signs, and for seasons, and for 15 And let them be for lights days, and years. o Ps. 74. 17. & 104. 19. set for a particular purpose or use.Thus it is said that God 'made Joseph a father to Pharaoh'-' made him lord of Egypt' -' made the Jordan a border between the tribes' - 'made David the head of the heathen; and so in innumerable other instances. As therefore the rainbow was made or constituted a sign, though it might have existed before, so the sun, moon, and stars, may be said to have been made and set as lights in the firmament, on the fourth day, though actually called into existence on the first, or previously. The in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. therefore, whenever the judgments of God or extraordinary events are signified by remarkable appearances in them. In this way eclipses of the sun and moon, comets, meteors, falling stars, &c., serve as signs, i. e. as preternatural tokens or monitions of the divine agency in the sight of men. This is the genuine force of the original, which very often conveys the idea of a miraculous interference or manifestation. Ps.65.8. 'They also that dwell in the uttermost parts are afraid at thy tokens )אותות signs).' That they same result had indeed been really ef- | may have been designed also to sub serve important purposes in the various economy of human life, as in affording signs to the mariner to aid him in navigation, and to the husbandman to guide him in regard to the proper seasons for ploughing, sowing, planting, pruning, reaping, is not improbable, though we think this not so strictly the true import of the original. But it is certain they have answered for this end, and perhaps, were so designed.--And for seasons. Heb. fected by the same means during the previous three days and nights, but these luminaries were henceforth by their rising and setting, to be the visible means of producing this separation or succession. - Lights. Heb. מאות | lighters, instruments of illumination, light-bearers, light-dispensers. The original word is different from that rendered light,)3 . (אור.-- To divide the day, &c Heb. To separate between the day and between the night.' Let them be for signs. That islet | set or appointed times; from a signs be observed by means of them. The manner in which the heavenly bodies were destined to serve for 'signs,' in the sense in which that term generally occurs in the Scriptures, may be root )עד( signifying to fix by previous appointment. The phrase points not only to the seasons of the year, which are regulated by the course of the sun, and to the computation of months and learned from such passages as the fol-years, but also to fasts, feasts, and other religious solemnities, such as were appointed to be observed by the people of Israel. Compare Is. 66. 23. 1 Chron. 23.31. Ps. 104. 19. And for days and years. As the word 'for' is here omitted before 'years,' though occurring before each of the other terms, the sense of the phrase is undoubtedly 'for days even years;' implying that a day is often to be taken for a year, as is the case in prophetical computation. See lowing; Luke 21. 25. 'And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring.' Acts 2. 19, 20. 'And I will show wonders in the heavens above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood and fire and vapor of smoke; The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before that great and notable day of the Lord come.' They answer this end, | Ezek. 4. 6. Dan. 9. 24, 25. Of two words 16 And God made two great | lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. p Ps.136. 7, 8, 9. & 148. 3.5. q Ps. 8. 3. r Job,38. 7. connected by the copulative 'and' the last is very frequently merely exegetiical or explanatory of the first; as Eph. 4. 11. 'And he gave (i. e. appointed) some pastors and teachers, i. e. pastors even teachers. 2 Cor. 1. 3. (Gr.) 'Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,' i. e. as rightly rendered in our common translation, 'God 18 And to rule over the day, and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. 20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the s Jer. 31. 35. God had made.' This we offer, however, merely as a suggestion on a point which deserves perhaps a more strict investigation. - The greater light. That is, the sun, usually termed in the Hebrew shemesh, i. e. minister or servant, from its ministering light and heat to the earth with its inhabitants and productions. The name was even the Father, &c.' The original | well adapted, as perhaps it was design word for year )שנה( has the import of change or reiteration from the circuit or revolution involved in the idea. ed, to prevent the sun from becoming an object of religious worship, a species of idolatry which crept into the world at a very early period. - To rule the day. To regulate the day as to its commencement by its rising and as to its close by its setting; to be, as it were, a presiding power over the day and its various transactions and events. 16. God made two great lights. The sun and moon are alike called great luminaries from their apparently equal, or nearly equal size, not from the degree of light which they give. Every thing in this narrative is described with reference to its appearance to the eye of a supposed spectator. It would seem that the words, 'And it was so,' in the preceding verse were designed to inform ❘ us of the actual execution of the creating command in respect to the luminaries; if so, we see no serious objection to supposing that this and the two ensuing verses are to be taken parenthetically, the writer's scope being to inform us, that God had previously created these bodies for the purpose here mentioned, but that they had not hitherto been able to answer the ends of their formation on account of the turbid state of the atmosphere. Otherwise the passage must be considered as a mere re- | signifying to bring forth, increase, or 20. The moving creature. Heb. sheretz. It is remarkable that there are two distinct words, of very different origin, which the English translators have rendered promiscuously 'creeping creatures' or 'creeping things,' and also 'moving creatures,' following no doubt the authority of the Septuagint, which gives έρπετα reptiles for both; thus making the order of the successive creations much less clear and perspicuous in our version than it is in the Hebrew text. The first of these words is that here employed שרץ sheretz, ren dered in the margin 'creeping creatures' It comes from a root שרץ sharatz petition, in more expanded particulars, of what is affirmed in the preceding verse. The phrase, therefore, 'And God made' would be better read 'For multiply abundantly; and is in fact the very verb which in this same verse is rendered 'bring forth abundantly.' Thus too Gen. 8. 17, 'That they may moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 21 And u God created great u ch. 6. 20. & 7. 14. & 8. 19. Ps. 104. 26. breed abundantly ישרצו( in the earth, and be fruitful and multiply in the earth.' Ex. 1. 7. 'And the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, )וישרצו( and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty, and the land was filled with them.' Ex. 8. 3, 'And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly )ישרץ(. From this it appears that the proper translation of the noun is not the creeping, but the rapidly multiplying or swarming creature. It is applied not only to the smaller kinds of fishes, but to various species of land animals, as mice, snails, lizards, &c. Lev. 11. 29, and even to fowls, Lev. 11. 23; in short, to all kinds of living crea 1 whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. dering the Heb. עוףph by 'fowl' our translators have limited its meaning so as to include only the birds. But the term includes also winged insects, as is evident from Lev. 11. 20, 'All fowls )העוף( that creep, going upon four.' The proper rendering is not fowl, but flying thing, including the tribes of all kinds that can raise themselves up into the air; as is in. deed made obvious by the expression in the next verse כל עוף כנף every flying thing that hath wings. From the letter of this clause it would appear that the fowls, as well as the fishes, were formed out of the water, but in ch. 2. 19, it is said that 'out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the tures inhabiting either land or water, earth and every fowl of the air. To which are oviparous and remarkable for fecundity, as we know is pre-eminently the case with the finny tribes. Ps. 104. 24. 25, 'The earth is full of thy riches; so is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable.' The other word translated 'creeping things' is remes, and the creatures expressed by this name were cre ated during the sixth day or period. We shall afterwards show (zee note on v.24) that it has a very different meaning from here applied to a part of the animate creations of the fifth day. Thathath life. Heb. נפש חיה living soul. The original word implies 'breath,' and so denotes an animal which lives by breathing. It is chiefly applied in the Scriptures to creatures capable of sensation, and thus distinguished from inanimate matter. Though spoken of man, it does not by itself denote the intellectual or rational faculty, which enters into our ideas of the human soul. See note on ch.2. v. 7. - And fowl that may fly. Heb. ועוף יעופס. By ren reconcile the apparent discrepancy some have proposed to interpret the word 'ground' in a large sense, as sy nonymous with 'earth,' including both land and water. A better mode is to vary slightly the translation in the present passage, which the original will well admit, and read, 'and let the fowl fly above the earth.' The object of the writer here seems to be to specify the respective elements assigned as the habi tation of the fishes and the flying things. In the other passage the design is to acquaint us with the source from whence the beasts and birds originated. They are probably here mentioned together from the similarity of the elements in which they live, and of the motions by which they pass through them. In the open firmament. Heb. על פני רקיע on the face of the firmament. To an eye looking upwards the flight or sailing motion of a bird appears to be on the face of the sky, which, as Job says, is spread out as a molten looking glass.' 21. God created great whales. Heb. 22 And God blessed them, say- | and let fowl multiply in the earth. ing, * Be fruitful, and multiply, 23 And the evening and the and fill the waters in the seas, morning were the fifth day. w ch. 8. 17. tannuth) of the wilderness. On the whole, the probability, we think, is, that the original is a generic term more peculiarly appropriate to the serpent or lizard tribes, but applied also without much regard to scientific precision to different kinds of animals of large dimensions and fearful properties whether aquatic or terrestrial or both. Without, therefore, absolutely condemning the present translation, 'great whales,' we may still admit that 'great reptiles' התנינם הגדלים Gr. τα κητη τα μεγαλα. The execution or effect of the command contained in the preceding verse is here described. The rendering adopted in our translation has evidently been governed by that of the Septuagint, but it decidedly fails to represent the true import of the original. Indeed, neither the Greek nor the English translators | have been consistent with themselves in rendering the Heb. word tan or תניםannimin both which forms it occurs. We find them in other places, ❘ would have been better; and if there for instance, severally translating it by δρακων and 'dragon.' Thus Ezek. 29. 3, 'I am against thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon. (Heb. התנים הגדול. Gr. τον δρακοντα τον μεγαν), that lieth in the midst of the rivers.' be any term in the sacred narrative The figure in this passage is evidently 22. God blessed them. That is, gave them power to propagate their several species by generation, and thus to increase into a countless multitude. This idea of increase or multiplication is often conveyed by the word blessing in the sacred writers, as Gen. 26.60, 'And ed in our translation 'sea monster,' though from its being said to 'draw out the breast to its young,' the term would appear to denote some kind of wild beast, rather than a tenant of the deep. In Mal. 1. 3. it is said, 'And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his beritage waste for the dragons )תנותthey blessed (i. e. invoked a blessing 24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. upon) Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those that hate them.' Ps. 128. 3, 4, 'Thy wife shall be a fruitful vine by the sides of thy house; thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold that thusshall | the man be blessed that feareth the Lord.' It is in virtue of this 'blessing' of God that the almost infinite increase of the various animated tribes of the creation has hitherto resulted, and is still perhaps going on, though the fact of a continued multiplication whether of animals or men is a matter not easily determined. Fill the waters in the scas. The word 'seas' here evidently has the meaning of gulfs or cavities forming the reservoir of the waters of the ocean. See note on v. 10. Thus too are we to understand the term, Is. 11.9, 'The earth shall be full of the know ledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, i. e. the bed of the sea. 24. Living creature. Heb. נפש חיה living soul; collective singular for 'living souls.' - Cattle. Hebbehe 25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. is by no means limited in its application to insects or reptiles. Thus we find it, Ps. 104. 20, applied to the beasts of the forest, 'Thou makest darkness and it is night, wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth )תרמש(' Yet that it is occasionally used of the inhabitants of the water is clear from Lev. 11. 46, 'This is the law of every living creature that moveth )רשת( in the waters; and from Ps. 69. 34, 'Let the heavens praise him, the seas, and every thing moveth )ר( therein. In the present case, as the are grouped with the בהמה and היה הארץie. the larger herbivorous cattle and the larger beasts of prey, it is probable that the term refers to the smaller classes of land animals whose bodies are brought by means of short legs into closer contact with the earth. If reptiles are in cluded, they must be exclusively landreptiles, as the amphibious species were embraced in the previous day's work. - T Beast. Heb.hayah. This term in Hebrew is derived from a word signifying 'life' or 'living,' and is the term usually applied to wild beasts in contradistinction from the tame, which, as just remarked, are usually, though not always, denominated cattle. Although it is probable that none of the animal tribes at the creation or before the fall were wild in the sense of fierce and ravenous, yet the different species un mah. Under this term are included the various species of tame and domestic animals, especially such as are herbivorous.-- Creeping thing. Heb. רמשremes. In our translation we here find creeping things again mentioned and included among the objects of the sixth day's creation. The Eng-doubtedly possessed different natures, some being originally more vivacious, active, and vigorous, and less adapted to man's dominion than others. lish phrase in its common acceptation undoubtedly implies some of the insect or reptile tribes; and this sense is plainly favored by the Septuagint rendering έρπετα ; but the Heb. is de- | rived from a verb signifying in a more water are commanded to bring forth general sense, to move or to tread, and | respectively the creatures which were to 25. And God made. It is to be remarked that although the earth and the |