John Gill Commentary Genesis 1

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. By the heaven some understand the supreme heaven, the heaven of heavens, the habitation of God, and of the holy angels; and this being made perfect at once, no mention is after made of it, as of the earth; and it is supposed that the angels were at this time created, since they were present at the laying of the foundation of the earth, (Job 38:6–7) but rather the lower and visible heavens are meant, at least are not excluded, that is, the substance of them; as yet being imperfect and unadorned; the expanse not yet made, or the ether and air not yet stretched out; nor any light placed in them, or adorned with the sun, moon, and stars: so the earth is to be understood, not of that properly so called, as separated from the waters, that is, the dry land afterwards made to appear; but the whole mass of earth and water before their separation, and when in their unformed and unadorned state, described in the next verse: in short, these words represent the visible heavens and the terraqueous globe, in their chaotic state, as they were first brought into being by almighty power.

The (h) prefixed to both words is, as Aben Ezra observes, expressive of notification or demonstration, as pointing at "those" heavens, and "this earth"; and shows that things visible are here spoken of, whatever is above us, or below us to be seen: for in the Arabic language, as he also observes, the word for "heaven", comes from one which signifies high or above ^F1 ; as that for "earth" from one that signifies low and beneath, or under ^F2 . Now it was the matter or substance of these that was first created; for the word (ta) set before them signifies substance, as both Aben Ezra and ^F3 Kimchi affirm. Maimonides ^F4 observes, that this particle, according to their wise men, is the same as "with"; and then the sense is, God created with the heavens whatsoever are in the heavens, and with the earth whatsoever are in the earth; that is, the substance of all things in them; or all things in them were seminally together: for so he illustrates it by an husbandman sowing seeds of divers kinds in the earth, at one and the same time; some of which come up after one day, and some after two days, and some after three days, though all sown together.

These are said to be "created", that is, to be made out of nothing; for what pre-existent matter to this chaos could there be out of which they could be formed? And the apostle says, "through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear", (Hebrews 11:3) . And though this word is sometimes used, and even in this chapter, of the production of creatures out of pre-existent matter, as in (Genesis 1:21Genesis 1:27) yet, as Nachmanides observes, there is not in the holy language any word but this here used, by which is signified the bringing anything into being out of nothing; and many of the Jewish interpreters, as Aben Ezra, understand by creation here, a production of something into being out of nothing; and Kimchi says ^F5 that creation is a making some new thing, and a bringing something out of nothing: and it deserves notice, that this word is only used of God; and creation must be the work of God, for none but an almighty power could produce something out of nothing.

The word used is "Elohim", which some derive from another, which signifies power, creation being an act of almighty power: but it is rather to be derived from the root in the Arabic language, which signifies to worship ^F6 , God being the object of all religious worship and adoration; and very properly does Moses make use of this appellation here, to teach us, that he who is the Creator of the heavens and the earth is the sole object of worship; as he was of the worship of the Jewish nation, at the head of which Moses was. It is in the plural number, and being joined to a verb of the singular, is thought by many to be designed to point unto us the mystery of a plurality, or trinity of persons in the unity of the divine essence: but whether or no this is sufficient to support that doctrine, which is to be established without it; yet there is no doubt to be made, that all the three Persons in the Godhead were concerned in the creation of all things, see (Psalms 33:6) . The Heathen poet Orpheus has a notion somewhat similar to this, who writes, that all things were made by one Godhead of three names, and that this God is all things ^F7 :

and now all these things, the heaven and the earth, were made by God "in the beginning", either in the beginning of time, or when time began, as it did with the creatures, it being nothing but the measure of a creature's duration, and therefore could not be until such existed; or as Jarchi interprets it, in the beginning of the creation, when God first began to create; and is best explained by our Lord, "the beginning of the creation which God created", (Mark 13:19) and the sense is, either that as soon as God created, or the first he did create were the heavens and the earth; to which agrees the Arabic version; not anything was created before them: or in connection with the following words, thus, "when first", or "in the beginning", when "God created the heavens and the earth", then "the earth was without form", &c ^F8 . The Jerusalem Targum renders it, "in wisdom God created"; see (Proverbs 3:19) and some of the ancients have interpreted it of the wisdom of God, the Logos and Son of God.

From hence we learn, that the world was not eternal, either as to the matter or form of it, as Aristotle, and some other philosophers, have asserted, but had a beginning; and that its being is not owing to the fortuitous motion and conjunction of atoms, but to the power and wisdom of God, the first cause and sole author of all things; and that there was not any thing created before the heaven and the earth were: hence those phrases, before the foundation of the world, and before the world began are expressive of eternity: this utterly destroys the notion of the pre-existence of the souls of men, or of the soul of the Messiah: false therefore is what the Jews say ^F9 , that paradise, the righteous, Israel, Jerusalem were created before the world; unless they mean, that these were foreordained by God to be, which perhaps is their sense.

FOOTNOTES:

• F1: "altus fuit, eminuit", Golius, col. 1219.
  
• F2: "quicquid humile, inferum et depressum" ib. col. 70. Hottinger. Smegma Orient. c. 5. p. 70. & Thesaur. Philolog. l. 1. c. 2. p. 234.
  
• F3: Sepher Shorash. rad. (ta) .
  
• F4: Moreh Nevochim, par. 2. c. 30. p. 275, 276.
  
• F5: Ut supra. (Sepher Shorash.) rad. (arb)
  
• F6: (hla) "coluit, unde" (hwla) "numen colendum", Schultens in Job. i. 1. Golius, col. 144. Hottinger. Smegma, p. 120.
  
• F7: See the Universal History, vol. 1. p. 33.
  
• F8: So Vatablus.
  
• F9: Targum Jon. & Jerus. in Gen. iii. 24. T. Bab. Pesachim, fol. 54. 1. & Nedarim, fol. 39. 2.

And the earth was without form, and void
It was not in the form it now is, otherwise it must have a form, as all matter has; it was a fluid matter; the watery parts were not separated from the earthy ones. It was not put into the form of a terraqueous globe it is now, the sea apart, and the earth by itself, but were mixed and blended together. It was, as both the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem paraphrase it, a waste and desert, empty and destitute of both men and beasts; and it may be added, of fishes and fowls, and also of trees, herbs, and plants. It was, as Ovid ^F11 calls it, a chaos and an indigested mass of matter; and Hesiod ^F12 makes a chaos first to exist, and then the wide extended earth, and so Orpheus ^F13 , and others; and this is agreeably to the notion of various nations.

The Chinese make a chaos to be the beginning of all things, out of which the immaterial being (God) made all things that consist of matter, which they distinguish into parts they call Yin and Yang, the one signifying hidden or imperfect, the other open or perfect ^F14. So also the Egyptians, according to Diodorus Siculus {o}, whose opinion he is supposed to give, thought the system of the universe had but one form; the heaven and earth, and the nature of them, being mixed and blended together, until by degrees they separated and obtained the form they now have. And the Phoenicians, as Sanchoniatho ^F16 relates, supposed the principle of the universe to be a dark and windy air, or the blast of a dark air, and a turbid chaos surrounded with darkness, as follows;

and darkness was upon the face of the deep :
the whole fluid mass of earth and water mixed together. This abyss is explained by waters in the next clause, which seem to be uppermost; and this was all a dark turbid chaos, as before expressed, without any light or motion, till an agitation was made by the Spirit, as is next observed:

and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters ,
which covered the earth, (Psalms 104:6). The earthy particles being heaviest sunk lower, and the waters being lighter rose up above the others. Hence Thales ^F17 the philosopher makes water to be the beginning of all things, as do the Indian Brahmans ^F18. And Aristotle ^F19 himself owns that this was the most ancient opinion concerning the origin of the universe, and observes, that it was not only the opinion of Thales, but of those that were the most remote from the then present generation in which he lived, and of those that first wrote on divine things; and it is frequent in Hesiod and Homer to make Oceanus, or the ocean, with Tethys, to be the parents of generation. And so the Scriptures represent the original earth as standing out of the water, and consisting of it, (2 Peter 3:5).

And upon the surface of these waters, before they were drained off the earth, "the Spirit of God moved"; which is to be understood not of a wind, as Onkelos, Aben Ezra, and many Jewish writers, as well as Christians, interpret it; since the air, which the wind is a motion of, was not made until the second day. The Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem call it the spirit of mercies; and by it is meant the Spirit of the Messiah, as many Jewish writers ^F20 call him; that is, the third Person in the blessed Trinity, who was concerned in the creation of all things, as in the garnishing of the heavens, so in bringing the confused matter of the earth and water into form and order; see (Job 26:13) (Psalms 104:30) (Psalms 33:6) .

This same Spirit "moved" or brooded ^F21 upon the face of the waters, to impregnate them, as an hen upon eggs to hatch them, so he to separate the parts which were mixed together, and give them a quickening virtue to produce living creatures in them.

This sense and idea of the word are finely expressed by our poet ^F23 .

Some traces of this appear in the (nouv) or mind of Anaxagoras, which when all things were mixed together came and set them in order ^F24 ; and the "mens" of Thales he calls God, which formed all things out of water ^F25 ; and the "spiritus intus alit" of Virgil; and with this agrees what Hermes says, that there was an infinite darkness in the abyss or deep, and water, and a small intelligent spirit, endued with a divine power, were in the chaos ^F26 .

And perhaps from hence is the mundane egg, or egg of Orpheus ^F1 : or the firstborn or first laid egg, out of which all things were formed; and which he borrowed from the Egyptians and Phoenicians, and they perhaps from the Jews, and which was reckoned by them a resemblance of the world. The Egyptians had a deity they called Cneph, out of whose mouth went forth an egg, which they interpreted of the world ^F2 : and the Zophasemin of the Phoenicians, which were heavenly birds, were, according to Sanchoniatho ^F3 , of the form of an egg; and in the rites of Bacchus they worshipped an egg, as being an image of the world, as Macrobius

(Thomas Chamlers (1780-1847) in 1814 was the first to purpose that there is a gap between verse 1 and 2. Into this gap he places a pre-Adamic age, about which the scriptures say nothing. Some great catastrophe took place, which left the earth "without form and void" or ruined, in which state it remained for as many years as the geologist required ^F7 .

This speculation has been popularised by the 1917 Scofield Reference Bible. However, the numerous rock layers that are the supposed proof for these ages, were mainly laid down by Noah's flood. In (Exodus 20:11) we read of a literal six day creation. No gaps, not even for one minute, otherwise these would not be six normal days. Also, in (Romans 5:12) we read that death is the result of Adam's sin. Because the rock layers display death on a grand scale, they could not have existed before the fall of Adam.

There is no direct evidence that the earth is much older than six thousand years. However, we have the direct eyewitness report of God himself that he made everything in six days. Tracing back through the biblical genealogies we can determine the age of the universe to be about six thousand years with an error of not more than two per cent. See Topic 8756 .
Editor.)

FOOTNOTES:

• F11: "Quem dixere chaos, rudis indigestaque moles", Ovid Metamorph. l. 1. Fab. 1.
• F12: (htoi men protista caov) &c. Hesiodi Theogonia.
• F13: Orphei Argonautica, ver. 12.
• F14: Martin. Sinic. Hist. l. 1. p. 5.
• F16: Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 2. c. 10. p. 33.
• F17: Laert. in Vita Thaletis, p. 18. Cicero do Natura Deorum, l. 1.
• F18: Strabo. Geograph. l. 15. p. 491.
• F19: Metaphysic. l. 1. c. 3.
• F20: Zohar in Gen. fol. 107. 3. and fol. 128. 3. Bereshit Rabba, fol. 2. 4. and 6. 3. Vajikra Rabba, sect. 14. fol. 156. 4. Baal Hatturim in loc. Caphtor Uperah, fol. 113. 2.
• F21: (tpxrm) "incubabat", Junius, Tremellius, Piscator, "as a dove on her young", T. Bab. Chagigah, fol. 15. 1.
• F23: ----and, with mighty wings outspread, Dovelike satst brooding on the vast abyss, And mad'st it pregnant.---- Milton's Paradise Lost, B. 1. l. 20, 21, 22. The same sentiment is in B. 7. l. 234, 235.
• F24: Laert. in Vita Anaxagor. p. 91. Euseb. Evangel. Praepar. l. 10. c. 14. p. 504.
• F25: Cicero de Nat. Deorum, l. 1. Lactant, de falsa Relig. l. 1. c. 5.
• F26: Apud Drusium in loc.
• F1: Hymn. (protogon) , ver. 1, 2.
• F2: Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 3. c. 11. p. 115.
• F3: Apud Ib. l. 2. c. 10. p. 33.
• F7: Ian Taylor, p. 363, 364, "In the Minds of Men", 1984, TEF Publishing, P.O. Box 5015, Stn. F, Toronto, Canada.

And God said
This phrase is used, nine times in this account of the creation; it is admired by Longinus the Heathen in his treatise "of the Sublime", as a noble instance of it; and it is most beautifully paraphrased and explained in (Psalms 33:6) as expressive of the will, power, authority, and efficacy of the divine Being; whose word is clothed with power, and who can do, and does whatever he will, and as soon as he pleases; his orders are always obeyed. Perhaps the divine Person speaking here is the Logos or Word of God, which was in the beginning with God, and was God, and who himself is the light that lightens every creature. The words spoke were,

let there be light, and there was light :
it at once appeared; "God commanded light to shine out of darkness"; as the apostle says, (2 Corinthians 4:6) this was the first thing made out of the dark chaos; as in the new creation, or work of grace in the heart, light is the first thing produced there: what this light was is not easy to say. Some of the Jewish Rabbins, and also some Christian writers, think the angels are designed by it, which is not at all probable, as the ends and use of this light show: others of them are of opinion, that it is the same with the sun, of which a repetition is made on the fourth day, because of its use and efficacy to the earth, and its plants; but others more rightly take it to be different from the sun, and a more glimmering light, which afterwards was gathered into and perfected in the body of the sun ^F6 . It is the opinion of Zanchius ^F7 , and which is approved of by our countryman, Mr. Fuller {h}, that it was a lucid body, or a small lucid cloud, which by its circular motion from east to west made day and night ^F9 ; perhaps somewhat like the cloudy pillar of fire that guided the Israelites in the wilderness, and had no doubt heat as well as light; and which two indeed, more or less, go together; and of such fiery particles this body may well be thought to consist. The word "Ur" signifies both fire and light.

FOOTNOTES:

• F6: Vid. Menasseh ben Israel conciliator in Gen. qu. 2.
• F7: De Operibus Dei, par. 3. l. 1. c. 2. col. 239. and l. 2. c. 1.
• F9: Milton seems to be of the same mind:----- -----and forthwith light. Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure, Sprung from the deep, and from her native east To journey thro' the airy gloom began, Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle Sojourned the while.----- Paradise Lost, B. 7. l. 243

And God saw the light, that it was good
Very pleasant and delightful, useful and beneficial; that is, he foresaw it would be good, of great service, as Picherellus ^F11 interprets it; for as yet there were no inhabitants of the earth to receive any advantage by it; see (Ecclesiastes 11:7) besides, it was doubtless good to answer some present purposes, to prepare for the work of the two following days, before the great luminary was formed;

as to dispel the darkness of heaven, and that which covered the deep; to rarefy, exhale, and draw up the lighter parts of the chaos, in order to form the wide extended ether, the expanded air, and the surrounding atmosphere, while the Spirit of God was agitating the waters, and separating them from the earthy parts; and which also might serve to unite and harden those which were to form the dry land, and also to warm that when it appeared, that it might bring forth grass, herbs, and fruit trees:

and God divided the light from the darkness :
by which it seems that they were mixed together, the particles of light and darkness; but "by what way is the light parted", severed and divided from darkness, is a question put to men by the Lord himself, who only can answer it, (Job 38:24) he has so divided one from the other that they are not together at the same place and time; when light is in one hemisphere, darkness is in the other ^F12 ; and the one by certain constant revolutions succeeds the other; and by the motion of the one, the other gives way; as well as God has divided and distinguished them by calling them by different names, as Aben Ezra, and is what next follows:

FOOTNOTES:

• F11: In Cosmopoeiam, p. 267.
• F12: Milton in the place above referred to says, it was divided by the hemisphere. Paradise Lost, B. 7. l. 243

And God called the light day, and the darkness he called
night
Either by the circulating motion of the above body of light, or by the rotation of the chaos on its own axis towards it, in the space of twenty four hours there was a vicissitude of light and darkness; just as there is now by the like motion either of the sun, or of the earth; and which after this appellation God has given, we call the one, day, and the other, night:

and the evening and the morning were the first day :
the evening, the first part of the night, or darkness, put for the whole night, which might be about the space of twelve hours; and the morning, which was the first part of the day, or light, put also for the whole, which made the same space, and both together one natural day, consisting of twenty four hours; what Daniel calls an "evening morning", (Daniel 8:26) and the apostle (nucyhmeron) , a "night day", (2 Corinthians 11:25) .

Thales being asked which was first made, the night or the day, answered, the night was before one day ^F13. The Jews begin their day from the preceding evening; so many other nations. The Athenians used to reckon their day from sun setting to sun setting ^F14; the Romans from the middle of the night, to the middle of the night following, as Gellius ^F15 relates; and Tacitus ^F16 reports of the ancient Germans, that they used to compute not the number of days, but of nights, reckoning that the night led the day. Caesar ^F17 observes of the ancient Druids in Britain, that they counted time not by the number of days, but nights; and observed birthdays, and the beginnings of months and years, so as that the day followed the night; and we have some traces of this still among us, as when we say this day se'nnight, or this day fortnight.

This first day of the creation, according to James Capellus, was the eighteenth of April; but, according to Bishop Usher, the twenty third of October; the one beginning the creation in the spring, the other in autumn. It is a notion of Mr. Whiston's, that the six days of the creation were equal to six years, a day and a year being one and the same thing before the fall of man, when the diurnal rotation of the earth about its axis, as he thinks, began; and in agreement with this, very remarkable is the doctrine Empedocles taught, that when mankind sprung originally from the earth, the length of the day, by reason of the slowness of the sun's motion, was equal to ten of our present months ^F18.

The Hebrew word (bre) , "Ereb", rendered "evening", is retained by some of the Greek poets, as by Hesiod ^F19, who says, out of the "chaos" came "Erebus", and black night, and out of the night ether and the day; and Aristophanes ^F20, whose words are,

``chaos, night, and black "Erebus" were first, and wide Tartarus, but there were neither earth, air, nor heaven, but in the infinite bosom of Erebus, black winged night first brought forth a windy egg''

And Orpheus ^F21 makes night to be the beginning of all things.

(Hugh Miller (1802-1856) was the first person to popularise the "Day-Age" theory. In his book, "Testimony of the Rocks", that was published in the year after his untimely death, he speculated that the days were really long ages. He held that Noah's flood was a local flood and the rock layers were laid down long periods of time. ^F22 This theory has been popularised by the New Scofield Bible first published in 1967. See Topic 8757 .
Editor.)

FOOTNOTES:

• F13: Laert. in Vita Thaletis. p. 24.
• F14: Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 2. c. 77.
• F15: Noct. Attic. l. 3. c. 2.
• F16: De Mor. German. c. 11.
• F17: Commentar. l. 6. p. 141.
• F18: Vid. Universal History, vol. 1. p. 79.
• F19: (ek caeov d'erebov) Hesiod. Theogonia.
• F20: (caov hn kai nux erebov te melan proton) &c. Aristophanes in Avibus.
• F21: Hymn. 2. ver. 2.
• F22: Ian Taylor, p. 360-362, "In the Minds of Men", 1984, TEV Publishing, P.O. Box 5015, Stn. F, Toronto, Ontario, M4Y 2T1.