And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
24. Let the earth, &c.] The work of the sixth, like that of the third, day is twofold. Furthermore, the creation of the land animals on the sixth day seems to correspond to the creation of the earth on the third day.
The creation of the land animals immediately precedes that of mankind. It is implied that they are closer both in structure and in intelligence to the human race than the animals of the water and air. On the other hand, the words “let the earth bring forth” (the same phrase as is used in Gen 1:11 of the creation of the vegetable world) emphasize the difference in origin between the land animals (“let the earth bring forth”) and mankind, who are described ( Gen 1:26-27) as, in a special manner, “created” by God Himself.
the living creature ] viz. “living soul,” as above ( Gen 1:20-21). Here the words are used especially of the land animals. To speak of animals having “a soul” is strange to modern ears. But it was not so to the Israelites, who realized, perhaps better than we do, man’s kinship with the animal world, in virtue of that principle of nephesh, the mystery of life, which is shared by the animals and human beings.
after its kind ] viz. the various species of the animals about to be mentioned.
cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth ] This is a rough threefold classification of the animals dwelling on the earth: (1) “the cattle” (Heb. behmah, LXX (= “quadrupeds”), Lat. jumenta (= “cattle”)), under which head are here probably classed all the domestic animals, e.g. oxen, sheep, horses, asses, camels, as in Jon 4:11. Here it seems to be implied that the domestic animals were tame originally, and not through association with mankind. (2) “creeping things”; LXX , Lat. reptilia. In this class seem to be included not only snakes and lizards, but also the smaller animals, generally, and the insect world. (3) “the beasts of the earth”; LXX , Lat. bestias terrae, viz. the wild beasts, strictly so called, as distinguished from the domestic animals.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
24 31. Sixth Day:
( a) Creation of the Land Animals ( Gen 1:24-25);
( b) Creation of Man ( Gen 1:26-30);
( c) The End of the Creation ( Gen 1:31),
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
– VIII. The Sixth Day
24. behemah, cattle; dumb, tame beasts.
remes, creeping (small or low) animals.
chayah, living thing; animal.
chayato–cha’arets, wild beast.
26. ‘adam, man, mankind; be red. A collective noun, having no plural number, and therefore denoting either an individual of the kind, or the kind or race itself. It is connected in etymology with ‘adamah, the red soil, from which the human body was formed Gen 2:7. It therefore marks the earthly aspect of man.
tselem, shade, image, in visible outline.
demut, likeness, in any quality.
radah tread, rule.
This day corresponds with the third. In both the land is the sphere of operation. In both are performed two acts of creative power. In the third the land was clothed with vegetation: in the sixth it is peopled with the animal kingdom. First, the lower animals are called into being, and then, to crown all, man.
Gen 1:24, Gen 1:25
This branch of the animal world is divided into three parts. Living breathing thing is the general head under which all these are comprised. Cattle denotes the animals that dwell with man, especially those that bear burdens. The same term in the original, when there is no contrast, when in the plural number or with the specification of the land, the field, is used of wild beasts. Creeping things evidently denote the smaller animals, from which the cattle are distinguished as the large. The quality of creeping is, however, applied sometimes to denote the motion of the lower animals with the body in a prostrate posture, in opposition to the erect posture of man Psa 104:20. The beast of the land or the field signifies the wild rapacious animal that lives apart from man. The word chayah, beast or animal, is the general term employed in these verses for the whole animal kind. It signifies wild animal with certainty only when it is accompanied by the qualifying term land or field, or the epithet evil raah. From this division it appears that animals that prey on others were included in this latest creation. This is an extension of that law by which the organic living substances of the vegetable kingdom form the sustenance of the animal species. The execution of the divine mandate is then recorded, and the result inspected and approved.
Gen 1:26, Gen 1:27
Here we evidently enter upon a higher scale of being. This is indicated by the counsel or common resolve to create, which is now for the first time introduced into the narrative. When the Creator says, Let us make man, he calls attention to the work as one of pre-eminent importance. At the same time he sets it before himself as a thing undertaken with deliberate purpose. Moreover, in the former mandates of creation his words had regard to the thing itself that was summoned into being; as, Let there be light; or to some preexistent object that was physically connected with the new creature; as, Let the land bring forth grass. But now the language of the fiat of creation ascends to the Creator himself: Let us make man. This intimates that the new being in its higher nature is associated not so much with any part of creation as with the Eternal Uncreated himself.
The plural form of the sentence raises the question, With whom took he counsel on this occasion? Was it with himself, and does he here simply use the plural of majesty? Such was not the usual style of monarchs in the ancient East. Pharaoh says, I have dreamed a dream Gen 41:15. Nebuchadnezzar, I have dreamed Dan 2:3. Darius the Mede, I make a decree Dan 6:26. Cyrus, The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth Ezr 1:2. Darius, I make a decree Ezr 5:8. We have no ground, therefore, for transferring it to the style of the heavenly King. Was it with certain other intelligent beings in existence before man that he took counsel? This supposition cannot be admitted; because the expression let us make is an invitation to create, which is an incommunicable attribute of the Eternal One, and because the phrases, our image, our likeness, when transferred into the third person of narrative, become his image, the image of God, and thus limit the pronouns to God himself. Does the plurality, then, point to a plurality of attributes in the divine nature? This cannot be, because a plurality of qualities exists in everything, without at all leading to the application of the plural number to the individual, and because such a plurality does not warrant the expression, let us make. Only a plurality of persons can justify the phrase. Hence, we are forced to conclude that the plural pronoun indicates a plurality of persons or hypostases in the Divine Being.
Gen 1:26
Man. – Man is a new species, essentially different from all other kinds on earth. In our image, after our likeness. He is to be allied to heaven as no other creature on earth is. He is to be related to the Eternal Being himself. This relation, however, is to be not in matter, but in form; not in essence, but in semblance. This precludes all pantheistic notions of the origin of man. Image is a word taken from sensible things, and denotes likeness in outward form, while the material may be different. Likeness is a more general term, indicating resemblance in any quality, external or internal. It is here explanatory of image, and seems to show that this term is to be taken in a figurative sense, to denote not a material but a spiritual conformity to God. The Eternal Being is essentially self-manifesting. The appearance he presents to an eye suited to contemplate him is his image. The union of attributes which constitute his spiritual nature is his character or likeness.
We gather from the present chapter that God is a spirit Gen 1:2, that he thinks, speaks, wills, and acts (Gen 1:3-4, etc.). Here, then, are the great points of conformity to God in man, namely, reason, speech, will, and power. By reason we apprehend concrete things in perception and consciousness, and cognize abstract truth, both metaphysical and moral. By speech we make certain easy and sensible acts of our own the signs of the various objects of our contemplative faculties to ourselves and others. By will we choose, determine, and resolve upon what is to be done. By power we act, either in giving expression to our concepts in words, or effect to our determinations in deeds. In the reason is evolved the distinction of good and evil Gen 1:4, Gen 1:31, which is in itself the approval of the former and the disapproval of the latter. In the will is unfolded that freedom of action which chooses the good and refuses the evil. In the spiritual being that exercises reason and will resides the power to act, which presupposes both these faculties – the reason as informing the will, and the will as directing the power. This is that form of God in which he has created man, and condescends to communicate with him.
And let them rule. – The relation of man to the creature is now stated. It is that of sovereignty. Those capacities of right thinking, right willing, and right acting, or of knowledge, holiness, and righteousness, in which man resembles God, qualify him for dominion, and constitute him lord of all creatures that are destitute of intellectual and moral endowments. Hence, wherever man enters he makes his sway to be felt. He contemplates the objects around him, marks their qualities and relations, conceives and resolves upon the end to be attained, and endeavors to make all things within his reach work together for its accomplishment. This is to rule on a limited scale. The field of his dominion is the fish of the sea, the fowl of the skies, the cattle, the whole land, and everything that creepeth on the land. The order here is from the lowest to the highest. The fish, the fowl, are beneath the domestic cattle. These again are of less importance than the land, which man tills and renders fruitful in all that can gratify his appetite or his taste. The last and greatest victory of all is over the wild animals, which are included under the class of creepers that are prone in their posture, and move in a creeping attitude over the land. The primeval and prominent objects of human sway are here brought forward after the manner of Scripture. But there is not an object within the ken of man which he does not aim at making subservient to his purposes. He has made the sea his highway to the ends of the earth, the stars his pilots on the pathless ocean, the sun his bleacher and painter, the bowels of the earth the treasury from which he draws his precious and useful metals and much of his fuel, the steam his motive power, and the lightning his messenger. These are proofs of the evergrowing sway of man.
Gen 1:27
Created. – Man in his essential part, the image of God in him, was entirely a new creation. We discern here two stages in his creation. The general fact is stated in the first clause of the verse, and then the two particulars. In the image of God created he him. This is the primary act, in which his relation to his Maker is made prominent. In this his original state he is actually one, as God in whose image he is made is one. Male and female created he them. This is the second act or step in his formation. He is now no longer one, but two, – the male and the female. His adaptation to be the head of a race is hereby completed. This second stage in the existence of man is more circumstantially described hereafter Gen 2:21-25.
Gen 1:28
The divine blessing is now pronounced upon man. It differs from that of the lower animals chiefly in the element of supremacy. Power is presumed to belong to mans nature, according to the counsel of the Makers will Gen 1:26. But without a special permission he cannot exercise any lawful authority. For the other creatures are as independent of him as he is of them. As creatures he and they are on an equal footing, and have no natural fight either over the other. Hence, it is necessary that he should receive from high heaven a formal charter of right over the things that were made for man. He is therefore authorized, by the word of the Creator, to exercise his power in subduing the earth and ruling over the animal kingdom. This is the meet sequel of his being created in the image of God. Being formed for dominion, the earth and its various products and inhabitants are assigned to him for the display of his powers. The subduing and ruling refer not to the mere supply of his natural needs, for which provision is made in the following verse, but to the accomplishment of his various purposes of science and beneficence, whether towards the inferior animals or his own race. It is the part of intellectual and moral reason to employ power for the ends of general no less than personal good. The sway of man ought to be beneficent.
Gen 1:29, Gen 1:30
Every herb bearing seed and tree bearing fruit is granted to man for his sustenance. With our habits it may seem a matter of course that each should at once appropriate what he needs of things at his hand. But in the beginning of existence it could not be so. Of two things proceeding from the same creative hand neither has any original or inherent right to interfere in any way whatever with the other. The absolute right to each lies in the Creator alone. The one, it is true, may need the other to support its life, as fruit is needful to man. And therefore the just Creator cannot make one creature dependent for subsistence on another without granting to it the use of that other. But this is a matter between Creator and creature, not by any means between creature and creature. Hence, it was necessary to the rightful adjustment of things, whenever a rational creature was ushered into the world, that the Creator should give an express permission to that creature to partake of the fruits of the earth. And in harmony with this view we shall hereafter find an exception made to this general grant Gen 2:17. Thus, we perceive, the necessity of this formal grant of the use of certain creatures to moral and responsible man lies deep in the nature of things. And the sacred writer here hands down to us from the mists of a hoary antiquity the primitive deed of conveyance, which lies at the foundation of the the common property of man in the earth, and all that it contains.
The whole vegetable world is assigned to the animals for food. In the terms of the original grant the herb bearing seed and the tree bearing fruit are especially allotted to man, because the grain and the fruit were edible by man without much preparation. As usual in Scripture the chief parts are put for the whole, and accordingly this specification of the ordinary and the obvious covers the general principle that whatever part of the vegetable kingdom is convertible into food by the ingenuity of man is free for his use. It is plain that a vegetable diet alone is expressly conceded to man in this original conveyance, and it is probable that this alone was designed for him in the state in which he was created. But we must bear in mind that he was constituted master of the animal as well as of the vegetable world; and we cannot positively affirm that his dominion did not involve the use of them for food.
Gen 1:30
The whole of the grasses and the green parts or leaves of the herbage are distributed among the inferior animals for food. Here, again, the common and prominent kind of sustenance only is specified. There are some animals that greedily devour the fruits of trees and the grain produced by the various herbs; and there are others that derive the most of their subsistence from preying on the smaller and weaker kinds of animals. Still, the main substance of the means of animal life, and the ultimate supply of the whole of it, are derived from the plant. Even this general statement is not to be received without exception, as there are certain lower descriptions of animals that derive sustenance even from the mineral world. But this brief narrative of things notes only the few palpable facts, leaving the details to the experience and judgment of the reader.
Gen 1:31
Here we have the general review and approval of everything God had made, at the close of the six days work of creation. Man, as well as other things, was very good when he came from his Makers hand; but good as yet untried, and therefore good in capacity rather than in victory over temptation. It remains yet to be seen whether he will be good in act and habit.
This completes, then, the restoration of that order and fullness the absence of which is described in the second verse. The account of the six days work, therefore, is the counterpart of that verse. The six days fall into two threes, corresponding to each other in the course of events. The first and fourth days refer principally to the darkness on the face of the deep; the second and fifth to the disorder and emptiness of the aerial and aqueous elements; and the third and sixth to the similar condition of the land. Again, the first three days refer to a lower, the second three to a higher order of things. On the first the darkness on the face of the earth is removed; on the fourth that on the face of the sky. On the second the water is distributed above and below the expanse; on the fifth the living natives of these regions are called into being. On the third the plants rooted in the soil are made; on the sixth the animals that move freely over it are brought into existence.
This chapter shows the folly and sin of the worship of light, of sun, moon, or star, of air or water, of plant, of fish or fowl, of earth, of cattle, creeping thing or wild beast, or, finally, of man himself; as all these are but the creatures of the one Eternal Spirit, who, as the Creator of all, is alone to be worshipped by his intelligent creatures.
This chapter is also to be read with wonder and adoration by man; as he finds himself to be constituted lord of the earth, next in rank under the Creator of all, formed in the image of his Maker, and therefore capable not only of studying the works of nature, but of contemplating and reverently communing with the Author of nature.
In closing the interpretation of this chapter, it is proper to refer to certain first principles of hermeneutical science. First, that interpretation only is valid which is true to the meaning of the author. The very first rule on which the interpreter is bound to proceed is to assign to each word the meaning it commonly bore in the time of the writer. This is the prime key to the works of every ancient author, if we can only discover it. The next is to give a consistent meaning to the whole of that which was composed at one time or in one place by the author. The presumption is that there was a reasonable consistency of thought in his mind during one effort of composition. A third rule is to employ faithfully and discreetly whatever we can learn concerning the time, place, and other circumstances of the author to the elucidation of his meaning.
And, in the second place, the interpretation now given claims acceptance on the ground of its internal and external consistency with truth. First, It exhibits the consistency of the whole narrative in itself. It acknowledges the narrative character of the first verse. It assigns an essential significance to the words, the heavens, in that verse. It attributes to the second verse a prominent place and function in the arrangement of the record. It places the special creative work of the six days in due subordination to the absolute creation recorded in the first verse. It gathers information from the primitive meanings of the names that are given to certain objects, and notices the subsequent development of these meanings. It accounts for the manifestation of light on the first day, and of the luminaries of heaven on the fourth, and traces the orderly steps of a majestic climax throughout the narrative. It is in harmony with the usage of speech as far as it can be known to us at the present day. It assigns to the words heavens, earth, expanse, day, no greater latitude of meaning than was then customary. It allows for the diversity of phraseology employed in describing the acts of creative power. It sedulously refrains from importing modern notions into the narrative.
Second, the narrative thus interpreted is in striking harmony with the dictates of reason and the axioms of philosophy concerning the essence of God and the nature of man. On this it is unnecessary to dwell.
Third, it is equally consistent with human science. It substantially accords with the present state of astronomical science. It recognizes, as far as can be expected, the relative importance of the heavens and the earth, the existence of the heavenly bodies from the beginning of time, the total and then the partial absence of light from the face of the deep, as the local result of physical causes. It allows, also, if it were necessary, between the original creation, recorded in the first verse, and the state of things described in the second, the interval of time required for the light of the most distant discoverable star to reach the earth. No such interval, however, could be absolutely necessary, as the Creator could as easily establish the luminous connection of the different orbs of heaven as summon into being the element of light itself.
Fourth, it is also in harmony with the elementary facts of geological knowledge. The land, as understood by the ancient author, may be limited to that portion of the earths surface which was known to antediluvian man. The elevation of an extensive tract of land, the subsidence of the overlying waters into the comparative hollows, the clarifying of the atmosphere, the creation of a fresh supply of plants and animals on the newly-formed continent, compose a series of changes which meet the geologist again and again in prosecuting his researches into the bowels of the earth. What part of the land was submerged when the new soil emerged from the waters, how far the shock of the plutonic or volcanic forces may have been felt, whether the alteration of level extended to the whole solid crust of the earth, or only to a certain region surrounding the cradle of mankind, the record before us does not determine. It merely describes in a few graphic touches, that are strikingly true to nature, the last of those geologic changes which our globe has undergone.
Fifth, it is in keeping, as far as it goes, with the facts of botany, zoology, and ethnology.
Sixth, it agrees with the cosmogonies of all nations, so far as these are founded upon a genuine tradition and not upon the mere conjectures of a lively fancy.
Finally, it has the singular and superlative merit of drawing the diurnal scenes of that creation to which our race owes its origin in the simple language of common life, and presenting each transcendent change as it would appear to an ordinary spectator standing on the earth. It was thus sufficiently intelligible to primeval man, and remains to this day intelligible to us, as soon as we divest ourselves of the narrowing preconceptions of our modern civilization.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Gen 1:24-25
God made the beast of the earth
The animal creation
I.
THAT THE ANIMAL WORLD WAS CREATED BY GOD.
1. We should regard the animal world with due appreciation. Man has too low an estimate of the animal world. We imagine that a tree has as much claim to our attention and regard as a horse. The latter has a spirit; is possessed of life; it is a nobler embodiment of Divine power; it is a nearer approach to the fulfilment of creation.
2. We should treat the animal world with humane consideration. Surely, we ought not to abuse anything on which God has bestowed a high degree of creative care, especially when it is intended for our welfare.
II. THAT THE ANIMAL WORLD WAS DESIGNED BY GOD FOR THE SERVICE OF MAN.
1. Useful for business. How much of the business of man is carried on by the aid of animals. They afford nearly the only method of transit by road and street. The commercial enterprise of our villages and towns would receive a serious check if the services of the animal creation were removed.
2. Needful for food. Each answers a distinct purpose toward the life of man; from them we get our varied articles of food, and also of clothing. These animals were intended to be the food of man, to impart strength to his body, and energy to his life. To kill them is no sacrilege. Their death is their highest ministry, and we ought to receive it as such; not for the purpose of gluttony, but of health. Thus is our food the gift of God.
III. THAT THE ANIMAL WORLD WAS AN ADVANCE IN THE PURPOSE OF CREATION. The chaos had been removed, and from it order and light had been evoked. The seas and the dry land had been made to appear. The sun, moon, and stars had been sent on their light-giving mission. The first touch of life had become visible in the occupants of the waters and the atmosphere, and now it breaks into larger expanse in the existence of the animal creation, awaiting only its final completion in the being of man.
IV. THAT THE ANIMAL WORLD WAS ENDOWED WITH THE POWER OF GROWTH AND CONTINUANCE, AND WAS GOOD IN THE SIGHT OF GOD.
1. The growth and continuance of the animal world was insured. Each animal was to produce its own kind, so that it should not become extinct; neither could one species pass into another by the operation of any physical law.
2. The animal world was good in the sight of God. It was free from pain. The stronger did not oppress, and kill the weaker. The instinct of each animal was in harmony with the general good of the rest. But animals have shared the fate of man, the shadow of sin rests upon them; hence their confusion and disorder, their pain, and the many problems they present to the moral philosopher. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The animals of the earth as fore runners of man
1. The first signs and pictures of human life.
2. Its most intimate assistants.
3. Its first conditions. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)
Reflections on the domestic animals
In domestic animals we recognize a very marked token of the paternal kindness of the Creator. Their value and importance to man cannot well be estimated. How much do they add to his strength in toil, to his ease and speed in travelling, and to his sustenance and gratification in food. Even the dog proffers to us a serious and profitable lesson. Man, said the poet Burns, is the god of the dog. He knows no other, he can understand no other. And see how he worships him. With what reverence he crouches at his feet, with what love he fawns upon him, with what dependence he looks up to him, and with what cheerful alacrity he obeys him! His whole soul is wrapped up in his god; all the powers and faculties of his nature are devoted to his service, and these powers and faculties are ennobled by the intercourse. Divines tell us that it ought to be just so with the Christian; but does not the dog often put the Christian to shame? The ox, also, is to us a living parable. As he slowly wends his way from the field of toil, at noon, or evening, toward home, how affecting the remonstrance his moving figure is made to utter–The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his masters crib; but Israel doth not know, My people do not consider. And when he bows his submissive neck to receive the yoke and go forth to his labour again, how gracious the invitation symbolized by the willing act–Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light. The sheep, likewise, is a sacred emblem. Were this animal to repeat all the various truths committed by the Spirit to its symbolism, it would preach to us a new lesson with every change of situation in which we beheld it–following after the shepherd–enclosed in the fold–scattered on the mountain–lying down in green pastures–straying among wolves–borne on the shepherds shoulder–bound before the shearer–separating from the goats–in these various circumstances, sheep read to us the most solemn and important truths of the gospel of the Son of God. And the lamb–this is the central symbol of the Christian system. This innocent and gentle creature is preeminently the type of Him who was holy, harmless, and undefiled, the Lamb of God that was slain to take away the sins of the world, in whose blood the redeemed of heaven have washed their robes and made them white. The horse also is a chosen figure of inspiration. In the Book of Revelation–that wonderful portion of the sacred volume–the King of kings, and Lord of lords, is represented as riding on a white horse; and the armies of heaven as following Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, to witness His victory over all the enemies of truth and righteousness, and to participate in the final triumphs of His grace. Such is the deeply interesting event, such the glorious consummation, of which the horse stands forever a symbol and a remembrancer before his rider. How wise the arrangement that has thus embodied Divine truth in living forms, that ever move before our view. How kind and gracious in God our Father thus to constitute sheep and oxen to be unto us as priests and prophets, holding forth the Word of life, and, though they see not the vision themselves, symbolizing the glorious things of Christ and of heaven, to inspire us with the comfort of the most blessed hope. (H. W. Morris, D. D.)
Beasts, or wild animals
The term beast in the history of this day, as has already been stated, is employed to designate wild animals, in contradistinction from the tame, included under the word cattle. Although these are not designed so immediately or so eminently for the service of man as domestic animals, yet many, if not most of them, contribute in one way or another to his welfare–some as game for his sustenance, some by their hides and fur for his clothing, and all as subjects of interesting and profitable study. It is stated in the Holy Scriptures concerning the various branches of the human family, that God before appointed the bounds of their respective habitations; this is equally true of the different tribes of animals, Wise design and kind adaptation stand forth conspicuously in the arrangement which has assigned to them their several localities. The hairless elephant, rhinoceros, and tapir are obviously made for the heat and luxuriance of the Torrid Zone; and it is there they are found. The camel and the dromedary have been fashioned and constituted with specific adaptations for the parched and sandy deserts of the tropics; and here, accordingly, they have been located. Advancing to the more temperate regions, we still find all creatures, both domestic and wild, admirably fitted to occupy the zone given to them for their inheritance. And as we proceed northward, we discover given to the various animals hardihood of constitution, together with warmth of covering, increasing with the increasing rigour of the climate, till we pass within the Arctic circle, and reach the polar bears. Voyagers in those latitudes tell us that these animals disport in the regions of ice, and revel in an intensity of cold, which, to man with every contrivance of art for protection, is almost past endurance, and produces in him diseases which shortly terminate his existence–that they sit for hours like statues upon icebergs, where, if we were to take up our position for one half hour, we should become statues indeed, and be frozen into the lasting rigidity of death–that they slide in frolic down slopes of snows, which if we were to touch with our bare hand, would instantly, like fire, destroy its vitality. Who that contemplates these shaggy creatures of the pole, so constituted as to find a congenial home amid eternal ice and snow, and to take their frolicsome pastime amid the bleak and dismal horrors of an arctic night, but must confess that every creature, by Divine appointment and adaptation, is suited for its place, and that every place is fitted for its given occupants? (H. W. Morris, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 24. Let the earth bring forth the living creature, c.] nephesh chaiyah a general term to express all creatures endued with animal life, in any of its infinitely varied gradations, from the half-reasoning elephant down to the stupid potto, or lower still, to the polype, which seems equally to share the vegetable and animal life. The word chaitho, in the latter part of the verse, seems to signify all wild animals, as lions, tigers, c., and especially such as are carnivorous, or live on flesh, in contradistinction from domestic animals, such as are graminivorous, or live on grass and other vegetables, and are capable of being tamed, and applied to domestic purposes. See Clarke on Ge 1:29. These latter are probably meant by behemah in the text, which we translate cattle, such as horses, kine, sheep, dogs, c. Creeping thing, remes, all the different genera of serpents, worms, and such animals as have no feet. In beasts also God has shown his wondrous skill and power in the vast elephant, or still more colossal mammoth or mastodon, the whole race of which appears to be extinct, a few skeletons only remaining. This animal, an astonishing effect of God’s power, he seems to have produced merely to show what he could do, and after suffering a few of them to propagate, he extinguished the race by a merciful providence, that they might not destroy both man and beast. The mammoth appears to have been a carnivorous animal, as the structure of the teeth proves, and of an immense size from a considerable part of a skeleton which I have seen, it is computed that the animal to which it belonged must have been nearly twenty-five feet high, and sixty in length! The bones of one toe are entire; the toe upwards of three feet in length. But this skeleton might have belonged to the megalonyx, a kind of sloth, or bradypus, hitherto unknown. Few elephants have ever been found to exceed eleven feet in height. How wondrous are the works of God! But his skill and power are not less seen in the beautiful chevrotin, or tragulus, a creature of the antelope kind, the smallest of all bifid or cloven-footed animals, whose delicate limbs are scarcely so large as an ordinary goose quill; and also in the shrew mouse, perhaps the smallest of the many-toed quadrupeds. In the reptile kind we see also the same skill and power, not only in the immense snake called boa constrictor, the mortal foe and conqueror of the royal tiger, but also in the cobra de manille, a venomous serpent, only a little larger than a common sewing needle.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
1. Those living creatures hereafter mentioned, whose original is from the earth, and whose habitation is in it.
2. Those tame beasts which are most familiar with and useful to men for food, clothing, or other service.
3. Creeping thing; to wit, of the earth, of a differing kind from those creeping things of the water, Gen 1:20.
4. The wild beast, as the Hebrew word commonly signifies, and as appears further, because they are distinguished from the tame beasts, here called cattle.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
24. beasts of the earth(2)wild animals, whose ravenous natures were then kept in check, and (3)all the various forms of
creeping thingsfromthe huge reptiles to the insignificant caterpillars.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And God said, let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind,…. All sorts of living creatures that live and move upon the earth; not that the earth was endued with a power to produce these creatures of itself, without the interposition of God: for though it might be impregnated with a quickening virtue by the Spirit of God, which moved on it whilst a fluid, and had been prepared and disposed for such a production by the heat of the body of light created on the first day, and of the sun on the fourth; yet no doubt it was by the power of God accompanying his word, that these creatures were produced of the earth, and formed into their several shapes. The Heathens had some traditionary notion of this affair: according to the Egyptians, whose sentiments Diodorus Siculus c seems to give us, the process was thus carried on; the earth being stiffened by the rays of the sun, and the moist matter being made fruitful by the genial heat, at night received nourishment by the mist which fell from the ambient air; and in the day was consolidated by the heat of the sun, till at length the enclosed foetus having arrived to a perfect increase, and the membranes burnt and burst, creatures of all kinds appeared; of whom those that had got a greater degree of heat went upwards, and became flying fowl; those that were endued with an earthly concretion were reckoned in the class or order of reptiles, and other terrestrial animals; and those that chiefly partook of a moist or watery nature, ran to the place of a like kind, and were called swimmers or fish. This is the account they give; and somewhat like is that which Archelaus, the master of Socrates, delivers as his notion, that animals were produced out of slime, through the heat of the earth liquefying the slime like milk for food d: and Zeno the Stoic says e, the grosser part of the watery matter of the world made the earth, the thinner part the air, and that still more subtilized, the fire; and then out of the mixture of these proceeded plants and animals, and all the other kinds; but all this they seem to suppose to be done by the mere efforts of nature; whereas Moses here most truly ascribes their production to the all powerful Word of God:
cattle, [and] creeping things, and beast of the earth after his kind; the living creatures produced out of the earth are distinguished into three sorts; “cattle”, which seem to design tame cattle, and such as are for the use of man, either for carriage, food, or clothing, as horses, asses, camels, oxen, sheep, c. and “creeping” things, which are different from the creeping things in the sea before mentioned, are such as either have no feet, and go upon their bellies, or are very short, and seem to do so, whether greater or lesser, as serpents, worms, ants, &c.
and the beast of the earth seems to design wild beasts, such as lions, bears, wolves, &c.
and it was so such creatures were immediately produced.
c Bibliothec. l. 1. p. 7. d Laert. in Vita Archelai, p. 99. e Ib. in Vita Zenonis, p. 524.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Sixth Day. – Sea and air are filled with living creatures; and the word of God now goes forth to the earth, to produce living beings after their kind. These are divided into three classes. , cattle, from , mutum , brutum esse , generally denotes the larger domesticated quadrupeds (e.g., Gen 47:18; Exo 13:12, etc.), but occasionally the larger land animals as a whole. ( the creeping) embraces the smaller land animals, which move either without feet, or with feet that are scarcely perceptible, viz., reptiles, insects, and worms. In Gen 1:25 they are distinguished from the race of water reptiles by the term (the old form of the construct state, for ), the beast of the earth, i.e., the freely roving wild animals.
“ After its kind: ” this refers to all three classes of living creatures, each of which had its peculiar species; consequently in Gen 1:25, where the word of God is fulfilled, it is repeated with every class. This act of creation, too, like all that precede it, is shown by the divine word “good” to be in accordance with the will of God. But the blessing pronounced is omitted, the author hastening to the account of the creation of man, in which the work of creation culminated. The creation of man does not take place through a word addressed by God to the earth, but as the result of the divine decree, “ We will make man in Our image, after our likeness,” which proclaims at the very outset the distinction and pre-eminence of man above all the other creatures of the earth. The plural “We” was regarded by the fathers and earlier theologians almost unanimously as indicative of the Trinity: modern commentators, on the contrary, regard it either as pluralis majestatis ; or as an address by God to Himself, the subject and object being identical; or as communicative, an address to the spirits or angels who stand around the Deity and constitute His council. The last is Philo’s explanation: ( = angels). But although such passages as 1Ki 22:19., Psa 89:8, and Dan 10, show that God, as King and Judge of the world, is surrounded by heavenly hosts, who stand around His throne and execute His commands, the last interpretation founders upon this rock: either it assumes without sufficient scriptural authority, and in fact in opposition to such distinct passages as Gen 2:7, Gen 2:22; Isa 40:13 seq., Gen 44:24, that the spirits took part in the creation of man; or it reduces the plural to an empty phrase, inasmuch as God is made to summon the angels to cooperate in the creation of man, and then, instead of employing them, is represented as carrying out the work alone. Moreover, this view is irreconcilable with the words “in our image, after our likeness;” since man was created in the image of God alone (Gen 1:27; Gen 5:1), and not in the image of either the angels, or God and the angels. A likeness to the angels cannot be inferred from Heb 2:7, or from Luk 20:36. Just as little ground is there for regarding the plural here and in other passages (Gen 3:22; Gen 11:7; Isa 6:8; Isa 41:22) as reflective, an appeal to self; since the singular is employed in such cases as these, even where God Himself is preparing for any particular work (cf. Gen 2:18; Psa 12:5; Isa 33:10). No other explanation is left, therefore, than to regard it as pluralis majestatis , – an interpretation which comprehends in its deepest and most intensive form (God speaking of Himself and with Himself in the plural number, not reverentiae causa, but with reference to the fullness of the divine powers and essences which He possesses) the truth that lies at the foundation of the trinitarian view, viz., that the potencies concentrated in the absolute Divine Being are something more than powers and attributes of God; that they are hypostases , which in the further course of the revelation of God in His kingdom appeared with more and more distinctness as persons of the Divine Being. On the words “ in our image, after our likeness ” modern commentators have correctly observed, that there is no foundation for the distinction drawn by the Greek, and after them by many of the Latin Fathers, between ( imago ) and ( similitudo ), the former of which they supposed to represent the physical aspect of the likeness to God, the latter the ethical; but that, on the contrary, the older Lutheran theologians were correct in stating that the two words are synonymous, and are merely combined to add intensity to the thought: “an image which is like Us” ( Luther); since it is no more possible to discover a sharp or well-defined distinction in the ordinary use of the words between and , than between and . , from , lit., a shadow, hence sketch, outline, differs no more from , likeness, portrait, copy, than the German words Umriss or Abriss (outline or sketch) from Bild or Abbild (likeness, copy). and are also equally interchangeable, as we may see from a comparison of this verse with Gen 5:1 and Gen 5:3. (Compare also Lev 6:4 with Lev 27:12, and for the use of to denote a norm, or sample, Exo 25:40; Exo 30:32, Exo 30:37, etc.) There is more difficulty in deciding in what the likeness to God consisted. Certainly not in the bodily form, the upright position, or commanding aspect of the man, since God has no bodily form, and the man’s body was formed from the dust of the ground; nor in the dominion of man over nature, for this is unquestionably ascribed to man simply as the consequence or effluence of his likeness to God. Man is the image of God by virtue of his spiritual nature. of the breath of God by which the being, formed from the dust of the earth, became a living soul.
(Note: “The breath of God became the soul of man; the soul of man therefore is nothing but the breath of God. The rest of the world exists through the word of God; man through His own peculiar breath. This breath is the seal and pledge of our relation to God, of our godlike dignity; whereas the breath breathed into the animals is nothing but the common breath, the life-wind of nature, which is moving everywhere, and only appears in the animal fixed and bound into a certain independence and individuality, so that the animal soul is nothing but a nature-soul individualized into certain, though still material spirituality.” – Ziegler.)
The image of God consists, therefore, in the spiritual personality of man, though not merely in unity of self-consciousness and self-determination, or in the fact that man was created a consciously free Ego; for personality is merely the basis and form of the divine likeness, not its real essence. This consists rather in the fact, that the man endowed with free self-conscious personality possesses, in his spiritual as well as corporeal nature, a creaturely copy of the holiness and blessedness of the divine life. This concrete essence of the divine likeness was shattered by sin; and it is only through Christ, the brightness of the glory of God and the expression of His essence (Heb 1:3), that our nature is transformed into the image of God again (Col 3:10; Eph 4:24).
“ And they ( , a generic term for men) shall have dominion over the fish,” etc. There is something striking in the introduction of the expression “ and over all the earth,” after the different races of animals have been mentioned, especially as the list of races appears to be proceeded with afterwards. If this appearance were actually the fact, it would be impossible to escape the conclusion that the text is faulty, and that has fallen out; so that the reading should be, “ and over all the wild beasts of the earth,” as the Syriac has it. But as the identity of “every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth ” ( ) with “every thing that creepeth upon the ground ” ( ) in Gen 1:25 is not absolutely certain; on the contrary, the change in expression indicates a difference of meaning; and as the Masoretic text is supported by the oldest critical authorities (lxx, Sam., Onk.), the Syriac rendering must be dismissed as nothing more than a conjecture, and the Masoretic text be understood in the following manner. The author passes on from the cattle to the entire earth, and embraces all the animal creation in the expression, “every moving thing ( ) that moveth upon the earth,” just as in Gen 1:28, “every living thing upon the earth.” According to this, God determined to give to the man about to be created in His likeness the supremacy, not only over the animal world, but over the earth itself; and this agrees with the blessing in Gen 1:28, where the newly created man is exhorted to replenish the earth and subdue it; whereas, according to the conjecture of the Syriac, the subjugation of the earth by man would be omitted from the divine decree. – Gen 1:27. In the account of the accomplishment of the divine purpose the words swell into a jubilant song, so that we meet here for the first time with a parallelismus membrorum , the creation of man being celebrated in three parallel clauses. The distinction drawn between (in the image of God created He him) and (as man and woman created He them) must not be overlooked. The word , which indicates that God created the man and woman as two human beings, completely overthrows the idea that man was at first androgynous (cf. Gen 2:18.). By the blessing in Gen 1:28, God not only confers upon man the power to multiply and fill the earth, as upon the beasts in Gen 1:22, but also gives him dominion over the earth and every beast. In conclusion, the food of both man and beast is pointed out in Gen 1:29, Gen 1:30, exclusively from the vegetable kingdom. Man is to eat of “ every seed-bearing herb on the face of all the earth, and every tree on which there are fruits containing seed,” consequently of the productions of both field and tree, in other words, of corn and fruit; the animals are to eat of “ every green herb,” i.e., of vegetables or green plants, and grass.
From this it follows, that, according to the creative will of God, men were not to slaughter animals for food, nor were animals to prey upon one another; consequently, that the fact which now prevails universally in nature and the order of the world, the violent and often painful destruction of life, is not a primary law of nature, nor a divine institution founded in the creation itself, but entered the world along with death at the fall of man, and became a necessity of nature through the curse of sin. It was not till after the flood, that men received authority from God to employ the flesh of animals as well as the green herb as food (Gen 9:3); and the fact that, according to the biblical view, no carnivorous animals existed at the first, may be inferred from the prophetic announcements in Isa 11:6-8; Isa 65:25, where the cessation of sin and the complete transformation of the world into the kingdom of God are described as being accompanied by the cessation of slaughter and the eating of flesh, even in the case of the animal kingdom. With this the legends of the heathen world respecting the golden age of the past, and its return at the end of time, also correspond (cf. Gesenius on Isa 11:6-8). It is true that objections have been raised by natural historians to this testimony of Scripture, but without scientific ground. For although at the present time man is fitted by his teeth and alimentary canal for the combination of vegetable and animal food; and although the law of mutual destruction so thoroughly pervades the whole animal kingdom, that not only is the life of one sustained by the death of another, but “as the graminivorous animals check the overgrowth of the vegetable kingdom, so the excessive increase of the former is restricted by the beasts of prey, and of these again by the destructive implements of man;” and although, again, not only beasts of prey, but evident symptoms of disease are met with among the fossil remains of the aboriginal animals: all these facts furnish no proof that the human and animal races were originally constituted for death and destruction, or that disease and slaughter are older than the fall. For, to reply to the last objection first, geology has offered no conclusive evidence of its doctrine, that the fossil remains of beasts of prey and bones with marks of disease belong to a pre-Adamite period, but has merely inferred it from the hypothesis already mentioned of successive periods of creation. Again, as even in the present order of nature the excessive increase of the vegetable kingdom is restrained, not merely by the graminivorous animals, but also by the death of the plants themselves through the exhaustion of their vital powers; so the wisdom of the Creator could easily have set bounds to the excessive increase of the animal world, without requiring the help of huntsmen and beasts of prey, since many animals even now lose their lives by natural means, without being slain by men or eaten by beasts of prey. The teaching of Scripture, that death entered the world through sin, merely proves that the human race was created for eternal life, but by no means necessitates the assumption that the animals were also created for endless existence. As the earth produced them at the creative word of God, the different individuals and generations would also have passed away and returned to the bosom of the earth, without violent destruction by the claws of animals or the hand of man, as soon as they had fulfilled the purpose of their existence. The decay of animals is a law of nature established in the creation itself, and not a consequence of sin, or an effect of the death brought into the world by the sin of man. At the same time, it was so far involved in the effects of the fall, that the natural decay of the different animals was changed into a painful death or violent end. Although in the animal kingdom, as it at present exists, many varieties are so organized that they live exclusively upon the flesh of other animals, which they kill and devour; this by no means necessitates the conclusion, that the carnivorous beasts of prey were created after the fall, or the assumption that they were originally intended to feed upon flesh, and organized accordingly. If, in consequence of the curse pronounced upon the earth after the sin of man, who was appointed head and lord of nature, the whole creation was subjected to vanity and the bondage of corruption (Rom 8:20.); this subjection might have been accompanied by a change in the organization of the animals, though natural science, which is based upon the observation and combination of things empirically discovered, could neither demonstrate the fact nor explain the process. And if natural science cannot boast that in any one of its many branches it has discovered all the phenomena connected with the animal and human organism of the existing world, how could it pretend to determine or limit the changes through which this organism may have passed in the course of thousands of years?
The creation of man and his installation as ruler on the earth brought the creation of all earthly beings to a close (Gen 1:31). God saw His work, and behold it was all very good; i.e., everything perfect in its kind, so that every creature might reach the goal appointed by the Creator, and accomplish the purpose of its existence. By the application of the term “good” to everything that God made, and the repetition of the word with the emphasis “very” at the close of the whole creation, the existence of anything evil in the creation of God is absolutely denied, and the hypothesis entirely refuted, that the six days’ work merely subdued and fettered an ungodly, evil principle, which had already forced its way into it. The sixth day, as being the last, is distinguished above all the rest by the article – “ a day, the sixth ” (Gesenius, 111, 2 a).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Creation. | B. C. 4004. |
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
We have here the first part of the sixth day’s work. The sea was, the day before, replenished with its fish, and the air with its fowl; and this day were made the beasts of the earth, the cattle, and the creeping things that pertain to the earth. Here, as before, 1. The Lord gave the word; he said, Let the earth bring forth, not as if the earth had any such prolific virtue as to produce these animals, or as if God resigned his creating power to it; but, “Let these creatures now come into being upon the earth, and out of it, in their respective kinds, conformable to the ideas of them in the divine counsels concerning their creation.” 2. He also did the work; he made them all after their kind, not only of divers shapes, but of divers natures, manners, food, and fashions–some to be tame about the house, others to be wild in the fields–some living upon grass and herbs, others upon flesh–some harmless, and others ravenous–some bold, and others timorous–some for man’s service, and not his sustenance, as the horse–others for his sustenance, and not his service, as the sheep–others for both, as the ox–and some for neither, as the wild beasts. In all this appears the manifold wisdom of the Creator.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Verses 24, 25
Day Six, like Day Five, witnessed the production of two created kinds of life: land animals, and man. “Living creature,” nephesh chayyak, animated beings having breath. “Cattle,” behemah, a dumb animal; grass-eating quadrupeds. “Creeping thing,” remes; a moving animal, smaller life-forms that move, such as worms, insects, reptiles, land-creepers. “Beast” of the earth, chayyah of the earth; the wild, carnivorous creatures. These three orders of created beings received the command to multiply and fill the earth with their offspring, each after his own kind. This is evidence of Divine, instantaneous creation, as opposed to evolution. Each species reproduces after its own kind; none develops as the result of evolving from one form to another. Science (so-called) continues to look in vain for the “missing link” they think which would prove progression by evolution from a lower to a higher form of life.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
24. Let the earth bring forth He descends to the sixth day, on which the animals were created, and then man. ‘Let the earth,’ he says, ‘bring forth living creatures.’ But whence has a dead element life? Therefore, there is in this respect a miracle as great as if God had begun to create out of nothing those things which he commanded to proceed from the earth. And he does not take his material from the earth, because he needed it, but that he might the better combine the separate parts of the world with the universe itself. Yet it may be inquired, why He does not here also add his benediction? I answer, that what Moses before expressed on a similar occasion is here also to be understood, although he does not repeat it word for word. I say, moreover, it is sufficient for the purpose of signifying the same thing, (79) that Moses declares animals were created ‘according to their species:’ for this distribution carried with it something stable. It may even hence be inferred, that the offspring of animals was included. For to what purpose do distinct species exist, unless that individuals, by their several kinds, may be multiplied? (80)
Cattle (81) Some of the Hebrews thus distinguish between “cattle” and “beasts of the earth,” that the cattle feed on herbage, but that the beasts of the earth are they which eat flesh. But the Lord, a little while after, assigns herbs to both as their common food; and it may be observed, that in several parts of Scripture these two words are used indiscriminately. Indeed, I do not doubt that Moses, after he had named Behemoth, (cattle,) added the other, for the sake of fuller explanation. By ‘reptiles,’ (82) in this place, understand those which are of an earthly nature.
(79) Namely, that God’s benediction was virtually added, though no expressed in terms. See verse 22. — Ed.
(80) The reader is referred to Note 1, p. 81, for another mode of interpreting these verses; and also to Poole’s Synopsis on verse 24, where the opinion of Pichrellus is fully stated, namely, that verses 24, 25, contain part of the work of the fifth day. — Ed.
(81) Cattle, בהמה, ( Behemah); plural, בהמות, ( Behemoth).
(82) “Reptiles.” In the English version, “creeping things,” the same expression which occurs in verse 20. But the Hebrew word is different. In the twentieth verrse it is שרף, (sharetz,) in the twenty-fourth it is רמש, (remes). The latter word is generally, (though not always,) as here, referred to land animals. — Ed
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Gen. 1:24-26
THE ANIMAL WORLD
I. That the Animal World was created by God. All the creeping things of the earth are created by God. The cattle upon a thousand hills were made by Him. There is not an insect in the universe, but is the outcome of Divine power. Life, in its very lowest form, is the gift of God. Science cannot obtain it; Art cannot evoke it; dexterity cannot conjure it: God is its only source. If the animal world is created by God:
1. We should regard the animal world with due appreciation. Man has too low an estimate of the animal world. We are apt to think that there is very little difference between it, and the vegetable world. We imagine that a tree has as much claim to our attention and regard as a horse. This should not be the case. The latter has a spirit; is possessed of life; it is a nobler embodiment of Divine power; it is a nearer approach to the fulfilment of Creation. We ought therefore to place a higher estimate upon animal life than we do, as we are largely ignorant of its capabilities, and of the development and progress of which it is capable. A worm may teach the soul of man a lesson. We are not cognizant of its hidden power.
2. We should treat the animal world with humane cousideration. If all the animals of the universe, which are so useful to man, are the creation of God, then surely they ought to have the most kindly treatment of the human race. Surely, we ought not to abuse anything on which God has bestowed a high degree of creative care, especially when it is intended for our welfare. Also, these animals are dumb; this ought to make us attentive to their wants, as well as considerate in all our treatment of them. Men should never manifest an angry spirit toward them. The merciful man is merciful to his beast. True, the brute world was designed by God for the use of man, and it renders its highest service in the gift of its life for the sustentation of the human family.
II. That the Animal World was designed by God for the service of man.
1. Useful for business. How much of the business of man is carried on by the aid of animals. They afford nearly the only method of transit by road and street. Many men get their livelihood by trading in animals. The commercial enterprise of our villages and towns would receive a serious check if the services of the animal creation were removed.
2. Needful for food. Each answers a distinct purpose toward the life of man; from them we get our varied articles of food, and also of clothing. These animals were intended to be the food of man, to impart strength to his body, and energy to his life. To kill them is no sacrilege. Their death is their highest ministry, and we ought to receive it as such; not for the purpose of gluttony, but of health. Thus is our food the gift of God.
III. That the Animal World was an advance in the purpose of Creation. The chaos had been removed, and from it order and light had been evoked. The seas and the dry land had been made to appear. The sun, moon, and stars had been sent on their light-giving mission. The first touch of life had become visible in the occupants of the waters and the atmosphere, and now it breaks into larger expanse in the existence of the animal creation, awaiting only its final completion in the being of man.
IV. That the Animal World was endowed with the power of growth and continuance, and was good in the sight of God.
1. The growth and continuance of the animal world was insured. Each animal was to produce its own kind, so that it should not become extinct; neither could one species pass into another by the operation of any physical law.
2. The animal world was good in the sight of God. It was free from pain. The stronger did not oppress, and kill the weaker. The instinct of each animal was in harmony with the general good of the rest. But animals have shared the fate of man, the shadow of sin rests upon them; hence their confusion and disorder, their pain, and the many problems they present to the moral philosopher.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Gen. 1:24-25. The beasts inferior to man:
1. In nature.
2. In advancement.
3. In spiritual estate.
The difference between the creation of beasts and man cannot be passed over without special observation. Mans body was indeed taken out of the earth, as well as the bodies of the beasts; but his soul was not from the earth, but from heaven. But in the creation of beasts, the body, and soul, or life, is wholly out of the earth; for the earth is commanded to bring forth the living creaturethat is, the creature, with the life thereof. So that we find no original of the soul, or life of the beast, but from the earth only.
The beasts were created by God, and therefore are His:
1. Let us ascribe all the store that we have unto God.
2. Let us regard them as the gift of God.
3. Let us serve and honour Him with all we possess.
By an almighty word God doth create all the brutes upon the earth.
The earth is the appointed place for beasts.
Not only individuals of creatures, but kinds, are made of God.
SUGGESTIVE ILLUSTRATIONS
Creatures of God! Gen. 1:24. One day a boy was tormenting a kitten, whereupon his little sisterwith her eyes suffused in tearsexclaimed, Oh! do not hurt what is Gods kitten. That word of the little girl was not lost; for a word fitly spokeni.e., a word set on wheelshow good it is. The boy ceased to torment Gods creature, but he could not leave off thinking about what his sister had said. The next day, on his way to school, he met one of his companions most mischievously beating a poor, half-starved dog: Dont do that to Gods creature. The boy looked ashamed, and tried to excuse himself by saying that the dog had stolen his dinner. But a poor drunkard passing heard the expression, and said within himself, I, too, am Gods creature; I will arise, and go to my Father. All are then Gods creatures!
Here on the hills He feeds
His herds, His flocks on yonder plains;
His praise is warbled by the birds;
Oh! could we catch their strains.Montgomery.
All Things! Gen. 1:25. Some men have the power of attending to several things at once. Napoleon the Great had the power of keeping six men engaged in writing letters for him at the same time, and this was thought a wonderful feat. It was remarkable, and very few men could do it; but it was nothing to what God does every day. Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty. He keeps all things in life:
Lord, thou art great! In Natures every form;
Greater in none, simply most great in all;
In fears and terrors, sunshine, smile and storm,
And all that stirs the heart, is felt Thy call.Seidel.
Man! Gen. 1:25. There is a beautiful propriety in the Bible commencing with the creation of the heavens and the earth. The account of this magnificent scene serves as a portico to the august Temple of Truth. It is a kind of outer court, and the wonders which we here behold prepare us for the glories which beautify the inner temple. But in the hands of Moses this theme, mighty as it is, is only the introduction to others still mightier. He does not detain us in the outer court, but leads us straight to the gates of the Temple. By the Divine Word the world passed through all its various stages in its progress from chaos to the wondrous scene of order and beauty, when, in Gen. 1:25, God saw that it was good. How in the household, writes Beecher, are garments quilted and wrought, and curiously embroidered, and the softest things laid aside, and the cradle prepared to greet the little pilgrim of love when it comes from distant regions, we know not whence! Creation was Gods cradle for Adamcuriously carved and decorated, flower-strewn and star-curtained. As Milton says: There wanted yet the master-work, the end of all yet done: so God took
Some handfuls of the dust, and moulded it
Within His plastic hands until it grew
Into an image like His own, like ours,
Of perfect symmetry, divinely fair,
But lifeless, till He stoopd and breathed therein
The breath of life.
Temple-Man! Gen. 1:26. It has been carefully noted that our Lord was the first who applied to the human body a term previously employed to denote a building consecrated to God. His example was followed by St. Paul, with whom the expression was a familiar and favourite one. And yet, strange to say, this symbolism fell into abeyance during all the Christian centuries. The body was treated with neglect or contempt. It was regarded as the drag and prison house of the soul; so that even Trench writes:
Plumage which man shatters in his rage,
And with his prison doth vain war engage.
We represent it as the cause of all the moral failures and intellectual weaknesses of mankind. By the ascetic it has been mortified and tortured in every way. By the philosopher it has been ignored, so that Sir William Hamilton inscribed in golden letters upon the wall of his class-room the singular sentiment: In man theres nothing great but mind. It is true that mans body was formed out of the dust, and that thus it is the same as the forms of the mineral, vegetable, and animal creations. As Oken says, the whole animal world is repeated and represented in man, the animal kingdom is man broken up into fragments. But human nature is not, therefore, to be despised; for though the human body takes all nature into it, it does so to make it a temple for the worship and service of God. And that God designed such a view of the human frame is evident from the fact of the incarnation. Jesus entered the human body and purified it of his indwelling, making it a palace for the divine glory and a shrine for the divine worship.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Day Six: Land Animals, Man, Naming of the Animal Tribes, Woman (Gen. 1:24-31)
And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the ground after its kind: and God saw that it was good.
1. Here we have the account of the creation of the land animals, whose bodies are part of the earths substance (elements): this could not be said of fishes which are related in a special sense to the water. Some hold that the classification here includes insects for the first time. E.g., Skinner (JCCG, 29): The classification of animals is threefold: wild animals, roughly, carnivora; domesticated animals, roughly, herbivora; reptiles, including perhaps creeping insects and very small quadrupeds.
2. The River of Life. (1) The stretch of time involved in the Divine activity of the first four days of the Creation allows, of course, for the developments claimed by the astronomical and geological sciences. (A word of caution here: Recent attempts to apply the evolution yardstick, which was at first simply and only a hypothesis of the origin of species, to the origin of the celestial and terrestrial non-living worlds, are, to say the least, based on the questionable a priori supposition that such a norm is valid in these areas.) Nevertheless, it can now be maintained legitimately that no conflict need arise between Genesis and geology, in the light of present-day knowledge in these realms. (2) We have now reached the stage in which the Creative Activity, as set forth in the Genesis narrative, is represented as advancing from non-living to living forms. Here, of course, the tremendous mysteries of the Life Processmany of them apparently impenetrable by human intelligencepress upon us for solution, from the points of view of both Scripture and science, The life that any person enjoys was not created in him; rather, it flowed into him from his parents, and their life flowed into them from their parents, and so on and on and on, back, obviously, to a Source of all life, which in the nature of the case had to be a Living Source. First Life could not have been a human creation, for, if we are to accept the views of the evolutionists, both plant and animal life existed prior to mans appearance on the scene. How fitting, then, such metaphors as the Stream of Life, the River of Life, etc.! How irrefutable the truth set forth in Scripture that all life is a Divine giftthe very Breath of the living and true God (Gen. 2:7)! Rev. 22:1the river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. However life may have originated on earthor on any other planet, for that matterit is essentially the Breath of God. And the Breath of God is Scripturally a metaphor of the power of the Spirit of God. (3) What is life? What is it in the structure of the living cell that sets it apart from the non-living molecule or atom? All that can be said now, in answer to this question, is simply that no one knows. Living things are differentiated from the non-living by such powers as metabolism, growth (not by accretion from without, but by processes operating from within), reproduction, waste and repair, sensitivity, adaptability, movement, dynamic equilibrium (ability to maintain a balance in the flow of matter and energy within the organisms system), etc.
3. The Mystery of the Life Movement. (1) What is there in the living cell to vitalize it, to differentiate it from mere quanta of energy? No one knows. The secret resides in the cell protoplasm, a semifluid, jellylike substance, which, up to the present time, has resisted all human efforts to analyze it. The most that has been learned thus far is that life requires a large number of highly specific proteins with different shapes, sizes, and patterns. These protein molecules and sub-moleculeseach containing a large number of atomsare invariably present in protoplasm (so we are told). I take the position that it is not beyond the realm of possibility that man may some day, once he has succeeded in breaking down protoplasm, synthesize a living cell in the laboratory. This event, however, should it occur, would leave unsolved the problem as to how the first living cell came into existence, because this was a development which necessarily occurred before man was created. Moreover, such a synthesis would only push the fundamental problem a notch farther back. The basic problem would need to be re-stated as follows: How did the ingredients thus synthesized by man, come to be endowed with the potencies essential to the production of the spark of life? One thing is sureman himself did not endow these ingredients with vital force: this force must have been present potentially in the ingredients themselves or in their inter-relationships. Thus it becomes clear that the eventual synthesis of a living cell in the scientific laboratory would leave the problem of Creation, or of the Source and nature of Creative Force still unsolved. (2) Every human individual starts life as a single cell, the ovum which was produced by the ovary of the mother and fertilized by the spermatozoon of the father. Immediately following this fertilization (conception), the basic cellular processes set in, namely, those of cell segmentation (continuous division and multiplication), cell differentiation (change of structure), and cell specialization (the assumption of function which accompanies differentiation), so that by the time the child is ready to be born it has its full complement of different tissues. At the end of thirty hours after conception, we are told, the one cell has pulled apart to make two cells; at fifty hours, the two split to make four; at sixty hours, the four become eight, etc., until, by the process of geometrical progression, at the end of the third day of life there are thirty-two cells. This is the start toward the vast number of cells which go to make up the body of the newborn babe. Dr. George W. Corner, embryologist at the Rockefeller Institute, has written (as quoted by Dr. Shettles, Todays Health, March, 1957, published by the A.M.A.): The fertilization of an egg by a sperm cell is one of the greatest wonders of nature. If it were a rare event, or if it occurred only in some distant land, our museums and universities would organize expeditions to witness it, and newcomers would record its outcome with enthusiasm. But as it is, like the shining of the sun, we simply take it for granted, without giving a thought to the mystery of it. Call it protoplasmic irritability, or what not, there is a vital force which is inherent in the life processes of the living cellsand this is why we call them living cells,
(3) Manifold are the mysteries of the life processes. For instance, can anyone explain how it is that, by means of a specific number of submicroscopic blobs of living matter called chromosomes, 23 in the human male and 23 in the female (through the activity of the hypothetical genes inherent in these chromosomes, though the genes are not apprehensible to the naked eye, nor even to the naked eye implemented by the most powerful microscope), the two parentaland several ancestralnatures are fused in the offspring; or how it comes about that through these quasi-material chromosomes and genes, not only are physique and physiology, but even temperament (emotional tone and intensity) and intelligence potential, handed down to the child? (There is no amount of learning that can transform a moron into a genius.) Or, can anyone explain the upward surge of the life movement into the more and more complex forms of living being? Can anyone explain the venerable Will to Live, the determination to resist extinction, that seems to characterize all living creatures (or, as put in the form of the oft-heard cliche, Self-preservation is the first law of nature)? What is this tremendous life force that can drive the roots of a tree through a sewer or through the foundation of a house? To my way of thinking the mysteries of the life processes are far more inscrutable than the powers that are wrapped up in the atom.
4. The Problem of the Origin of Life has not yet been solved by any naturalistic hypothesis. (1) As a matter of fact, only two hypotheses of a strictly naturalistic character have ever been suggested, namely, the view that life was brought to this earth, possibly by a falling meteorite, from some other planet, and the view that is generally known as the theory of spontaneous generation. Obviously, the former view explains absolutely nothing; nothing, that is, with respect to the origin of life: it simply transfers the problem to another planet or star, The latter view, however, the theory of spontaneous generation (abio-genesis), deserves some attention at this point. (2) In ancient and medieval times the theory of abiogenesis was held generally, and without question, by scientists (such as they were in those early ages), philosophers, and theologians alike, including even several of the Church Fathers. Nor was this view held to be antiscriptural: as Aquinas put it (ST, I, q. 91, art. 2): What can be done by created power, need not be produced immediately by God. Men frequently noted that worms, insects, flies, mice, frogs, etc., seemed to come out of the earth, out of dung, out of putrid meat and water exposed to the air; hence the consensus was that under proper conditions of moisture and warmth, the earth could generate living forms. It was even believed that the mud of the Nile River begat swarms of mice. The English naturalist, Ross, announced pompously: To question that beetles and wasps were generated in cow dung is to question reason, sense, and experience (quoted by De Kruif, MH, 26). It remained for the restless Italian experimenter Spallanzani (17291799), building on first foundations already laid by the Dutch lens grinder, Leeuwenhoek, and another Italian iconoclast, Redi, finally to come to the conclusion, and to proudly announce, that microbes must have parents. All the thanks he got for his epoch-making discovery was the prejudice, leading to ostracism, of his colleagues. We all know, however, that Spallanzanis view was fully confirmed by the great Pasteur (18221895) in the next century. No concrete evidence has yet been found that would disprove this view that all life comes from antecedent life, that only living things can reproduce living things. (3) Twentieth-century biologists are content to stop with the claim that such an event as the generation of the spark of life by non-living matter might have occurred under certain conditions. For example, G. G. Simpson (ME, 13): How did life arise? Again, the honest answer is that we do not know but that we have some good clues . . . Current studies suggest that it would be no miracle, nor even a great statistical improbability, if living molecules appeared spontaneously under special conditions of surface waters rich in the carbon compounds that are the food and substance of life. And the occurrence of such waters at early stages of the planets evolution is more probable than not. This is not to say that the origin of life was by chance or by supernatural intervention, but that it was in accordance with the grand, eternal physical laws of the universe. It need not have been miraculous, except as the existence of the physical universe may be considered a miracle. Also Julian Huxley (EA, 1921): The work of Pasteur and his successors has made it clear that life is not now being spontaneously generated . . . There are only three possible alternatives as regards the origin of living substance on this earth. Either it was super-naturally created; or it was brought to the earth from some other place in the universe, in the interior of a meteorite; or it was produced naturally out of less complicated substances . . . The third alternative, that living substance evolved out of nonliving, is the only hypothesis consistent with scientific continuity. The fact that spontaneous generation does not occur now is not evidence that it did not do so at some earlier stage in the development of this planet, when conditions in the cosmic test tube were extremely different. Above all, bacteria were not then present, ready to break down any complex substances as soon as formed . . . It must be confessed, however, that the actual process is still conjectural; all we know is that living substance must have developed soon after the first rocks of the geological series were laid down, and that this was somewhere about two thousand million years ago. We can be reasonably sure that a relatively simply nucleoprotein marked a crucial stage in the process, and that the earliest truly living things were nothing so elaborate as cells, but more in the nature of naked genes. All this, of course, is still guesswork; indeed a hypothesis has been correctly defined as a fairly good guess. (4) It is interesting to note here that the well-known Church Father, Augustine, who lived from A.D. 354 to 430, points up the fact (GL, V, 4, 143) that Gen. 1:11-12 teaches that the earth itself, not seeds in the earth, was given the power to produce plants (the first form of life). He writes: For he does not say, Let the seeds in the earth germinate the pasture grass and the fruitful tree, but he says, Let the earth germinate the pasture grass sowing its seed. Augustine also theorized that living things which inhabit the earth were created potentially in the form of hidden seeds (seminal reasons); that in due time, and in the proper sequence, these hidden seeds were actualized pursuant to the proclamations of the successive Divine decrees. Thomas Aquinas (12251274) held that this actualization (in his thinking, apparently, something of the character of an evolution), was the modus operandi by which the Creator effectuated the origins of the first forms of life. As stated above, with respect to the spontaneous generation theory one fact is obvious, namely, that if the spark of life was actually generated by the sudden orientation of certain forces within a protein molecule, the potencies had to be inherent in that molecule before they could be actualized. This means simply that the problem of the origin of life is pushed back another step: it becomes the problem of how non-living matter acquired these potencies in the first place, and of the Efficient Causality by which they were actualized: in short, the necessary Creative Power, in whatever form localized, had to operate to bring about Creation.
5. Aristotles Hierarchy of Being. This is a doctrine, stated in his De Anima (On the Soul) which becomes very helpful at this point in our study. According to Aristotle, the totality of being is a hierarchy (i.e., organized on different levels, in an ascending order of complexity); that is to say, our world is a terraced world, so to speak, and not a continuum (without a single break from the lowest to the highest of forms). Aristotle based this hierarchical arrangement of all organisms on what he called the differentiating powers of the soul (psyche) possessed by those individual existents at each level, those of each higher order, subsuming in themselves the powers of those below them in the scale, and possessing an additional differentiating or specifying power of their own. At the lowest level, of course, are the processes of the inanimate creation (according to Aristotle, of matter-in-motion), what today we call the physiochemical basis of all created things. At the next level, according to Aristotle, is the plant creation (what he designates the vegetative psyche), which has the same physiochemical basis, plus the vegetative or nutritive powers (what are known today as the cellular processes). At the third level is the animal order (animal psyche), which has both the physiochemical and vegetative powers, plus the powers of sensitivity and locomotion. At the highest level stands man, the rational creation (rational psyche), who has the same physiochemical basis insofar as his body is concerned, who also shares the vegetative powers with the plant and animal orders, and the powers of sensitivity and locomotion with the animal creation alone, but who has in addition the power of reason (the thought processes and their ramifications). Over all, said Aristotle, is the Prime Mover, the First Cause, God, whom he defines as Pure Self-Thinking Thought (cf. Exo. 3:14, Joh. 4:24).
God-Pure Thought Thinking Itself
Rational psyche
p-c processes
nutritive processes
(cellular)
sensitivity locomotion
reason
Animal psyche
p-c processes
Nutritive processes
(cellular)
sensitivity locomotion
Vegetative psyche
p-c processes
Nutritive processes
(cellular)
The inanimate level: in Aristotelian terms, matter-in-motion; in modern scientific terms, the physiochemical processes.
If should be noted that this diagram points up the major problems posed by the evolution hypothesis, namely, the bridging of the gaps from the non-living to the living, from the plant to the animal, and especially from the animal to man.
It is interesting to contrast with Aristotles hierarchy of being, the notion of the totality of being as a continuum, as embodied in the famous doctrine (developed in early modern times) of the Great Chain of Being. According to this view, because our world is the handiwork of a perfect Being, it must be the best of all possible worlds; hence, again reasoning a priori, all possible beings must be actualized, all possible places filled, therein: that is, there must be an unbroken continuitya progressive gradationof organisms from the very lowest living being up to the very highest, God Himself. (See A. O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, Harvard University Press.) As stated clearly by Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man:
Of systems possible if tis confest
That wisdom infinite must form the best,
then it follows that
. . . all must full or not coherent be,
And all that rises, rise in due degree.
The resultant picture is as follows:
Vast chain of being! which from God began,
Natures aethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing.On superior powrs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scales destroyd;
For Natures chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
It is evident that the Great Chain of Being theory, although originally arrived at through a priori reasoning, is the one that is most in harmony with the evolution hypothesis, provided the former could be established by empirical evidence. I am reminded here of Haeckels Tree of Life, a book in which the author supplied all the missing links he considered necessary to the evolution of species, and supplied them out of his imagination. The book is looked upon today as a kind of freak product of overzealousness, in an age when the favorite academic indulgence was that of singing paeans to Darwin.
Biblical teaching completes the Aristotelian picture with its doctrine of angels (from the Greek angelos, messenger) who are represented as occupying an intermediate position between God and man (Psalms 8). Angels are pictured in the Bible as celestial (ethereal) beings, higher than man in intelligence and power, whose function is to serve as emissaries of God in the execution of His Plans for His Creation (Heb. 1:14, 2Pe. 2:11).
Perhaps it should be mentioned here that the French scientist, Cuvier (17691832), held the view that the first pair, male and female, of each kind was a direct Divine creation. The modern philosopher, Lotze, and others, have advanced the view that special increments of power were thrust into the Creative Process, at intervals, by direct Divine action, thus marking off the transitions from inanimate energy to life, from life to consciousness, and from consciousness to self-consciousness (as in man). As stated above, these are the unbridged gaps in all naturalistic theories of the origin of species.
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them.
1. Note the change of formula in Gen. 1:26. It is no longer, Let there be a firmament, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered in one place, Let the earth put forth grass, Let there be lights in the firmament, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, Let the earth bring forth living creatures, etc, It is now, at the beginning of this final epoch, Let us make man in our image, etc. Obviously something of transcendent importance is about to occur: the climactic terminus of the whole Creative week is about to be attained, the noblest product of the Divine handiwork is about to be unveiled.
2. What, then, does the us signify? (1) Does it mean that God is taking counsel with the angels (Philo)? Hardly, for the simple reason that man is not the image of an angel, that is, possessing an ethereal body: mans body is of the earth, earthy (1Co. 15:47); to become spiritual (ethereal) the bodies of the saints must await the putting on of immortality (2Co. 5:1-10; 1Co. 15:35-57; Php. 3:20-21; Rom. 2:5-7; Rom. 8:11; Rom. 8:22-23). Moreover, Gods angels always appear in Scripture as servants, never as counselors (Heb. 1:14). (2) Does it mean that God was taking counsel with the earth (Maimonides)? Hardly. It is difficult to see how the earth could enter into a Divine consilium that involved the deliberation and decision that is indicated in the phrase, Let us, etc. (3) Is this an occurrence, then, of what is commonly designated the plural of majestythat is, the use of we by an Oriental potentate, in his royal edicts, to connote his power, majesty, glory, and all the attributes which may be inherent in him, in the eyes of his subjects? Skinner (ICCG, 30) objects that this usage is absent from Hebrew theology. (4) Is this a remnant, a hang-over, of polytheism? Evidently not. Such a view is completely out of accord with the strict Hebrew monotheism. (5) The us evidently connotes the involvement of all the powers of the Godhead in the creation of man. By correlating this verse (Gen. 1:26) with Gen. 3:22; Gen. 11:7, and Isa. 6:8 (note the three-fold holy, holy, holy in Gen. 1:3 of this chapter), it becomes evident that all these Scriptures designate a consilium among persons; in short, in the light of Scripture teaching as a whole, they are intimations of the triune personality of God. In the Old Testament we have God, the Word of God, and the Spirit of God. In the full light of the New Testament revelation, these become Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Mat. 28:19). (This is in accord, too, with the use of the plural form Elohim as the Name used for God in this chapter: see Part V this text, supra.) (The credo of Deu. 6:4 evidently has no numerical significance: it means simply, and positively, that the Yahweh of the Bible is one Yahweh in the sense of being the only Yahweh: cf. Isa. 45:18; Isa. 46:8-11; 1Ti. 2:5, Act. 17:23-31).
3. Gen. 1:27And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him. Note the verb, created, from the Hebrew bara, the third and last time it is used in the Genesis Cosmogony. In the process of the physical creation the brooding of the Spirit did not cease with the bringing into existence of such first physical phenomena as energy, motion, light, atmosphere, lands and seas: in short, the factors that constitute the physiochemical world. This brooding or actualizing was continuous throughout the whole Creative Week (indeed it is continuous throughout the entire Time Process). Moreover, as a result of the Words executive agency, and of the Spirits realizing agency, new increments of power came into the Creative process, at successive stages of development. As emphasized heretofore, this is clearly indicated by the three successive appearances of the verb bara in the Genesis Narrative. In the Hebrew, yatsar means to form or to fashion, and asah means to make. Both of these verbs designate a forming, fashioning, or arranging out of, or with the use of, pre-existing materials. The verb bara, however, in the some forty-eight instances in which it occurs in the Hebrew Scriptures, invariably conveys the idea of a creation absolute, that is, without the use of preexisting materials; and in every instance in which it appears, whatever its object may be, it has God for its subject. Bara is used first in Gen. 1:1now, granting that this affirmation is simply a general introductory statement, which it appears to be, it clearly points to the fact that the first step in the Creative Processperhaps the engendering of the first form of physical energywas a creation absolute. Again, bara is used in Gen. 1:21, obviously to indicate the step upward (or forward) from the unconscious to the conscious order of being: in this passage the beginning of animal lifein the language of the ancients, animal psyche or animal soul,is described. Finally, bara occurs a third and last time in Gen. 1:27 : here it designates the step upward from the conscious to the self-conscious (personal) order of being; in the language of the ancients, from animal soul to rational soul. Thus it is clear that the inspired writer intends for us to understand that a creation absolute took place at (at least) three successive steps upward in the actualization of the natural creation, producing for human science the seemingly impenetrable mysteries of physical energy, conscious life, and self-conscious life. It seems evident, moreover, that a creation absolute must have taken place also in the step forward from the nonliving order to the first living being; this, from the point of view of biological science, would have been the first form of plant life, although the author of the Genesis Cosmogony does not explicitly so indicate. (It is a commonplace in present-day biology that the line between plant and animal is so thinly drawnas in certain algae, fungi, etc.as to be indiscernible.) Certainly unless spontaneous generation can be established as a fact of nature, the conclusion would seem to be unavoidable that the plant cell was the first living form to be created. The mystery of lifethe mystery that resides in the protoplasm of the cellhas not yet been penetrated by human science, and unless it can be determined that inanimate matter can per se produce life, we must continue to think that life force (elan vital) is something added to, or superposed upon, the basic physiochemical processes. We must conclude, therefore, that as a result of the brooding of the Divine Spirit, new increments of power came into the Creative Process, at successive stages, to produce the first forms, respectively, of physical energy, the unconscious life of the plant, the conscious life of the animal, and the self-conscious life of man. These are phenomena which mark off the various levels in the total Hierarchy of Being. These levels, moreover, are characterized by differences, not just of degree, but of rank. And the use of the verb bara in the Genesis Cosmogony indicates clearly, with the single exception noted (and the exception would, of course, be eliminated, should it be proved that plant cell and animal cell were cotemporaneous in origin) the beginning of each of these successively higher orders. It is also most significant that the words bara and asah (created and made) are used in Gen. 2:3, by way of recapitulation, evidently to mark the distinction between absolute beginnings and subsequent natural developments or arrangements of that which had previously been originated.
4. The Breath of Life. According to Scripture, the brooding of the Spirit (metaphorically described as the Breath of Life, the Breath of God, etc.) is responsible for every form of life in the universenatural, spiritual, and eternal. And so at the Creation this brooding of the Spirit actualized every form of natural life there isthe unconscious life of the plant, the conscious life of the animal and the self-conscious life of man. (Act. 17:24-25; Gen. 1:21; Gen. 7:21-23; Ecc. 3:21; Job. 34:14-15; Psa. 104:27-30.) Commenting on Psa. 104:27, George Matheson writes (VS, 50, 51): Who are the all here spoken of? They are the living creatures of the whole earth. What! you say, the creatures of the animal world! Can these be said to be in possession of Gods Spirit? I can understand very well how man should be thus privileged. I can understand why a being of such nobleness as the human soul should lay claim to a distinctive pre-eminence. But is it not a bold thing to say that the human soul is in contact with the beast of the field? Is it not a degradation of my nature to affirm that the same Spirit which created me created also the tenants of the deep? No, my brother; if you shall find in Gods Spirit the missing link between yourself and the animal world you will reach a Darwinism where there is nothing to degrade. You are not come from them, but you and they together are the offspring of God. Would you have preferred to have had no such link between you? It is your forgetfulness of that link that has made you cruel to the creatures below. You do not oppress your brother man, because you know him to be your brother; but you think the beast of the field has no contact with the sympathy of your soul. It has a contact, an irrefragable, indestructible contact. You are bound together by one Spirit of creation; you sit at one communion table of nature; you are members of one body of natural life. The glory of being united to thy Father is that in Him thou shalt be united to everything. Thou shalt be allied not only to the highest but to the lowest; thou shalt be able not only to go up but to go down. Thou shalt have the power that the Lord hadthe power to empty thyself to the lowermost to the uttermost. Thou shalt feel that thou owest all things thy sympathy when thou hast recognized this relationship through the same divine Spirit. Perhaps the feeling of a natural kinship between man and the lower orders, so widespread among primitive peoples, was, after all, but a universal intuition of an eternal truth. (See a further elaboration of this concept in our study of Gen. 2:7 infra.)
5. Man as the Image of God. (1) Gen. 1:26Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Up to this time God has simply uttered the creative edict, and what He commanded was done; now it seems that He stays His hand, so to speak, for a Divine consilium before He goes on with the final phase of His creative work. The reason is obvious: He is now to bring into existence man, the highest (in inherent powers and faculties) and the noblest (in moral potential) product of His handiwork; man, for whose use and benefit everything else has already been brought into being. Elliott (MG, 36): Man was initiated by a solemn announcement rather than by a command. The lower animals were made each after their kind, but man was made after the image of God. Appointed as head of all other creation (Gen. 1:26), man was the pearl, the crown of creation. As for everything below man, God pronounced it all good .(Gen. 1:25); following mans creation, however, and his appointment as lord tenant of the earth, Elohim looked out upon His total handiwork and pronounced it very good (v. 41); that is, every created species was fulfilling its nature by doing that which it was designed to do in the over-all plan of God. The cosmology of the Bible is geocosmic in its practical point of view. (2.) It should be noted here that the image of God in man persisted: that is, neither Fall nor Flood destroyed it (Gen. 5:1; Gen. 5:3; Gen. 9:6). Elliott (MG, 37): This is a basic trait which God has stamped upon all mankind. Man may ignore this character, act on the animal level, and, thus in a sense, be inhuman in the nature of failing to evaluate and use the possibilities which God has graciously given; but he does not lose these possibilities. As long as there is life, there is the opportunity through forgiveness of having dominion and fellowship with God.
(2) A great deal of unprofitable speculation has been engendered about the use of the two terms here, image and likeness. Tayler Lewis, for example (Lange, CDHC, 173), following the Maimonidean tradition, that the us of Gen. 1:26 probably indicates communication between the Creator and the already created earth (or subhuman nature as a whole), suggests that the phrases, in our image, after our likeness, could mean that man should be like unto both the divine and the earthy, that is, in the composition of his body a likeness of the earth (or nature) from which he was taken, and in his spirit like to the higher order of being in that it is incorporeal and immortal. He adds: If we depart at all from the patristic view of an allusion to a plurality of Idea in the Deity, the next best is that of Maimonides. In fact, if we regard nature as the expression of the divine Word from which it derives its power and life, the opinion of the Jewish Doctor approaches the patristic, or the Christian, as near as it could from the Jewish standpoint. (Cf. Gen. 2:7, 1Co. 15:47, Joh. 3:31.) (I have stated, in a foregoing paragraph, the common objections to this Maimonidean interpretation of Gen. 1:26.) The general tendency today is against making any significant distinctions between the two words, image and likeness.
(3) That image or likeness here is not to be interpreted as any form of corporeal likeness of man to God, is evident from the tenor of Biblical teaching as a whole. In Scripture, for example, God is unequivocally described as Spirit (Joh. 4:24, the words of Jesus; cf. Act. 17:27-28); that is, as one of the earlier creeds puts it, without body or parts, but having understanding and free will. Again, the Second Commandment of the Decalogue expressly forbids, the making or use of any graven image, or likeness of anything, as an object or means of worship (Exo. 20:4-6); in view of this explicit prohibition in the Mosaic Code, it is most unlikely that the terms image or likeness of Gen. 1:26 were intended to convey any notion of corporeality in God. As a matter of fact, the Bible is replete with polemics against any form of image-worship (idolatry). Cf. Deu. 5:8, Psa. 106:20; Isa. 40:18-23; Isa. 44:9-20; Act. 17:29, Rom. 1:22-23; Isa. 6:1 (Isa. 6:1note Isaiahs silence here as to Gods appearance). Of course God is, often spoken of, especially in the Old Testament, in anthropomorphic or metaphorical language; hence, passages, in which He is pictured as thinking, feeling, or willing, as men are wont to think and feel and act (Gen. 6:6; Gen. 3:8; Exo. 32:10-11; Exo. 32:14), and passages in which bodily organs are ascribed to Him, such as hands, arms, eyes, fingers, ears, mouth, lips, etc. (Gen. 3:8; Gen. 11:5; Exo. 8:19; Exo. 15:16; Exo. 31:18; Num. 11:18; Num. 11:23; Num. 12:8; Deu. 8:3; Exo. 33:20-23; Psa. 94:9; Psa. 17:4; Psa. 17:15; Psa. 33:6; Psa. 119:73; Isa. 1:15; Isa. 50:2; Isa. 60:13; Pro. 2:6; Job. 40:9; Zec. 14:4). All such passages exemplify only the inadequacy of human language to communicate Divine revelation, and the use of the Law of Accommodation to overcomenot too effectively, of coursethis linguistic barrier.
(4) The consensus among Bible students is that the image of God attributed to man in the Creation Narrative consists in the latters essential spirituality as an intelligent and free agent, in his moral integrity, and in the dominion over all subhuman orders divinely entrusted to him. That this image of God is still that which specifies man as man and constitutes him to be wondrously superior to all lower orders, even after the Fall and the Flood, is clearly indicated by such passages as Gen. 5:1-3 and Gen. 9:6. In Gen. 9:6, the fact of this image of God in man makes murder (the killing of a human being of ones own individual authority and with malice aforethought) punishable by taking the life of the murderer: in Biblical teaching, rational life (personality) is mans greatest good, primarily because he has been created in Gods image. Even Aristotle remarks that the power of reason is the spark of the Divine in man. Chesterton has commented pointedly that man is either the image of God or a disease of the dust. (Cf. Gen. 2:7; Job. 27:3; Job. 32:8; Psa. 139:14; Psa. 8:3-6; Ecc. 12:7, Heb. 12:9, etc.) In a word, this image of God in man is the basis of the emphasis on the dignity and worth of the person which runs throughout all Biblical teaching. This conviction of the dignity and worth of the person is the basis of all moral action and of the science of moral action which goes under the name of ethics. Although from the earth, that is, the physiochemical elements, comes mans physical tabernacle, from God comes that essential spiritthe core, so to speak, of the person and personalitywhich is incorporeal and hence timeless (2Co. 4:18; 2Co. 5:1-10; 1Co. 15:35-58).
(5) Perhaps the meaning of the image of God in man is best summarized in the word personal. That is to say, as God is a Person (Exo. 3:14), so man is a person, though unquestionably in a vastly inferior sense. Some Bible students have tried to clarify this difference by asserting that God is super-personal. To my way of thinking, however, the super in this connection is meaningless, because no one knows or can know in this present life all that is connoted by the prefix. In saying that man is personal in some sense as God is personal, we are surely on Scriptural ground. It is significant that although the Old Testament forbids our thinking of God in the likeness of material things, it does not forbid our thinking of Him in the likeness of our inner selves. My conviction is that the term personal expresses the core of the meaning of the phrase, the image of God, even more precisely than the term moral. True it is that man, by virtue of his possession of understanding and power of choice, is a moral being potentially, and hence responsible for his deeds. However, our Lord alone is the very image of God in human flesh (Heb. 1:3, Joh. 1:14), that is, Gods image both personally and morallymorally in the sense of actualized potentiality: though in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15). His devotion to the Fathers Will was complete devotion; hence, He was holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners (Heb. 7:26, Mat. 3:15, Luk. 2:49; Joh. 4:34; Joh. 5:30; Joh. 5:36; Joh. 6:38; Joh. 17:4).
(6) Some Commentators have held that the image of God indicated here is that of dominion; that is, mans Divine endowment with dominion over the whole creation is a reflection, so to speak, of Gods; absolute sovereignty. But, is it not more reasonable to conclude that mans stewardship, his lord tenancy of the universe, follows from his endowments , rather than vice versa? Skinner (ICCG, 32): This view cannot be held without an almost inconceivable weakening of the figure, and is inconsistent with the sequel, where the rule over creatures is, by a separate benediction, conferred on man, already made in the image of God. The truth is that the image marks the distinction between man and the animals, and so qualifies him for dominion: the latter is the consequence, not the essence, of the divine image. (Cf. Psa. 8:3-9.)
(7) Again, neither, image nor likeness should be taken to signify that man is divine. He is human, separated from God, not by degree, but by rank: he belongs to the natural world, whereas God transcends the natural, as Creator transcends His Creation. Only through redemption and sanctification (growth in holiness or wholeness) does man become a partaker of the divine nature (2Pe. 1:4, Heb. 12:14, Mat. 5:8). Elliott (MG, 36): Thus, the words do not imply that man is divine. He is copied after a divine one, patterned after a divine one with some of his attributes: he has functions which are like Gods. Thus, God showed Himself to be the prototype and the original of man. This implies, not that man is just like God, but that man is something on the order of God.
(8) It may be accepted, I think, that image here signifies not only personality, hence possible fellowship with God, but representation as well. Again Elliott (MG, 37): Images in the Orient were to represent someone. Thus, man is the representative of God over creation. Actually the image idea has something to say about mans stewardship. Dependence is also involved: man is dependent upon the one for whom he is representative. Since dependent man has been delegated a task of responsibility with a share of authority over creation, he is in turn a responsible being.
(9) However, we repeat the conviction here, for the sake of emphasis, that man is Gods image primarily in the personal sense of the term. Cf. Exo. 3:14Only a person can say meaningfully, I am, that is, only a person uses personal pronouns. Moreover, let us never forget that the fundamental property of the person is individuality, that is, otherness: every person, God included, is unique, every person is an other to every other person. Hence the saints ultimate Union with God is not absorption into the Cosmos, into Brahma, Tao, Unity, the One, or what has been designated the ocean of undifferentiated energy (that is, the loss of individuality); it is, on the contrary, according to Scripture teaching, a state of unhindered access to, and fellowship with, the personal living (theistic) God (1Jn. 1:3-4, 1Co. 13:9-12, Rev. 21:1-8). Again, we take note of the supreme excellence of the Christian faith as compared with Oriental, and indeed all other, systems or cults that may be abroad in the world under the name of religion.
(10) A final constructive word from T. Lewis (Lange, CDHCG, 174) is in order here: The image of God the distinguishing type of man: Hold fast to this in all its spirituality as the mirror of the eternal ideas, and we need not fear naturalism. Many in the church are shivering with alarm at the theories, which are constantly coming from the scientific world, about the origin of species, and the production of man, or rather the physical that may have become man, through the lower types. The quieting remedy is a higher psychology, such as the fair interpretation of the Bible warrants, when it tells is that the primus homo became such through the inspiration (the inbreathing) and the image of God lifting him out of nature, and making him and all his descendants a peculiar species, by the possession of the image of the supernatural.
(11) Male and female created he them. (1) Note the threefold parallelism here of the parts of this verse (27), built around the verb created. This surely indicates a crescendo of jubilation as the writer contemplates the crowning work of Elohims creative Word and Spiritthe creatures, both male and female, created in His own image. (2) Note that male and female as used here are generic, that is, designating the two great divisions, according to sex, of the entire human race. As yet they are not proper names, as, for example, in Gen. 3:20 and Gen. 5:3. Note that God called their name Adam, that is, Man, in the day when they were created (Gen. 5:1-2): that is, the generic name was originally ascribed in common to both man and woman. (3) The content of this Gen. 1:27 surely indicates that we have here a kind of panoramic view of the climactic events of this great day, and thus we have confirmation of the essentially panoramic (pictorial-summary, cinemascopic) character of the entire Hebrew Cosmogony. On the view (which will be presented later) that in chapter 2 we have in greater detail, and with special reference to man, the account of the happenings on this sixth day, we may summarize these happenings as follows: the creation of man, the naming of the animal tribes, and the creation of woman. The Garden of Eden narrative seems also to be associated with the events of this day. We are justified in reaching these conclusions, I think, in spite of the chronological indefiniteness of the sequence of the Divine works throughout the entire Creative Epoch. Time seems never to have been a matter of any great concern to the Spirit of God in His revelation of Gods Eternal Purpose as embodied in the Bible.
And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food: and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food; and it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
1. Note the twofold Divine blessing, not to him, but to them (that is, all mankind): the blessing of the power to reproduce their kind, which they were to have in common with the lower orders (Gen. 1:22); also the blessingand responsibilityof dominion over all subhuman orders of being. Are we justified in assuming that man and woman in their original innocence had the power of reproducing their kind by the power of thought alone? It is a point worth considering, although, of course, we have no certain answer.
2. Note also the twofold Divine ordination: to multiply and replenish (populate) the earth, and to subdue it. (I) God ordered them to disperse and to occupy the whole earth. But what did they actually do? They disobeyed God: they concentrated in the land of Shinar and undertook to build a tower to heaven (Gen. 11:1-9). There is no evidence anywhere that God looks with favor on concentration of population, for the obvious reason that it invariably issues in vice, crime, sin, divorce, mental illness, disease, strife, and every kind of evil. (2) God also vested them with dominion over the whole earth, with lord tenancy over the whole of nature. This dominion includes the authority to control and utilize nature, nonliving as well as living, for his own good and the good of his fellows. (If man has the right to life, he has the right to the means of sustaining it, and the means are provided only by the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms.) After all, what is science but the story of mans fulfilment, whether wittingly or unwittingly on his part, of this Divine injunction to take possession of the earth and subdue it? (3) There are three categories of truth: (a) that which is concealed from man, largely because it lies beyond the power of the human intelligence to apprehend it (the mysteries of nature, such as energy, life, consciousness, perception, self-consciousness, etc., are as inscrutable as the mysteries of grace, such as the triune God, the union of the divine and human in the person of Christ, the incarnation, the atonement, resurrection, immortality, etc.); (b) that which has been embodied in the structure of the cosmos for man to spell out slowly, through the centuries, in the form of his science; and (c) that which has been revealed in Scripture for mans redemption, sanctification, and immortalization: 2Pe. 1:13all things that pertain unto life and godliness (cf. Deu. 29:29). (Joh. 8:31-32; Joh. 14:6; Joh. 18:37-38; Joh. 17:17).
3. The Glory and Dignity of Man is clearly indicated by many affirmations of the Genesis Cosmogony. Milligan (SR, 36): Gods favor to man is further manifested in the fact, that for his special benefit the whole earth, with all its rich treasures of mineral, vegetable, and animal wealth, was provided. For him, all the matter of the Earth was created in the beginning. For him, all the gold, and silver, and copper, and iron, and granite, and marble, and coal, and salt, and other precious minerals and fossils, were treasured up, during the many ages that intervened between the epoch of Creation and the beginning of the Historic Period. For him, the light and the atmosphere were produced. For him, the world was clothed with grass, and fruits, and flowers. For him, the Sun rose and set in the firmament, and the stars performed their apparent daily and yearly revolutions. For him, the sea and the land were filled with living creatures, and the air was made vocal with the sweet voices of birds. All these things were provided for the good and happiness of man; and then he himself was created to enjoy them. And thus it happened that what was first in design was really last in execution.
The fact of the Glory and Dignity of Man is the crowning revelation of the first chapter of Genesis. Mans nobility, in the Plan of God, is evidenced as follows: 1. By the time of his appearance in the Creation. He came into existence after all inferior kinds had been created: he was the last and fairest of the Divine works. 2. By the solemn circumstances of his making. With respect to other phases of the creative activity, there was a simple expression of the Divine Will, such as, Let there be light, Let the waters bring forth, etc. But the creation of man necessitated a Divine consilium in which the three Persons of the Godhead were heard to decree among themselves, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. The creation of man was a subject of special consideration and was attended with Divine solicitude and delight. 3. By the dignity of his nature. Created in the image of God, endowed with the essential elements of personality, he is the highest and noblest of all creatures of earth. (Gen. 1:27; Gen. 2:7; Job. 32:8; Job. 33:4; Psa. 8:3-8; Psa. 139:14). 4. By the circumstances of his early environment. Eden, with its delights, was especially fitted up for his occupancy, signifying his early state of innocence, happiness, exemption from physical death, and unhindered access to God (Gen. 2:8-17). It seems that God, foreseeing his fall into sin, prepared the earth at large, with all its vast resources, for his habitation in his fallen state. 5. By the extent of his dominion (Gen. 1:28-31), which is universal. Everything on earth was placed under his lord tenancy, and the Divine command was unequivocal, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it. The Scripture makes it crystal clear that man was crown of the Creation for whose sake all else was called into being. Man, in his. primitive state was natural; through rebellion against God, he fell from a natural into an unnatural state (sin is unnatural); by grace, through faith, he may attain to a preternatural state. Man, at present, is fallen, in spiritual ruin, in danger of perishing, and without hope in this world or in the world to come, unless he accepts the Lord Jesus Christ as His Redeemer and prepares for ultimate Union with God by growing in the Spiritual Life in this present world. (Rom. 3:23-25, Joh. 3:16-18, Eph. 2:8, 1Jn. 5:11-12). Let us seek the restoration of the Divine image in our souls, for without holiness no one can hope to see (experience) the Lord (Heb. 12:14).
Marcus Dods (EB-G): Man is dear to God because he is like Him. Vast and glorious as it is, the sun cannot think Gods thoughts, can fulfil but cannot intelligently sympathize with Gods purpose. Man, alone among Gods works, can enter into and approve of Gods purpose in the world, and can intelligently fulfil it. Without man the whole material universe would have been dark and unintelligent, mechanical and apparently without any sufficient purpose. Matter, however fearfully and wonderfully wrought, is but the platform and the material in which spirit, intelligence, and will may fulfil themselves and find development. Man is incommensurable with the rest of the universe. He is of a different kind and by his moral nature is more akin to God than to His works.
4. The doctrine pointedly emphasized in Scripture that the cosmos with its myriad forms of life was brought into existence for mans use and benefit (Gen. 1:28-30; Gen. 9:1-3) is looked upon as absurd by self-appointed positivists, naturalists, humanists, pessimists, and all their kind: the very idea, they say, is consummate egotism on mans part, In one breath they tell us that man is utterly insignificant, just a speck on a speck of the totality of being; in the next breath, they will contend that mans capacity for knowledge is infinite, thus vesting him potentially with omniscience. (Mans capacity for knowledge is indefinite, but not infinite.) Among these skeptics and agnostics, consistency is never regarded as a jewel. If the lower orders, nonliving and living, were not brought into existence for mans benefit, (a) for what conceivable end could they have been created?the only alternative view would be that of the utter purposelessness of all being; (b) how does it happen that man is the only created being capable of inquiring into the meaning of the cosmos and of his own life in it? and (c) how does it happen that man is vested with a well-nigh insatiable spirit of wonder (curiosity?) which drives him into an unabating quest for the understanding and control of his environment?
5. One might well ask at this point, Why a Creation at all? Or, for those who would deny Creation, why the existence of the totality of being that obviously does exist? Of course, man has no certain answer to this question, nor is the certain answer to be found anywhere that I know of (cf. Job. 11:7, Isa. 55:8-9, Heb. 11:6). I firmly believe, however, that Gods activity in whatever realm, whether that of the physical Creation or that of the spiritual Creation, the Regeneration (Mat. 19:28; Joh. 1:3; Joh. 3:3-6; Tit. 3:5), is the outpouring of His love. And, we might ask, even though human intelligence cannot fathom the mystery, How could Gods love be as fully revealed in any area of being as in a world of lost sinners? (Cf. Joh. 3:16-17, Act. 3:21; Eph. 3:8-12; Rom. 8:21; Rom. 8:38-39; 1Jn. 4:7-21). It strikes me that mans weakness is his utter incapacity to fathom the super-abundance of the Divine Love which is lavished unstintedly upon the creatures which He created in His own image. May we not be justified in believing also that it is this unfathomable, ineffable Divine Love which caused the Creator to shower upon mankind the glories of the physical as well as those of the spiritual Creation. Intrinsically, Gods end in Creation is the well-being (happiness) of His moral creatures; extrinsically, His primary end is His own glory. Nor is this doctrine of the love of God incompatible with that of the final punishment of the neglectful, disobedient and wicked (Mat. 25:46, Joh. 5:28-29, Rom. 2:4-11, 2Th. 2:7-10, Rev. 20:11-15). We must remember that God did not prepare Hell for mankind, but for the devil and his angels (Mat. 25:41); the lost who go there will do so because their individual consciences will send them to their proper place (Act. 1:25, Rev. 6:16-17).
6. Gen. 1:29-30. There is a difference of opinion as to whether these verses indicate that only vegetable diet was permitted for mans sustenance. One view is that we cannot dogmatically affirm that mans dominion over the animals did not involve his using them for food; indeed the fact of animal sacrifice (first noted in ch. 4) probably indicates that the worshipers ate the flesh of the victim: this seems to have been an aspect of sacrifice wherever practiced. On the other hand, it is contended by many that Gen. 9:3 clearly teaches that the use of animals for food was not authorized prior to Noahs time. We do have indicated here, however, a fundamental scientific fact, namely, that plants with their chlorophyll, because of the mysterious work of photosynthesis which they perform, are absolutely necessary food for all animal life (including human beings).
7. Gen. 1:31Everything was very good. (Cf. Psa. 104:24; Psa. 119:68.) The meaning of good as used in these first few chapters of Genesis is uniformly the same: the good is that which is suitable to a nature, that which adds a perfection or removes an imperfection. The nature of any class of things is determined by their function. Note Gen. 2:18it is not good that the man should be alone. That is to say, alone the man could never have actualized the functions for which he had been created, namely the reproduction of his kind and their stewardship over the whole of the Creation; without a helper meet for his needs, his appearance on the scene would have been utterly purposeless and useless. Hence, anything to be good must be good for something; that is, for the function it was created to perform. Therefore, when Elohim looked out over His Creation and pronounced it all good, this meant that all created species were actualizing the functions for which they had been created, in relation to the totality of being: the consequence was, of course, harmony, order, peace. Note also that heretofore God simply pronounced His handiwork good (Gen. 1:10; Gen. 1:12; Gen. 1:18; Gen. 1:21; Gen. 1:25), but now, in contemplation of the finished Creation, God pronounces it all very good. The reason for the special emphasis is obvious: man, the crown of Creation, has now made his appearance on the scene and been appointed lord tenant of the universe. (The various existents of the subhuman world (both the nonliving and the living) are incapable of dysfunctions that would distort their natures; man alone, endowed as he is with the power of choice to endow him with the power to love, has succeeded in messing up practically everything that God has created; without this power of choice, however, man simply would not be man-he would be only a robot or an automaton.) God never makes anything but good. Nature was perfect (complete) as it came from His hand. There was nothing to mar this perfection until sin (moral evil) entered Eden, bringing in its wake disease, suffering, and death (physical evil).
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(24) Let the earth bring forth.Neither this, nor the corresponding phrase in Gen. 1:20, necessarily imply spontaneous generation, though such is its literal meaning. It need mean no more than that land animals, produced on the dry ground, were now to follow upon those produced in the waters. However produced, we believe that the sole active power was the creative will of God, but of His modus operandi we know nothing.
On this sixth creative day there are four words of power. By the first, the higher animals are summoned into being; by the second, man; the third provides for the continuance and increase of the beings which God had created; the fourth assigns the vegetable world both to man and animals as food.
The creation of man is thus made a distinct act; for though created on the sixth day, because he is a land animal, yet it is in the latter part of the day, and after a pause of contemplation and counsel. The reason for this, we venture to affirm, is that in mans creation we have a far greater advance in the work of the Almighty than at any previous stage. For up to this time all has been law, and the highest point reached was instinct; we have now freedom, reason, intellect, speech. The evolutionist may give us many an interesting theory about the upgrowth of mans physical nature, but the introduction of this moral and mental freedom places as wide a chasm in his way as the first introduction of vegetable, and then of animal life.
The living creature, or rather, the creature that lives by breathing, is divided into three classes. The first is behmh, cattle: literally, the dumb brute, but especially used of the larger ruminants, which were soon domesticated, and became mans speechless servants. Next comes the creeping thing, or rather, moving thing, from a verb translated moveth in Gen. 1:21. It probably signifies the whole multitude of small animals, and not reptiles particularly. For strictly the word refers rather to their number than to their means of locomotion, and means a swarm. The third class is the beast of the earth, the wild animals that roam over a large extent of country, including the carnivora. But as a vegetable diet is expressly assigned in Gen. 1:30 to the beast of the earth, while the evidence of the rocks proves that even on the fifth day the saurians fed upon fish and upon one another, the record seems to point out a closer relation between man and the graminivora than with these fierce denizens of the forest. The narrative of the flood proves conclusively that there were no carnivora in the ark; and immediately afterwards beasts that kill men were ordered to be destroyed (Gen. 9:5-6). It is plain that from the first these beasts lay outside the covenant. But as early as the fourth century, Titus, Bishop of Bostra, in his treatise against the Manichees, showed, on other than geological grounds, that the carnivora existed before the fall, and that there was nothing inconsistent with Gods wisdom or love in their feeding upon other animals. In spite of their presence, all was good. The evidence of geology proves that in the age when the carnivora were most abundant, the graminivora were represented by species of enormous size, and that they flourished in multitudes far surpassing anything that exists in the present day.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
SIXTH DAY ANIMALS AND MAN, Gen 1:24-31.
24. Cattle creeping thing beast As the sacred writer distributes the growth of the vegetable kingdom into three classes, (see Gen 1:11-12,) so also he presents three classes of land animals: , cattle, that is, the domestic animals; , creepers, that is, reptiles and insects of the land, corresponding to the creeping things ( ) of the waters; and , beasts of the land, that is, wild animals as distinguished from domestic cattle .
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures, according to their kinds, cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds”, and it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and cattle according to their kinds, and everything that creeps upon the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.’
We note here that God is not said to ‘create’ these living creatures. Thus their created life must in some way be derived from the previously mentioned living creatures (Gen 1:21). This shows a continuity of a process which began with the latter.
Again it is stressed that God planned a diversity of creatures, each according to its kind. Diversity in creation is not blind chance, but results from the purpose of God. Note that His plan included both animals that would later be domesticated, and what we would call ‘wild animals’. Man’s good is clearly in mind.
The creation includes ‘everything that creeps’, including the tiny scavengers that clean up the world. All have their place in God’s creation.
Now we come to the moment that it was all leading up to, the creation of man in God’s image. Everything that has gone before was subordinate to this. It is for man that the world has been made.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Sixth Day of Creation Gen 1:24-31 gives us the account of the sixth day of Creation. On the sixth day of Creation, God created the land animals and He created man. Note that He did not create woman at this time, because His purpose was to create a man in His own image and after His likeness.
The Creation of Man Gen 1:26-30 records the creation of mankind.
The Uniqueness of Man’s Creation – Man was the only part of creation in the book of Genesis that God did not say, “Let there be,” and speak into existence. Instead, He shaped and moulded man from the clay of the earth into His own image and breathed into him the breath of life, a unique event in the Story of Creation.
God Gives Man Dominion Over the Earth In Gen 1:26-30 we have the first divine commission that God gives to mankind. In this passage of Scripture God handed over to man the power to rule over the planet earth by giving him dominion. God’s creation on earth was designed to serve mankind in their pursuit of serving God. He gave man the plant life, the animal life, and the mineral wealth on this earth in order for each of us to prosper in His plan for our lives. When God blessed them and spoke to them, saying, “God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth,” God was not just communicating with Adam and Eve; rather, He was empowering them with the same power that He used to create the heavens and the earth. We see the power of the spoken word in Dan 10:19, “And said, O man greatly beloved, fear not: peace be unto thee, be strong, yea, be strong. And when he had spoken unto me, I was strengthened, and said, Let my lord speak; for thou hast strengthened me.” We see it again in Joh 18:6, “As soon then as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward, and fell to the ground.” However, man yielded this dominion to demonic influence as a result of the Fall in the Garden of Eden. When Jesus Christ conquered death, hell, and the grave, He legally took back this authority and dominion because He too was a man. Jesus then handed this dominion back over to His Church again in the Great Commission when He said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore” (Mat 28:18-20)
Man’s Dominion Was Not to Rule Over One Another – It is important to note that God did not give man dominion over one another. This form of man’s dominion and abuse and dictatorship over others is a result of the corruption of the earth under the influence of Satan, who is called the “god of this world” (2Co 4:4, and Eph 2:2), and those people who are oppressing others are simply imitating their master, who is Satan.
Man’s Dominion Was Limited to the Earth, and Did not Extend to the Heavens – Note also that man’s dominion and authority was limited to the planet earth. This is confirmed in Psa 115:16, which tells us that God rules over the heavens, but He has given the earth unto the children of men.
Psa 115:16, “The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’S: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.”
At this time in God’s plan, man has not been given dominion over the heavenly bodies. Today, man has struggled to inhabit and to have dominion over other heavenly bodies. The United States has landed on the moon and planted a flag in its soil; but in the six thousand years of man’s life on earth, he has yet to live and take dominion of heavenly bodies because this is not God’s plan in this age; for man’s domain has been limited to planet earth and he is bound with this realm of space.
Man has tried to find out how to break through the realm of time and travel to the past and future. Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity gave us important insight into the relationship between time and space. [82] Again, man has failed to break out of the realm of time.
[82] Albert Einstein, et al., The Principle of Relativity, trans. M. N. Saha and S. N. Bose (Calcutta, India: University of Calcutta, 1920).
The Extent of God’s Commandment was to Take Dominion Over the Earth – God had commanded the plant kingdom to bear seed after its kind and began to do so in order to serve mankind. (Gen 1:11). God commanded the animal kingdom to be fruitful and multiply and began to do so (Gen 1:22; Gen 1:24) in order to serve mankind. However, to man God gave a higher order. He was not only commanded to be fruitful and multiply, but to also take authority and dominion over the plant and animal kingdoms as well as the natural resources of the earth (Gen 1:26-28). This commandment remains a “standing order” today for us to obey. Thus, the part of God’s creation that was given to man became subject to man, which was the planet earth. It is important to note that God’s commandment to man in Gen 1:26-28 was more extensive than just tending to the animal and plant kingdom, for he was given authority over the entire earth, which included its mineral wealth and natural resources. The earth was designed to serve mankind and life on earth would obey man as it recognizes the Creator’s authority within man. Man could command animals and plants and they would obey him. Man could use its minerals and resources to benefit him and serve his needs.
The way that God planned for man to be able to take dominion was to be fruitful and multiply seeds of righteousness, or godly children. This implies not only having children, but also being able to train them up to fulfill God’s destiny in each one of their lives. Each person would find his or her calling on the earth and take dominion over that part. As this person exercised dominion over that part of the earth, God’s blessings would come upon it. Thus, man would subdue the earth in righteousness. God created Adam and placed him on earth as His seed (Gen 1:27). He then gave mankind the principle of seedtime and harvest by telling them to be fruitful and multiplying (Gen 1:28). Finally, God gives man seed to sow and tells him to eat the fruit of his harvest, but not the seed (Gen 1:29). Had Adam eaten the seed, he would have no harvest.
Unfortunately, because of the Fall in the Garden of Eden, even the animal kingdom fell out of God’s divine order; for the beasts began to devour one another just as mankind has tried to destroy one another since the Fall. Thus, everything that God has placed under man’s dominion was affect by the Fall.
It is important to understand that every commandment given by God to mankind, which includes the Mosaic Law, the rest of the Old Testament, as well as the writings of the New Testament, were designed to guide mankind into the fulfillment of this first commandment, which was to be fruitful, multiply and take dominion over the entire earth. God created certain divine laws to govern the planet earth and His commandments were intended to help mankind follow these divine laws in fulfilling each of their destinies. The Church will fulfill this same commandment when it fulfills Jesus’ prophecy that the Gospel will be preached to all nations, and then the end will come (Mat 24:14).
Mat 24:14, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”
The Principle of Sowing and Reaping – The principle of sowing and reaping was the means by which mankind was ordained to fulfill His commandment to take dominion over the earth. Because of this God immediately placed man in the Garden to till the earth and sow seeds in the natural. In doing so he was to learn the divine principle of sowing and reaping. When man encountered his first need, which was for a helpmate, God did not immediately provide him with a wife. God first told Adam to take care of His need, which was to name the animals. When Adam took care of God’s need, then God took care of Adam’s need by making a woman from his rib. This followed the divine principle of sowing and reaping.
The woman’s role in taking dominion over the earth was not in tilling the soil, but in bearing children. We then see how man was working the land while woman was tending to children. This was God’s original divine order and plan for mankind to prosper and fulfill their destinies. This is reflected in the way in which God judged Adam and Eve in the Fall. The woman had her pain and sorrow increased in the area of childbearing while the man had his sorrow and pain increased in tilling the earth. God added travail and sorrow to each of their earthly journeys so that they would learn to turn to Him for their daily peace and rest. Rev 21:4 mentions how God will one day remove us from this curse of death, sorrow, crying and travail.
Rev 21:4, “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”
Bearing Fruit – Joh 15:16 tells us that we have been called to bear fruit for the kingdom of God. If we go back to the beginnings, before the Fall of man, we find this same commandment given to mankind. In Gen 1:28 God commanded man to be fruitful and to multiply. When we follow this plan for our lives, we begin to do those things that are pleasing in His sight and are in a position to ask whatever we want and we will receive from Him (1Jn 3:22). Thus, the promise in Joh 15:16 that whatsoever we ask the Father in Jesus’ name will be given to us is only from fruit-bearers. Thus we are able to fulfill our individual destinies. Such promises as are found in this verse are not for the carnal-minded.
Joh 15:16, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.”
1Jn 3:22, “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.”
God Creates the Institution of Marriage The story of the creation of man in the Creation Story provides us with an amazing insight into the institution of marriage. Gen 1:26-30 gives us God’s command to Adam and Eve, even though the creation of Eve is given later in the next chapter, because without Eve, Adam could not have multiplied. This passage of Scripture shows us a sequence of events in His divine plan for marriage. He places mankind as the highest order of all of creation, being created in the very image of God Himself (Gen 1:26). He then makes them as male and female, which becomes the foundational design for a marriage (Gen 1:27). God then gives the man and the woman a plan and purpose for their marriage. They are to fill the earth with righteous offspring (Gen 1:28). This commandment will become the original purpose and intent for all of man’s endeavours in this life. Under the new covenant, the Great Commission of Matthew 28:28-30 is embedded within this original commandment at the time of Creation, in that the Church is given the task of taking the Gospel to the nations and discipling them out of corruption and sin and into a life of righteousness and integrity. After creating the institution of marriage and given mankind the overall plan, God then gives mankind the necessary provision, or resources, to fulfill this command. He gives them the plant and animal life upon the earth so that they can use life’s reproductive characteristics to bring them prosperity (Gen 1:20-30). Embedded within this provision is the law of seedtime and harvest. God gave Adam and Eve some of every type of plant and animal life upon the earth, but it was their job to tend the Garden so that they could reap the harvest. They were to partake of a portion of each harvest to meet their needs, then sow the remaining plant seeds into the ground, and the remaining animals into the breeding flocks so that their prosperity was unending.
Gen 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
Gen 1:24
Gen 2:19, “And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.”
Gen 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:26 Gen 1:26
Word Study on “image” – Strong says the Hebrew word “image” ( ) (H6754) means, “a phantom, i.e. (fig.) illusion, resemblance; hence a representative figure.” The Enhance Strong says it comes from an unused primitive root verb that means, “to shade.” It is used 17 times in the Old Testament, being translated in the KJV as “image 16, vain shew 1.”
Word Study on “likeness” – Strong says the Hebrew word “likeness” ( ) (H1823) means, “resemblance.” The Enhance Strong says it comes from the primitive root ( ) (H1819), which means, “to compare; by implication to resemble, liken consider.” It is used 25 times in the Old Testament. In the KJV, it is translated, “likeness 19, similitude 2, like 2, manner 1, fashion 1.”
Comments – Just as man was created in God’s image, man will begat children in his own image and likeness. Note Gen 5:3, “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image ; and called his name Seth.”
Redemptive Message – Man is going to fall into sin in the third chapter of Genesis. He will then loose the image of God’s glory. However, God’s original plan for mankind will never change. In the new creation of man during the church age, man is recreated in the image of God in his inner man.
Eph 4:24, “And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”
Col 3:10, “And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:”
In the fullness of time in God’s redemptive plan for mankind and His creation, man will take on his glorified body again and be restored to the creature that God intended him to be in the Garden of Eden. Note 1Co 15:49, “And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.”
Scripture References – Note other Scriptures showing that God created man:
Job 33:4, “The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.”
Job 35:10, “But none saith, Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night;”
Col 1:16, “ For by him were all things created , that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:”
Gen 1:26 “and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” – Comments – God was the owner, the overlord, over the earth, but man became the landlord. In this granting of authority to man, God gave him as much right to fail as to succeed.
Once God establishes laws, they do not change or go away, even after man’s fall. God’s plan for mankind is to reestablish him as the landlord, or ruler, over His creation, ruling and reigning as kings and priests unto God. God will restore His creation to its intended purpose and plan, where man again has dominion (Rev 5:10).
Rev 5:10, “And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.”
Gen 1:26 Comments – The fact that man was created in the likeness of God was a reflection of his divine duties. For example, a horse is shaped to run, an ox is designed to plow, a donkey and camel are designed to carry heavy loads, a fish was shaped to swim, and a bird is created to fly. Some birds are shaped with long beaks so that they can reach nectar deep within certain flowers. In other words, God created each animal for a particular duty and purpose in his overall design of creation. Man was created to be God’s representative here on earth, to watch over His creation and to care for it. Therefore, man was created in the image of God, as an illusion of God, since he was to walk in God’s authority here on earth. We read in Rom 8:29 that man was predestined to be conformed unto the image of His Son Jesus Christ. He was designed by God to be a “creator” on this earth.
Rom 8:29, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Gen 1:27
Mat 19:4, “And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,”
Mar 10:6, “But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.”
From the fact that we have been made in the image of God, we can understand why God said:
1. Men should not cover their head
1Co 11:7, “For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.”
2. Man should not have long hair
1Co 11:14, “Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?”
3. Not to defile your bodies
1Co 3:17, “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.”
4. Do not make any cuts in your flesh. Many primitive tribes still practice this –
Lev 19:28, “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.”
5. Do not make any marks upon you –
Lev 19:28, “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.”
6. Do not cut the corners of your head and beard –
Lev 19:27, “Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.”
7. Do not murder (Gen 9:6) because God created man for His glory (Isa 43:7). This also is our reason to understand the list of God’s commandments above.
Gen 9:6, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.”
Isa 43:7, “Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.”
8. Not to curse other men –
Jas 3:9, “Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.”
Gen 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Gen 1:28
[83] Kenneth Copeland, “Taking Back the Garden of God,” Believer’s Voice of Victory, February 2007, 4-7.
We see an example of the divine blessing being active in the lives of the patriarchs. Everywhere Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lived, the blessing of God settled upon that piece of ground. They were descendants of and partakers of this Adamic blessing. Copeland explains that this blessing passed from Adam to Abraham, from Abraham to Jesus, and from Jesus to us, the Church. He goes on to explain that this blessing does not automatically operate in our lives just because we are saved. We must mix faith with it and pronounce this blessing in our lives, in every area of our lives. We must decree what God’s Word says about us is true in order to walk in this divine blessing just as God decreed this blessing upon Abraham. It is this type of faith that Abraham learned to walk in. He serves as our example of how to walk in God’s blessings for our entire lives through faith and obedience. Jesus Christ became our prime example of walking in God’s blessing. He walked in the way that Adam was ordained to walk, in perfect peace, wisdom, health and prosperity.
Gen 1:28 “and God said unto them” Comments – The question must be asked, “How did God bless Adam and Eve in Gen 1:28?” The answer comes in the next phrase, “And God said unto them” In other words, God spoke this blessing into existence as He spoke it over them.
Gen 1:28 “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it” Word Study on “replenish” – Strong says the Hebrew word “replenish” ( ) (H4390) is a primitive root word that means, “to fill, be full.” The meaning “fill” is shown in some modern English translations ( RSV). However, some have taken the English word “replenish” to suggest that there was a previous bio-system that existed on the earth that God destroyed before the Creation Story, so that the story of Creation is a “replenishing” of the earth with new forms of life to replace the old bio-system. However, this concept is not supported within the Hebrew text itself.
RSV, “And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
Comments God could have created many men and women and filled the earth Himself, without giving this task to Adam and Eve. Instead, He created one man and one woman to accomplish this great task, and in doing so, God gave mankind a part of His power to create life. Man and woman can now create a new life after their own image. One reason God gave mankind a portion of His creative power is found in the joy that parents experience in childbirth and in raising children. If God created a world full of adults, the joy of having children would have never been experienced. A father and mother would never know these joys, nor understand the fact that God loves us as much as we love our children. Child rearing serves to teach parents that God has the same great love for us, His children. God also takes great delight in creating our children and watching them grow into adulthood as much as we delight in them.
Comments The original purpose and intent of filling the earth was so that righteousness will spread across the earth as godly men and women raised their children. Unfortunately, after the fall the earth was soon filled with violence (Gen 6:11) rather than righteousness.
Gen 6:11, “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.”
Gen 1:28 Comments The Order of Dominion – Gen 1:28 gives us the order in which mankind is to dominate the earth. They are first to bear children, which will cause them to multiply. They will be able to fill the earth. When they populate the earth, they are able to subdue it and thus take dominion. The word “dominion” simply means the exercising of one’s authority, which comes when something or someone is put under subjection.
Gen 1:28 Comments The Institution of Marriage – Gen 1:28 reveals that one purpose of the institution of marriage is for procreation, and particularly to reproduce children of righteousness. A second purpose will be for the enjoyment of sex, as taught in the Song of Solomon. A third purpose is to maintain intimacy and unity between the husband and wife (1Co 7:2; 1Co 7:5, Gen 2:24; Gen 24:67).
Gen 1:29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
Gen 1:29
Gen 1:30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
Gen 1:30
Isa 11:7, “And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.”
Isa 65:25, “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD.”
Gen 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Gen 1:31
Gen 1:31 “And the evening and the morning were the sixth day” – Comments God ends the sixth day having fulfilled His purposes and plan for that day. God is at work in each of our lives, helping us fulfill daily plans. In other words, we are given a daily destiny to fulfill, upon which we should focus, so that we do not become anxious about tomorrow (Mat 6:34).
Mat 6:34, “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Creation of the Land Animals
v. 24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind. And it was so. v. 25. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind and cattle after their kind and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind. And God saw that it was good.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Gen 1:21
Day six. Like day three, this is distinguished by a double creative act, the production of the higher or land animals and the creation of man, of the latter of which it is perhaps permissible to see a mute prediction in the vegetation which closed the first half of the creative week. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind. In these words the land animals are generically characterized as nephesh chayyah, or animated beings; in the terms which follow they are subdivided into three well-defined species or classes. Cattle. Behemah; literally, the dumb animal, i.e. the larger grass-eating quadrupeds. And creeping thing. Remes; the moving animal, i.e. the smaller animals that move either without feet or with feet that are scarcely perceptible, such as worms, insects, reptiles. Here it is land-creepers that are meant, the remes of the sea having been created on the previous day. And beast of the earth (chayyah of the earth) after his kind. i.e. wild, roving, carnivorous beasts of the forest. In these three comprehensive orders was the earth commanded to produce its occupants; which, however, no more implied that the animals were to be developed from the soil than were the finny tribes generated by the sea. Simply in obedience to the Divine call, and as the product of creative energy, they were to spring from the plastic dust as being essentially earth-born creatures. And it was so. Modern evolutionists believe they can conceivethey have never yet been able to demonstratethe modus operandi of the supreme Artificer in the execution of this part of the sixth day’s work. Revelation has not deemed it needful to do more than simply state that they werenot, by an evolutionary process carried on through inconceivably long periods of time, developed from the creatures of the fifth day, butproduced directly from the soil by the fiat of Elohim.
Gen 1:25
And God made (asah, not beta, the principle of life being not now introduced for the first time, as in Gen 1:21) the beast of the earth (the chayyah) after his kind, and cattle (behemah) after their kind, and every thing that creepeth on the earth (literally, every reraes of the ground) after his kind. The order of creation (Gen 1:25) differs from that in which they were summoned into existence (Gen 1:24). The latter may be the order of time, the former the order of rank; or there may have been two divisions of the work, in the former of which the herbivora took the lead, and in the latter the carnivora. According to the witness of geology, “the quadrupeds did not all come forth together. Large and powerful herbivore first take the field, with only a few carnivora. These pass away. Other herbivora, with a larger proportion of carnivora, next appear. These also are exterminated, and so with others. Then the carnivora appear in vast numbers and power, and the herbivore also abound. Moreover, these races attain a magnitude and number far surpassing all that now exist. As the mammalian age draws to a close, the ancient carnivora and herbivora of that era all pass away, excepting, it is believed, a few that are useful to man. New creations of smaller size people the groves”. And God saw that it was good. As in the third day’s work each branch is sealed by the Divine approbation, so in this. The creation of the higher animals completed the earth’s preparation for the advent of man; to which, doubtless, the Creator’s commendation of his finished work had a special reference. Everything was in readiness for the magnum opus which was to close his creative labor and crown his completed cosmos.
Gen 1:26
The importance assigned in the Biblical record to the creation of man is indicated by the manner in which it is introduced. And God said, Let us make man. Having already explained the significance of the term Elohim, as suggesting the fullness of the Divine personality, and foreshadowing the doctrine of the Trinity (Gen 1:1), other interpretations, such as that God takes counsel with the angels (Philo, Aben Ezra, Delitzsch), or with the earth (Maimonides, M. Gerumlius), or with himself (Kalisch), must be set aside in favor of that which detects in the peculiar phraseology an allusion to a sublime concilium among the persons of the Godhead (Calvin, Macdonald, Murphy). The object which this concilium contemplated was the construction of a new creature to be named Adam; descriptive of either his color, from adam, to be red, (Josephus, Gesenius, Tuch, Hupfeld); or his appearance, from a root in Arabic which signifies “to shine,” thus making Adam “the brilliant one;” or his compactness, both as an individual and as a race, from another Arabic root which means “to bring or hold together” (Meier, Furst); or his nature as God’s image, from dam, likeness (Eichorn, Richers); or, and most probably, his origin, from adamah, the ground (Kimchi, Rosenmller, Kalisch). In our image, after our likeness. The precise relationship in which the nature of the Adam about to be produced should stand to Elohim was to be that of a tselem (shadowvid. Psa 39:7; Greek, ) and a damuth (likeness, from damah, to bring together, to compareIsa 40:8). As nearly as possible the terms are synonymous. If any distinction does exist between them, perhaps tselem (image) denotes the shadow outline of a figure, and damuth (likeness) the correspondence or resemblance of that shadow to the figure. The early Fathers were of opinion that the words were expressive of separate ideas: image, of the body, which by reason of its beauty, intelligent aspect, and erect stature was an adumbration of God; likeness, of the soul, or the intellectual and moral nature. According to Augustine image had reference to the cognitio veritatis; likeness to amor virtutis. Irenaeus, Clement, and Origen saw in the first man nature as originally created, and in the second what that nature might become through personal ethical conflict, or through the influence of grace. Bellarmine thought “imaginem in natura, similitudinem in probitate et justitia sitam esse,” and conceived that “Adamum peccando non imaginem Dei, sed similitudinero perdidisse.” Havernick suggests that image is the concrete, and likeness the abstract designation of the idea. Modern expositors generally discover no distinction whatever between the words; in this respect following Luther, who renders an image that is like, and Calvin, who denies that any difference exists between the two. As to what in man constituted the imago Dei, the reformed theologians commonly held it to have consisted
(1) in the spirituality of his being, as an intelligent and free agent;
(2) in the moral integrity and holiness of his nature; and
(3) in his dominion over the creatures (cf. West. Conf; Gen 4:2).
In this connection the profound thought of Maimonides, elaborated by Tayler Lewis (vial. Lunge, in loco), should not be overlooked, that tselem is the specific, as opposed to the architectural, form of a thing; that which inwardly makes a thing what it is, as opposed to that external configuration which it actually possesses. It corresponds to the min, or kind, which determines species among animals. It is that which constitutes ‘the genus homo. And let them have dominion. The relationship of man to the rest of creation is now defined to be one of rule and supremacy. The employment of the plural is the first indication that not simply an individual was about to be called into existence, but a race, comprising many individuals The range of man’s authority is farther specified, and the sphere of his lordship traced by an enumeration in ascending order, from the lowest to the highest, of the subjects placed beneath his sway. His dominion should extend over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air (literally, the heavens), and over the cattle (the behemah), and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing (romeo) that creepeth upon the earth.
Gen 1:27
So (or and) God created (bara, as in Gen 1:1, Gen 1:21, q.v.) man (literally; the Adam referred to in Gen 1:26) in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. The threefold repetition of the term “created” should be observed as a significant negation of modern evolution theories as to the descent of man, and an emphatic proclamation of his Divine original. The threefold parallelism of the members of this verse is likewise suggestive, as Umbreit, Ewald, and Delitzsch remark, of the jubilation with which the writer contemplates the crowning work of Elohim’s creative word. Murphy notices two stages in man’s creation, the general fact being stated in the first clause of this triumphal song, and the two particularsfirst his relation to his Maker, and second his sexual distinctionin its other members. In the third clause Luther sees an intimation “that the woman also was created by God, and made a partaker of the Divine image, and of dominion over all.”
Gen 1:28
And God blessed them. Not him, as LXX. As on the introduction of animal life the Divine Creator conferred on the creatures his blessing, so when the first pair of human beings are formed they are likewise enriched by their Creator’s benediction. And God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply. As in the case of the lower creatures the Divine blessing had respect in the first instance to the propagation and perpetuation of the species, “which blessing,” says Calvin, “may be regarded as the source from which the human race has flowed,” a thought in full accord with Scripture teaching generally (cf. Psa 127:3); yet by making one man and one woman an important distinction was drawn between men and beasts as regards the development of their races and the multiplication of their kind (Mal 2:7). “Carte fraenum viris et mulieribus non laxavit, at in vagus libidines ruerent, absque delectu et pudore; seda sancto castoque conjugio incipiens, descendit ad generationem” (Calvin). And replenish the earth. The new-created race was intended to occupy the earth. How far during the first age of the world this Divine purpose was realized continues matter of debate (Gen 10:1-32.). After the Flood the confusion of tongues effected a dispersion of the nations over the three great continents of the old world. At the present day man has wandered to the ends of the earth. Yet vast realms lie unexplored, waiting his arrival. This clause may be described as the colonist‘s charter. And subdue it. The commission thus received was to utilize for his necessities the vast resources of the earth, by agricultural and mining operations, by geographical research, scientific discovery, and mechanical invention. And have dominion over the fish of the sea, &c. i.e. over the inhabitants of all the elements. The Divine intention with regard to his creation was thus minutely fulfilled by his investiture with supremacy over all the other works of the Divine hand. Psa 8:1-9. is the “lyric echo” of this original sovereignty bestowed on man.
Gen 1:29
Provision for the sustenance of the newly-appointed monarch and his subjects is next made. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. Of the three classes into which the vegetable creation was divided, grass, herbs, and trees (Gen 1:12), the two last were assigned to man for food. Macdonald thinks that without this express conveyance man would have been warranted to partake of them for nourishment, warranted by the necessities of his nature. The same reasoning, however, would have entitled him to kill the lower animals if he judged them useful for his support. Murphy with more truth remarks, “Of two things proceeding from the same creative hand, neither has any original or inherent right to interfere in any way with the other. The absolute right to each lies in the Creator alone. The one, it is true, may need the other to support its life, as fruit is needful to man; and, therefore, the just Creator cannot make one creature dependent for subsistence on another without granting to it the use of that other. But this is a matter between Creator and creature, and not by any means between creature and creature.” The primitive charter of man’s common property in the earth, and all that it contains, is the present section of this ancient document. Among other reasons for the formal conveyance to man of the herbs and trees may be noted a desire to keep him mindful of his dependent condition. Though lord of the creation, he was yet to draw the means of his subsistence from the creature which he ruled. Whether man was a vegetarian prior to the fall is debated. On the one hand it is contended that the original grant does not formally exclude the animals, and, in fact, says nothing about man’s relation to the animals (Macdonald); that we cannot positively affirm that man’s dominion over the animals did not involve the use of them for food (Murphy); and that as men offered sacrifices from their flocks, it is probable they ate the flesh of the victims (Calvin), On the other hand it is argued that the Divine language cannot be held as importing morn than it really says, arid that Gen 9:3 distinctly teaches that man’s right to the animal creation dates from the time of Noah (Kalisch, Knobel, Alford, &c.). Almost all nations have traditions of a golden age of innocence, when men abstained from killing animals (cf. Ovid, ‘Met.,’ 1.103-106). Scripture alone anticipates a. time when such shall again be a characteristic of earth’s inhabitants (Isa 11:7; Isa 65:25).
Gen 1:30
And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat. The first of the three classes of plants, grass, was assigned to the animals for food. From this Delitzsch infers that prior to the introduction of sin the animals were not predaceous. The geological evidence of the existence of death in prehistoric times is, however, too powerful to be resisted; and the Biblical record itself enumerates among the pre-adamic animals the chayyah of the field, which clearly belonged to the carnivora. Perhaps the most that can be safely concluded from the language is “that it indicates merely the general fact that the support of the whole animal kingdom is based on vegetation” (Dawson).
Gen 1:31
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. Literally, lo! good very! Not simply good, but good exceedingly. It is not man alone that God surveys, but the completed cosmos, with man as its crown and glory, decu, set tutamen. “It is not merely a benediction which he utters, but an expression of admiration, as we may say without any fear of the anthropomorphismEuge, bone proclare!“ (T. Lewis). And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. It seems unnecessary to add that this clay corresponds to the Cainozoic or tertiary era of geology, the Palaeontological remains of which sufficiently attest the truth of the Divine record in asserting that animals were anterior to man in their appearance on the earth, and that man is of comparatively recent origin. The alleged evidence of prehistoric man is too fragmentary and hypothetical to be accepted as conclusive; and yet, so far as the cosmogony of the present chapter is concerned, there is nothing to prevent the belief that man is of a much more remote antiquity than 6000 years. As of the other days, so of this the Chaldean tablets preserve an interesting monument. The saventh in the creation series, of which a fragment was discovered in one of the trenches at Konyunjik, runs:
1. When the gods in their assembly had created .
2. Were delightful the strong monsters
3. They caused to be living creatures
4. Cattle of the field, beasts of the field, and creeping things of the field .
5. They fixed for the living creatures
6. Cattle and creeping thing of the city they fixed .
And the god Nin-si-ku (the lord of noble face) caused to be two in which it is not difficult to trace an account of the creation of the animal kingdom, and of the first pair of human beings.
HOMILETICS
Gen 1:27
The greatness of man.
I. THE TIME OF HIS APPEARANCE. The latest of God’s works, he was produced towards the close of the era that witnessed the introduction upon our globe of the higher animals. Taking either view of the length of the creative day, it may be supposed that in the evening the animals went forth “to roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God,” and that in the morning man arose upon the variegated scene, “going forth to his work and to his labor until the evening” (Psa 104:20-23). In thin there was a special fitness, each being created at the time most appropriate to its nature. Man’s works are often mistimed; God’s never. Likewise in man’s being ushered last upon the scene there was peculiar significance; it was a virtual proclamation of his greatness.
II. THE SOLEMNITY OF HIS MAKING, which was preceded by a Divine consultation: “Let us make man,” &c. The language of
1. Resolution. As if, in the production of the other creatures, the all-wise Artificer had been scarcely conscious of an effort, but must now bestir himself to the performance of his last and greatest work.
2. Forethought. As if his previous makings had been, in comparison with this, of so subordinate importance that they might be executed instantaneously and, as it were, without premeditation, whereas this required intelligent arrangement and wise consideration beforehand.
3. Solicitude. As if the insignificance of these other labors made no special call upon his personal, care and attention, whereas the vastness of the present undertaking demanded the utmost possible watchfulness and caution.
4. Delight. As if the fashioning and beautifying of the globe and its replenishing with sentient beings, unspeakably glorious as these achievements were afforded him no satisfaction in comparison with this which he contemplated, the creating of man in his own image (cf. Pro 8:31).
III. THE DIGNITY OF HIS NATURE. “Created after God’s image and likeness,” suggesting ideas of
1. Affinity, or kinship. The resplendent universe, with its suns and systems, its aerial canopy and green-mantled ground, its Alps and Himalayas, its oceans, rivers, streams, was only as plastic clay in the hands of a skilful potter. Even the innumerable tribes of living creatures that had been let loose to swarm the deep, to cleave the sky, to roam the earth, were animated by a principle of being that had no closer connection with the Deity than that which effect has with cause; but the life which inspired man was a veritable outcome from the personality of God (Gen 2:7). Hence man was something higher than a creature. As imago Dei he was God’s son (Mal 2:10; Act 17:28).
2. Resemblance. A distinct advance upon the previous thought, although implied in it. This likeness or similitude consisted in
(1) Personality. Light, air, land, sea, sun, moon, stars were “things.” Plants, fishes, fowls, animals were “lives,” although the first are never so characterized in Scripture. Man was a “person.”
(2) Purity. The image of absolute holiness must itself be immaculate. In this sense Christ was “the express image of God’s person” (Heb 1:3); and though man is not now a complete likeness of his Maker in the moral purity of his nature, when he came from the Creator’s hand he was. It is the object of Christ’s work to renew in man the image of his Maker (Eph 4:24).
(3) Power. That man’s Creator was a God of power was implied in his name, ELOHIM, and demonstrated by his works. Even fallen man we can perceive to be possessed of many elements of power that are the shadows of that which resided in Elohimthe power of self-government, and of lordship over the creatures, of language and of thought, of volition and of action, of originating, at least in a secondary sense, and of combining and arranging. In the first man they resided in perfection.
3. Representation. Man was created in God’s image that he might be a visible embodiment of the Supreme to surrounding creatures. “The material world, with its objects sublimely great or meanly little, as we judge them; its atoms of dust, its orbs of fire; the rock that stands by the seashore, the water that wears it away; the worm, a birth of yesterday, which we trample underfoot; the sheets of the constellations that gleam perennial overhead; the aspiring palm tree fixed to one spot, and the lions that are sent out freethese incarnate and make visible all of God their natures will admit.” Man in his nature was intended as the highest representation of God that was possible short of the incarnation of the Word himself.
IV. THE GRANDEUR OF HIS DOMINION. Man was designed to be God’s image in respect of royalty and lordship; and as no one can play the monarch without a kingdom and without subjects, God gave him both an empire and a people.
1. An empire.
(1) Of wide extent. In the regal charter reaching to the utmost bounds of this terrestrial sphere (Gen 1:26).
(2) Of available character. Not a region that was practically unconquerable, but every square inch of it capable of subjugation and occupation.
(3) Of vast resources. Everything in heaven, earthy and sea was placed at his command.
(4) Of incalculable value. Nothing was absolutely useless, and many things were precious beyond compare.
(5) Of perfect security. God had given’ it to him. The. grant, was, absolute, the gift was sure.
2. A people.
(1) Numerous. “Every living thing was subjected to his sway.
(2) Varied. The fishes, fowls, and beasts were his servants
(3) Submissive. As yet they had not broken loose against their master.
(4) Given. They were not acquired by the sword, but donated by their Maker.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD
Gen 1:24-31
The sixth day.
We pass from the sea and air to the earth. We are being led to man. Notice
I. THE PREPARATION IS COMPLETE. Before the earth receives the human being, it brings forth all the other creatures, and God sees that they are goodgood in his sight, good for man.
II. THE PURPOSE OF THE WORK IS BENEVOLENT. Cattle, creeping thing, beast of the earth. So man would see them distinguishedthe wild from the domestic, the creeping from the roaming, the clean from the unclean. The division itself suggests the immense variety of the Divine provision for man’s wants.
III. The incompleteness of the earth when filled with the lower creatures is A TESTIMONY TO THE GREATNESS OF MAN‘S SPIRITUAL NATURE; for in comparison with the animal races he is in many respects inferiorin strength, swiftness, and generally in the powers which we call instinct. Yet his appearance is the climax of the earth’s creation. “Man is one world, and hath another to attend him.” Vegetable, marine, animal life generally, the whole earth filled with what God “saw to be good,” waits for the rational and spiritual creature who shall be able to recognize their order and wield dominion over them. Steps and stages in creation lead up to the climax, the “paragon of animals,” the god-like creature, made to be king on the earth.R.
Gen 1:26, Gen 1:27
The creation of man.
Take it
I. As a revelation of God in his relation to man.
II. As a revelation of man to himself.
I. GOD IN RELATION TO MAN.
1. As the Father as well as Creator. As to the rest of creation, it is said, “Let be,” and “it was.” As to many “Let us make in our image.” Closely kin by original nature, man is invited to intercourse with the Divine.
2. The spirituality of God’s highest creature is the bond of union and fellowship. The languages “Let us make,” suggests the conception of a heavenly council or conference preparatory to the creation of man; and the new description of the being to be created points to the introduction of a new order of life the spiritual life, as above the vegetable and animal.
3. God entrusts dominion and authority to man in the earth. Man holds from the first the position of a vicegerent for God. There is trust, obedience, responsibility, recognition of Divine supremacy, therefore all the essential elements of religion, in the original constitution and appointment of our nature and position among the creatures.
4. The ultimate destiny of man is included in the account of his beginning. He who made him in his image, “one of us,” will call him upward to be among the super-earthly beings surrounding the throne of the Highest. The possession of a Divine image is the pledge of eternal approximation to the Divine presence. The Father calls the children about himself.
II. MAN REVEALED TO HIMSELF. “The image and likeness of God.” What does that contain? There is the ideal humanity.
1. There is an affinity in the intellectual nature between the human and the Divine. In every rational being, though feeble in amount of mental capacity, there is a sense of eternal necessary truth. On some lines the creature and the Creator think under the same laws of thought, though the distance be immeasurable.
2. Man’s by original creation absolutely free from moral taint. He is therefore a fallen being in so far as he is a morally imperfect being. He was made like God in purity, innocence, goodness.
3. The resemblance must be in spirit as well as in intellect and moral nature. Man was made to be the companion of God and angels, therefore there is in his earthly existence a superearthly, spiritual nature which must be ultimately revealed.
4. Place and vocation are assigned to man on earth, and that in immediate connection with his likeness to God. He is ruler here that he may be prepared for higher rule elsewhere. He is put in his rank among God’s creatures that he may see himself on the ascent to God. Man belongs to two worlds. He is like God, and yet he is male and female, like the lower animals, lie is blessed as other creatures with productive power to fill the earth, but he is blessed for the sake of his special vocation, to subdue the earth, not for himself, but for God.
5. Here is the end of all our endeavor and desireto be perfect men by being like God. Let us be thankful that there is a God-man in whom we are able to find our ideal realized. We grow up into him who is our Head. We see Jesus crowned with glory and honor. When all things are put under him, man will see the original perfection of his creation restored.
6. Man is taught that he need not leave the earthly sphere to be like God. There has been a grand preparation of his habitation. From a mere chaotic mass the earth has by progressive stages reached a state when it can become the scene of a great moral experiment for man’s instruction. The god-like is to rule over all other creatures, that he may learn the superiority of the spiritual. Heavenly life, communion, society, and all that is included in the fellowship of man with God, may be developed in the condition of earth. Grievous error in early Church and Eastern philosophyconfusion of the material and evil. Purity does not require an immaterial mode of existence. Perfection of man is perfection of his dominion over earthly conditions, matter in subjection to spirit. Abnormal methods, asceticism, self-crucifixion, mere violence to original constitution of man. The “second Adam” overcame the world not by forsaking it, but by being in it, and yet not of it.
7. God’s commandments to man are commandments of Fatherly love. “Behold, I have given you,” &c. He not only appoints the service, but he provides the sustenance. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God,” &c. Here is the union of creative power and providential goodness. We are blessed in an earthly life just as we take it from the hand of God as a trust to be fulfilled for him. And in that obedience and dependence we shall best be able to reach the ideal humanity. The fallen world has been degrading man, physically, morally, spiritually; he has been less and less what God made him to be. But he who has come to restore the kingdom of God has come to uplift man and fill the earth with blessedness.R.
Gen 1:31
Perfection.
The first chapter closes with a review of the whole work of the six days. God saw it. Behold, it was very good!
I. The SATISFACTION was in the completion of the earthly order in man, the highest earthly being. For God’s good is not, like man’s good“ a compromise, too often, between the really good and the really evil, but the attainment of the highestthe fulfillment of his Divine idea, the top-stone placed upon the temple with shoutings: “Grace, grace unto it.”
II. “The evening and the morning were the sixth day.” OUT OF THE NIGHT OF ‘THE INFINITE PAST CAME FORTH THE DAWN OF THE INTELLECTUAL AND SPIRITUAL WORLD. And when God saw that, then he said, It is very good. So let us let our faces towards that light of heaven on earth, the day of Divine revelation, Divine intercourse with man, the pure and perfect bliss of an everlasting paradise, in which God and man shall find unbroken rest and joy in one another.R.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Gen 1:24. Let the earth bring forth, &c. From the fish and the fowl the great Creator proceeds to the superior order of terrestrial animals; which are classed under the three ranks of: 1st, cattle, all tame and domestic animals; 2nd, creeping things, all of the reptile kind; and 3rdly, beasts of the earth, all of the savage kind.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Gen 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
Ver. 24, 25. Let the earth, &c. ] Lo here the earth, in itself a dead element, brings forth, at God’s command, living creatures, tame, wild, and creeping. “Why then should it be thought a thing incredible,” that the same earth, at God’s command, should bring forth again our dead bodies restored to life, at the last day? Act 26:8 Surely if that speech of Christ, “Lazarus, Come forth,” Joh 11:43 had been directed to all the dead, they had all presently risen. If he speak to the rocks, they rend; if to the mountains, they melt; if to the earth, it opens; if to the sea, it yields up her dead; if to the whole host of heaven, they tremble and stand amazed, waiting his pleasure. And shall he not prevail by his mighty power, the same that he put forth in the raising of his Son Christ, Eph 1:19 to raise us from the death of sin; and of carnal, to make us a people created again? Psa 102:18 Doth he not “plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, that he may say to Zion, Thou art my people?” Isa 51:16 “Empty man would be wise,” saith Zophar, Job 11:12 “though man be born like a wild ass-colt.” Man’s heart is a mere emptiness, a very Tohu vabohu , as void of matter to make him a new creature of, as the hollow of a tree is of heart of oak. God, therefore, creates in his people clean hearts. Psa 51:10 And, as in the first creation, a so in the new creature, the first day, as it were, God works light of knowledge; the second day, the firmament of faith; the third day seas and trees, that is, repentant tears, and worthy fruits; the fourth day, the sun, joining light and heat together, heat of zeal with light of knowledge; the fifth day, fishes to play, and fowls to fly, so to live and rejoice in a sea of troubles, and fly heavenward by prayer and contemplation; the sixth day God makes beasts and man, yea, of a wild ass-colt, a man in Christ, with whom “old things are past, all things are become new,” 2Co 5:17 and to whom, besides that they are all taught of God , 1Th 4:9 the very beasts Isa 1:2 and birds Jer 8:7 do read a divinity lecture. “Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee, and the fowls of the air, they shall tell thee”. Job 12:7 The whole world is nothing else, saith one, but b “God expressed,” so that we cannot plead ignorance; for all are, or may be, book-learned in the creature. This is the shepherd’s calendar, the ploughman’s alphabet; we may run and read in this great book, which hath three leaves – heaven, earth, sea. “A brutish man knoweth not, neither doth a fool understand this”. Psa 92:6 They stand gazing and gaping on the outside of things only, but ask not who is their Father, their Creator; like little children, which when they find a picture in their book, they gaze and make sport with it, but never consider it. Either their minds are like a clock that is over-wound above the ordinary pitch, and so stands still; their thoughts are amazed for a time; they are like a block, thinking nothing at all, or else they think, atheistically, that all comes by nature; but “hast thou not known?” saith the prophet, “hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator?” &c. Isa 40:28 Or, at best, as the common passenger looks only at the hand of the dial to see what of the clock it is, but takes no notice of the clockwork within, the wheels and poises and various turnings and windings in the work; so it is here with the man that is no more than a mere “natural.” “But he that is spiritual discerneth all things”; 2Co 2:15 he entereth into the clock-house, as it were, and views every motion, beginning at the great wheel, and ending in the least and last that is moved. He studies the glory of God revealed in this great book of nature, and praiseth his power, wisdom, goodness, &c. And for that in these things “he cannot order his speech, because of darkness,” Job 37:19 he begs of God a larger heart, and better language, and cries out continually with David, “Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. And blessed be his glorious name for ever and ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and Amen”. Psa 72:18-19
a Lightf. Miscel.
b Anton. Eremita ap Aug. l. 3. De Doctr. Chris. Neceph. l. 8. c. 40. Clem. Alex.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gen 1:24-25
24Then God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind; and it was so. 25God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:24 Then God said, Elohim (BDB 43) is the ancient plural name for God which dominates chapter 1. The etymology is uncertain. See SPECIAL TOPIC: NAMES FOR DEITY . The rabbis say that it shows God as creator, provider and sustainer of all life on planet earth. The PLURAL seems to be theologically significant when connected with Gen 1:26; Gen 3:22; Gen 11:7 and the plurality of the word one which is found in the great prayer of monotheism(Shema), Deu 6:4-6. When used of the God of Israel the VERB is almost always SINGULAR. The term elohim in the OT can refer to (1) angels (cf. Psa 8:5); (2) human judges (cf. Exo 21:6; Exo 22:8-9; Psa 82:1); or (3) other gods (cf. Exo 18:11; Exo 20:3; 1Sa 4:8).
Let the earth bring forth This (BDB 422, KB 425) is a Hiphil JUSSIVE. There is a distinction made in Genesis 1 between God creating by the spoken word out of nothing and that which He created, reproducing (i.e. adapting). Compare Gen 1:20-21 and Gen 1:24-25.
living creatures after their kind Gen 1:24-25 describes the land animals both large and small, domestic and wild. Notice the term living creatures(BDB 659 and 311) is based on the term nephesh which is the word used for humans in Gen 2:7. It is obvious that the uniqueness of mankind is not found in the term nephesh, often translated in Greek as soul. See note at Gen 35:18 .
creeping things Literally this refers to gliding, or sliding (BDB 943). This is the same word that is used in Gen 1:21, that moves. It seems to refer to all animals which do not walk on their legs or that they have such short legs that they are unnoticeable.
and it was so God’s desires became reality! See note at Gen 1:7.
Gen 1:25 and God saw that it was good God’s creation was good (BDB 373) and is proclaimed to be very good in Gen 1:31. This may be a Hebrew idiom meaning adequate for an assigned purpose. Theologically it may also speak of the absence of sin from God’s original creation. Sin is the result of rebellion, not creation.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
creature = soul. Hebrew. nephesh. See App-13.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
living creature
“Creature,” Heb. nephesh, trans. soul in Gen 2:7 and usually. In itself nephesh, or soul, implies self-conscious life, as distinguished from plants, which have unconscious life. In the sense of self-conscious life animals also have “soul.” See verses; Gen 1:26; Gen 1:27; Gen 2:7; Gen 2:21-23. (See Scofield “Gen 1:26”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Let: Gen 6:20, Gen 7:14, Gen 8:19, Job 38:39, Job 38:40, Job 39:1, Job 39:5, Job 39:9, Job 39:19, Job 40:15, Psa 50:9, Psa 50:10, Psa 104:18, Psa 104:23, Psa 148:10, cattle, denotes domestic animals living on vegetables; – Beasts of the earth, wild animals; especially such as live on flesh; and – Creeping things, reptiles; or all the different genera of serpents, worms, and such animals as have no feet.
Reciprocal: Gen 1:7 – and it Psa 104:24 – the earth Isa 42:5 – he that spread
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Gen 1:24-25. Let the earth bring forth He that of stones can raise children to Abraham, and who called forth the universe from nothing, could easily produce animals from the dull and sluggish earth, although inanimate. Cattle Those tame beasts which do not shun the society of men, and are most useful to us for food, clothing, or various services. The beasts of the earth The Hebrew word , chaiath, generally signifies the wild beast, which is evidently its meaning here.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Gen 1:24-31. The sixth day is occupied with the creation of the land animals and of man. It is natural that a much fuller space than usual should be accorded to the latter. And the solemnity of the act is marked by the formula of deliberation, Let us make man. The plural has been variously explained. Setting aside as beyond the range of the OT the view that the Father addresses the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the view that God speaks of Himself in the plural since He is the fulness of energies and powers, as too artificial, the most obvious explanation is that God is addressing the heavenly assembly (cf. 1Ki 22:19-22, Isa 6:8). Yet there is difficulty in this view, for P ignores angels altogether; nor would he regard them as sharing in the work of creation: nor, probably, would he think of man as made in their image as well as in Gods; cf. Gen 1:27, in his own image, in the image of God. The original sense was perhaps polytheistic; naturally this was impossible to the author, and if he reflected on the formula he would presumably interpret it of the heavenly council. No distinction seems to be intended between the image and the likeness. Originally this may have been physically conceived; man was thought to be like God in external appearance. But the author presumably would be drawn rather to a spiritual and intellectual interpretation, laying stress on mans community of nature with God. Creation in the image of God differentiates man from all other creatures on the earth (cf. Gen 9:6), hence he is fitted to rule over them (for over all the earth in Gen 1:26 read over every living creature of the earth, with the Syriac); cf. the fine development of the theme in Psalms 8, and the deeper discussion in Heb 2:5-9. The reference to the creation of both sexes most naturally suggests that they originated at the same time, a view very different from that followed in the other creation story, Gen 2:18-23. Men and animals are regarded as living on a vegetarian diet in the period before the Flood (Gen 9:3 f.). There would thus be peace between men and animals, and in the animal world itself. To man is allotted the seed and fruit, to beasts and birds the greenness of herbs (Gen 1:30), i.e. the leafage.
Gen 1:24. Render, Let the earth bring forth living soul after its kinds.
Gen 1:28. The change from fill in Gen 1:22 to replenish here is misleading to the modern reader, who is unaware that at an earlier period the words were equivalent in sense. The same Heb. word is used in both places and in Gen 9:1.
Gen 1:29 f. meat: i.e. food, not animal food merely.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
The sixth day 1:24-31
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
"Creature" translates the Hebrew word nephesh, which is usually translated "soul" (e.g., Gen 2:7). This Hebrew word and the English "soul" imply conscious life, in contrast to plants that have unconscious life. So in the sense of having conscious life, animals as well as people have souls.
"Cattle" refers to domesticated animals (that man could tame) and "beasts" to wild animals.
What happened to the dinosaurs? Conservative Bible interpreters generally believe they existed but became extinct before the Flood or after it.
"Before the Flood, dinosaurs and man lived together on our planet. Extinction of the great marine reptiles, along with the majority of all other types of sea creature, would have been caused by the violent upheavals of the Flood, many being buried and preserved as fossils." [Note: Ham, et al., p. 10. See also pp. 21-39.]