The testimony therefore from usage is entirely conclusive to the point that this word in this form of it was specially appropriated to signify God’s creative acts—the exertion of his creative power.——There are two other Hebrew words having the sense to make, to form, [asah and yatsar], which are sometimes used of God as creating but by far most often of man’s work in forming and molding material things. Now note the argument. The Hebrews had these three words for making, out of which one only is used exclusively of God—never of man—as a maker. Now there is one special sense in which God can make and man can not, viz. that of bringing into existence what had no existence before. Over against this, place the fact that their word “bara” is used of God’s making forty-eight times and of man’s making never, and we must conclude that they expressed by this word that distinctive power of God which man never can even approach—viz. the power to give existence to matter, to mind and to life. In passages where this sense of “bara” is appropriate, there can be no question that it is the real meaning.
5. The relation of v. 1 to v. 2 and to the rest of the chapter.
Some have maintained that v. 1 is only a statement in general terms of the contents of the chapter, a heading, stating no particular fact distinct from what follows.——Others take it to be one fact in the series—the first step in the process of the creative work—the successive steps then following in due order. This latter construction I accept; and urge in its support,
(1.) That this is the most obvious sense of the words. The word “And” (v. 2) “And the earth was withoutform,” etc., must be taken as continuing the subject—not as commencing it. It should give us another and succeeding fact, and not be taken to begin a detailed history.
(2.) This is the natural order of the facts. First, matter must be brought into existence. Nothing can be done with it, nothing can be said about it, until it is. The first verse therefore is the natural beginning of the narrative—the first fact to be stated. The second verse gives naturally the next fact, viz. the condition of this matter immediately prior to the six days’ creative work upon it. Deferring the little he has to say upon the “heavens,” he calls our attention to the earth as being of chief interest to man, and makes this the main theme of the chapter.——An observer would have seen the earth mantled in darkness, its atmosphere laden with murky vapors and dense mists; the surface (if indeed the waters below could be distinguished from the waters above) one wide waste of waters, all formless, vast, dismal; with nothing of order or beauty on which the eye could rest. Above and upon this shapeless mass the Spirit of God was hovering, or shall we say incubating, for such may be the figure involved in the Hebrew verb. Moreover it seems to be implied that this action of the creative Spirit was protracted. The Hebrew participle (used here) expresses continued action—was brooding over, incubating, this wild, waste, desolate mass.
Some scientific men suppose they find in this second verse, not water, but the gaseous matter which ultimately became water and solid earth. This construction originates in a theory in regard to the primal form in which the matter of our world came from the Creator’s hand, which theory may or may not be true, but if true is too remote from the common mind and too foreign from the scope of divine revelation to allow us to suppose that God would refer to it in his revelation.——Carrying out this scientific theory,some have held[7] that not only the “waters” of v. 2 but those of vs. 6, 7, were gases, not waters. The fatal objections to this theory are—that these “waters” are the same which in vs. 9, 10, are “gathered into one place” and “called seas;” also that the common people for several thousandyears could not have understood Moses if he had spoken of gases—certainly could not have understood their common word for waters to mean gases.——It is not well to strain and force this simple narrative to speak so scientifically as to be unintelligible to those for whom it was primarily written.——The first state of created matter may have been gaseous. The record in Genesis has said nothing to forbid this. It certainly could not come within its province to teach it. Suffice it that time enough may be found between verses 1 and 2 for a portion of this gaseous matter to form water—not to say also to form the more solid portions of this globe.
The connection of v. 2 with v. 1 is such that an indefinitely long period may have intervened. The first verb of v. 2 implies no close connection with v. 1. But in v. 3 the form of the first verb—“And then God said”—does make a close historical connection with v. 2.
6. The work of the fourth day. Were the light-bearers (“lights” in the sense of luminaries) in the heavens, viz. the sun, moon, and stars also, “made,” created, on this day, or simply brought forth to the view of a supposed observer upon the earth?——The latter theory that they were not first brought into being then, but only brought into view from the earth—seems to me most probable, because—(1.) To suppose them created then would be out of all proportion for one day’s work among the six. Throughout the other five days’ work a beautiful proportion obtains: it should therefore be expected in this.——If it be said that this consideration draws its great strength from our astronomical knowledge of those heavenly bodies—much more enlarged than those of the age of Moses, I answer (a.) Moses, “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,” was not altogether a novice in astronomy—(b.) Modern astronomy is essentially true, not overrating the relative magnitude of the heavenly bodies; and this record in Genesis comes from one who knew all the truth.
(2.) If these verses be understood to speak of their original creation, it would seem to be out of place here between the creation of vegetables (third day) and of the earliest born animals (the fifth). But in the sense of bringing these heavenly bodies to view and the suninto its normal action upon vegetables and upon animal comfort, it is precisely in place.
(3.) According to the interpretation given to v. 1 (above) the matter composing these heavenly bodies was brought into existence “in the beginning” when “God created the heavens” as well as “the earth” and before the six days’ work began. If so, then the intervening processes of modification must naturally have been going on from that time until this fourth day.