Albert Barnes Commentary Genesis 1:24-31
Albert Barnes Commentary
Genesis 1:24-31
Albert Barnes Commentary
Genesis 1:24-31
SCRIPTURE
"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. 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. 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." — Genesis 1:24-31 (ASV)
24. בהמה behēmâh — “cattle; dumb, tame beasts.”
רמשׂ remeś — “creeping (small or low) animals.”
חוּה chayâh — “living thing; animal.”
חוּת־חארץ chayatô-chā'ārets — “wild beast.”
26. אדם 'ādām — “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 אדמה 'ădāmâh — “the red soil,” from which the human body was formed (Genesis 2:7). It therefore marks the earthly aspect of man.
צלם tselem — “shade, image,” in visible outline.
דמוּת demût — “likeness,” in any quality.
רדה rādâh — “tread, rule.”
This day corresponds with the third. In both, the land is the sphere of operation. In both, two acts of creative power are performed. 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.
This branch of the animal world is divided into three parts. “Living breathing thing” is the general category under which all these are included. “Cattle” denotes the animals that live with humans, 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” or “the field,” is used for wild beasts.
“Creeping things” evidently denote the smaller animals, from which cattle are distinguished as the larger ones. The quality of creeping, however, is sometimes applied to describe the motion of lower animals with the body in a prostrate posture, in opposition to the erect posture of humans (Psalms 104:20). The “beast of the land” or “the field” signifies the wild, rapacious animal that lives apart from humans.
The word חוּה chayâh — “beast or animal,” is the general term employed in these verses for the whole animal kingdom. It signifies wild animal with certainty only when it is accompanied by the qualifying term “land” or “field,” or the epithet “evil” רעה rā‛âh. 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.
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 something undertaken with deliberate purpose.
Moreover, in the former mandates of creation, his words concerned the thing itself that was summoned into being, such as, Let there be light; or some pre-existent object physically connected with the new creature, such 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 did he take 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 (Genesis 41:15). Nebuchadnezzar: I have dreamed (Daniel 2:3). Darius the Mede: I make a decree (Daniel 6:26). Cyrus: The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth (Ezra 1:2). Darius: I make a decree (Ezra 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—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, thus limiting the pronouns to God himself.
Does the plurality, then, point to a plurality of attributes in the divine nature? This also 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.
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 (Genesis 1:2), that he thinks, speaks, wills, and acts (Genesis 1:3–4 and following). 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 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 reason is evolved the distinction of good and evil (Genesis 1:4, Genesis 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 lack intellectual and moral endowments.
Hence, wherever man enters, he makes his authority 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 and the fowl are beneath the domestic cattle. These, in turn, are of less importance than the land, which man tills and makes fruitful with all that can gratify his appetite or 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 in the manner of Scripture. But there is not an object within human perception which man 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 ever-growing sway of man.
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 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 thereby completed. This second stage in the existence of man is more circumstantially described later (Genesis 2:21–25).
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 man’s nature, according to the counsel of the Maker’s will (Genesis 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 right over one another. 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 fitting sequel to 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 merely to the 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 toward the inferior animals or his own race. It is the role of intellectual and moral reason to employ power for the ends of general as well as personal good. The sway of man ought to be beneficent.
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 from things at 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 whatsoever with the other.
The absolute right to each lies with the Creator alone. One, it is true, may need the other to support its life, as fruit is necessary for humans. 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 brought 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 later find an exception made to this general grant (Genesis 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 remote antiquity the primitive deed of conveyance, which lies at the foundation of 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; 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 human ingenuity 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.
The whole of the grasses and the green parts or leaves of herbage are distributed among the inferior animals for food. Here again, only the common and prominent kind of sustenance is specified. There are some animals that greedily devour the fruits of trees and the grain produced by various herbs, and there are others that derive most of their subsistence from preying on smaller and weaker kinds of animals.
Still, the main substance of the means of animal life, and the ultimate supply of all of it, are derived from the plant. Even this general statement is not to be received without exception, as there are certain simpler types 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.
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 Maker’s hand; but good, as yet untried, and therefore good in capacity rather than in victory over temptation. It still remains to be seen whether he will be good in act and habit.
This completes, then, the restoration of that order and fullness whose absence 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 sets of three, 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, and 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, only that interpretation 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 rule 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 for the elucidation of his meaning.
And, secondly, the interpretation now given claims acceptance on the ground of its internal and external consistency with truth:
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 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,” and “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 diligently refrains from importing modern notions into the narrative.
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.
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, and the total and then the partial absence of light from the face of the deep, as the local result of physical causes.
It also allows, 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.
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 earth’s 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, and the creation of a fresh supply of plants and animals on the newly-formed continent compose a series of changes that the geologist meets 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, or 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, strikingly true to nature, the last of those geologic changes which our globe has undergone.
It is in keeping, as far as it goes, with the facts of botany, zoology, and ethnology.
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.
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.