imposing rules of reasoning that make it invulnerable. When critics ask, 'Is your theory really true?' we should not be satisfied to be answered that 'it is good science, as we define science'." (Johnson)

e. Evolutionists are not interested in testing if their theory is true. They simply believe once you ignore the creating hand of God, it is the only explanation available, so their job is to figure out how it works, not if it is true.

5. Why is evolution so universally believed today?

a. In the 1920's, a former substitute teacher in a Tennessee school volunteered to be the defendant in a case meant to challenge a state law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in the public schools. The teacher wasn't even sure he had taught evolution, but the trial went ahead.

b. Prosecuting the case was William Jennings Bryan, former Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson, and a three-time Democratic candidate for President. Bryan believed in the Bible, but not literally. He thought the "days" of Genesis referred not to 24-hour days, but to historical ages of indefinite duration. Leading the defense was Clarence Darrow, a famous criminal lawyer and agnostic lecturer. Darrow maneuvered Bryan to take the stand as an expert witness on the Bible, and he humiliated Bryan in a devastating cross-examination. Once that purpose was accomplished, Darrow pleaded guilty on behalf of his client and paid a $100 fine.

c. The trial was therefore inconclusive, but the "Scopes Monkey Trial" was presented to the world by sarcastic journalist H.L. Mencken, Broadway, and Hollywood, and was a huge public relations triumph for Darwinism. People who believed in God's creation came to be thought of as fools and hicks, and evolution was given the veneer of respectability. Combine this with a strong anti-supernaturalism on the part of many scientists and educators, and today's acceptance of evolution is understandable.

d. The same attitude is used to squelch debate and questions about evolution today. "When outsiders question whether the theory of evolution is as secure as we have been led to believe, we are firmly told that such questions are out of order. The arguments among the experts are said to be about matters of detail, such as the precise time scale and the mechanism of evolutionary transformations. These disagreements are signs not of crisis but of healthy creative ferment within the field, and in any case there is no room for doubt whatever about something called the 'fact' of evolution." (Johnson)

© 2006 David Guzik - No distribution beyond personal use without permission

Commentary -- Other

Bible Query: Gen 1:1

Q: In Gen 1:1, did God create because He needed to create?

A: The Bible provides no support for this speculation. God has no needs, in the sense that He would be harmed or cease to exist if He did not create something. On the other hand, God’s desire was to create, and God fulfilled His desire on a grand, wonderful scale.  

Bible Query: Gen 1:1

Q: In Gen 1:1, were there more creations after Genesis?

A: Scripture does not say either way, and God is free to do as He wishes. If God created other creatures, they could be like the angels, like Adam and Eve prior to the Fall, like us, like demons, like animals, or something entirely different.

Critics Ask: Gen 1:1

GENESIS 1:1 —How can the universe have a “beginning” when modern science says energy is eternal?

PROBLEM: According to the First Law of Thermodynamics, “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.” If this is so, then the universe must be eternal, since it is made of indestructible energy. However, the Bible indicates that the universe had a “beginning” and did not exist before God “created” it ( Gen. 1:1 ). Is this not a contradiction between the Bible and science?

SOLUTION: There is a conflict of opinion here, but no real factual contradiction. The factual evidence indicates that the universe is not eternal, but that it did have a beginning just as the Bible says. Several observations are relevant here.

First of all, the First Law of Thermodynamics is often misstated to the effect that energy “cannot be created.” However, science is based on observation, and statements such as “can” or “cannot” are not based on observation, but are dogmatic pronouncements. The First Law should be stated like this: “[So far as we can observe] the amount of actual energy in the universe remains constant.” That is, as far as we know, the actual amount of energy in the universe is not decreasing or increasing. Stated this way, the First Law makes no pronouncement whatsoever about where energy came from, or how long it has been here. Thus, it does not contradict the Genesis declaration that God created the universe.

Second, another well-established scientific law is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It states that “the amount of usable energy in the universe is decreasing.” According to this Law, the universe is running down. Its energy is being transformed into unusable heat. If this is so, then the universe is not eternal, since it would have run out of usable energy a long time ago. Or, to put it another way, if the universe is unwinding, then it was wound up. If it had an infinite amount of energy it would never run down. Therefore, the universe had a beginning, just as Genesis 1:1 says it did.

GENESIS 1:1 —How could the author of Genesis know what happened at creation before he was even created?

PROBLEM: Traditional Christian scholarship has maintained that the first five books of the Bible were written by Moses. The first two chapters of the Book of Genesis read as an eyewitness account of the events of creation. However, how could Moses, or any man for that matter, write these chapters as if he were an eyewitness since he would not have existed at the time?

SOLUTION: Of course, there was an eyewitness of creation—God, the Creator. These chapters are obviously a record of creation which God specifically reported to Moses by way of special revelation. The tendency to ask questions like, “How did the chronicler know that minerals preceded plants and plants preceded animals?” betrays an antisupernatural bias and a refusal to consider alternative explanations other than those proposed by naturalistic science.   

Evidence: Gen 1:1

A simple way to study the Bible is to COMB the words: C: Context, 0: Other related scrip­tures, M: Meaning of words, B: Background.

How old is creation? See Psa 136:7-9 "Questions and Objections."

"Genesis is the seed-plot of the whole Bible. It is referred to or quoted 60 times in the New Testamernt, and divine authority is set like a seal on its historical facts. See Mat 19:4-6 , Mat 24:37-39, Mar 7:4,Mark 7:10, Mar 10:3-8, Luk 11:49-51, Luk 17:26-29,Luk 17:32, John 1:51, John 7:21-23, John 8:44-56. " Richard Gunther

Introduction / Outline

JFB: Genesis (Book Introduction)

GENESIS, the book of the origin or production of all things, consists of two parts: the first, comprehended in the first through eleventh chapters, gives a general history; the second, contained in the subsequent chapters, gives a special history. The two parts are essentially connected; the one, which sets out with an account of the descent of the human race from a single pair, the introduction of sin into the world, and the announcement of the scheme of divine mercy for repairing the ruins of the fall, was necessary to pave the way for relating the other, namely, the call of Abraham, and the selection of his posterity for carrying out the gracious purpose of God. An evident unity of method, therefore, pervades this book, and the information contained in it was of the greatest importance to the Hebrew people, as without it they could not have understood the frequent references made in their law to the purposes and promises of God regarding themselves. The arguments that have been already adduced as establishing the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch prove of course that Moses was the author of Genesis. The few passages on which the rationalists grounded their assertions that it was the composition of a later age have been successfully shown to warrant no such conclusion; the use of Egyptian words and the minute acquaintance with Egyptian life and manners, displayed in the history of Joseph, harmonize with the education of Moses, and whether he received his information by immediate revelation, from tradition, or from written documents, it comes to us as the authentic work of an author who wrote as he was inspired by the Holy Ghost (2Pe 1:21).

JFB: Genesis (Outline)

• THE CREATION OF HEAVEN AND EARTH. (Gen 1:1-2)
• THE FIRST DAY. (Gen 1:3-5)
• SECOND DAY. (Gen 1:6-8)
• THIRD DAY. (Gen 1:9-13)
• FOURTH DAY. (Gen 1:14-19)
• FIFTH DAY. The signs of animal life appeared in the waters and in the air. (Gen 1:20-23)
• SIXTH DAY. A farther advance was made by the creation of terrestrial animals, all the various species of which are included in three classes: (1) cattle, the herbivorous kind capable of labor or domestication. (Gen 1:24-31)
• THE NARRATIVE OF THE SIX DAYS' CREATION CONTINUED. The course of the narrative is improperly broken by the division of the chapter. (Gen 2:1)
• THE FIRST SABBATH. (Gen 2:2-7)
• THE GARDEN OF EDEN. ( Gen 8-17)
• THE MAKING OF WOMAN, AND INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE. (Gen 2:18-25)
• THE TEMPTATION. (Gen 3:1-5)
• THE FALL. (Gen 3:6-9)
• THE EXAMINATION. (Gen 3:10-13)
• THE SENTENCE. (Gen 3:14-24)
• BIRTH OF CAIN AND ABEL. (Gen. 4:1-26)
• GENEALOGY OF THE PATRIARCHS. (Gen. 5:1-32)
• WICKEDNESS OF THE WORLD. (Gen. 6:1-22)
• ENTRANCE INTO THE ARK. (Gen. 7:1-24)
• ASSUAGING OF THE WATERS. (Gen 8:1-14)
• DEPARTURE FROM THE ARK. (Gen 8:15-22)
• COVENANT. (Gen 9:1-7)
• RAINBOW. (Gen. 9:8-29)
• GENEALOGIES. (Gen. 10:1-32)
• CONFUSION OF TONGUES. (Gen. 11:1-32) the whole earth was of one language. The descendants of Noah, united by the strong bond of a common language, had not separated, and notwithstanding the divine command to replenish the earth, were unwilling to separate. The more pious and well-disposed would of course obey the divine will; but a numerous body, seemingly the aggressive horde mentioned (Gen 10:10), determined to please themselves by occupying the fairest region they came to.
• CALL TO ABRAM. (Gen. 12:1-20)
• RETURN FROM EGYPT. (Gen. 13:1-18)
• WAR. (Gen. 14:1-24)
• DIVINE ENCOURAGEMENT. (Gen. 15:1-21)
• BESTOWMENT OF HAGAR. (Gen. 16:1-16)
• RENEWAL OF THE COVENANT. (Gen. 17:1-27)
• ENTERTAINMENT OF ANGELS. (Gen 18:1-8)
• REPROOF OF SARAH. An inquiry about his wife, so surprising in strangers, the subject of conversation, and the fulfilment of the fondly cherished promise within a specified time, showed Abraham that he had been entertaining more than ordinary travellers (Heb 13:2). (Gen 18:9-15)
• DISCLOSURE OF SODOM'S DOOM. (Gen 18:16-22)
• ABRAHAM'S INTERCESSION. (Gen 18:23-33)
• LOT'S ENTERTAINMENT. (Gen. 19:1-38)
• ABRAHAM'S DENIAL OF HIS WIFE. (Gen. 20:1-18)
• BIRTH OF ISAAC. (Gen 21:1-13)
• EXPULSION OF ISHMAEL. (Gen 21:14-21)
• COVENANT. (Gen 21:22-34)
• OFFERING ISAAC. (Gen. 22:1-19)
• AGE AND DEATH OF SARAH. (Gen 23:1-2)
• PURCHASE OF A BURYING-PLACE. (Gen. 23:3-20)
• A MARRIAGE COMMISSION. (Gen 24:1-9)
• THE JOURNEY. (Gen. 24:10-67)
• SONS OF ABRAHAM. (Gen 25:1-6)
• DEATH OF ABRAHAM. (Gen 25:7-11)
• DESCENDANTS OF ISHMAEL. Before passing to the line of the promised seed, the historian gives a brief notice of Ishmael, to show that the promises respecting that son of Abraham were fulfilled--first, in the greatness of his posterity (compare Gen 17:20); and, secondly, in their independence. (Gen 25:12-18)
• HISTORY OF ISAAC. (Gen 25:19-34)
• SOJOURN IN GERAR. (Gen. 26:1-35)
• INFIRMITY OF ISAAC. (Gen. 27:1-27)
• THE BLESSING. (Gen. 27:28-46)
• JACOB'S DEPARTURE. (Gen. 28:1-19)
• JACOB'S VOW. (Gen 28:20-22)
• THE WELL OF HARAN. (Gen. 29:1-35)
• DOMESTIC JEALOUSIES. (Gen. 30:1-24)
• JACOB'S COVENANT WITH LABAN. (Gen. 30:25-43)
• ENVY OF LABAN AND SONS. (Gen. 31:1-21)
• LABAN PURSUES JACOB--THEIR COVENANT AT GILEAD. (Gen. 31:22-55)
• VISION OF ANGELS. (Gen 32:1-2)
• MISSION TO ESAU. (Gen 32:3-32)
• KINDNESS OF JACOB AND ESAU. (Gen 33:1-11)
• THE PARTING. (Gen 33:12-20)
• THE DISHONOR OF DINAH. (Gen. 34:1-31) Though freed from foreign troubles, Jacob met with a great domestic calamity in the fall of his only daughter. According to JOSEPHUS, she had been attending a festival; but it is highly probable that she had been often and freely mixing in the society of the place and that she, being a simple, inexperienced, and vain young woman, had been flattered by the attentions of the ruler's son. There must have been time and opportunities of acquaintance to produce the strong attachment that Shechem had for her.
• REMOVAL TO BETHEL. (Gen 35:1-15)
• BIRTH OF BENJAMIN--DEATH OF RACHEL, &c. (Gen 35:16-27)
• DEATH OF ISAAC. (Gen 35:28-29)
• POSTERITY OF ESAU. (Gen. 36:1-43)
• PARENTAL PARTIALITY. (Gen 37:1-4)
• THE DREAMS OF JOSEPH. (Gen. 37:5-36)
• JUDAH AND FAMILY. (Gen. 38:1-30)
• JOSEPH IN POTIPHAR'S HOUSE. (Gen. 39:1-23)
• TWO STATE PRISONERS. (Gen 40:1-8)
• THE BUTLER'S DREAM. (Gen 40:9-15)
• THE BAKER'S DREAM. (Gen 40:16-23)
• PHARAOH'S DREAM. (Gen. 41:1-24)
• JOSEPH INTERPRETS PHARAOH'S DREAMS. (Gen 41:25-36)
• JOSEPH MADE RULER OF EGYPT. (Gen. 41:37-57)
• JOURNEY INTO EGYPT. (Gen. 42:1-38)
• PREPARATIONS FOR A SECOND JOURNEY TO EGYPT. (Gen 43:1-14)
• ARRIVAL IN EGYPT. (Gen. 43:15-30)
• THE DINNER. (Gen 43:31-34)
• POLICY TO STAY HIS BRETHREN. (Gen. 44:1-34)
• JOSEPH MAKING HIMSELF KNOWN. (Gen. 45:1-28)
• SACRIFICE AT BEER-SHEBA. (Gen 46:1-4)
• IMMIGRATION TO EGYPT. (Gen. 46:5-27)
• ARRIVAL IN EGYPT. (Gen 46:28-34)
• JOSEPH'S PRESENTATION AT COURT. (Gen. 47:1-31)
• JOSEPH'S VISIT TO HIS SICK FATHER. (Gen. 48:1-22)
• PATRIARCHAL BLESSING. (Gen. 49:1-33)
• MOURNING FOR JACOB. (Gen. 50:1-26)

TSK: Genesis (Book Introduction)

The Book of Genesis is the most ancient record in the world; including the History of two grand and stupendous subjects, Creation and Providence; of each of which it presents a summary, but astonishingly minute and detailed accounts. From this Book, almost all the ancient philosophers, astronomers, chronologists, and historians have taken their respective data; and all the modern improvements and accurate discoveries in different arts and sciences, have only served to confirm the facts detailed by Moses, and to shew, that all the ancient writers on these subjects have approached, or receded from, truth and the phenomena of Nature, in exactly the same proportion as they have followed or receded from, the Mosaic history. The great fact of the deluge is fully confirmed by the fossilised remains in every quarter of the globe. Add to this, that general traditions of the deluge have been traced among the Egyptians, Chinese, Japanese, Hindoos, Burmans, ancient Goths and Druids, Mexicans, Peruvians, Brazilians, North American Indians, Greenlanders, Otaheiteans, Sandwich Islanders, and almost every nation under heaven; while the allegorical turgidity of these distorted traditions sufficiently distinguishes them from the unadorned simplicity of the Mosaic narrative. In fine, without this history the world would be in comparative darkness, not knowing whence it came, nor whither it goeth. In the first page, a child may learn more in an hour, than all the philosophers in the world learned without it in a thousand years. (The original publisher remembers these words addressed to him and other boys in the year 1780, by his excellent tutor, the later Rev. John Ryland, of Northampton.)

TSK: Genesis 1 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Gen 1:1, God creates heaven and earth; Gen 1:3, the light; Gen 1:6, the firmament; Gen 1:9, separates the dry land; Gen 1:14, forms the sun, moon, and stars; Gen 1:20, fishes and fowls; Gen 1:24, cattle, wild beasts, and creeping things; Gen 1:26, creates man in his own image, blesses him; Gen 1:29, grants the fruits of the earth for food.

MHCC: Genesis (Book Introduction)

Genesis is a name taken from the Greek, and signifies " the book of generation or production;" it is properly so called, as containing an account of the origin of all things. There is no other history so old. There is nothing in the most ancient book which exists that contradicts it; while many things recorded by the oldest heathen writers, or to be traced in the customs of different nations, confirm what is related in the book of Genesis.

MHCC: Genesis 1 (Chapter Introduction)

(Gen 1:1, Gen 1:2) God creates heaven and earth.

(Gen 1:3-5) The creation of light.

(Gen 1:6-13) God separates the earth from the waters, and makes it fruitful.

(Gen 1:14-19) God forms the sun, moon, and stars.

(Gen 1:20-25) Animals created.

(Gen 1:26-28) Man created in the image of God.

(Gen 1:29, Gen 1:30) Food appointed.

(Gen 1:31) The work of creation ended and approved.

Matthew Henry: Genesis (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The First Book of Moses, Called Genesis

We have now before us the holy Bible, or book, for so bible signifies. We call it the book, by way of eminency; for it is incomparably the best book that ever was written, the book of books, shining like the sun in the firmament of learning, other valuable and useful books, like the moon and stars, borrowing their light from it. We call it the holy book, because it was written by holy men, and indited by the Holy Ghost; it is perfectly pure from all falsehood and corrupt intention; and the manifest tendency of it is to promote holiness among men. The great things of God's law and gospel are here written to us, that they might be reduced to a greater certainty, might spread further, remain longer, and be transmitted to distant places and ages more pure and entire than possibly they could be by report and tradition: and we shall have a great deal to answer for if these things which belong to our peace, being thus committed to us in black and white, be neglected by us as a strange and foreign thing, Hos 8:12. The scriptures, or writings of the several inspired penmen, from Moses down to St. John, in which divine light, like that of the morning, shone gradually (the sacred canon being now completed), are all put together in this blessed Bible, which, thanks be to God, we have in our hands, and they make as perfect a day as we are to expect on this side of heaven. Every part was good, but all together very good. This is the light that shines in a dark place (2Pe 1:19), and a dark place indeed the world would be without the Bible.

We have before us that part of the Bible which we call the Old Testament, containing 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 then enacted, the devotions then paid, the prophecies then given, and the events which concerned that distinguished body, so far as God saw fit to preserve to us the knowledge of them. This is called a testament, or covenant ( diatheke ), because it was a settled 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, Rev 8:8. It is called the Old Testament, with relation to the New, which does not cancel and supersede it, but crown and perfect it, by the bringing in of that better hope which was typified and foretold in it; the Old Testament still remains glorious, though the New far exceeds in glory, 2Co 3:9.

We have before us that part of the Old Testament which we call the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses, that servant of the Lord who excelled all the other prophets, and typified the great prophet. In our Saviour's distribution of the books of the Old Testament into the law, the prophets, and the psalms, or Hagiographa , these are the law; for they contain not only the laws given to Israel, in the last four, but the laws given to Adam, to Noah, and to Abraham, in the first. These five books were, for aught we know, the first that ever were written; for we have not the least mention of any writing in all the book of Genesis, nor till God bade Moses write (Exo 17:14); and some think Moses himself never learned to write till God 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, and therefore best able to give us a satisfactory account of the most ancient things.

We have before us the first and longest of those five books, which we call Genesis, written, some think, when Moses was in Midian, for the instruction and comfort of his suffering brethren in Egypt: I rather think he wrote it in the wilderness, after he had been in the mount with God, where, probably, he received full and particular instructions for the writing of it. And, as he framed the tabernacle, so he did the more excellent and durable fabric of this book, exactly according to the pattern shown 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 from Adam to Methuselah, from him to Shem, from him to Abraham, and so 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. It is also a history of generations - the generations of Adam, Noah, Abraham, etc., not endless, but useful genealogies. The beginning of the New Testament is called Genesis too (Mat 1:1), Biblos geneseos the book of the genesis, or generation, of Jesus Christ. Blessed be God for that Book which shows us our remedy, as this opens our wound. Lord, open our eyes, that we may see the wondrous things both of thy law and gospel!

Matthew Henry: Genesis 1 (Chapter Introduction)

The foundation of all religion being laid in our relation to God as our Creator, it was fit that the book of divine revelations which was intended to be the guide, support, and rule, of religion in the world, should begin, as it does, with a plain and full account of the creation of the world - in answer to that first enquiry of a good conscience, " Where is God my Maker?" (Job 35:10). Concerning this the pagan philosophers wretchedly blundered, and became vain in their imaginations, some asserting the world's eternity and self-existence, others ascribing it to a fortuitous concourse of atoms: thus " the world by wisdom knew not God," but took a great deal of pains to lose him. The holy scripture therefore, designing by revealed religion to maintain and improve natural religion, to repair the decays of it and supply the defects of it, since the fall, for the reviving of the precepts of the law of nature, lays down, at first, this principle of the unclouded light of nature, That this world was, in the beginning of time, created by a Being of infinite wisdom and power, who was himself before all time and all worlds. The entrance into God's word gives this light, Psa 119:130. The first verse of the Bible gives us a surer and better, a more satisfying and useful, knowledge of the origin of the universe, than all the volumes of the philosophers. The lively faith of humble Christians understands this matter better than the elevated fancy of the greatest wits, Heb 11:3.

We have three things in this chapter: - I. A general idea given us of the work of creation (Gen 1:1, Gen 1:2). II. A particular account of the several days' work, registered, as in a journal, distinctly and in order. The creation of the light the first day (Gen 1:3-5); of the firmament the second day (Gen 1:6-8); of the sea, the earth, and its fruits, the third day (Gen 1:9-13); of the lights of heaven the fourth day (Gen 1:14-19); of the fish and fowl the fifth day (Gen 1:20-23); of the beasts (Gen 1:24, Gen 1:25); of man (Gen 1:26-28); and of food for both the sixth day (Gen 1:29, Gen 1:30). III. The review and approbation of the whole work (Gen 1:31).

Constable: Genesis (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Title

Each book of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament, called the Torah [instruction] by the Jews) originally received its title in the Hebrew Bible from the first word or words in the book.¹ The Hebrew word translated "in the beginning" is beresit. The English title "Genesis," however, has come to us from the Latin Vulgate translation of Jerome (Liber Genesis). The Latin title came from the Septuagint translation (the Greek translation of the Old Testament made about 300 years before Christ). "Genesis" is a transliteration of the Greek word geneseos, the Greek word that translates the Hebrew toledot. This Hebrew word is the key word in identifying the structure of Genesis, and the translators have usually rendered it "account" or "generations" (2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10, 27; 25:12, 19; 36:1, 9; 37:2).

Date

The events recorded date back to the creation of the world.

Many Christians believe the earth is millions of years old. They base this belief on the statements of scientists and understand Scripture in the light of these statements. Likewise, many Christians believe that the human race began hundreds of thousands of years ago for the same reason.

Most evangelicals who take the Scriptures seriously believe that the earth is not much older than 10, 000 years. They base this on the genealogies in Scripture (Gen. 5; 10; 11; et al.), which they understand to be "open" (i.e., not complete). Evangelicals usually hold to a more recent date for man's creation, also for the same reason.

A smaller group of evangelicals believes that the genealogies are either "closed" (i.e., complete) or very close to complete. This leads us to date the creation of the world and man about 6, 000 years ago.²

Liberal interpreters have placed the date of composition of Genesis much later than Moses' lifetime.

If one accepts Mosaic authorship, as most conservative evangelicals do, the date of composition of Genesis must be within Moses' lifetime (ca. 1525-1405 B.C.). This book was perhaps originally intended to encourage the Israelites to trust in their faithful, omnipotent God as they anticipated entrance into the Promised Land from Kadesh Barnea or from the Plains of Moab.³ Moses may have written it earlier to prepare them for the Exodus,⁴ but this seems less likely.

Writer

The authorship of the Pentateuch has been the subject of great controversy among professing Christians since Spinoza introduced "higher criticism" of the Bible in the seventeenth century. The "documentary hypothesis," which developed from his work, is that Moses did not write the Pentateuch, as most scholars in Judaism and the church until that day believed. Instead, it was the product of several writers who lived much later than Moses. A redactor (editor) or redactors combined these several documents into the form we have now. These documents (J, E, D, P, and others) represent a Yahwistic tradition, an Elohistic tradition, a Deuteronomic tradition, a Priestly tradition, etc.⁵

The evidence that Moses wrote the Pentateuch is conclusive if one believes that Jesus Christ spoke the truth when He attributed authorship to Moses (Matt. 19:8; Mark 7:10; Luke 18:29-31; 20:37; 24:27; John 7:19). Jesus Christ did not specifically say that Moses wrote Genesis, but in our Lord's day the Jews regarded the Pentateuch (Torah) as a whole unit. They recognized Moses as the author of all five books. Consequently they would have understood what Jesus said about any of the five books of Moses as an endorsement of the Mosaic authorship of them all.⁶

Scope

The events recorded in Genesis stretch historically from Creation to Joseph's death, a period of at least 2500 years. The first part of the book (ch. 1-11) is not as easy to date precisely as the second part (ch. 12-50). The history of the patriarchs recorded in this second main division of the text covers a period of about 300 years.

The scope of the book progressively and consistently narrows. The selection of content included in Genesis points to the purpose of the divine author: to reveal the history of and basic principles involved in God's relationship with people.⁷

Purpose

Genesis provides the historical basis for the rest of the Bible and the Pentateuch, particularly the Abrahamic Covenant. Chapters 1-11 give historical background essential to understanding that covenant, and chapters 12-50 record the covenant and its initial outworking. The Abrahamic Covenant continues to be the basic arrangement by which God operates in dealing with humanity throughout the Pentateuch and the rest of the Bible.

"The real theme of the Pentateuch is the selection of Israel from the nations and its consecration to the service of God and His Laws in a divinely appointed land. The central event in the development of this theme is the divine covenant with Abraham and its . . . promise to make his offspring into the people of God and to give them the land of Canaan as an everlasting inheritance."⁸

Genesis provides an indispensable prologue to the drama that unfolds in Exodus and the rest of the Pentateuch. The first 11 chapters constitute a prologue to the prologue.

"Two opposite progressions appear in this prologue [chs. 1-11]: (a) God's orderly Creation with its climax in His blessing of man, and (b) the totally disintegrating work of sin with its two greatest curses being the Flood and the dispersion at Babel.⁹ The first progression demonstrates God's plan to bring about perfect order from the beginning in spite of what the reader may know of man's experience. The second progression demonstrates the great need of God's intervention to provide the solution for the corrupt human race."¹⁰

Theology

"The subject matter of the theology in Genesis is certainly God's work in establishing Israel as the means of blessing the families of the earth. This book forms the introduction to the Pentateuch's main theme of the founding of the theocracy, that is, the rule of God over all Creation. It presents the origins behind the founding of the theocracy: the promised blessing that Abraham's descendants would be in the land.

"Exodus presents the redemption of the seed out of bondage and the granting of a covenant to them. Leviticus is the manual of ordinances enabling the holy God to dwell among His people by making them holy. Numbers records the military arrangement and census of the tribes in the wilderness, and shows how God preserves His promised blessings from internal and external threats. Deuteronomy presents the renewal of the covenant.

"In the unfolding of this grand program of God, Genesis introduces the reader to the nature of God as the sovereign Lord over the universe who will move heaven and earth to establish His will. He seeks to bless mankind, but does not tolerate disobedience and unbelief. Throughout this revelation the reader learns that without faith it is impossible to please God' (Heb. 11:6)."¹¹

Message¹²

The message of the Bible might be the best place to begin our study of the Old Testament. What is the Bible all about? We could state it as follows: God desires to glorify Himself by blessing humankind.

The message of the Pentateuch (Torah) is that people can experience God's blessing by trusting Him (believing His word) and by obeying Him (following His initiative).

Genesis is in the Bible primarily to teach us this lesson. People can enjoy a personal relationship with God and thereby realize their own fulfillment as human beings only through trust in God and obedience to God. This is the message statement. Genesis reveals that God is faithful to His promises and powerful enough to bring them to fulfillment.

Genesis reveals that God originally intended people to have an immediate relationship with their Creator. Evidences for this are as follows.

1. God made man as a special creation (2:7).

2. He made man with special care (2:7).

3. He made man in His own image (1:26-27).

4. He regarded man as His son (1:28-30).

5. He consistently demonstrated concern for man's welfare (3:9).

God's immediate relationship with Adam was broken by the Fall (ch. 3). In the Fall man did two things.

1. He failed to trust God's goodness with his mind.

2. He rebelled against God's government with his will (3:6).

God then took the initiative to re-establish the relationship with man that He had created man to enjoy. He provided a covering for man's sin until He would finally remove it. This temporary covering came through the sacrificial system.

Throughout Genesis we see that people in general consistently failed to trust and obey God (e.g., in Noah's day, at Babel, in the patriarchal period).

Genesis also records what God has done to encourage people to trust and obey Him. It is only by living by these two principles that people can enjoy a relationship with God and realize all that God created them to experience.

On the one hand, Genesis reveals much about the person and work of God. This revelation helps us trust and obey Him. It is through His personal revelations to the main characters in Genesis that God revealed Himself initially (e.g., Adam and Eve, Noah, the patriarchs).

On the other hand, Genesis reveals much about the nature of man. Not only did God reveal the perversity of man, but He also identified positive examples of faith and obedience in the lives of the godly.

In Genesis we learn that faith in God is absolutely essential if we are to have fellowship with Him and realize our potential as human beings.

Faith is the law of life. If one lives by faith he flourishes, but if he does not, he fails. The four patriarchs are primarily examples of what faith is and how it manifests itself. In each of their lives we learn something new about faith.

Abraham's faith demonstrates unquestioning obedience. When God told him to do something, he did it. This is the most basic characteristic of faith. That is one reason why Abraham is "the father of the faithful." God revealed Himself nine times to Abraham and each time Abraham's response was unquestioning obedience.

Isaac's faith helps us see the quality of passive acceptance that characterizes true faith in God. This was his response to God's two revelations to him.

Jacob's story is one of conflict with God until he came to realize his own limitations. Then he trusted God. We can see his faith in his acknowledged dependence on God. God's seven revelations to him eventually led him to this position.

Joseph's life teaches us what God can do with a person who trusts Him consistently in the face of adversity. The outstanding characteristic of Joseph's life was his faithful loyalty to God. He believed God's two revelations to him in dreams even though God's will did not seem to be working out as he thought it would. Patient faith and its reward shine through the story of Joseph.

Faith, the key concept in Genesis, means trusting that what God has prescribed is indeed best for me and waiting for God to provide what He has promised. A person of faith is one who commits to acting on this basis even though he or she may not see how it is best.

The Pentateuch is all about God, man, and our relationship. In our study of it, we will be building a model to show how each new book builds on what has preceded. The key concept in Genesis is faith.

Constable: Genesis (Outline)

Outline

The structure of Genesis is very clear. The phrase "the generations of" (toledot in Hebrew, from yalad meaning "to bear, to generate") occurs ten times (really eleven times since 36:9 repeats 36:1), and in each case it introduces a new section of the book.¹³ The first part of Genesis is introductory and sets the scene for what follows. An outline of Genesis based on this structure is as follows.

1. Introduction 1:1-2:3

2. The generations of heaven and earth 2:4-4:26

3. The generations of Adam 5:1-6:8

4. The generations of Noah 6:9-9:29

5. The generations of the sons of Noah 10:1-11:9

6. The generations of Shem 11:10-26

7. The generations of Terah 11:27-25:11

8. The generations of Ishmael 25:12-18

9. The generations of Isaac 25:19-35:29

10. The generations of Esau 36:1-43

11. The generations of Jacob 37:1-50:26

A full expository outline designed to highlight the relative emphases of the book follows. We shall follow this outline in these notes as we seek to unpack the message of the book.

I. Primeval events 1:1-11:26

A. The story of creation 1:1-2:3

1. An initial statement of creation 1:1

2. Conditions at the time of creation 1:2

3. The six days of creation 1:3-31

4. The seventh day 2:1-3

B. What became of the creation 2:4-4:26

1. The garden of Eden 2:4-3:24

2. The murder of Abel 4:1-16

3. The spread of civilization and sin 4:17-26

C. What became of Adam 5:1-6:8

1. The effects of the curse on humanity ch. 5

2. God's sorrow over man's wickedness 6:1-8

D. What became of Noah 6:9-9:29

1. The Flood 6:9-8:22

2. The Noahic Covenant 9:1-17

3. The curse on Canaan 9:18-29

E. What became of Noah's sons 10:1-11:9

1. The table of nations ch. 10

2. The dispersion at Babel 11:1-9

F. What became of Shem 11:10-26

II. Patriarchal narratives 11:27-50:26

A. What became of Terah 11:27-25:11

1. Terah and Abraham's obedience 11:27-12:9

2. Abram in Egypt 12:10-20

3. Abram's separation from Lot ch. 13

4. Abram's military victory ch. 14

5. The Abrahamic covenant ch. 15

6. The birth of Ishmael ch. 16

7. The sign of circumcision ch. 17

8. Yahweh's visit to Abraham 18:1-15

9. Abraham's intercession for Lot 18:16-33

10. The destruction of Sodom ch. 19

11. Abraham's sojourn at Gerar ch. 20

12. The birth of Isaac 21:1-21

13. Abimelech's treaty with Abraham 21:22-34

14. The sacrifice of Isaac 22:1-19

15. The descendants of Nahor 22:20-24

16. The purchase of Sarah's tomb ch. 23

17. The choice of a bride for Isaac ch. 24

18. Abraham's death 25:1-11

B. What became of Ishmael 25:12-18

C. What became of Isaac 25:19-35:29

1. Isaac's twin sons 25:19-26

2. The sale of the birthright 25:27-34

3. Isaac and Abimelech 26:1-11

4. Isaac's wells 26:12-33

5. Jacob's deception for Isaac's blessing 26:34-28:9

6. Jacob's vision at Bethel 28:10-22

7. Jacob's marriages and Laban's deception 29:1-30

8. Jacob's mishandling of God's blessings 29:31-30:24

9. Jacob's new contract with Laban 30:25-43

10. Jacob's flight from Haran ch. 31

11. Jacob's attempt to appease Esau 32:1-21

12. Jacob at the Jabbok 32:22-32

13. Jacob's meeting with Esau and his return to Canaan ch. 33

14. The rape of Dinah and the revenge of Simeon and Levi ch. 34

15. Jacob's return to Bethel ch. 35

D. What became of Esau 36:1-37:1

E. What became of Jacob 37:2-50:26

1. God's choice of Joseph 37:2-11

2. The sale of Joseph into Egypt 37:12-36

3. Judah and Tamar ch. 38

4. Joseph in Potiphar's house ch. 39

5. The prisoners' dreams and Joseph's interpretations ch. 40

6. Pharaoh's dreams and Joseph's interpretation ch. 41

7. Joseph's brothers' first journey into Egypt ch. 42

8. Joseph's brothers' second journey into Egypt ch. 43

9. Joseph's last test and its results ch. 44

10. Joseph's reconciliation with his brothers 45:1-15

11. Israel's move to Egypt 45:16-46:30

12. Joseph's wise leadership 46:31-47:27

13. Jacob's worship in Egypt 47:28-48:22

14. Jacob's blessing of his sons 49:1-28

15. Deaths and a promise yet to be fulfilled 49:29-50:26¹⁴

Constable: Genesis

Bibliography

Aalders, Gerhard Charles. Genesis. The Bible Student's Commentary series. 2 vols. Translated by William Heynen. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1981.

Aharoni, Yohanan, and Michael Avi-Yonah. The Macmillan Bible Atlas. Revised ed. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1977.

Albright, William Foxwell. "Abram the Hebrew: A New Archaeological Interpretation." Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 163 (October 1961):36-54.

_____. The Archaeology of Palestine. 1949. Revised ed. Pelican Archaeology series. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1956.

_____. The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1963.

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Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, 1975 ed. S.v. "River of Egypt," by Bruce K. Waltke.

Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

Haydock: Genesis (Book Introduction)

THE BOOK OF GENESIS.

INTRODUCTION.

The Hebrews now entitle all the Five Books of Moses, from the initial words, which originally were written like one continued word or verse; but the Septuagint have preferred to give the titles the most memorable occurrences of each work. On this occasion, the Creation of all things out of nothing, strikes us with peculiar force. We find a refutation of all the heathenish mythology, and of the world's eternity, which Aristotle endeavoured to establish. We behold the short reign of innocence, and the origin of sin and misery, the dispersion of nations, and the providence of God watching over his chosen people, till the death of Joseph, about the year of the world 2369 (Usher) 2399 (Salien and Tirinus), the year before Christ 1631. We shall witness the same care in the other Books of Scripture, and adore his wisdom and goodness in preserving to himself faithful witnesses, and a true Holy Catholic Church, in all ages, even when the greatest corruption seemed to overspread the land. (Haydock)

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This Book is so called from its treating of the Generation, that is, of the Creation and the beginning of the world. The Hebrews call it Bereshith, from the word with which it begins. It contains not only the History of the Creation of the World, but also an account of its progress during the space of 2369 years, that is, until the death of Joseph.

Gill: Genesis (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS

This book, in the Hebrew copies of the Bible, and by the Jewish writers, is generally called Bereshith, which signifies "in the beginning", being the first word of it; as the other four books of Moses are also called from their initial words. In the Syriac and Arabic versions, the title of this book is "The Book of the Creation", because it begins with an account of the creation of all things; and is such an account, and so good an one, as is not to be met with anywhere else: the Greek version calls it Genesis, and so we and other versions from thence; and that because it treats of the generation of all things, of the heavens, and the earth, and all that are in them, and of the genealogy of men: it treats of the first men, of the patriarchs before the flood, and after it to the times of Joseph. It is called the "first" book of Moses, because there are four more that follow; the name the Jewish Rabbins give to the whole is חמשה חומשי תורה, "the five fifths of the law", to which the Greek word "pentateuch" answers; by which we commonly call these books, they being but one volume, consisting of five parts, of which this is the first. And that they were all written by Moses is generally believed by Jews and Christians. Some atheistical persons have suggested the contrary; our countryman Hobbes ^a would have it, that these books are called his, not from his being the author of them, but from his being the subject of them; not because they were written by him, but because they treat of him: but certain it is that Moses both wrote them, and was read, as he was in the Jewish synagogues, every sabbath day, which can relate to no other writings but these, Joh 1:45. And Spinosa, catching at some doubts raised by Aben Ezra on Deu 1:1 concerning some passages which seemed to him to have been added by another hand, forms objections against Moses being the author of the book of Genesis; which are sufficiently answered by Carpzovius ^b. Nor can Ezra be the author of the Pentateuch, as Spinosa suspects; since it is plain these writings were in being before his time, in the times of Josiah, Amaziah, yea, of David, and also of Joshua, 2Ch 34:14 nay, they are even referred to in the book of Ezra as the writings of Moses, Ezr 3:2 to which may be added, in proof of the same, Deu 31:9. Nor are there any other writings of his authentic; what are ascribed to him, as the Analepsis of Moses, his Apocalypse, and his Last Will and Testament, are apocryphal. That this book of Genesis particularly was written by him, is evident from the testimony of Philip, and even of our Lord Jesus Christ, who both testify that he wrote concerning the Messiah, Joh 1:45 as he did in this book, where he speaks of him as the seed of the woman that should break the serpent's head; as the seed of Abraham, in whom all the nations of the earth should be blessed; and as the Shiloh, to whom the gathering of the people should be, Gen 3:15. Nor is there any reason to believe that he wrote this book from the annals of the patriarchs, since it does not appear, nor is it very probable, that they had any; nor from traditions delivered down from one to another, from father to son, which is more probable, considering the length of the lives of the patriarchs: but yet such a variety of particulars respecting times, places, persons, their genealogies and circumstances, so nicely and exactly given, can scarcely be thought to be the fruit of memory; and much less is it to be imagined that he was assisted in it by Gabriel, when he lived in solitude in Midian: but it is best of all to ascribe it to divine inspiration, as all Scripture is by the apostle, 2Ti 3:16 for who else but God could have informed him of the creation, and the manner and order in which every creature was brought into being, with a multitude of things recorded in this book? the design of which is to lead men into the knowledge and worship of the one true God, the Creator of all things, and of the origin of mankind, the fall of our first parents, and their posterity in them; and to point at the means and method of the recovery of man by the Messiah, the promised seed; and to give an account of the state and case of the church of God, in the times of the patriarchs, both before and after the flood, from Adam, in the line of Seth, to Noah; and from Noah to the times of Joseph, in whose death it ends: and, according to Usher ^c, it contains an history of two thousand, three hundred, and sixty nine years.

Gill: Genesis 1 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS 1

This chapter contains an account of the creation of the universe, and all things in it; asserts the creation of the heaven and earth in general, and describes the state and condition of the earth in its first production, Gen 1:1 and then proceeds to declare the work of each of the six days of creation, and to give an account of light, its separation from darkness and the names of both, the work of the first day, Gen 1:3 of the firmament, its use and name, the work of the second day, Gen 1:6 of the appearance of the earth, and the production of grass, herbs, and trees in the earth, the work of the third day, Gen 1:9 of the sun, moon, and stars, their situation, and use, the work of the fourth day, Gen 1:14 of the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea, the work of the fifth day, Gen 1:19 of all kinds of cattle, and beasts, and creeping things, Gen 1:24 and then of man, created male and female, after the image of God, having a grant of dominion over the rest of the creatures, the fruit of divine consultation, Gen 1:26 and of a provision of food for man and beast, Gen 1:29. And the chapter is concluded with a survey God took of all his works, and his approbation of them; all which were the work of the sixth day, and closes the account of the creation in that space of time, Gen 1:31.