verse, and as the commencement of the first of
the six succeeding days, in which the earth was to
be fitted up, and peopled in a manner fit for the
reception of mankind. We have in this second
verse, a distinct mention of earth and waters, as
very probable that bara, “ created,” as being the stronger word, was
selected to describe the first production of the heaven and the earth.
The point, however, upon which the interpretation of the first
chapter of Genesis appears to me really to turn, is, whether the
two first verses are merely a summary statement of what is related
in detail in the rest of the chapter, and a sort of introduction to
it, or whether they contain an account of an act of creation. And
this last seems to me to be their true interpretation, first, because
there is no other account of the creation of the earth ; secondly, the
second verse describes the condition of the earth when so created,
and thus prepares for the account of the work of the six days; but
if they speak of any creation, it appears to me that this creation
“ in the beginning” was previous to the six days, because, as you
will observe, the creation of each day is preceded by the declaration
that God said, or willed, that such things should be (“ and
God said”), and therefore the very form of the narrative seems to
imply that the creation of the first day began when these words are
first used, i.e. with the creation of light in ver. 3. The time then of
the creation in ver. 1 appears to me not to be defined : we are told
only what alone we are concerned with, that all things were made
by God. Nor is this any new opinion. Many of the fathers
(they are quoted by Petavius, l. c. c. 11, § i.—viii.) supposed the
two first verses of Genesis to contain an account of a distinct and
prior act of creation; some, as Augustine, Theodoret, and others,
that of the creation of matter; others, that of the elements;
others again (and they the most numerous) imagine that, not
these visible heavens, but what they think to be called elsewhere
“ the highest heavens,” the “ heaven of heavens,” are here spoken
of, our visible heavens being related to have been created on the
second day. Petavius himself regards the light as the only act
of creation of the first day (c. vii. “ de opere primse diei, i. e.
25
[already existing, and involved in darkness;
their condition also is described as a state of
confusion and emptiness, (tohu bohu), words
which are usually interpreted by the vague and
indefinite Greek term, “ chaos,” and which may
luce”), considering the two first verses as a summary of the account
of creation which was about to follow, and a general declaration
that all things were made by God.
Episcopius again, and others, thought that the creation and
fall of the bad angels took place in the interval here spoken o f :
and misplaced as such speculations are, still they seem to show
that it is natural to suppose that a considerable interval may have
taken place between the creation related in the first verse of Genesis
and that of which an account is given in the third and following
verses. Accordingly, in some old editions of the English
Bible, where there is no division into verses, you actually find a
break at the end of what is now the second verse; and in Luther’s
Bible (Wittenburg, 1557) you have in addition the figure 1
placed against the third verse, as being the beginning of the
account of the creation on the first day.
This then is just the sort of confirmation which one wished for,
because, though one would shrink from the impiety of bending
the language of God’s book to any other than its obvious meaning,
we can not help fearing lest we might be unconsciously
influenced by the floating opinions of our own day, and therefore
turn the more anxiously to those who explained Holy Scripture,
ibefore these theories existed. You must allow me to add that I
would not define further. We know nothing of creation, nothing
of ultimate causes, nothing of space, except what is bounded by
actual existing bodies, nothing of time, but what is limited by the
revolution of those bodies. I should be very sorry to appear to
dogmatize upon that, of which it requires very little reflection, or
reverence, to confess that we are necessarily ignorant. “ Hardly
flo we guess aright of things that are upon earth, and with labour
do we find the things that are before u s ; but the things that are in
heaven who hath searched out ?”— Wisdom, ix. 16.—E. B. Pusey.