John Calvin Commentary Genesis 2

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished. Moses summarily repeats that in six days the fabric of the heaven and the earth was completed. The general division of the world is made into these two parts, as has been stated at the beginning of the first chapter. But he now adds, all the host of them, by which he indicates that the world was supplied with all its adornment.

This epilogue, moreover, with sufficient clarity entirely refutes the error of those who imagine that the world was formed in a moment; for it declares that an end was only finally put to the work on the sixth day. Instead of host, we could appropriately render the term abundance; for Moses declares that this world was completed in every respect, as if the whole house were well supplied and filled with its furniture.

The heavens without the sun, and moon, and stars, would be an empty and dismantled palace: if the earth were lacking animals, trees, and plants, that barren waste would appear as a poor and deserted house. God, therefore, did not cease from the work of the creation of the world until he had completed it in every part, so that nothing would be lacking for its suitable abundance.

And he rested on the seventh day. The question may rightly be asked what kind of rest this was. For it is certain that because God sustains the world by His power, governs it by His providence, and cherishes and even propagates all creatures, He is constantly at work.

Therefore, that saying of Christ is true, that the Father and he himself had worked from the beginning until now, because, if God were only to withdraw His hand a little, all things would immediately perish and dissolve into nothing, as is declared in Psalm 104:29. Indeed, God is rightly acknowledged as the Creator of heaven and earth only while their perpetual preservation is ascribed to Him. The solution to the difficulty is well known: God ceased from all His work when He refrained from the creation of new kinds of things.

But to make the sense clearer, understand that God had put the final touch, so that nothing would be lacking for the perfection of the world. And this is the meaning of the words of Moses, From all his work which he had made; for he points out the actual state of the work as God would have it to be, as if he had said, then what God had proposed to Himself was completed.

On the whole, this language is intended merely to express the perfection of the world's fabric; and therefore, we must not infer that God so ceased from His works as to desert them, since they only flourish and subsist in Him. Besides, it should be observed that in the works of the six days, only those things are comprehended which tend to the proper and genuine adornment of the world.

Later, we find God saying, Let the earth bring forth thorns and briers, by which He indicates that the appearance of the earth would be different from what it had been in the beginning. But the explanation is readily available: many things now seen in the world are corruptions of it rather than any part of its proper features.

For ever since man fell from his original high state, it became necessary for the world to gradually degenerate from its nature. We must come to this conclusion regarding the existence of fleas, caterpillars, and other noxious insects. In all these, I say, there is some deformity of the world, which should by no means be regarded as in the natural order, since it proceeds from the sin of man rather than from the hand of God.

Truly, these things were created by God, but by God as an avenger. In this place, however, Moses is not considering God as armed for the punishment of men's sins, but as the Artificer, the Architect, the bountiful Father of a family, who has omitted nothing essential to the perfection of His edifice.

Now, when we look upon the world corrupted and as if degenerated from its original creation, let us recall that expression of Paul, that the creature is liable to vanity, not willingly, but through our fault (Romans 8:20), and so let us mourn, being admonished of our just condemnation.

And God blessed the seventh day. It appears that God is here said to bless in the way humans do, because they bless one whom they highly extol. Nevertheless, even in this sense, it would not be unsuitable to the character of God, because his blessing sometimes means the favor which he bestows upon his people, as the Hebrews call that man the blessed of God who, by a certain special favor, has power with God .

Enter, you blessed of God. Thus we may be allowed to describe the day as blessed by him, which he has embraced with love, so that the excellence and dignity of his works may be celebrated in it. Yet I have no doubt that Moses, by adding the word "sanctified," wished immediately to explain what he had said, and thus all ambiguity is removed, because the second word is exegetical of the former.

For קדש (kadesh), with the Hebrews, is to separate from the common number. God therefore sanctifies the seventh day when he renders it illustrious, so that by a special law it may be distinguished from the rest. Hence it also appears that God always had regard for the welfare of men.

I have said above that six days were employed in the formation of the world; not that God, to whom one moment is as a thousand years, needed this succession of time, but so that he might engage us in considering his works. He had the same purpose in view in the appointment of his own rest, for he set apart a day selected from the rest for this special use.

Therefore, that blessing is nothing other than a solemn consecration, by which God claims for himself the meditations and activities of men on the seventh day. This is, indeed, the proper work of the whole life, in which men should daily apply themselves to consider the infinite goodness, justice, power, and wisdom of God, in this magnificent theater of heaven and earth.

But, so that men would not be less diligently attentive to it than they should be, every seventh day has been especially selected for the purpose of supplying what was lacking in daily meditation. First, therefore, God rested; then he blessed this rest, so that in all ages it might be held sacred among men; or he dedicated every seventh day to rest, so that his own example might be a perpetual rule.

The purpose of the institution must always be remembered, for God did not command men simply to keep holiday every seventh day, as if he delighted in their indolence, but rather that they, being released from all other business, might more readily apply their minds to the Creator of the world.

Lastly, that is a sacred rest, which withdraws men from the impediments of the world, so that it may dedicate them entirely to God. But now, since men are so reluctant to celebrate the justice, wisdom, and power of God, and to consider his benefits, that even when they are most faithfully admonished they still remain torpid, a significant stimulus is given by God’s own example, and the very precept itself is thereby made pleasing.

For God cannot more gently allure or more effectively incite us to obedience than by inviting and exhorting us to the imitation of himself. Besides, we must know that this is to be the common practice not of one age or people only, but of the whole human race.

Afterwards, in the Law, a new precept concerning the Sabbath was given, which was peculiar to the Jews and only for a time, because it was a legal ceremony foreshadowing a spiritual rest, the truth of which was manifested in Christ. Therefore, the Lord more frequently testifies that he had given, in the Sabbath, a symbol of sanctification to his ancient people. For this reason, when we hear that the Sabbath was abrogated by the coming of Christ, we must distinguish between what belongs to the perpetual ordering of human life and what properly belongs to ancient figures, the use of which was abolished when the truth was fulfilled.

Spiritual rest is the mortification of the flesh, so that the sons of God should no longer live for themselves or indulge their own inclination. Insofar as the Sabbath was a figure of this rest, I say, it was only for a time; but inasmuch as it was commanded to men from the beginning so that they might engage in the worship of God, it is right that it should continue to the end of the world.

Which God created and made. Here the Jews, in their usual method, engage in foolish talk, saying that God, being overtaken in his work by the final evening, left certain animals imperfect, such as fauns and satyrs, as though he were an ordinary craftsman who needs time.

Such monstrous ravings prove their authors to have been delivered over to a reprobate mind as a dreadful example of the wrath of God. Regarding the meaning of Moses, some interpret it this way: that God created his Works in order to make them, inasmuch as from the time he gave them existence, he did not withdraw his hand from their preservation.

But this exposition is harsh. Nor do I more willingly subscribe to the opinion of those who attribute the word "make" to man, whom God placed over his works, so that he might apply them to use and, in a certain sense, perfect them by his labor. I rather think that the perfect form of God’s works is noted here; as if he had said God so created his works that nothing should be lacking for their perfection, or the creation has proceeded to such a point that the work is in all respects perfect.

These are the generations. Moses's design was to impress deeply upon our minds the origin of the heaven and the earth, which he designates by the word generation.

For there have always been ungrateful and malignant men, who, either by falsely claiming that the world was eternal or by obliterating the memory of creation, would attempt to obscure the glory of God. Thus the devil, by his guile, turns away from God those who are more ingenious and skillful than others, so that each might become a god to himself.

Therefore, it is not a superfluous repetition that instills the necessary fact that the world existed only from the time it was created, because this knowledge directs us to its Architect and Author.

Under the names of heaven and earth, the whole is included by the figure of speech synecdoche. Some Hebrews think that the essential name of God is here finally expressed by Moses, because His majesty shines forth more clearly in the completed world.

And every plant. This verse is connected with the preceding and must be read in continuation with it, for he connects the plants and herbs to the earth as the garment with which the Lord has adorned it, so that its nakedness would not appear as a deformity. The noun שיה (sicah), which we translate as plant, sometimes signifies trees, as below (Genesis 21:15). Therefore, some in this place translate it as shrub, to which I have no objection.

Yet the word plant is not unsuitable, because in the former passage, Moses seems to refer to the genus, and here to the species. But although he has related before that the herbs were created on the third day, it is not without reason that they are mentioned here again, so that we may know that they were then produced, preserved, and propagated in a manner different from what we perceive today.

For herbs and trees are produced from seed; or grafts are taken from other roots, or they grow by putting forth shoots: in all this, human industry and labor are involved. But, at that time, the method was different: God clothed the earth, not in the same manner as now (for there was no seed, no root, no plant that could germinate), but each suddenly sprang into existence at the command of God and by the power of His word.

They possessed durable vigor, so that they could stand by the force of their own nature, and not by that life-giving influence which is now perceived, not by the help of rain, nor by human irrigation or cultivation; but by the vapor with which God watered the earth.

For he excludes these two things: the rain from which the earth derives moisture, so that it may retain its native sap; and human cultivation, which is the assistant of nature. When he says that God had not yet caused it to rain, he at the same time intimates that it is God who opens and shuts the cataracts of heaven, and that rain and drought are in His hand.