Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 1:26

"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." — Genesis 1:26 (ASV)

Let us make man. — . The making of man is introduced in such a way as to show that finally the work of creation had reached its perfection and ultimate goal. Regarding the use of the plural here, Maimonides thinks that God consulted with the earth, the earth supplying the body and Elohim the soul. But it is denied in Isaiah 40:13 that God ever consulted with anyone but Himself.

The Jewish interpreters generally think that the angels are meant. More truly and more reverently, we can say that this first chapter of Genesis is the chapter of mysteries. Just as “the wind of God” in Genesis 1:2 was the pregnant germ which grew into the revelation of the Holy Ghost, so in Elohim, the many powers concentrated in one being, lies the germ of the doctrine of a plurality of persons in the Divine Unity.

It is not a formal proof of the Trinity, nor do believers in the inspiration of Holy Scripture use it in that way. What they affirm is that from the very beginning the Bible is full of such germs, and that not one of them remains barren, but all develop and become Christian truths.

This first book contains a vast array of figures, types, indications, yearnings, hopes, fears, promises, and express predictions, which advance like an ever-deepening river. When they all find a logical fulfillment in one way, the conclusion is that this fulfillment is not only true, but was intended.

Man. —Hebrew, Adam. In Assyrian, the name for man is also adamu, or admu. In that literature, so marvellously preserved to this day, Sir H. Rawlinson thinks that he has traced the first man to the black or Accadian race. It is hopeless to attempt any derivation of the name, as it must have existed before any of the verbs and nouns from which commentators attempt to derive its meaning; and the adâmâh, or “tilled ground,” of which we will soon hear so much, evidently had its name from Adam.

In our image, after our likeness. —The human body is in God’s image only as the means by which man attains dominion, for dominion is God’s attribute, since He is sole Lord. Man’s body, therefore, as that of one who rules, is erect and endowed with speech, so that he can give the word of command.

The soul is first, in God’s image. This, suggesting an external likeness, may refer to man’s reason, free will, self-consciousness, and so on. But it is, secondly, in God’s likeness, which implies something closer and more inward.

It refers to man’s moral powers, and especially to his capacity for attaining holiness. Now, man has lost neither of these two (1 Corinthians 11:7; James 3:9). Both were weakened and defiled by the fall but were still retained to a greater or lesser degree.

In the man Christ Jesus, both were perfect. Fallen man, when new-created in Christ, actually attains that perfection which he possessed only potentially at his first creation, and which Adam never did attain.

Let them have dominion. —The plural here shows that we are concerned not with Adam and Eve, but with the human race generally. This, too, agrees with the overall thrust of the first chapter, which deals in a broad, general way with genera and species, and not with individuals. This is important as an additional proof that God’s likeness and image belong to the entire human species, and therefore could not have been lost by the fall, as St. Augustine supposed.