The Pentateuch, in Its Progressive Revelations of God to Men

by Henry Cowles

(3.) There was light on the earth before the appearance of the sun. Genesis dates the light from the first day; the appearance of the sun, from the fourth.——The theory that the primitive state of created matter was gaseous (or nebulous) provides for this, since it is well knownthat the chemical combination of the two gases that form water (for instance)—a combination produced by electricity, evolves light. But we are not restricted to this hypothesis to account for light before the sun was visible. The state of the atmosphere may furnish all the causes needed. See below, page [32].

(4.) Vegetables were created before animals. So Moses, for he locates the former on the third day; the latter on the fifth and sixth. This is of course the order of nature since the animals are to subsist on vegetables. Geology finds vegetables in fossil state below the earliest animals.

(5.) Among the animal tribes, those of the water are before those of the land. Genesis gives us fish and reptiles and even fowl before the mammals—land animals—the former on the fifth day; the latter with man on the sixth. Geology indorses this order, showing that fish and reptiles lie in rocks lower and older than quadrupeds.

(6.) Man is last of all. The testimony of the rocks is here at one with that of Genesis—other animals and the vegetables also, long ages before man.

Now how has it happened that this record, coming to us through Moses, harmonizes so wonderfully with the main results of a science yet in its infancy—almost utterly unknown until the present century? Is it due to the scientific attainments of Moses? Is it not rather due to inspiration—“holy men of old”—Moses himself or the fathers before him—being taught by the same Being who “in the beginning created the heavens and the earth?” The marvel is that this record should be so constructed as to present a very intelligible view of the processes of the six days’ work to the average mind of the race before geological science was born, and yet when this science begins to develop the constitution and composition of the earth’s surface, the inspired record is found to harmonize with these developments in all important features. So it is wont to happen. Truth rejoices in the light. A truthful Bible and all true science meet in loving communion, evincing their common parentage—offspring of the same Infinite Father.

4. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Was this the original production of matter;or was it only the modification of pre-existent matter into new forms? (1.) That this was the original production of matter is probable a priori because it is true, and because it is a truth very important to affirm in this first revelation. Matter is not eternal and self-existent. Those who intelligently believe in one Supreme God—an Infinite, Intelligent Spirit, will need no words wasted to disprove the assumption that matter existed from eternity, the Author of itself; for this assumption ascribes to matter the distinctive qualities of God himself.——It is moreover important that God should declare himself to be the author of all existing matter in the universe. This is one of his great and distinctive works—one which human speculation has been prone to deny him, and which therefore it is of the utmost consequence that he should affirm. (2.) The passage (Ps. 90: 2) ascribed to Moses, expressly declares that God existed “before the mountains.” “Before the mountains were brought forth, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God.” Moses did not think matter to be eternal. He knew and taught that God existed from eternity and that matter did not. The obvious sense of his words is that God “brought forth” (i. e. into existence) the mountains of this earthly globe.

(3.) The writer to the Hebrews affirms that this doctrine—God the original Creator of matter—is accepted by faith, i. e. upon the credit of God’s own testimony. “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things that do appear” (Heb. 11: 3). Not being constructed out of matter previously apparent, they must have been made by the direct production of matter not before existing.

(4.) This is the natural and obvious sense of the words and this the place to affirm this first fact in the work of creation. This is the point to start with. How came the matter of the universe into being at all? Whence came this material substance composing the heavens and the earth? In the beginning God created it.——It may be said truthfully that if God had purposed to reveal himself as the Author of matter—the real Maker of it all—he could have found no words more fitted to his purpose than these. Hence to denythat this is their sense is the next thing to denying to God the right or the power to reveal this fact at all.

(5.) It is objected that the primary sense of the word bara[5] (used here) is not to bring into existence what had no existence before, but “to cut, to cut out, to carve” (Gesenius); “to cut, form, fashion” (Fuerst). But this objection, though plausible to a merely superficial view, is really of very little force. Usage, not etymological relation, gives law to language. The etymological, primary sense of barak, the common Hebrew word for bless, is to break; then to bend as the knee, to kneel and to cause one to kneel; and then, perhaps from the custom of kneeling to receive the patriarchal benediction, or to implore blessings from God, comes the ultimate and by far the most common significance—to bless. Usage in every case must determine the most common and therefore most probable sense; then the context and the known opinions of the writer come in to aid toward the true sense in any given instance.

In the Hebrew verb regard must be had to its form, technically called its “conjugation,” since the sense of the several conjugations from the same root may vary widely. In this verb (bara) the sense of Hiphil conjugation is to fatten—which is very remote from the sense of “Kal” and of its passive “Niphal.” In Piel only do we find the etymological sense to cut, to carve out (five times only) and these spoken of human operations exclusively (Josh. 17: 15, 18 and Ezek. 23: 47 and 21: 19). But in Kal and its passive Niphal, we find the word used forty-eight times, and always of divine operations—alwaysof some form of creative work wrought by God himself and never by man.[6]