In the first chapter of Genesis, after the general statement in verse 1, other verbs signifying to form or make are used to denote the elaboration of the separate parts of the universe, and the word "create" is found in only two places, when it refers to the introduction of "great whales" (reptiles) and of man. These uses of the word have been cited to disprove its sense of absolute creation. It must be observed, however, that in the first of these cases we have the earliest appearance of animal life, and in the second the introduction of a rational and spiritual nature. Nothing but pure materialism can suppose that the elements of vital and spiritual being were included in the matter of the heavens and the earth as produced in the beginning; and as the Scripture writers were not materialists, we may infer that they recognized, in the introduction of life and reason, acts of absolute creation, just as in the origin of matter itself. In Genesis ii. and iii. we have a form of expression which well marks the distinction between creation and making. God is there said to have rested from all his works which he "created and made" —literally, created "for or in reference to making," the word for making being one of those already referred to. [31] The force of this expression consists in its intimating that God had not only finished the work of creation, properly so called, but also the elaboration of the various details of the universe, as formed or fashioned out of the original materials. Of a similar character is the expression in Isaiah xlii., 5, "Jehovah, he that created the heavens and spread them out;" and that in Psalm cxlviii., 5, "He commanded and they were created, he hath also established them for ever and ever."
In as far as I am aware, the word bara in all the remaining instances of its occurrence in the Pentateuch refers to the creation of man, with the following exceptions: Exodus xxxiv., 10, "I will do (create) marvels, such as have not been seen in all the earth;" Numbers xvi., 30, "If the Lord make a new thing (create a creation), and the earth open her mouth and swallow them up." These verses are types of a class of expressions in which the proper term for creation is applied to the production of something new, strange, and marvellous; for instance, "Create in me a clean heart, O Lord;" "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth." It is, however, evidently an inversion of sound exposition to say that these secondary or figurative meanings should determine the primary and literal sense in Genesis i. On the contrary, we should rather infer that the sacred writers in these cases selected the proper word for creation, to express in the most forcible manner the novel and thorough character of the changes to which they refer, and their direct dependence on the Divine will. By such expressions we are in effect referred back to the original use of the word, as denoting the actual creation of matter by the command of God, in contradistinction from those arrangements which have been effected by the gradual operation of secondary agents, or of laws attached to matter at its creation. It has been farther observed [32] that in the Hebrew Scriptures this word bara is applied to God only as an agent, not to any human artificer; a fact which is very important with reference to its true significance. Viewing creation in this light, we need not perplex ourselves with the question whether we should consider Genesis i., 1, to refer to the essence of matter as distinguished from its qualities. We may content ourselves with the explanation given by Paul in the eleventh of Hebrews: "By faith we are certain that the worlds [33] were created by the decree of God, so that that which is seen was made of that which appears not." Or, with reference to the other uses of the word, if the first introduction of animal life was a creation, and if the introduction of the rational nature of man was a creation, we may suppose that the original creation was in like manner the introduction or first production of those entities which we call matter and force, and which to science now are as much ultimate facts as they were to Moses.
The nature of the act of creation being thus settled, its extent may be ascertained by an examination of the terms heaven and earth.
The word "heavens" (shamayim) has in Hebrew as in English a variety of significations. Of material heavens there are, in the quaint language of Poole, "tres regiones, ubi aves, ubi nubes, ubi sidera;" or (1) the atmosphere or firmament; [34] (2) the region of clouds in the upper part of the atmosphere; [35] (3) the depths of space comprehending the starry orbs. [36] Besides these we have the "heaven of heavens," the abode of God and spiritual beings. [37] The application of the term "heaven" to the atmosphere will be considered when we reach the 6th and 7th verses. In the mean time we may accept the word in this place as including the material heavens in the widest sense: (1.) Because it is not here, as in verse 8th, restricted to the atmosphere by the terms of the narrative; this restriction in verse 8th in fact implying the wider sense of the word in preceding verses. (2.) Because the atmospheric firmament, elsewhere called heaven, divides the waters above from those below, whereas it is evident that all these waters, and of consequence the materials of the atmosphere itself, are included in the earth of the following verse. (3.) Because in verse 14th the sidereal heavens are spoken of as arranged from pre-existing materials, which refers their actual creation back to this passage.
In the words now under consideration we therefore regard the heavens as including the whole material universe beyond the limits of our earth. That this sense of the word is not unknown to the writers of Scripture, and that they had enlarged and rational views of the star-spangled abysses of space, will appear from the terms employed by Moses in his solemn warning against the Sabæan idolatry, in Deuteronomy iv.: "And lest thou lift up thine eyes to the heavens, and when thou seest the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the host of the heavens, shouldest be incited to worship them and serve them which Jehovah thy God hath appointed to all nations under the whole heavens." To the same effect is the expression of the awe and wonder of the poet king of Israel in Psalm viii.:
"When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers,
The moon and the stars which thou hast ordained;
What is man that thou art mindful of him?"
I may observe, however, that throughout the Scriptures the word in question is much more frequently applied to the atmospheric than to the sidereal heavens. The reason of this appears in the terms of verse 8th.
If we have correctly referred the term "heavens" to the whole of extramundane space, then the word "earth" must denote our globe as a distinct world, with all the liquid and aeriform substances on its surface. The arrangement of the whole universe under the heads "heaven" and "earth" has been derided as a division into "infinity and an atom;" but when we consider the relative importance of the earth to us, and that it constitutes the principal object of the whole revelation to which this is introductory, the absurdity disappears, and we recognize the classification as in the circumstances natural and rational. The word "earth" (aretz) is, however, generally used to denote the dry land, or even a region or district of country. It is indeed expressly restricted to the dry land in verse 10th; but as in the case of the parallel limitation of the word "heaven," we may consider this as a hint that its previous meaning is more extended. That it is really so, appears from the following considerations: (1.) It includes the deep, or the material from which the sea and atmosphere were afterwards formed. (2.) The subsequent verses show that at the period in question no dry land existed. If instances of a similar meaning from other parts of Scripture are required, I give the following: Genesis ii., 1 to 4, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them;" "these are the generations of the heavens and the earth.' In this general summary of the creative work, the earth evidently includes the seas and all that is in them, as well as the dry land; and the whole expression denotes the universe. The well-known and striking remark of Job, "Who hangeth the earth upon nothing," is also a case in point, and must refer to the whole world, since in other parts of the same book the dry land or continental masses of the earth are said, and with great truth and propriety, to be supported above the waters on pillars or foundations. The following passages may also be cited as instances of the occurrence of the idea of the whole world expressed by the word "earth:" Exodus x., 29, "And Moses said unto him, As soon as I am gone out of the city, I will spread abroad my hands unto the Lord, and the thunder shall cease, neither shall there be any more hail; that thou mayest know the earth is the Lord's;" Deuteronomy x., 14, "Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord's, the earth also, and all that therein is."
The material universe was brought into existence in the "beginning"—a term evidently indefinite as far as regards any known epoch, and implying merely priority to all other recorded events. It can not be the first day, for there is no expressed connection, and the work of the first day is distinct from that of the beginning. It can not be a general term for the whole six days, since these are separated from it by that chaotic or formless state to which we are next introduced. The beginning, therefore, is the threshold of creation—the line that separates the old tenantless condition of space from the world-crowded galaxies of the existing universe. The only other information respecting it that we have in Scripture is in that fine descriptive poem in Proverbs viii., in which the Wisdom of God personified—who may be held to represent the Almighty Word, or Logos, introduced in the formula "God said," and afterward referred to in Scripture as the manifested or conditioned Deity, the Mediator between man and the otherwise inaccessible Divinity, the agent in the work of creation as well as in that of redemption—narrates the origin of all created things:
"Jehovah possessed [38] me, the beginning of his way,
Before his work of old.
I was set up from everlasting,
From the beginning, before the earth was;
When there were no deeps I was brought forth,
When there were no fountains abounding in water."