chapter 15), there are few incidents in the one document to which the

other does not contain a parallel.¹. What is much more remarkable, and indeed surprising, is that the _manner_ of narration changes in the two documents _pari passu_. Thus the transition from the loose connexion of the Abraham legends to the more consecutive biography of Jacob, and then to the artistic unity of the Joseph-stories (see page xxviii f.), is equally noticeable in Yahwist and in Elohist. It is this extraordinarily close parallelism, both in matter and form, which proves that both documents drew from a common body of tradition, and even suggests that that tradition had already been partly reduced to writing.²

¹ The precise extent to which this is true depends, of course, on the validity of the finer processes of analysis, with regard to which there is room for difference of opinion. On the analysis followed in the commentary, the only episodes in Elohist to which there is no trace of a parallel in Yahwist, after chapter 15, are: the sacrifice of Isaac, 22; Esau’s selling of his birthright, 25²⁹⁻³⁴ (?); the theophany of Mahanaim, 32²ᐧ ³; the purchase of land at Shechem, 33¹⁸⁻²⁰; and the various incidents in 35¹⁻⁸ᐧ ¹⁴⁻²⁰. Those peculiar to Yahwist are: the theophany at Mamre, 18; the destruction of Sodom, 19¹⁻²⁸; Lot and his daughters, 19³⁰⁻³⁸; the birth of Jacob and Esau, 25²¹⁻²⁸; the Isaac-narratives, 26; Jacob’s meeting with Rachel, 29²⁻¹⁴; Reuben and the love-apples, 30¹⁴ ᶠᶠᐧ; the incest of Reuben, 35²¹ᐧ ²²ᵃ; Judah and Tamar, 38; Joseph’s temptation, 39⁷⁻²⁰; the cup in Benjamin’s sack, 44; Joseph’s agrarian policy, 47¹³⁻²⁶ (?); and the genealogies of 22²⁰⁻²⁴ 25¹⁻⁶.

² One is almost tempted to go further, and say that the facts can be best explained by the hypothesis of literary dependence of one document on the other (so Luther _Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme_, 169: “Elohist steht völlig in seinem [Yahwist’s] Banne”). But the present writer is convinced from repeated examination, that the differences are not of a kind that can be accounted for in this way (see Procksch, 305 f.).

Here we come back, from the side of analysis, to a question which was left unsettled in § 5; the question, namely, of the process by which the oral tradition was consolidated and reduced to writing. It has been shown with great probability that both Yahwist and Elohist are _composite documents_, in which minor legendary cycles have been incorporated, and different strata of tradition are embedded. This presupposes a development of the tradition within the circle represented by each document, and leads eventually to the theory advocated by most recent critics, that the symbols Yahwist and Elohist must be taken to express, not two individual writers but two _schools_, _i.e._, two series of narrators, animated by common conceptions, following a common literary method, and transmitting a common form of the tradition from one generation to another.

The phenomena which suggest this hypothesis are fully described in the body of the commentary, and need only be recapitulated here. In Yahwist, composite structure has been most clearly made out in the Primæval History (chapters 1‒11), where at least two, and probably more, strands of narrative can be distinguished (pages 1‒4). Gunkel seems to have shown that in 12‒25 two cycles of Abraham-legends have been interwoven (page 240); also that in 25 ff. the Jacob-Esau and the Jacob-Laban legends were originally independent of each other: this last, however, applies to Yahwist and Elohist alike, so that the fusion had probably taken place in the common tradition which lies behind both. Further, chapters 34 and 38 (pages 418, 450) belong to an older stratum of tradition than the main narrative; and the same might be said of chapter 49 (page 512), which may very plausibly be regarded as a traditional poem of the ‘school’ of Yahwist, and the oldest extant specimen of its _repertoire_.――With regard to Elohist, the proof of composite authorship lies chiefly in the Books of Exodus, Numbers, and Joshua; in Genesis, however, we have imperfectly assimilated fragments of a more ancient tradition in 34 (? if Elohist be a component there), 35¹⁻⁷ 48²² and perhaps some other passages.――The important fact is that these passages exhibit all the literary peculiarities of the main source to which they are assigned; at least, no linguistic _differentiæ_ of any consequence have yet been discovered.¹ The problem is to frame a theory which shall do justice at once to their material incongruities and their literary homogeneity.

¹ The only exception would be Sievers’ metrical analysis, which leads to results far more complicated than can be justified by other indications (see page xxxi f.).

While the fact of collective authorship of some kind is now generally recognised, there is no agreement as to the interpretation which best explains all the phenomena. Some scholars are impressed (and the impression is certainly very intelligible) by the unity of conception and standpoint and mode of treatment which characterise the two collections, and maintain that (in the case of Yahwist especially) the stamp of a powerful and original personality is too obvious to leave much play for the activity of a ‘school.’¹ It is very difficult to hold the balance even between the claims of unity and complexity in the documents; but the theory of single authorship may easily be pressed too far. If we could get through with only a Yahwist¹ and Yahwist², Elohist¹, Elohist² etc.,――_i.e._, with the theory of one main document supplemented by a few later additions,――it would be absurd to speak of ‘schools.’ And even if the case were considerably more complicated, it might still be possible to rest satisfied (as a majority of critics do) with the idea of _literary_ schools, manipulating written documents under the influence of tendencies and principles which had become traditional within special circles. Gunkel goes, however, much further with his conception of Yahwist and Elohist as first of all guilds of oral narrators, whose stories gradually took written shape within their respective circles, and were ultimately put together in the collections as we now have them. The theory, while not necessarily excluding the action of an outstanding personality in shaping either the oral or the literary phase of the tradition, has the advantage of suggesting a medium in which the traditional material might have assumed its specifically Yahwistic or Elohistic form before being incorporated in the main document of the school. It is at all events a satisfactory working hypothesis; and that is all that can be looked for in so obscure a region of investigation. Whether it is altogether so artificial and unnatural as Professor Orr would have us believe, the reader must judge for himself.

¹ See the lengthy excursus of Luther in _Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme_, 107‒170, where the thesis is upheld that the Yahwist (_i.e._ Yahwist¹) is not a stage in the natural process of remodelling the tradition; that he does not mean merely to retail the old stories as he found them, but writes his book with the conscious purpose of enforcing certain ideas and convictions which often run contrary to the prevailing tendencies of his age (108). Luther seems to simplify the problem too much by excluding the primæval tradition from consideration (108), and ignoring the distribution of the Yahwistic material over the various stages of the redaction (155). It makes a considerable difference to the theory if (as seems to be the case) the sections which Luther assigns to Yahwist² (_e.g._ chapters 34, 38, 19) really represent older phases of tradition than the main document; for if they existed in their Yahwistic colouring prior to the compilation of Yahwist¹, there must have been a Yahwistic circle of some kind to preserve them; and even if they received their literary stamp at a later time, there must still have been something of the nature of a school to impress the Yahwistic character so strongly upon them. His conception of the Yahwist as an Ephraimite, a detached and sympathetic adherent of the prophetic and Rechabite movement of the 9th century, an opponent of the cultus, and an upholder of the nomadic ideal against the drift of the old tradition, seems to go far beyond the evidence adduced, and, indeed, to be hardly reconcilable with the religious tone and spirit of the narratives.――To a similar effect writes Procksch, _Sagenbuch_, 284‒308; although he does justice to the composite structure of the document Yahwist, and describes it in terms which throw a shade of uncertainty on the alleged unity of authorship. When we read of an “einheitlichen Grundstock, auf den wie in einen Stamm ♦Geschichten ganz anderer Herkunft gewissermassen aufgepropft sind, jetzt eng damit verwachsen durch die massgebenden Ideen” (294 f.), we cannot help asking where these branches grew before they were engrafted on their present stem. If we are right in distinguishing a strand of narrative in which Yahwe was used from the beginning, and another in which it was introduced in the time of Enosh, it is not easy to account for their fusion on any theory which does not allow a relative independence to the two conceptions.

♦ “Geschicten” replaced with “Geschichten”

§ 9. _Characteristics of Yahwist and Elohist ――their relation to Literary Prophecy._

It is not the purpose of this section to give an exhaustive characterisation of the literary or general features of the two older documents of Genesis. If Yahwist and Elohist are to be regarded as, in the main, recensions of a common body of oral tradition, and if they are the work of schools rather than of individuals, it is obvious that the search for characteristic differences loses much of its interest; and in point of fact the attempt to delineate two well-defined literary types is apt to be defeated by the widely contrasted features which have to find a place in one and the same picture. Our object here is simply to specify some outstanding differences which justify the separation of sources, and which may assist us later to determine the relative ages of the two documents.

Yahwist presents, on the whole, a more uniform literary texture than Elohist. It is generally allowed to contain the best examples of pure narrative style in the Old Testament; and in Genesis it rarely, if ever, falls below the highest level. But while Elohist hardly attains the same perfection of form, there are whole passages, especially in the more ample narratives, in which it is difficult to assign to the one a superiority over the other. Yahwist excels in picturesque ‘objectivity’ of description,――in the power to paint a scene with few strokes, and in the delineation of life and character: his dialogues, in particular, are inimitable “for the delicacy and truthfulness with which character and emotions find expression in them” (compare Genesis 44¹⁸ ᶠᶠᐧ).¹ Elohist, on the other hand, frequently strikes a deeper vein of subjective feeling, especially of pathos; as in the account of Isaac’s sacrifice (22), of the expulsion of Hagar (21⁸ ᶠᶠᐧ), the dismay of Isaac and the tears of Esau on the discovery of Jacob’s fraud (27³⁵ ᶠᶠᐧ), Jacob’s lifelong grief for Rachel (48⁷), or his tenderness towards Joseph’s children (48¹⁴).² But here again no absolute distinction can be drawn; in the history of Joseph, _e.g._, the vein of pathos is perhaps more marked in Yahwist than in Elohist. Where parallels are sufficiently distinct to show a tendency, it is found in several instances that Yahwist’s objectivity of treatment has succeeded in preserving the archaic spirit of a legend which in Elohist is transformed by the more refined sentiment of a later age. The best example is Yahwist’s picture of Hagar, the intractable, indomitable Bedawi woman (chapater 16), as contrasted with Elohist’s modernised version of the incident (21⁸ ᶠᶠᐧ), with its affecting picture of the mother and child all but perishing in the desert. So again, Elohist (chapter 20) introduces an extenuation of Abraham’s falsehood about his wife which is absent from the older narrative of Yahwist (12¹⁰ ᶠᶠᐧ).

¹ Driver, _An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament_, page 119.

² Compare Gunkel, page LXXVII.

It is not surprising, considering the immense variety of material comprised in both documents, that the palpable literary differences reduce themselves for the most part to a preference for particular phrases and turns of expression in the one recension or the other. The most important case is, of course, the distinctive use (in the pre-Mosaic period) of Yahwe in Yahwist and Elohim in Elohist.¹ But round this are grouped a number of smaller linguistic differences which, when they occur in any degree of profusion in a consecutive passage, enable us to assign it with confidence to one or other of the sources.

¹ This, it is true, is more than a mere matter of phraseology; in the case of Elohist, it is the application of a theory of religious development which connected the revelation of the name Yahwe with the mission of Moses (Exodus 3¹³⁻¹⁵). It is now generally held that the original Elohist continued to use Elohim after the revelation to Moses, and that the occurrences of Yahwe in the later history belong to secondary strata of the document. On either view the choice of the general name of deity is difficult to account for. Procksch regards it as due to the influence of the great monotheistic movement headed by Elijah; but that is not probable. The inspiring motive of Elijah’s crusade was precisely jealousy for _Yahwe_, the national God of Israel. Gunkel, on the other hand, thinks it arose from the fact that the legends were largely of Canaanite and polytheistic origin; and it is certainly the case that in the patriarchal history Elohist contains several strong traces of a polytheistic basis of the narratives (28¹⁰ ᶠᶠᐧ 32²ᐧ ³ 35⁷ etc.). But that Elohim had a monotheistic sense to the mind of the Elohistic writers is not to be doubted (against Eerdmans).

_The divine names._――While the possibility of error in the Massoretic textual tradition is fully recognised, cases of inadvertence in the use of יהוה‎ and אלהים‎ are in Genesis singularly few. In Elohist contexts, יהוה‎ occurs 22¹¹ᐧ ¹⁴ ᵇⁱˢ 28²¹ 31⁴⁹, where its presence seems due to the intentional action of a redactor. Yahwist has אלהים‎ (a) in 3¹⁻⁵ 4²⁵ (a special case: see pages 2, 53); (b) where the contrast between the divine and the human is to be emphasised, 32²⁹; (c) in conversations with, or references to, heathen (real or supposed), 9²⁷ 39⁹ 41³²ᵇᐧ ³⁸ 43²⁸ᐧ ²⁹ 44¹⁶; there are also (d) some doubtful examples which are very probably to be assigned to Elohist, 33⁵ᵇᐧ ¹⁰ᵇᐧ ¹¹ 42²⁸. It is only in the last group (if even there), with the possible addition (see page 155) of 8¹, that redactional alteration or scribal error need be suspected.

For _the inhabitants of Canaan_, Yahwist uses כנעני‎, 10¹⁸ᵇᐧ ¹⁹ 12⁶ (? Redactor), 24³ᐧ ³⁷ 50¹¹ + (with פרזי‎, 13⁷ (Redactor?) 34³⁰); Elohist אמרי‎, 15¹⁶ 48²² +.¹

¹ The cross (+) means that the usage is continued in the other books of the Hexateuch.

For the name _Jacob_, Yahwist substitutes _Israel_ after 35²² (except 46⁵ᵇ); Elohist consistently uses _Jacob_ (except 46² 48⁸ᐧ ¹¹ᐧ ²¹ [50²⁵?]).

The following are selected lists of expressions (in Genesis) highly characteristic of Yahwist and Elohist respectively:

Yahwist: אבי‎ and ושם אחיו‎ in genealogies: the former, 4²⁰ᐧ ²¹ 10²¹ 11²⁹ 22²¹; the latter, 4²¹ 10²⁵ (compare 22²¹ 25²⁶ 38²⁹ ᶠᐧ).――זְקֻנִים‎ (in connexion with a late-born child), 21²ᵃᐧ ⁷ ‎ 24³⁶ 37³ 44²⁰.――מצא חן‎, 6⁸ 18³ 19¹⁹ 30²⁷ 32⁶ 33⁸ᐧ ¹⁰ᐧ ¹⁵ 34¹¹ 39⁴ 47²⁵ᐧ ²⁹ 50⁴ +.――טרם‎ (without ב‎), 2⁵ 19⁴ 24¹⁵ᐧ ⁴⁵ +.――ידע‎ (in sexual sense), 4¹ᐧ ¹⁷ᐧ ²⁵ 19⁵ᐧ ⁸ 24¹⁶ 38²⁶ (also in Priestly-Code).――ילד‎ (= ‘beget’), 4¹⁸ 10⁸ᐧ ¹³ᐧ ¹⁵ᐧ ²⁶ 22²³ 25³.――יש‎, 24²³ᐧ ⁴²ᐧ ⁴⁹ 28¹⁶ 39⁴ᐧ ⁵ᐧ ⁸ 42² 43⁴ᐧ ⁷ 44¹⁹ᐧ ²⁰ᐧ ²⁶ 47⁶ᵇ + (42¹ Elohist?).――Derivatives of √ עצב‎, ♦3¹⁶ᐧ ¹⁷ 5²⁹ 6⁶ 45⁵ᵃ.――הפעם‎, 2²³ 18³² 29⁴ᐧ ³⁵ 30²⁰ᵇ ‎ 46³⁰ +.――צעיר‎, צעירה‎ (for the younger of two brothers or sisters), 19³¹ᐧ ³⁴ᐧ ³⁵ᐧ ³⁸ 25²³ 29²⁶ 43³³ 48¹⁴.――קרא בשם י׳‎, 4²⁶ 12⁸ 13⁴ 21³³ ‎ 26²⁵ +.――רוץ לקראת‎, 18² [19¹] 24¹⁷ 29¹³ 33⁴.――שפחה‎, 12¹⁶ 16¹ᐧ ⁵ᐧ ⁶ᐧ ⁸ 24³⁵ 30⁷ᐧ ¹⁰ᐧ ¹²ᐧ ⁴³ 32⁶ᐧ ²³ 33¹ᐧ ²ᐧ ⁶ (20¹⁴ 30¹⁸ Redactor: also common in Priestly-Code); see on אמה‎ below.――השקיף‎, 18¹⁶ 19²⁸ ‎ 26⁸ +.――מעט‎ with following genitive, 18⁴ 24¹⁷ᐧ ⁴³ 43²ᐧ ¹¹ 44²⁵.――_Particles_: בעבור‎, 3¹⁷ 8²¹ 12¹³ᐧ ¹⁶ 18²⁶ᐧ ²⁹ᐧ ³¹ᐧ ³² 21³⁰ 26²⁴ 27⁴ᐧ ¹⁰ᐧ ¹⁹ᐧ ³¹ 46³⁴.――כי־על־כן‎, 18⁵ 19⁸ 33¹⁰ 38²⁶ +.――לבלתי‎, 3¹¹ 4¹⁵ 19²¹ 38⁹ + (in Elohist and Priestly-Code once each).――נא‎, in Yahwist about 40 times, in Elohist about 6 times (in Genesis).

♦ duplicate reference “16.” removed

Elohist: אמה‎, 20¹⁷ 21¹⁰ᐧ ¹²ᐧ ¹³ 30³ 31³³ + (see שפחה‎ above).――גדול‎ and קטן‎ (‘elder’ and ‘younger’), 29¹⁶ᐧ ¹⁸ 42¹³ᐧ ¹⁵ᐧ ²⁰ᐧ ³²ᐧ ³⁴ (compare 41⁵¹ ᶠᐧ).――כלכל‎, 45¹¹ 47¹² 50²¹.――משכרת‎, 29¹⁵ 31⁷ᐧ ⁴¹.――A very characteristic idiom of Elohist is the vocative (sometimes doubled: 22¹¹ 46², Exodus 3⁴, [1 Samuel 3⁴ LXX] +) with the answer הנני‎: 22¹ᐧ ⁷ᐧ ¹¹ 27¹ᵇᐧ ¹⁸ 31¹¹ 37¹³ 46² +.――Elohist is further distinguished by a number of rare or archaic words or phrases: אמנה‎, 20¹² + Joshua 7²⁰; דגה‎, 48¹⁶ +; זבד‎, 30²⁰; חמת‎, ‎ 21¹⁴ᐧ ¹⁵ᐧ ¹⁹ +; טחה‎, 21¹⁶ +; כן‎ (‘honest’), 42¹¹ᐧ ¹⁹ᐧ ³¹ᐧ ³³ᐧ ³⁴; ‎ מנים‎, 31⁷ᐧ ⁴¹ +; נין ונכד‎, 21²³ (compare Isaiah 14²², Job 18¹⁹ +); עקד‎, ‎ 22⁹ +; פלל‎, 48¹¹; פתר‎, 40⁸ ᶠᶠᐧ 41⁸ ᶠᶠᐧ +; פתרון‎, 40⁵ ᶠᶠᐧ 41¹¹ +; צנום‎, ‎ 41²³; קשיטה‎, 33¹⁹ + Joshua 24³² [Job 42¹¹] +; by a partiality for rare infinitive forms (31²⁸ 46³ 50²⁰ 48¹¹ +), and the occasional use of long forms of the nominal suffix (21²⁹ [31⁶] 41²¹ 42³⁶).

The religious and theological conceptions of the two documents are in the main identical, though a certain difference of standpoint appears in one or two features. Both evince towards the popular cultus an attitude of friendly toleration, with a disposition to ignore its cruder aspects; and this tendency is carried somewhat further in Yahwist than in Elohist. Thus, while neither countenances the Asherah, or sacred pole, Elohist alludes, without offence, to the Maẓẓebah, or sacred pillar (28¹⁸ᐧ ²² 31¹³ᐧ ⁴⁵ ᶠᶠᐧ 35²⁰); whereas Yahwist nowhere allows to the maẓẓebah a legitimate function in the worship of Yahwe. A very singular circumstance is that while both frequently record the erection of altars by the patriarchs, they are remarkably reticent as to the actual offering of sacrifice: Elohist refers to it only twice (22. 46¹), and Yahwist never at all in the patriarchal history (contrast 4³ ᶠᶠᐧ 8²⁰ ᶠᶠᐧ). It is difficult to imagine that the omission is other than accidental: the idea that it indicates an indifference (Gunkel), or a conscious opposition (Luther), to the cultus, can hardly be entertained; for after all the altar had no use or significance except as a means of sacrifice.――The most striking diversity appears in the representation of the Deity, and especially of the manner of His revelation to men. The antique form of the theophany, in which Yahwe (or the Angel of Yahwe) appears visibly in human form, and in broad daylight, is peculiar to Yahwist (chapters 16. 18. 19), and corresponds to the highly anthropomorphic language which is observed in other parts of the document (chapters 2. 3. 7. 8. 11⁵ᐧ ⁷). Elohist, on the contrary, records no daylight theophanies, but prefers the least sensible forms of revelation,――the dream or night-vision (15¹ 20³ᐧ ⁶ 21¹² [compare ¹⁴] 22¹ ᶠᶠᐧ 28¹⁰ ᶠᶠᐧ 31¹¹ᐧ ²⁴ 46²),¹ or the voice of the angel from heaven (21¹⁷). In this respect Elohist undoubtedly represents a more advanced stage of theological reflexion than Yahwist.――The national feeling in both sources is buoyant and hopeful: the ‘scheue heidnische Stimmung,’ the sombre and melancholy view of life which marks the primæval history of Yahwist disappears absolutely when the history of the immediate ancestors of Israel is reached. The strongly pessimistic strain which some writers note as characteristic of Elohist finds no expression whatever in Genesis; and so far as it exists at all (Joshua 24), it belongs to secondary strata of the document, with which we are not here concerned.

¹ We do not include the dreams of the Joseph-stories, which seem to stand on a somewhat different footing (page 345). Nocturnal revelations occur, however, in Yahwist (26²⁴ 28¹³), but whether in the oldest parts of the document is not quite certain.

Here we touch on a question of great importance, and one fortunately capable of being brought to a definite issue: viz., the relation of Yahwist and Elohist to the literary prophecy of the 8th and following centuries. It is usual to speak of the combined Jehovist as the _Prophetical_ narrative of the Pentateuch, in distinction from Priestly-Code, the _Priestly_ narrative; and in so far as the name is employed (as, _e.g._, by Driver _An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament_⁸, 117) to emphasise that contrast, it is sufficiently appropriate. As used, however, by many writers, it carries the implication that the documents――or that one to which the epithet is applied――show unmistakable traces of the influence of the later prophets from Amos downwards. That view seems to us entirely erroneous. It is undoubtedly the case that both Yahwist and Elohist are pervaded by ideas and convictions which they share in common with the writing prophets: such as, the monotheistic conception of God, the ethical view of His providential government, and perhaps a conscious opposition to certain emblems of popular cultus (asheras, maẓẓebas, teraphim, etc.). But that these and similar principles were first enunciated by the prophets of the 8th century, we have no reason to suppose. Nor does the fact that Abraham, as a man of God, is called _Nābî’_ (20⁷, compare Deuteronomy 34¹⁰) necessarily imply that the figure of an Amos or an Isaiah was before the mind of the writers. We must bear in mind that the 9th century witnessed a powerful prophetic movement which, commencing in Northern Israel, extended into Judah; and that any prophetic influences discoverable in Genesis are as likely to have come from the impulse of that movement as from the later development which is so much better known to us. But in truth it is questionable if any prophetic impulse at all, other than those inherent in the religion from its foundation by Moses, is necessary to account for the religious tone of the narratives of Genesis. The decisive fact is that the really distinctive ideas of written prophecy find no echo in those parts of Yahwist and Elohist with which we have to do. These are: the presentiment of the impending overthrow of the Israelitish nationality, together with the perception of its moral necessity, the polemic against foreign deities, the denunciation of prevalent oppression and social wrong, and the absolute repudiation of cultus as a means of recovering Yahwe’s favour. Not only are these conceptions absent from our documents, but it is difficult to conceive that they should have been in the air in the age when the documents were composed. For, though it is true that very different religious ideas may exist side by side in the same community, it is scarcely credible that Yahwist and Elohist could have maintained their confident hope for the future of the nation intact against the tremendous arraignment of prophecy. This consideration gains in force from the fact that the secondary strata of Elohist, and the redactional additions to Jehovist, which do come within the sweep of the later prophetic movement, clearly show that the circles from which these writings emanated were sensitively responsive to the sterner message of the prophets.

§ 10. _Date and place of origin――Redaction of Jehovist._

On the relative age of Yahwist and Elohist, there exists at present no consensus of critical opinion. Down to the appearance of Wellhausen’s _Geschichte Israels_ in 1878, scholars were practically unanimous in assigning the priority to Elohist.¹ Since then, the opposite view has been strongly maintained by the leading exponents of the Grafian theory,² although a number of critics still adhere to the older position.³ The reason for this divergence of opinion lies not in the paucity of points of comparison, but partly in the subjective nature of the evidence, and partly in the fact that such indications as exist point in opposite directions.

¹ Hupfeld, Schrader, Nöldeke, Reuss, al.

² Wellhausen, Kuenen, Stade, Meyer; so Luther, Procksch, al.

³ Dillmann, Kittel, König, Winckler al.

To take a few examples from Genesis: Chapter 16¹⁻¹⁴ (Yahwist) produces an impression of greater antiquity than the parallel 21⁹⁻¹⁹ (Elohist); Yahwist’s explanation of the name Issachar, with its story of the love-apples (30¹⁴⁻¹⁶), is more primitive than that of Elohist (30¹⁷); Yahwist (30²⁸⁻⁴³) attributes the increase of Jacob’s flocks to his own cunning, whereas Elohist (31⁴⁻¹³) attributes it to the divine blessing. On the other hand, Elohist’s recension of the Bethel-theophany (28¹¹ ᶠᶠᐧ ¹⁷ ᶠᶠᐧ) is obviously more antique than Yahwist’s (¹³⁻¹⁶); and in the Joseph narratives the leadership of Reuben (Elohist) is an element of the original tradition which Yahwist has altered in favour of Judah. A peculiarly instructive case is 12¹⁰ ᶠᶠ (Yahwist) ∥ 20 (Elohist) ∥ 26⁷ ᶠᶠᐧ (Yahwist), where it seems to us (though Kuenen and others take a different view) that Gunkel is clearly right in holding that Yahwist has preserved both the oldest and the youngest form of the legend, and that Elohist represents an intermediate stage.

This result is not surprising when we understand that Yahwist and Elohist are not individual writers, but guilds or schools, whose literary activity may have extended over several generations, and who drew on a store of unwritten tradition which had been in process of codification for generations before that. This consideration forbids us also to argue too confidently from observed differences of theological standpoint between the two documents. It is beyond doubt that Elohist, with its comparative freedom from anthropomorphisms and sensible theophanies, with its more spiritual conception of revelation, and its greater sensitiveness to ethical blemishes on the character of the patriarchs (page xlviii), occupies, on the whole, a higher level of reflexion than Yahwist; but we cannot tell how far such differences are due to the general social _milieu_ in which the writers lived, and how far to esoteric tendencies of the circles to which they belonged. All that can safely be affirmed is that, while Elohist has occasionally preserved the more ancient form of the tradition, there is a strong presumption that Yahwist as a whole is the earlier document.

In attempting to determine the absolute dates of Yahwist and Elohist, we have a fixed point of departure in the fact that both are earlier than the age of written prophecy (page li f.); in other words, 750 B.C. is the _terminus ad quem_ for the composition of either. If it be the case that 37⁸ in Elohist presupposes the monarchy of the house of Joseph, the _terminus a quo_ for that document would be the disruption of the kingdom, _circa_ 930 (compare Deuteronomy 33⁷); and indeed no one proposes to fix it higher. Between these limits, there is little to guide us to a more precise determination. General considerations, such as the tone of political feeling, the advanced conception of God, and traces of the influence of 9th-century prophecy, seem to us to point to the later part of the period, and in particular to the brilliant reign of Jeroboam II. (785‒745), as the most likely time of composition.¹ In Yahwist there is no unequivocal allusion to the divided kingdom; and nothing absolutely prevents us from putting its date as early as the reign of Solomon. The sense of national solidarity and of confidence in Israel’s destiny is even more marked than in Elohist; and it has been questioned, not without reason, whether such feelings could have animated the breast of a Judæan in the dark days that followed the dissolution of Solomon’s empire.² That argument is not greatly to be trusted: although the loss of the northern provinces was keenly felt in Judah (Isaiah 7¹⁷), yet the writings of Isaiah show that there was plenty of flamboyant patriotism there in the 8th century, and we cannot tell how far in the intervening period religious idealism was able to overcome the depression natural to a feeble and dependent state, and keep alive the sense of unity and the hope of reunion with the larger Israel of the north. In any case, it is improbable that Yahwist and Elohist are separated by an interval of two centuries; if Elohist belongs to the first half of the 8th century, Yahwist will hardly be earlier than the 9th.³

¹ So Procksch (178 ff.), who points out a number of indications that appear to converge on that period of history. Wellhausen, Kuenen, Stade, Holzinger agree; Reuss, Dillmann, Kittel place it in the 9th century.

² Procksch. 286 ff.

³ So Wellhausen, Kuenen, Stade, Kittel, Gunkel al.

Specific historical allusions which have been thought to indicate a more definite date for Yahwist (or Elohist) prove on examination to be unreliable. If 31⁴⁴ ᶠᶠᐧ 49²³ ᶠᶠᐧ contained references to the wars between Israel and Aram under Omri and his successors, it would be necessary to bring the date of both documents down to that time; but Gunkel has shown that interpretation to be improbable.――27⁴⁰ᵇ presupposes the revolt of Edom from Judah (_circa_ 840); but that prosaic half-verse is probably an addition to the poetic passage in which it occurs, and therefore goes to show that the blessing itself is earlier, instead of later, than the middle of the 9th century.――The curse on Canaan (9²³ ᶠᶠᐧ) does not necessarily assume the definite subjugation of the Canaanites by Israel; and if it did, would only prove a date not earlier than Solomon.――Other arguments, such as the omission of Asshur and the inclusion of Kelaḥ and Nineveh in the list of Assyrian cities in 10¹¹ etc., are still less conclusive.

While it is thus impossible to assign a definite date to Yahwist and Elohist, there are fairly solid grounds for the now generally accepted view that the former is of Judæan and the latter of Ephraimite origin. Only, it must be premised that the body of patriarchal tradition which lies behind both documents is native to northern, or rather central, Israel, and must have taken shape there.¹ The favourite wife of Jacob is not Leah but Rachel, the mother of Joseph (Ephraim-Manasseh) and Benjamin; and Joseph himself is the brightest figure in all the patriarchal gallery. The sacred places common to both recensions――Shechem, Bethel, Mahanaim, Peniel, Beersheba――are, except the last, all in Israelite territory; and Beersheba, though belonging geographically to Judah, was for some unknown reason a favourite resort of pilgrims from the northern kingdom (Amos 5⁵ 8¹⁴, 1 Kings 19³).――It is when we look at the divergence between the two sources that the evidence of the Ephraimite origin of Elohist and the Judæan of Yahwist becomes consistent and clear. Whereas Elohist never evinces the slightest interest in any sanctuary except those mentioned above, Yahwist makes Hebron the scene of his most remarkable theophany, and thus indelibly associates its sanctity with the name of Abraham. It is true that he also ascribes to Abraham the founding of the northern sanctuaries, Shechem and Bethel (12⁷ᐧ ⁸); but we can hardly fail to detect something perfunctory in his description, as compared with Elohist’s impressive narrative of Jacob’s dream at Bethel (28¹⁰⁻¹²ᐧ ¹⁷⁻²²), or his own twofold account of the founding of Beersheba (chapters 21. 26). It is Elohist alone who records the place of Rachel’s grave (35¹⁹), of those of Rebekah’s nurse Deborah (⁸), of Joseph (Joshua 24³²), and Joshua (³⁰),――all in the northern territory. The sections peculiar to Yahwist (page xliii) are nearly all of local Judæan interest: in 18 the scene is Hebron; 19¹⁻²⁸ is a legend of the Dead Sea basin; 19³⁰ ᶠᶠᐧ deals with the origin of the neighbouring peoples of Moab and Ammon; 38 is based on the internal tribal history of Judah (and is not, as has been supposed, charged with animosity towards that tribe: see page 455). Finally, while Joseph’s place of honour was too firmly established to be challenged, it is Yahwist who, in defiance of the older tradition, transfers the birthright and the hegemony from Reuben to Judah (49⁸ ᶠᶠᐧ 35²² ᶠᐧ, the Joseph narratives).――These indications make it at least relatively probable that in Yahwist we have a Judæan recension of the patriarchal tradition, while Elohist took its shape in the northern kingdom.

¹ Wellhausen _Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels_⁶ 317. It is the neglect of this fact that has mainly led to the belief that Yahwist, like Elohist, is of Ephraimite origin (Kuenen, Reuss, Schrader, Fripp, Luther, al.).

The composite work Jehovist is the result of a redactional operation, which was completed before the other components (♦D and Priestly-Code) were incorporated in the Pentateuch.¹ The redactors (Redactorᴶᵉʰᵒᵛⁱˢᵗ) have done their work (in Genesis) with consummate skill and care, and have produced a consecutive narrative whose strands it is often difficult to unravel. They have left traces of their hand in a few harmonising touches, designed to remove a discrepancy between Yahwist and Elohist (16⁹ ᶠᐧ 28²¹ᵇ? 31⁴⁹ ᶠᶠᐧ ⁽ᵖᵃˢˢⁱᵐ⁾ 39¹ 41⁵⁰? 46¹ 50¹⁰ ᶠᐧ): some of these, however, may be later glosses. Of greater interest are a number of short additions, of similar import and complexion but occurring both in Yahwist and Elohist, which may, not with certainty but with great probability, be assigned to these editors (13¹⁴⁻¹⁷ 18¹⁷⁻¹⁹ 22¹⁵⁻¹⁸ 26³ᵇ⁻⁵ 28¹⁴ 32¹⁰⁻¹³ 46³ᵇ{β}): to this redaction we are disposed also to attribute a thorough revision of chapter 15. In these passages we seem to detect a note of tremulous anxiety regarding the national future of Israel and its tenure of the land of Canaan, which is at variance with the optimistic outlook of the original sources, and suggests that the writers are living under the shadow of impending exile. A slight trace of Deuteronomic phraseology in 18¹⁷ ᶠᶠᐧ and 26³ᵇ ᶠᶠᐧ confirms the impression that the redaction took place at some time between the publication of Deuteronomy and the Exile.

♦ Abbreviation “D” undefined in forward or text; probably Deuteronomy.

¹ So Nöldeke, Wellhausen, and most; against Hupfeld, Dillmann, al.

§ 11. _The Priestly Code and the Final Redaction._

It is fortunately not necessary to discuss in this place all the intricate questions connected with the history and structure of the Priests’ Code. The Code as a whole is, even more obviously than Yahwist or Elohist, the production of a school,――in this case a school of juristic writers, whose main task was to systematise the mass of ritual regulations which had accumulated in the hands of the Jerusalem priesthood, and to develop a theory of religion which grew out of them. Evidence of stratification appears chiefly in the legislative portions of the middle Pentateuch, where several minor codes are amalgamated, and overlaid with considerable accretions of later material. Here, however, we have to do only with the great historical work which forms at once the kernel of the Code and the framework of the Pentateuch, the document distinguished by Wellhausen as Q (_Quatuor foederum liber_), by Kuenen as Priestly-Code², by others as Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ.¹ Although this groundwork shows traces of compilation from pre-existing material (see pages 8, 35, 40, 130, 169, 428 f., etc.), it nevertheless bears the impress of a single mind, and must be treated as a unity.

¹ Kuenen’s Priestly-Code¹ is the so-called Law of Holiness (Priestly-Codeʰ), which is older than the date usually assigned to Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ.

No critical operation is easier or more certain than the separation of this work, down even to very small fragments, from the context in which it is embedded. When this is done, and the fragments pieced together, we have before us, almost in its original integrity, an independent document, which is a _source_, as well as the framework, of Genesis. We have seen (page xli) that the opposite opinion is maintained by Klostermann and Orr, who hold that Priestly-Code is merely a supplementing redactor of, or ‘collaborator’ with, Jehovist. But two facts combine to render this hypothesis absolutely untenable. (1) The fragments form a consecutive history, in which the _lacunæ_ are very few and unimportant, and those which occur are easily explicable as the result of the redactional process. The precise state of the case is as follows: In the primæval history no _hiatus_ whatever can be detected. Dr. Orr’s assertion (_The Problem of the Old Testament_, 348 f.) that Priestly-Code’s account of the Flood _must_ have contained the episodes of the birds and the sacrifice, because both are in the Babylonian version, will be worth considering when he has made it probable either that Priestly-Code had ever read the Babylonian story, or that, if he had, he would have wished to reproduce it intact. As matter of fact, neither is in the least degree probable; and, as we shall see presently, Noah’s sacrifice is an incident which Priestly-Code would certainly have suppressed if he had known of it.――In the history of Abraham there is again no reason to suspect any omission. Here is a literal translation of the _disjecta membra_ of Priestly-Code’s epitome of the biography of Abraham, with no connexions supplied, and only one verse transposed (19²⁹): 12⁴ᵇ “Now Abram was 75 years old when he went out from Ḥarran. ⁵ And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions which they had acquired, and all the souls whom they had procured; and they went out to go to the land of Canaan, and they came to the land of Canaan. 13⁶ And the land could not bear them so that they might dwell together, for their possessions were great, and they were not able to dwell together. ¹¹ᵇ So they separated from one another: ¹²ᵃᵇ Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the Oval. 19²⁹ And when God destroyed the cities of the Oval, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot away from the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt.――16¹ Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. ³ So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram her husband for a wife to him. ¹⁵ And Hagar bore to Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son whom Hagar bore to him Ishmael. ¹⁶ And Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.――17¹ And when Abram was 99 years old, _Yahwe_ appeared to Abram, and said to him,” etc. Here follows the account of the covenant with Abraham, the change of his name and that of Sarai, the institution of circumcision, and the announcement of the birth of Isaac to Sarah (chapter 17).――The narrative is resumed in 21¹ᵇ “And _Yahwe_ did to Sarah as he had spoken, ²ᵇ at the appointed time which God had mentioned. ³ And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac. ⁴ And Abraham circumcised Isaac his son when he was 8 days old, as God had commanded him. ⁵ And Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac his son was born to him.――23¹ And the life of Sarah was 127 years; ² and Sarah died in Kiryath Arba, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan.” This introduces the story of the purchase of Machpelah as a burying-place (chapter 23), and this brings us to――25⁷ “And these are the days of the years of the life of Abraham which he lived: 175 years; ⁸ and he expired. And Abraham died in a good old age, an old man and full [of years], and was gathered to his father’s kin. ⁹ And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar, the Hittite, which is opposite Mamre: ¹⁰ the field which Abraham bought from the sons of Heth: there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.――¹¹ And after the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac his son.” The reader can judge for himself whether a narrative so continuous as this, every isolated sentence of which has been detached from its context by unmistakable criteria of the style of Priestly-Code, is likely to have been produced by the casual additions of a mere supplementer of an older work. And if he objects to the transposition of 19²⁹, let him note at the same time how utterly meaningless in its present position that verse is, considered as a supplement to 19¹⁻²⁸.――In the sections on Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, there are undoubtedly omissions which _we_ can only supply from Jehovist; and if we were to judge from these parts alone, the supplementary theory would be more plausible than it is. We miss, _e.g._, accounts of the birth of Jacob and Esau, of Jacob’s arrival in Paddan Aram, of his marriage to Leah and Rachel, of the birth of Joseph, of his slavery and elevation in Egypt, his reconciliation with his brethren, and perhaps some other particulars. Even here, however, the theory is absolutely negatived by the contradictions to Jehovist which will be specified immediately. Dr. Orr’s argument on this point (_The Problem of the Old Testament_, 343 ff.) really assumes that the account of Jehovist is the _only_ way in which the gaps of Priestly-Code could be filled up; but the examination of the story of Abraham has shown that that is not the case. The facts are fully explained by the supposition that a short epitome of the history, similar to that of the history of Abraham, has been abridged in the redaction, by the excision of a very few sentences, in favour of the fuller narrative of Jehovist.――(2) The second fact which makes Dr. Orr’s hypothesis untenable is this, that in almost every instance where Priestly-Code expands into circumstantial narration it gives a representation of the events which is distinctly at variance with the older documents. The difference between Priestly-Code’s cosmogony and Yahwist’s account of the Creation is such that it is ludicrous to speak of the one as a supplement or a ‘framework’ to the other; and the two Flood stories are hardly less irreconcilable (see page 148). In the life of Abraham, we have two parallel accounts of the covenant with Abraham in chapter 15 (Jehovist) and 17 (Priestly-Code); and it is evident that the one supersedes and excludes the other. Again, Priestly-Code’s reason for Jacob’s journey to Mesopotamia (28¹⁻⁹) is quite inconsistent with that given by Jehovist in chapter 27 (page 374 f.); and his conception of Isaac’s blessing as a transmission of the blessing originally bestowed on Abraham (28⁴) is far removed from the idea which forms the motive of chapter 27. In Jehovist, Esau takes up his abode in Seir before Jacob’s return from Mesopotamia (32³); in Priestly-Code he does not leave Canaan till after the burial of Isaac (35⁶). Priestly-Code’s account of the enmity between Joseph and his brethren is unfortunately truncated, but enough is preserved to show that it differed essentially from that of Jehovist (see page 444). It is difficult to make out where Jacob was buried according to Yahwist and Elohist, but it certainly was not at Machpelah, as in Priestly-Code (see page 538 f.). And so on. Everywhere we see a tendency in Priestly-Code to suppress or minimise discords in the patriarchal households. It is inconceivable that a supplementer should thus contradict his original at every turn, and at the same time leave it to tell its own story. When we find that the passages of an opposite tenor to Jehovist form parts of a practically complete narrative, we cannot avoid the conclusion that Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ is an independent document, which has been preserved almost entire in our present Book of Genesis. The question then arises whether these discrepancies spring from a divergent tradition followed by Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ or from a deliberate re-writing of the history as told by Jehovist, under the influence of certain theological ideals and principles, which we now proceed to consider.

The central theme and objective of Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ is the institution of the Israelitish theocracy, whose symbol is the Tabernacle, erected, after its heavenly antitype, by Moses at Mount Sinai. For this event the whole previous history of mankind is a preparation. The Mosaic dispensation is the last of four world-ages: from the Creation to the Flood, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, and from Moses onwards. Each period is inaugurated by a divine revelation, and the last two by the disclosure of a new name of God: El Shaddai to Abraham (17¹), and Yahwe to Moses (Exodus 6³). Each period, also, is marked by the institution of some permanent element of the theocratic constitution, the Levitical system being conceived as a pyramid rising in four stages: the Sabbath (2² ᶠᐧ); permission of the slaughter of animals, coupled with a restriction on the use of the blood (9¹ ᶠᶠᐧ); circumcision (17); and, lastly, the fully developed Mosaic ritual. Not till the last stage is reached is sacrificial worship of the Deity authorised. Accordingly neither altars nor sacrifices are ever mentioned in the pre-Mosaic history; and even the distinction between clean and unclean animals is supposed to be unknown at the time of the Flood. It is particularly noteworthy that the profane, as distinct from the sacrificial, slaughter of animals, which even the Deuteronomic law treats as an innovation, is here carried back to the covenant with Noah.

Beneath this imposing historical scheme, with its ruling idea of a progressive unfolding of God’s will to men, we discover a theory of religion which, more than anything else, expresses the spirit of the Priestly school to which the author of Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ belonged. The exclusive emphasis on the formal or _institutional_ aspect of religion, which is the natural proclivity of a sacerdotal caste, appears in Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ in a very pronounced fashion. Religion is resolved into a series of positive enactments on the part of God, and observance of these on the part of man. The old cult-legends (page xii f.), which traced the origin of existing ritual usages to historic incidents in the lives of the fathers, are swept away; and every practice to which a religious value is attached is referred to a direct command of God. In the deeper problems of religion, on the other hand, such as the origin of evil, the writer evinces no interest; and of personal piety――the disposition of the heart towards God――his narrative hardly furnishes an illustration. In both respects he represents a theology at once more abstract and shallower than that of Yahwist or Elohist, whose more imaginative treatment of religious questions shows a true apprehension of the deeper aspects of the spiritual life (chapter 3. 6⁵ 8²¹ 18²³ ᶠᶠᐧ 45⁸ etc.), and succeeds in depicting the personal religion of the patriarchs as a genuine experience of inward fellowship with God (compare 22. 24¹² ᶠᶠᐧ 32⁹ ᶠᶠᐧ 48¹⁵ ᶠᐧ etc.). It would be unfair to charge the author of Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ with indifference to the need for vital godliness, for he lacks the power of delineating character and emotion in any relation of life; but his defects are none the less characteristic of the type of mind that produced the colourless digest of history, which suffices to set forth the dominant ideas of the Priestly theology.

Another characteristic distinction between Jehovist and Priestly-Code is seen in the enhanced _transcendentalism_ of the latter’s conception of Deity. Anthropomorphic, and still more anthropopathic, expressions are studiously avoided (an exception is Genesis 2² ᶠᐧ: compare Exodus 31¹⁷ᵇ); revelation takes the form of simple _speech_; angels, dreams, and visions are never alluded to. Theophanies are mentioned, but not described; God is said to ‘appear’ to men, and to ‘go up from them’ (Genesis 17¹ᐧ ²² ᶠᐧ 35⁹ᐧ ¹³ 48³, Exodus 6³), but the manner of His appearance is nowhere indicated save in the supreme manifestation at Sinai (Exodus 24¹ ᶠᶠᐧ 34²⁹ᵇ 40³⁴ ᶠᐧ). It is true that a similar inconcreteness often characterises the theophanies of Yahwist and Elohist, and the later strata of these documents exhibit a decided approximation to the abstract conceptions of Priestly-Code. But a comparison of the parallels chapter 17 with 15, or 35⁹ ᶠᶠᐧ with 28¹⁰ ᶠᶠᐧ, makes it clear that Priestly-Code’s departure from the older tradition springs from a deliberate intention to exclude sensuous imagery from the representation of Godhead.

It remains to consider, in the light of these facts, Priestly-Code’s attitude to the traditional history of the patriarchs. In the first place, it is clear that he accepts the main outline of the history as fixed in tradition. But whether he knew that tradition from other sources than Yahwist and Elohist, is a question not so easily answered. For the primitive period, _direct_ dependence on Yahwist is improbable, because of the marked diversity in the accounts of the Creation and the Flood: here Priestly-Code seems to have followed a tradition closely akin to, but not identical with, that of Yahwist. In the history of the patriarchs there seems no reason to suppose that he had any other authorities than Yahwist and Elohist. The general course of events is the same, and differences of detail are all explicable from the known tendencies of the Code. But the important facts are that nearly the whole of the history, both primitive and patriarchal, is reduced to a meagre summary, with little save a chronological significance, and that the points where the narrative becomes diffuse and circumstantial are (with one exception) precisely those which introduce a new religious dispensation: viz. the Creation, the Flood, the Abrahamic covenant, and the Exodus. The single exception is the purchase of Machpelah (chapter 23), an event which doubtless owes its prominence to its connexion with the promise of the land to Abraham and his seed. For the rest, a certain emphasis naturally lies on outstanding events, like the origin of the name Israel (35⁹ ᶠᐧ), or the settlement of Jacob’s family in Egypt (47⁵⁻¹¹); and the author lingers with interest on the transmission of the patriarchal blessing and promise from Isaac to Jacob (28³ 35¹²), and from Jacob to his sons (48³ ᶠᐧ). But these are practically all the incidents to which Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ attaches any sort of significance of their own; and even these derive much of their importance from their relation to the chronological scheme into which they are fitted.――Hence to say that Priestly-Code’s epitome would be ‘unintelligible’ apart from Jehovist, is to confuse his point of view with our own. It is perfectly true that from Priestly-Code alone we should know very little of the characters of the patriarchs, of the motives which governed their actions, or of the connexion between one event and another. But these are matters which Priestly-Code had no interest in making ‘intelligible.’ He is concerned solely with events, not with causes or motives. The individual is sufficiently described when we are told whose son he was, how long he lived, what children he begot, and such like. He is but a link in the generations that fill up the history; and even where he is the recipient of a divine revelation, his selection for that privilege depends on his place in the divine scheme of chronology, rather than on any personal endowment or providential training.

The _style_ of Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ can be characterised without the reserves and qualifications which were necessary in speaking of the difference between Yahwist and Elohist (page xlvii f.); there is no better illustration of the dictum _le style c’est l’homme_ than in this remarkable document. Speaking broadly, the style reflects the qualities of the legal mind, in its stereotyped terminology, its aim at precise and exhaustive statement, its monotonous repetitions, and its general determination to leave no loophole for misinterpretation or misunderstanding. The jurist’s love of order and method appears in a great facility in the construction of schemes and schedules――genealogical tables, systematic enumerations, etc.――as well as in the carefully planned disposition of the narrative as a whole. It is necessary to read the whole work consecutively in order to realise the full effect of the laboured diffuseness, the dry lucidity and prosaic monotony of this characteristic product of the Priestly school of writers. On the other hand, the style is markedly deficient in the higher elements of literature. Though capable at times of rising to an impressive dignity (as in Genesis 1. 47⁷⁻¹¹), it is apt to degenerate into a tedious and meaningless iteration of set phrases and rigid formulæ (see Numbers 7). The power of picturesque description, or dramatic delineation of life and character, is absent: the writer’s imagination is of the mechanical type, which cannot realise an object without the help of exact quantitative specification or measurement. Even in chapter 23, which is perhaps the most lifelike narrative in the Code, the characteristic formalism asserts itself in the measured periodic movement of the action, and the recurrent use of standing expressions from the opening to the close. That such a style might become the property of a school we see from the case of Ezekiel, whose writings show strong affinities with Priestly-Code; but of all the Priestly documents, Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ is the one in which the literary bent of the school is best exemplified, and (it may be added) is seen to most advantage.

The following selection (from Driver, _An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament_⁸, 131 ff.) of distinctive expressions of Priestly-Code, occurring in Genesis, will give a sufficient idea of the stylistic peculiarity of the book, and also of its linguistic affinities with the later literature, but especially with the Book of Ezekiel.

‎ אלהים‎ as the name of God, uniformly in Genesis, except 17¹ 21¹ᵇ.――מין‎, ‘kind’: 1¹¹ᐧ ¹²ᐧ ²¹ᐧ ²⁴ᐧ ²⁵ 6²⁰ 7¹⁴ (Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14; only again Ezekiel 47¹⁰).――שָׁרַץ‎, ‘to swarm’: 1²⁰ᐧ ²¹ 7²¹ 8¹⁷ 9⁷ +¹ (outside of Priestly-Code only Psalms 105³⁰, Ezekiel 47⁹).――שֶׁרֶץ‎, ‘swarming things’: 1²⁰ 7²¹ + (only in Priestly-Code and Deuteronomy 14¹⁹).――פרה ורבה‎: 1²²ᐧ ²⁸ 8¹⁷ 9¹ᐧ ⁷ 17²⁰ 28³ 35¹¹ 47²⁷ 48⁴ (Exodus 1⁷, Leviticus 26⁹; elsewhere only Jeremiah 3¹⁶ [inverted], 23³, Ezekiel 36¹¹).――לאכלה‎: 1²⁹ᐧ ³⁰ 6²¹ 9³ + (elsewhere only in Ezekiel (10 times), and (as infinitive) Jeremiah 12⁹).――תולדות‎: 10³² 25¹³ + (elsewhere 1 Chronicles 5⁷ 7²ᐧ ⁴ᐧ ⁹ 8²⁸ 9⁹ᐧ ³⁴ 26³¹). The phrase ‏[ו]אלה תולדות‎ occurs in Priestly-Code 10 times in Genesis (see page xxxiv), and in Numbers 3¹; elsewhere only Ruth 4¹⁸, 1 Chronicles 1²⁹.――גוע‎: 6¹⁷ 7²¹ 25⁸ᐧ ¹⁷ 35²⁹ 49²³ + (elsewhere poetical: Zechariah 13⁸, Psalms 88¹⁶ 104²⁹, Lamentations 1¹⁹, and 8 times in Job).――עִמְּךָ‎, ‎ אִתְּךָ‎, etc. (appended to enumerations): 6¹⁸ 7⁷ᐧ ¹³ 8¹⁶ᐧ ¹⁸ 9⁸ 28⁴ 46⁶ᐧ ⁷ +.――אחריכם‎, etc. (after ‘seed’): 9⁹ 17⁷ᐧ ⁸ᐧ ⁹ᐧ ¹⁰ᐧ ¹⁹ 35¹² ‎ 48⁴ +.――עצם היום הזה‎: 7¹³ 17²³ᐧ ²⁶ +; only in Priestly-Code and Ezekiel 2³ 24² 40¹ (Joshua 10²⁷ redactional).――יהם‎――למשפחותם‎: 8¹⁹ 10⁵ᐧ ²⁰ᐧ ³¹ 36⁴⁰ + (very often in Priestly-Code: elsewhere only Numbers 11¹⁰ [Jehovist], 1 Samuel 10²¹, 1 Chronicles 5⁷ 6⁴⁷ᐧ ‎ ⁴⁸).――ברית עולם‎: 9¹⁶ 17⁷ᐧ ¹³ᐧ ¹⁹ +, only in Priestly-Code.――במאד מאד‎: 17²ᐧ ⁶ᐧ ²⁰ + Exodus 1⁷; elsewhere only Ezekiel 9⁹ 16¹³.――רכוש‎: 12⁵ 13⁶ 31¹⁸ 36⁷ 46⁶ +; elsewhere Genesis 14¹¹ᐧ ¹²ᐧ ¹⁶ᐧ ²¹ 15¹⁴; and 15 times in Chronicles, Ezra, Daniel.――רָכַשׁ‎: 12⁵ 31¹⁸ 36⁶ 46⁶ ‎ +.――נפש‎ (= ‘person’): 12⁵ 36⁶ 46¹⁵ᐧ ¹⁸ᐧ ²²ᐧ ²⁵ᐧ ²⁶ᐧ ²⁷ +; “much more frequent in Priestly-Code than elsewhere.”――יכם‎――לדרתם‎: 17⁷ᐧ ⁹ᐧ ¹² + 36 times (only in Priestly-Code).――מגורים‎: 17⁸ 28⁴ 36⁷ 37¹ 47⁹ + Exodus 6⁴; elsewhere Ezekiel 20³⁸, Psalms 55¹⁶ 119⁵⁴, Job ‎ 18¹⁹ +.――אחזה‎: 17⁸ 23⁴ᐧ ⁹ᐧ ²⁰ 36⁴³ 47¹¹ 48⁴ 49³⁰ 50¹³ +. Often in Ezekiel (44²⁸ 45⁵ᐧ ⁶ᐧ ⁷ᐧ ⁸ 46¹⁶ᐧ ¹⁸ 48²⁰ᐧ ²¹ᐧ ²²); elsewhere Psalms 2⁸, 1 Chronicles 7²⁸ 9² [= Nehemiah 11³], 2 Chronicles 11¹⁴ 31¹ ‎ +.――מקנה‎: 17¹²ᐧ ¹³ᐧ ²³ᐧ ²⁷ 23¹⁸ + (confined to Priestly-Code except Jeremiah 32¹¹ᐧ ¹²ᐧ ¹⁴ᐧ ¹⁶).――עמים‎ (= ‘father’s kin’): 17¹⁴ 25⁸ᐧ ¹⁷ 35²⁹ 49³³ + (also Ezekiel 18¹⁸; elsewhere Judges 5¹⁴?, Hosea ‎ 10¹⁴ +).――תושב‎: 23⁴ + 10 times (also 1 Kings 17¹?, 1 Chronicles 29¹⁵, Psalms 39¹³).――קנון‎: 31¹⁸ [34²³] 36⁶ + (outside of Priestly-Code, only Ezekiel 38¹² ᶠ; Proverbs 4⁷, Psalms 104²⁴ 105²¹).

¹ As on page xlix, the cross (+) indicates that further examples are found in the rest of the Pentateuch. It should be expressly said, however, that the + frequently covers a considerable number of cases; and that a _selection_ of phrases, such as is here given, does not fully represent the strength of the linguistic argument, as set forth in the more exhaustive lists of Driver (_l.c._) or the _Oxford Hexateuch_ (volume i. pages 208‒221).

In the choice of synonymous expressions, Priestly-Code exhibits an exclusive preference for הוליד‎ in the sense of ‘beget’ over ילד‎ (in the genealogies of Yahwist), and for the form אני‎ of the 1st person pronoun (אנכי‎ only in Genesis 23⁴).

Geographical designations peculiar to Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ are: _Kiryath-’Arba‛_ (for Hebron) 23² 35²⁷ +; _Machpelah_, 23⁹ᐧ ¹⁷ᐧ ¹⁹ 25⁹ 49³⁰ 50¹³ +; _Paddan-Aram_, 25²⁰ 28²ᐧ ⁵ᐧ ⁶ᐧ ⁷ 31¹⁸ 33¹⁸ 35⁹ᐧ ²⁶ 46¹⁵ +.――To these may be added ארץ כנען‎, 11³¹ 12⁵ 13¹² 16³ 17⁸ 23²ᐧ ¹⁹ 31¹⁸ 33¹⁸ 35⁶ 37¹ +; the expression is found in Jehovist only in the Joseph-section (chapters 42, 44, 45, 47). Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ has כנען‎ without ארץ‎ only in בנות כנען‎ (28¹ 36²).

In view of all these and similar peculiarities (for the list is by no means exhaustive), the attempt to obliterate the linguistic and stylistic distinction between Priestly-Code and Jehovist (Eerdmans) is surely a retrograde step in criticism.

The _date_ of the composition of Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ lies between the promulgation of the Deuteronomic law (621 B.C.), and the post-Exilic reformation under Ezra and Nehemiah (444). It is later than Deuteronomy, because it assumes without question the centralisation of worship at one sanctuary, which in Deuteronomy is only held up as an ideal to be realised by a radical reform of established usage. A nearer determination of date depends on questions of the internal analysis of Priestly-Code which are too complex to be entered on here. That the Code as a whole is later than Ezekiel is proved by the fact that the division between priests and Levites, which is unknown to the writer of Deuteronomy, and of which we find the origin and justification in Ezekiel 44⁶⁻¹⁶, is presupposed as already established (Numbers 3. 4. 8, etc.). It is possible, however, that that distinction belongs to a stratum of the legislation not included in Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ; in which case Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ might very well be earlier than Ezekiel, or even than the Exile. The question does not greatly concern us here. For the understanding of Genesis, it is enough to know that Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ, both in its theological conceptions and its attitude towards the national tradition, represents a phase of thought much later than Yahwist and Elohist.

The view that Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ was written before the Exile (in the end of the 7th century) is advocated by Procksch (_l.c._ 319 ff.), who reduces this part of Priestly-Code to narrower limits than most critics have done. He regards it as an essentially historical work, of considerable literary merit, embracing hardly any direct legislation except perhaps the Law of Holiness (Priestly-Codeʰ), and recognising the priestly status of the entire tribe of Levi, just as in Deuteronomy (Numbers 17¹⁶⁻²⁴ and Priestly-Codeʰ in its original form). If that fact could be established, it would go far to show that the document is older than Ezekiel. It is admitted both by Kuenen and Wellhausen (_Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels_⁶ 116) that the disparity of priests and Levites is accentuated in the later strata of Priestly-Code as compared with Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ, but that it is not recognised in Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ is not clear. As to _pre-Exilic_ origin, the positive arguments advanced by Procksch are not very cogent; and it is doubtful whether, even on his own ground, he has demonstrated more than the _possibility_ of so early a date. In Genesis, the only fact which points in that direction is one not mentioned by Procksch: viz. that the priestly Table of Nations in chapter 10 bears internal evidence of having been drawn up some considerable time before the 5th century B.C. (page 191 below); but that may be sufficiently explained by the assumption that the author of Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ made use of pre-existing documents in the preparation of his work.

The last distinguishable stage in the formation of the Pentateuch is the amalgamation of Priestly-Code with the older documents,――in Genesis the amalgamation of Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ with Jehovist. That this process has left traces in the present text is quite certain _a priori_; though it is naturally difficult to distinguish redactional changes of this kind from later explanatory glosses and modifications (compare 6⁷ 7⁷ᐧ ²²ᐧ ²³ 10²⁴ 27⁴⁶ etc.). The aim of the redactor was, in general, to preserve the _ipsissima verba_ of his sources as far as was consistent with the production of a complete and harmonious narrative; but he appears to have made it a rule to find a place for every fragment of Priestly-Code that could possibly be retained. It is not improbable that this rule was uniformly observed by him, and that the slight _lacunæ_ which occur in Priestly-Code after chapter 25 are due to the activity of later scribes in smoothing away redundancies and unevennesses from the narrative. That such changes might take place after the completion of the Pentateuch we see from 47⁵ ᶠᶠᐧ, where LXX has preserved a text in which the dovetailing of sources is much more obvious than in Massoretic Text.――If the lawbook read by Ezra before the congregation as the basis of the covenant (Nehemiah 8¹ ᶠᶠᐧ) was the entire Pentateuch (excepting late additions),¹ the redaction must have been effected before 444 B.C., and in all probability the redactor was Ezra himself. On the other hand, if (as seems to the present writer more probable) Ezra’s lawbook was only the Priestly Code, or part of it (Priestly-Codeᴷᵉʳⁿᵉˡ + Priestly-Codeʰ),² then the final redaction is brought down to a later period, the _terminus ad quem_ being the borrowing of the Jewish Pentateuch by the Samaritan community. That event is usually assigned, though on somewhat precarious grounds, to Nehemiah’s second term of office in Judæa (_circa_ 432 B.C.).

¹ So Wellhausen, Dillmann, Kittel al.

² So Cornill, Holzinger al.

Of far greater interest and significance than the date or manner of this final redaction, is the fact that it was called for by the religious feeling of post-Exilic Judaism. Nothing else would have brought about the combination of elements so discordant as the naïve legendary narratives of Jehovist and the systematised history of the Priestly Code. We can hardly doubt that the spirit of the Priestly theology is antipathetic to the older recension of the tradition, or that, if the tendencies represented by the Code had prevailed, the stories which are to us the most precious and edifying parts of the Book of Genesis would have found no place in an authoritative record of God’s revelation of Himself to the fathers. But this is not the only instance in which the spiritual insight of the Church has judged more wisely than the learning of the schools. We know that deeper influences than the legalism and institutionalism of Priestly-Code’s manifesto――necessary as these were in their place――were at work in the post-Exilic community: the individualism of Jeremiah, the universalism of the second Isaiah, the devotion and lyric fervour of the psalmists, and the daring reflexion of the writer of Job. And to these we may surely add the vein of childlike piety which turned aside from the abstractions and formulas of the Priestly document, to find its nutriment in the immortal stories through which God spoke to the heart then, as He speaks to ours to-day.

COMMENTARY.

THE PRIMÆVAL HISTORY.

CHAPTERS I‒XI.

It has been shown in the Introduction (page xxxiii) that the most obvious division of the book of Genesis is into four nearly equal parts, of which the first (chapters 1‒11) deals with the Creation of the world, and the history of primitive mankind prior to the call of Abraham. These chapters are composed of excerpts from two of the main sources of the Pentateuch, the Priestly Code, and the Yahwistic document. Attempts have been made from time to time (_e.g._ by Schrader, Dillmann, and more recently Winckler) to trace the hand of the Elohist in chapters 1‒11; but the closest examination has failed to produce any substantial evidence that Elohist is represented in the Primitive History at all. By the great majority of critics the non-Priestly traditions in this part of Genesis are assigned to the Yahwistic cycle: that is to say, they are held to have been collected and arranged by the school of rhapsodists to whose literary activity we owe the document known as Yahwist.

To the Priests’ Code, whose constituents can here be isolated with great certainty and precision, belong: 1. The Cosmogony (1¹‒2⁴ᵃ); 2. The List of Patriarchs from Adam to Noah (5); 3. An account of the Flood (6⁹‒9²⁹*); 4. A Table of Peoples (10*); 5. The Genealogies of Shem (11¹⁰⁻²⁶), and Terah (11²⁷⁻³²*), ending with Abraham. There is no reason to suppose either that the original Priestly-Code contained more than this, or, on the other hand, that Priestly-Code was written to supplement the older tradition, and to be read along with it. It is in accordance with the purpose and tendency of the document that the only events recorded in detail――the Creation and the Flood――are those which inaugurate two successive World-ages or Dispensations, and are associated with the origin of two fundamental observances of Judaism――the Sabbath (2³), and the sanctity of the blood (9⁴ ᶠᶠᐧ).

* The asterisk denotes that the passages so marked are interspersed with extracts from another source. The detailed analysis will be found in the commentary on the various sections.

In marked contrast to the formalism of this meagre epitome is the rich variety of life and incident which characterises the Yahwistic sections, viz.: 1. The Creation and Fall of Man (2⁴ᵇ‒3²⁴); 2. Cain and Abel (4¹⁻¹⁶); 3. The Genealogy of Cain (4¹⁷⁻²⁴); 4. A fragmentary Sethite Genealogy (4²⁵ ᶠᐧ ... 5²⁹ ...); 5. The marriages with divine beings (6¹⁻⁴); 6. An account of the Flood (6⁵‒8²²*); 7. Noah’s Curse and Blessing (9²⁰⁻²⁷); 8. A Table of Peoples (10*); 9. The Tower of Babel (11¹⁻⁹); 10. A fragment of the Genealogy of Teraḥ (11²⁸⁻³⁰). Here we have a whole gallery of varied and graphic pictures, each complete in itself and essentially independent of the rest, arranged in a loosely chronological order, and with perhaps a certain unity of conception, in so far as they illustrate the increasing wickedness that accompanied the progress of mankind in civilisation. Even the genealogies are not (like those of Priestly-Code) bare lists of names and figures, but preserve incidental notices of new social or religious developments associated with particular personages (4¹⁷ᐧ ²⁰⁻²²ᐧ ²⁶ 5²⁹), besides other allusions to a more ancient mythology from which the names have been drawn (4¹⁹ᐧ ²²ᐧ ²³ ᶠᐧ).

_Composition of Yahwist._――That a narrative composed of so many separate and originally independent legends should present discrepancies and discontinuities is not surprising, and is certainly by itself no proof of literary diversity. At the same time there are many indications that Yahwist is a composite work, based on older collections of Hebrew traditions, whose outlines can still be dimly traced. (1) The existence of two parallel genealogies (Cainite and Sethite) at once suggests a conflate tradition. The impression is raised almost to certainty when we find that both are derived from a common original (page 138 f.). (2) The Cainite genealogy is incompatible with the Deluge tradition. The shepherds, musicians, and smiths, whose origin is traced to the last three members of the genealogy, are obviously not those of a bygone race which perished in the Flood, but those known to the author and his contemporaries (page 115 f.). (3) Similarly, the Table of Nations and the story of the Confusion of Tongues imply mutually exclusive explanations of the diversities of language and nationality: in one case the division proceeds slowly and naturally on genealogical lines, in the other it takes place by a sudden interposition of almighty power. (4) There is evidence that the story of the Fall was transmitted in two recensions (page 52 f.). If Gunkel be right, the same is true of Yahwist’s Table of Peoples, and of the account of the Dispersion; but there the analysis is less convincing. (5) In 4²⁶ we read that Enosh introduced the worship of Yahwe. The analogy of Exodus 6² ᶠᐧ (Priestly-Code) affords a certain presumption that the author of such a statement will have avoided the name יהוה‎ up to this point; and as a matter of fact אֱלֹהִים‎ occurs immediately before in verse ²⁵. It is true that the usage is observed in no earlier Yahwistic passage except 3¹⁻⁵, where other explanations might be thought of. But throughout chapters 2 and 3 we find the very unusual compound name יהוה אלהים‎, and it is a plausible conjecture that one recension of the Paradise story was distinguished by the use of Elohim, and that Yahwe was inserted by a harmonising Yahwistic editor (so Budde, Gunkel, al.: see page 53).

To what precise extent these phenomena are due to documentary differences is a question that requires to be handled with the utmost caution and discrimination. It is conceivable that a single author should have compiled a narrative from a number of detached legends which he reported just as he found them, regardless of their internal consistency. Nevertheless, there seems sufficient evidence to warrant the conclusion that (as Wellhausen has said) we have to do not merely with _aggregates_ but with _sequences_; although to unravel perfectly the various strands of narrative may be a task for ever beyond the resources of literary criticism. Here it will suffice to indicate the principal theories.――(a) Wellhausen (_Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments_² 9‒14) seems to have been the first to perceive that 4¹⁻¹⁶ᵃ is a late expansion based (as he supposed) on 4¹⁶⁻²⁴ and on chapters 2, 3; that originally chapters 2‒4 existed not only without 4¹⁻¹⁶ᵃ, but also without 4²⁵ ᶠᐧ and 5²⁹; and that chapters 2. 3. 4¹⁶⁻²⁴ 11¹⁻⁹ form a connexion to which the story of the Flood is entirely foreign and irrelevant.――(b) The analysis was pushed many steps further by Budde (_Biblische Urgeschichte_, passim), who, after a most exhaustive and elaborate examination, arrived at the following theory: the primary document (Yahwist¹) consisted of 2⁴ᵇ⁻⁹ᐧ ¹⁶⁻²⁵ 3¹⁻¹⁹ᐧ ²¹ 6³ 3²³ 4¹ᐧ ²ᵇ{β}ᐧ ¹⁶ᵇᐧ ¹⁷⁻²⁴ 6¹ᐧ ²ᐧ ⁴ 10⁹ 11¹⁻⁹ 9²⁰⁻²⁷. This was recast by Yahwist² (substituting אלהים‎ for יהוה‎ down to 4²⁶), whose narrative contained a Cosmogony (but no Paradise story), the Sethite genealogy, the Flood-legend, the Table of Nations, and a seven-membered Shemite genealogy. These two recensions were then amalgamated by Yahwist³, who inserted dislocated passages of Yahwist¹ in the connexion of Yahwist², and added 4¹⁻⁵ 5²⁹ etc. Yahwist² attained the dignity of a standard official document, and is the authority followed by Priestly-Code at a later time. The astonishing acumen and thoroughness which characterise Budde’s work have had a great influence on critical opinion, yet his ingenious transpositions and reconstructions of the text seem too subtle and arbitrary to satisfy any but a slavish disciple. One feels that he has worked on too narrow a basis by confining his attention to successive overworkings of the same literary tradition, and not making sufficient allowance for the simultaneous existence of relatively independent forms.――(c) Stade (_Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft_, xiv. 274 ff. [= _Ausgewählte akademische Reden und Abhandlungen_ 244‒251]) distinguishes three main strata: (1) chapters 2. 3. 11¹⁻⁹; (2) 4²⁵ ᶠᐧ ¹⁷⁻²² 9²⁰⁻²⁷ 10⁹? 6¹ᐧ ²?; (3) the Flood-legend, added later to the other two, by a redactor who also compiled a Sethite genealogy (4²⁵ ᶠᐧ ... 5²⁹ ...) and inserted the story of Cain and Abel, and the Song of Lamech (4²³ ᶠᐧ).――(d) Gunkel (_Genesis übersetzt und erklärt_² 1 ff.) proceeds on somewhat different lines from his predecessors. He refuses in principle to admit incongruity as a criterion of source, and relies on certain verses which bear the character of connecting links between different sections. The most important is 5²⁹ (belonging to the Sethite genealogy), where we read: “This (Noah) shall comfort us from our labour and from the toil of our hands on account of the ground which Yahwe has cursed.” Here there is an unmistakable reference backward to 3¹⁷, and forward to 9²⁰ ᶠᶠᐧ. Thus we obtain a faultless sequence, forming the core of a document where יהוה‎ was not used till 4²⁶, and hence called Yahwistᵉ, consisting of: one recension of the Paradise story; the (complete) Sethite genealogy; and Noah’s discovery of wine. From this sequence are excluded obviously: the second recension of the Paradise story; the Cainite genealogy; and (as Gunkel thinks) the Flood-legend, where Noah appears in quite a different character: these belong to a second document (Yahwistʲ). Again, 9¹⁸ ᶠᐧ form a connecting link between the Flood and the Table of Nations; but Gunkel distinguishes two Yahwistic strata in the Table of Nations and assigns one to each of his documents: similarly with the section on the Tower of Babel. The legend of Cain and Abel is regarded (with Wellhausen, Budde, Stade, al.) as an editorial expansion.

In this commentary the analysis of Gunkel is adopted in the main; but with the following reservations: (1) The account of the Flood cannot be naturally assigned to Yahwistʲ, because of its admitted incompatibility with the assumption of the Cainite genealogy (see above). Gunkel, indeed, refuses to take such inconsistencies into account; but in that case there is no reason for giving the Flood to Yahwistʲ rather than to Yahwistᵉ. There is no presumption whatever that only two documents are in evidence; and the chapters in question show peculiarities of language which justify the assumption of a separate source (Stade), say Yahwistᵈ. (2) With the Flood passage goes the Yahwistic Table of Peoples (9¹⁸ ᶠᐧ). The arguments for two Yahwists in chapter 10 are hardly decisive; and Yahwistᵉ at all events had no apparent motive for attaching an ethnographic survey to the name of Noah. (3) Gunkel’s analysis of 11¹⁻⁹ appears on the whole to be sound; but even so there is no ground for identifying the two components with Yahwistᵉ and Yahwistʲ respectively. On the contrary, the tone of both recensions has a striking affinity with that of Yahwistʲ: note especially (with Wellhausen) the close resemblance in form and substance between 11⁶ and 3²². Thus:

Yahwistʲ = 3²⁰⁻²²ᐧ ²⁴ 4¹⁷⁻²⁴ 6¹⁻⁴ 11¹⁻⁹; Yahwistᵉ = 22⁴ᵇ‒3¹⁹*ᐧ ²³ 4²⁵ ᶠᐧ ... 5²⁹ ... 9²⁰⁻²⁷; Yahwistᵈ = 6⁵‒8²²* 9¹⁸ ᶠᐧ 10*; Yahwistʳ = 4¹⁻¹⁶*.

Such constructions, it need hardly be added, are in the highest degree precarious and uncertain; and can only be regarded as tentative explanations of problems for which it is probable that no final solution will be found.

I. 1‒II. 3. _Creation of the World in Six Days: Institution of the Sabbath._

A short Introduction describing the primæval chaos (1¹ᐧ ²) is followed by an account of the creation of the world in six days, by a series of eight divine fiats, viz.: (1) the creation of light, and the separation of light from darkness, ³⁻⁵; (2) the division of the chaotic waters into two masses, one above and the other below the ‘firmament,’ ⁶⁻⁸; (3) the separation of land and sea through the collecting of the lower waters into “one place,” ⁹ᐧ ¹⁰; (4) the clothing of the earth with its mantle of vegetation, ¹¹⁻¹³; (5) the formation of the heavenly bodies, ¹⁴⁻¹⁹; (6) the peopling of sea and air with fishes and birds, ²⁰⁻²³; (7) the production of land animals, ²⁴ᐧ ²⁵; and (8) the creation of man, ²⁶⁻³¹. Finally, the Creator is represented as resting from His works on the seventh day; and this becomes the sanction of the Jewish ordinance of the weekly Sabbath rest (2¹⁻³).

_Character of the Record._――It is evident even from this bare outline of its contents that the opening section of Genesis is not a scientific account of the actual process through which the universe originated. It is a world unknown to science whose origin is here described,――the world of antique imagination, composed of a solid expanse of earth, surrounded by and resting on a world-ocean, and surmounted by a vault called the ‘firmament,’ above which again are the waters of a heavenly ocean from which the rain descends on the earth (see on verses ⁶⁻⁸).¹ That the writer believed this to be the true view of the universe, and that the narrative expresses his conception of how it actually came into being, we have, indeed, no reason to doubt (Wellhausen, _Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels_⁶ 296). But the fundamental difference of standpoint just indicated shows that whatever the significance of the record may be, it is not a revelation of physical fact which can be brought into line with the results of modern science. The key to its interpretation must be found elsewhere.

¹ The fact referred to above seems to me to impose an absolute veto on the attempt to harmonise the teaching of the chapter with scientific theory. It may be useful, however, to specify one or two outstanding difficulties of detail. (1) It is recognised by all recent harmonists that the definition of ‘day’ as ‘geological period’ is essential to their theory: it is exegetically indefensible. (2) The creation of sun and moon _after_ the earth, after the alternation of day and night, and even after the appearance of plant-life, are so many scientific impossibilities. (3) Palæontology shows that the origin of vegetable life, if it did not actually follow that of animal life, certainly did not _precede_ it by an interval corresponding to two ‘days.’ (4) The order in which the various living forms are created, the manner in which they are grouped, and their whole development compressed into special periods, are all opposed to geological evidence. For a thorough and impartial discussion of these questions see Driver, _Genesis_, 19‒26. It is there shown conclusively, not only that the modern attempts at reconciliation fail, but (what is more important) that the point at issue is not one of science, but simply of _exegesis_. The facts of science are not in dispute; the only question is whether the language of Genesis will bear the construction which the harmonising scientists find it necessary to put upon it.

In order to understand the true character of the narrative, we must compare it with the _cosmogonies_ which form an integral part of all the higher religions of antiquity. The demand for some rational theory of the origin of the world as known or conceived is one that emerges at a very early stage of culture; and the efforts of the human mind in this direction are observed to follow certain common lines of thought, which point to the existence of a cosmological tradition exerting a widespread influence over ancient speculation on the structure of the universe. There is ample evidence, as will be shown later (below, page 45 ff.), that the Hebrew thinkers were influenced by such a tradition; and in this fact we find a clue to the inner meaning of the narrative before us. The tradition was plastic, and therefore capable of being moulded in accordance with the genius of a particular religion; at the same time, being a tradition, it retained a residuum of unassimilated material derived from the common stock of cosmological speculation current in the East. What happened in the case of the biblical cosmogony is this: that during a long development within the sphere of Hebrew religion it was gradually stripped of its cruder mythological elements, and transformed into a vehicle for the spiritual ideas which were the peculiar heritage of Israel. It is to the depth and purity of these ideas that the narrative mainly owes that character of sobriety and sublimity which has led many to regard it as the primitive revealed cosmogony, of which all others are grotesque and fantastic variations (Dillmann, page 10).

The religious significance of this cosmogony lies, therefore, in the fact that in it the monotheistic principle of the Old Testament has obtained classical expression. The great idea of God, first proclaimed in all its breadth and fulness by the second Isaiah during the Exile, is here embodied in a detailed account of the genesis of the universe, which lays hold of the imagination as no abstract statement of the principle could ever do. The central doctrine is that the world is _created_,――that it originates in the will of God, a personal Being transcending the universe and existing independently of it. The pagan notion of a Theogony――a generation of the gods from the elementary world-matter――is entirely banished. It is, indeed, doubtful if the representation goes so far as a _creatio ex nihilo_, or whether a pre-existent chaotic material is postulated (see on verse ¹); it is certain at least that the _kosmos_, the ordered world with which alone man has to do, is wholly the product of divine intelligence and volition. The spirituality of the First Cause of all things, and His absolute sovereignty over the material He employs, are further emphasised in the idea of the _word_ of God――the effortless expression of His thought and purpose――as the agency through which each successive effect is produced; and also in the recurrent refrain which affirms that the original creation in each of its parts was ‘good,’ and as a whole ‘very good’ (verse ³¹), _i.e._ that it perfectly reflected the divine thought which called it into existence. The traces of mythology and anthropomorphism which occur in the body of the narrative belong to the traditional material on which the author operated, and do not affect his own theological standpoint, which is defined by the doctrines just enumerated. When to these we add the doctrine of man, as made in the likeness of God, and marked out as the crown and goal of creation, we have a body of religious truth which distinguishes the cosmogony of Genesis from all similar compositions, and entitles it to rank among the most important documents of revealed religion.

_The Framework._――The most noteworthy literary feature of the record is the use of a set of stereotyped formulæ, by which the separate acts of creation are reduced as far as possible to a common expression. The structure of this ‘framework’ (as it may be called) is less uniform than might be expected, and is much more regular in LXX than in Massoretic Text. It is impossible to decide how far the irregularities are due to the original writer, and how far to errors of transmission. Besides the possibility of accident, we have to allow on the one hand for the natural tendency of copyists to rectify apparent anomalies, and on the other hand for deliberate omissions, intended to bring out Sacred numbers in the occurrences of the several formulæ.¹

¹ A familiar instance is the ‘ten sayings’ of _Pirḳê ’Abôth_, ‎ 5, 1: בעשרה מאמרות נברא העולם‎, where the number 10 is arrived at by adding to the 8 fiats the two other occurrences of ויאמר‎ in Massoretic Text (verses²⁸ᐧ ²⁹).

The facts are of some importance, and may be summarised here: (a) The fiat (_And God said, Let_ ...) introduces (both in Massoretic Text and LXX) each of the eight works of creation (verses³ᐧ ⁶ᐧ ⁹ᐧ ¹¹ᐧ ¹⁴ᐧ ²⁰ᐧ ²⁴ᐧ ²⁶). (b) _And it was so_ occurs literally 6 times in Massoretic Text, but virtually 7 times: _i.e._ in connection with all the works except the sixth (verses⁽³⁾ᐧ ⁷ᐧ ⁹ᐧ ¹¹ᐧ ¹⁵ᐧ ²⁴ᐧ ³⁰); in LXX also in verse ²⁰. (c) The execution of the fiat (_And God made_ ...――with variations) is likewise recorded 6 times in Massoretic Text and 7 times in LXX (verses⁷ᐧ ⁽⁹⁾ᐧ ¹²ᐧ ¹⁶ᐧ ²¹ᐧ ²⁵ᐧ ²⁷). (d) The sentence of divine approval (_And God saw that it was good_) is pronounced over each work except the second (in LXX there also), though in the last instance with a significant variation: see verses⁴ᐧ ⁽⁸⁾ᐧ ¹⁰ᐧ ¹²ᐧ ¹⁸ᐧ ²¹ᐧ ²⁵ᐧ ³¹. (e) The naming of the objects created (_And God called_ ...) is peculiar to the three acts of separation (verses⁵ᐧ ⁸ᐧ ¹⁰). (f) _And God blessed_ ... (3 times) is said of the sixth and eighth works and of the Sabbath day (verses²²ᐧ ²⁸ 2³). (g) The division into days is marked by the closing formula, _And it was evening, etc._, which, of course, occurs 6 times (verses⁵ᐧ ⁸ᐧ ¹³ᐧ ¹⁹ᐧ ²³ᐧ ³¹), being omitted after the third and seventh works.

The occurrence of the ויהו כן‎ _before_ the execution of the fiat produces a redundancy which may be concealed but is not removed by substituting _so_ for _and_ in the translation (_So God made_, etc.). When we observe further that in 5 cases out of the 6 (in LXX 5 out of 7) the execution is described as a _work_, that the correspondence between fiat and fulfilment is often far from complete, and finally that 2²ᵃ seems a duplicate of 2¹, the question arises whether all these circumstances do not point to a literary manipulation, in which the conception of creation as a series of _fiats_ has been superimposed on another conception of it as a series of _works_. The observation does not carry us very far, since no analysis of sources can be founded on it; but it is perhaps a slight indication of what is otherwise probable, viz. that the cosmogony was not the free composition of a single mind, but reached its final form through the successive efforts of many writers (see below).¹

¹ See, now, Stade _Biblische Theologie des Alten Testaments_ i. 349 and Schwally in _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft._, ix. 159‒175, which have appeared since the above paragraph was written. Both writers point out the twofold conception of the creation which runs through the chapter; and Schwally makes out a strong case for the composition of the passage from two distinct recensions of the cosmogony.

_The Seven Days’ Scheme._――The distribution of the eight works over six days has appeared to many critics (Ilgen, Ewald, Schrader, Wellhausen, Dillmann, Budde, Gunkel, al.) a modification introduced in the interest of the Sabbath law, and at variance with the original intention of the cosmogony. Before entering on that question, it must be pointed out that the adjustment of days to works proceeds upon a clear principle, and results in a symmetrical arrangement. Its effect is to divide the creative process into two stages, each embracing four works and occupying three days, the last day of each series having two works assigned to it. There is, moreover, a remarkable, though not perfect, parallelism between the two great divisions. Thus the _first_ day is marked by the creation of light, and the _fourth_ by the creation of the heavenly bodies, which are expressly designated ‘light-bearers’; on the _second_ day the waters which afterwards formed the seas are isolated and the space between heaven and earth is formed, and so the _fifth_ day witnesses the peopling of these regions with their living denizens (fishes and fowls); on the _third_ day the dry land emerges, and on the _sixth_ terrestrial animals and man are created. And it is hardly accidental that the second work of the _third_ day (trees and grasses) corresponds to the last appointment of the _sixth_ day, by which these products are assigned as the food of men and animals. Broadly speaking, therefore, we may say that “the first three days are days of preparation, the next three are days of accomplishment” (Driver _Genesis_ 2). Now whether this arrangement belongs to the original conception of the cosmogony, or at what stage it was introduced, are questions very difficult to answer. Nothing at all resembling it has as yet been found in Babylonian documents; for the division into seven tablets of the _Enuma eliš_ series has no relation to the seven days of the biblical account.¹ If therefore a Babylonian origin is assumed, it seems reasonable to hold that the scheme of days is a Hebrew addition; and in that case it is hard to believe that it can have been introduced without a primary reference to the distinctively Israelitish institution of the weekly Sabbath. It then only remains to inquire whether we can go behind the present seven days’ scheme, and discover in the narrative evidence of an earlier arrangement which either ignored the seven days altogether, or had them in a form different from what we now find.

¹ See below, page 43 ff. On the other hand there are Persian and Etruscan analogies; see page 50.

The latter position is maintained by Wellhausen (_Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments_² 187 ff.), who holds that the scheme of days is a secondary addition to the framework as it came from the hand of its Priestly author (Q). In the original cosmogony of Q a division into seven days was recognised, but in a different form from what now obtains; it was moreover not carried through in detail, but merely indicated by the statement of 2² that God finished His work on the seventh day. The key to the primary arrangement he finds in the formula of approval, the absence of which after the second work he explains by the consideration that the separation of the upper waters from the lower and of the lower from the dry land form really but one work, and were so regarded by Q. Thus the seven works of creation were (1) separation of light from darkness; (2) separation of waters (⁶⁻¹⁰); (3) creation of plants; (4) luminaries; (5) fish and fowl; (6) land animals; (7) man. The statement that God finished His work on the seventh day Wellhausen considers to be inconsistent with a six days’ creation, and also with the view that the seventh was a day of rest; hence in chapter 2, he deletes ²ᵇ and ³ᵇ, and reads simply: “and God finished His work which He made on the seventh day, and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.”――This theory has been subjected to a searching criticism by Budde (_Die biblische Urgeschichte_ 487 ff.; compare also Dillmann 15), who rightly protests against the subsuming of the creation of heaven and that of land and sea under one rubric as a ‘separation of waters,’ and gets rid of the difficulty presented by 2²ᵃ by reading _sixth_ instead of _seventh_ (see on the verse). Budde urges further that the idea of the Sabbath as a day on which work might be done is one not likely to have been entertained in the circles from which the Priestly Code emanated,¹ and also (on the ground of Exodus 20¹¹) that the conception of a creation in six days followed by a divine Sabbath rest must have existed in Israel long before the age of that document.――It is to be observed that part of Budde’s argument (which as a whole seems to me valid against the specific form of the theory advanced by Wellhausen) only pushes the real question a step further back; and Budde himself, while denying that the seven days’ scheme is secondary to Priestly-Code, agrees with Ewald, Dillmann, and many others in thinking that there was an earlier Hebrew version of the cosmogony in which that scheme did not exist.

¹ See Jerome’s polemical note, in _Quæstiones sive Traditiones hebraicæ in Genesim_, _ad loc._

The improbability that a disposition of the cosmogony in eight works should have obtained currency in Hebrew circles without an attempt to bring it into some relation with a sacred number has been urged in favour of the originality of the present setting (Holzinger, 23 f.). That argument might be turned the other way; for the very fact that the number 8 has been retained in spite of its apparent arbitrariness suggests that it had some traditional authority behind it. Other objections to the originality of the present scheme are: (a) the juxtaposition of two entirely dissimilar works under the third day; (b) the separation of two closely related works on the second and third days; (c) the alternation of day and night introduced before the existence of the planets by which their sequence is regulated (thus far Dillmann 15), and (d) the unnatural order of the fourth and fifth works (plants before heavenly bodies). These objections are not all of equal weight; and explanations more or less plausible have been given of all of them. But on the whole the evidence seems to warrant the conclusions: that the series of works and the series of days are fundamentally incongruous, that the latter has been superimposed on the former during the Hebrew development of the cosmogony, that this change is responsible for some of the irregularities of the disposition, and that it was introduced certainly not later than Priestly-Code, and in all probability long before his time.

_Source and Style._――As has been already hinted, the section belongs to the Priestly Code (Priestly-Code). This is the unanimous opinion of all critics who accept the documentary analysis of the Hexateuch, and it is abundantly proved both by characteristic words and phrases, and general features of style. Expressions characteristic of Priestly-Code are (besides the divine name אלהים‎): ברא‎ (see on verse¹), זכר ונקבה‎ ²⁷, חיתו ארץ [חית ה׳]‎ ‎ ²⁴ᐧ ²⁵ᐧ ³⁰, לאכלה‎ ²⁹ᐧ ³⁰, מין‎ ¹¹ᐧ ¹²ᐧ ²¹ᐧ ²⁴ᐧ ²⁵, מקוה‎ ¹⁰, פרה ורבה‎ ²²ᐧ ²⁸, ‎ רָמַשׂ‎, רֶמֶשׂ‎ ²¹ᐧ ²⁴ᐧ ²⁵ᐧ ²⁶ᐧ ²⁸ᐧ ³⁰, שָׁרַץ‎, שֶׁרֶץ‎ ²⁰ᐧ ²¹, and תולדות‎ in 2⁴ᵃ.――Compare the lists in Dillmann, page 1; Gunkel, page 107, and _Oxford Hexateuch_, i. 208‒220; and for details see the Commentary below.――Of even greater value as a criterion of authorship is the unmistakable literary manner of the Priestly historian. The orderly disposition of material, the strict adherence to a carefully thought out plan, the monotonous repetition of set phraseology, the aim at exact classification and definition, and generally the subordination of the concrete to the formal elements of composition: these are all features of the ‘juristic’ style cultivated by this school of writers,――“it is the same spirit that has shaped Genesis 1 and Genesis 5” (Gunkel).――On the artistic merits of the passage very diverse judgments have been pronounced. Gunkel, whose estimate is on the whole disparaging, complains of a lack of poetic enthusiasm and picturesqueness of conception, poorly compensated for by a marked predilection for method and order. It is hardly fair to judge a prose writer by the requirements of poetry; and even a critic so little partial to Priestly-Code as Wellhausen is impressed by “the majestic repose and sustained grandeur” of the narrative, especially of its incomparable exordium (_Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels_⁶ 297). To deny to a writer capable of producing this impression all sense of literary effect is unreasonable; and it is perhaps near the truth to say that though the style of Priestly-Code may, in technical descriptions or enumerations, degenerate into a pedantic mannerism (see an extreme case in Numbers 7), he has found here a subject suited to his genius, and one which he handles with consummate skill. It is a bold thing to desiderate a treatment more worthy of the theme, or more impressive in effect, than we find in the severely chiselled outlines and stately cadences of the first chapter of Genesis.

In speaking of the style of Priestly-Code it has to be borne in mind that we are dealing with the literary tradition of a school rather than with the idiosyncrasy of an individual. It has, indeed, often been asserted that this particular passage is obviously the composition ‘at one heat’ of a single writer; but that is improbable. If the cosmogony rests ultimately on a Babylonian model, it “must have passed through a long period of naturalisation in Israel, and of gradual assimilation to the spirit of Israel’s religion before it could have reached its present form” (Driver, _Genesis_ 31). All, therefore, that is necessarily implied in what has just been said is that the _later stages_ of that process must have taken place under the auspices of the school of Priestly-Code, and that its work has entered very deeply into the substance of the composition.――Of the earlier stages we can say little except that traces of them remain in those elements which do not agree with the ruling ideas of the last editors. Budde has sought to prove that the story had passed through the school of Yahwist before being adopted by that of Priestly-Code; that it was in fact the form into which the cosmogony had been thrown by the writer called Yahwist². Of direct evidence for that hypothesis (such as would be supplied by allusions to Genesis 1 in other parts of Yahwist²) there is none: it is an inference deduced mainly from these premises: (1) that the creation story shows traces of overworking which presuppose the existence of an older Hebrew recension; (2) that in all other sections of the prehistoric tradition Priestly-Code betrays his dependence on Yahwist²; and (3) that Yahwist² in turn is markedly dependent on Babylonian sources (see _Die biblische Urgeschichte_ 463‒496, and the summary on page 491 f.). Even if all these observations be well founded, it is obvious that they fall far short of a demonstration of Budde’s thesis. It is a plausible conjecture so long as we assume that little was written beyond what we have direct or indirect evidence of (_ib._ 463¹); but when we realise how little is known of the diffusion of literary activity in ancient Israel, the presumption that Yahwist² was the particular writer who threw the Hebrew cosmogony into shape becomes very slender indeed.

=1.= We are confronted at the outset by a troublesome question of syntax which affects the sense of every member of verse ¹. While all ancient versions and many moderns take the verse as a complete sentence, others (following Rashi and Ibn Ezra) treat it as a temporal clause, subordinate either to verse ³ (Rashi, and so most) or verse ² (Ibn Ezra, apparently). On the latter view the verse will read: _In the beginning of God’s creating the heavens and the earth_: בְּרֵאשִׁית‎ being in the construct state, followed by a clause as genitive (compare Isaiah 29¹, Hosea 1² etc.; and see Gesenius-Kautzsch, § 130 _d_; Davidson § 25). In a note below reasons are given for preferring this construction to the other; but a decision is difficult, and in dealing with verse ¹ it is necessary to leave the alternative open.――_In the beginning_] If the clause be subordinate the reference of ראשית‎ is defined by what immediately follows, and no further question arises. But if it be an independent statement _beginning_ is used absolutely (as in John 1¹), and two interpretations become possible: (a) that the verse asserts the creation (_ex nihilo_) of the primæval chaos described in verse ²; or (b) that it summarises the whole creative process narrated in the chapter. The former view has prevailed in Jewish and Christian theology, and is still supported by the weighty authority of Wellhausen. But (1) it is not in accordance with the usage of ראשית‎ (see below); (2) it is not required by the word ‘create,’――a created chaos is perhaps a contradiction (Isaiah 45¹⁸ לֹא־תֹהוּ בְרָאָהּ‎), and Wellhausen himself admits that it is a remarkable conception; and (3) it is excluded by the object of that verb: _the heavens and the earth_. For though that phrase is a Hebrew designation of the universe as a whole, it is only the _organised_ universe, not the chaotic material out of which it was formed, that can naturally be so designated. The appropriate name for chaos is ‘the earth’ (verse ²); the representation being a chaotic earth from which the heavens were afterwards made (⁶ ᶠᐧ). The verse therefore (if an independent sentence at all) must be taken as an introductory heading to the rest of the chapter.¹――_God created._] The verb בָּרָא‎ contains the central idea of the passage. It is partly synonymous with עָשָׂה‎ (compare verses ²¹ᐧ ²⁷ with ²⁵), but 2³ shows that it had a specific shade of meaning. The idea cannot be defined with precision, but the following points are to be noted: (a) The most important fact is that it is used exclusively of _divine_ activity――a restriction to which perhaps no parallel can be found in other languages (see Wellhausen _Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels_⁶ 304). (b) The idea of _novelty_ (Isaiah 48⁶ ᶠᐧ 41²⁰ 65¹⁷ ᶠᐧ, Jeremiah 31²¹) or _extraordinariness_ (Exodus 34¹⁰, Numbers 16³⁰ [Yahwist]) of result is frequently implied, and it is noteworthy that this is the case in the only two passages of certainly early date where the word occurs. (c) It is probable also that it contains the idea of _effortless_ production (such as befits the Almighty) by word or volition² (Psalms 33⁹). (d) It is obvious (from this chapter and many passages) that the sense stops short of _creatio ex nihilo_,――an idea first explicitly occurring in 2 Maccabees 7²⁸. At the same time the facts just stated, and the further circumstance that the word is always used with accusative of product and never of material, constitute a long advance towards the full theological doctrine, and make the word ‘create’ a suitable vehicle for it.

¹ The view that verse ¹ describes an earlier creation of heaven and earth, which were reduced to chaos and then re-fashioned, needs no refutation.

² The same thought was associated by the Babylonians with their word _banû_ (see philosophical note); but the association seems accidental; and its significance is exaggerated by Gunkel when he says “the idea of creation is that man may form with his hands, the god brings to pass through his word” (_Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit_ 23). _Banû_ is quite synonymous with _ipisû_ (make), and is not restricted to the divine activity.

* * * * *

‎ =1.=――ראשית‎] The form is probably contracted from רְאֵשִׁית‎ (compare ‎ שְׁאֵרִית‎), and therefore not derived directly from רֹאשׁ‎. It signifies primarily the _first_ (or _best_) part of a thing: Genesis 10¹⁰ (‘nucleus’), 49³ (‘first product’), Deuteronomy 33²¹, Amos 6⁶ etc. (On its ritual sense as the first part of crops, etc., see Gray’s note, _Numbers_ 226 ff.). From this it easily glides into a temporal sense, as the _first stage_ of a process or series of events: Hosea 9¹⁰ (‘in its first stage’), Deuteronomy 11¹² (of the year), Job 8⁷ 40¹⁹ (a man’s life), Isaiah 46¹⁰ (starting point of a series), etc. Wellhausen (_Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels_⁶ 386) has said that Deuteronomy 11¹² is the earliest instance of the temporal sense; but the distinction between ‘first part’ and ‘temporal beginning’ is so impalpable that not much importance can be attached to the remark. It is of more consequence to observe that at no period of the language does the temporal sense go beyond the definition already given, viz. the first stage of a process, either explicitly indicated or clearly implied. That being so, the prevalent determinate construction becomes intelligible. That in its ceremonial sense the word should be used absolutely was to be expected (so Leviticus 2¹² [Numbers 18¹²] Nehemiah 12⁴⁴: with these may be taken also Deuteronomy 33²¹). In its temporal applications it is always defined by genitive or suffix except in Isaiah. 46¹⁰, where the antithesis to אחרית‎ inevitably suggests the intervening series of which ר׳‎ is the initial phase. It is therefore doubtful if בָּר׳‎ could be used of an absolute beginning detached from its sequel, or of an indefinite past, like בָּראשנה‎ or בַּתּחלה‎ (see Isaiah 1²⁶, Genesis 13³).――This brings us to the question of syntax. Three constructions have been proposed: (a) verse ¹ an independent sentence (_all_ versions and the great majority of commentaries, including Calvin, Delitzsch, Tuch, Wellhausen, Driver). _In sense_ this construction (taking the verse as superscription) is entirely free from objection: it yields an easy syntax, and a simple and majestic opening. The absence of the article tells against it, but is by no means decisive. At most it is a matter of pointing, and the sporadic Greek transliterations Βαρησηθ (Field, _Origenis Hexaplorum quæ supersunt; sive Veterum Interpretum Græcorum in totum Vetus Testamentum Fragmenta_), and Βαρησεθ (Lagarde, _Ankündigung einer neuen Ausgabe der griech. Uebersezung des Alte Testament_ 5), alongside of Βρησιθ, may show that in ancient times the first word was sometimes read בָּר׳‎. Even the Massoretic pointing does not necessarily imply that the word was meant as construct; ‎ ר׳‎ is never found with articles, and Delitzsch has well pointed out that the stereotyped use or omission of articles with certain words is governed by a subtle linguistic sense which eludes our analysis (_e.g._ מִקֶּדֶם‎, מֵרֹאשׁ‎, בָּרִאשֹׁנָה‎: compare König _Historisch-comparative Syntax der hebräischen Sprache_ § 294 g). The construction seems to me, however, opposed to the essentially _relative_ idea of ר׳‎,――its express reference to _that of which_ it is the beginning (see above). (b) verse ¹ protasis: verse ² parenthesis: verse ³ apodosis;――_When God began to create ...――now the earth was ...――God said, Let there be light._ So Rashi, Ewald, Dillmann,¹ Holzinger, Gunkel, al.――practically all who reject (a). Although first appearing explicitly in Rashi († 1105), it has been argued that this represents the old Jewish tradition, and that (a) came in under the influence of LXX from a desire to exclude the idea of an eternal chaos preceding the creation.² But the fact that Targumᴼⁿᵏᵉˡᵒˢ agrees with LXX militates against that opinion. The one objection to (b) is the ‘verzweifelt geschmacklose Construction’ (Wellhausen) which it involves. It is replied (Gunkel, al.) that such openings may have been a traditional feature of creation stories, being found in several Babylonian accounts, as well as in Genesis 2⁴ᵇ⁻⁶. In any case a lengthy parenthesis is quite admissible in good prose style (see 1 Samuel 3²ᵃ{β}⁻³, with Driver _Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel_, _ad loc._), and may be safely assumed here if there be otherwise sufficient grounds for adopting it. The clause as genitive is perfectly regular, though it would be easy to substitute infinitive בְּרֹא‎ (mentioned but not recommended by Rashi). (c) A third view, which perhaps deserves more consideration than it has received, is to take verse ¹ as protasis and verse ² as apodosis, ‘_When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was, etc._’ (Abraham Ibn Ezra? but see Cheyne, in _Hebräica_ ii. 50). So far as sense goes the sequence is eminently satisfactory; the ויאמר‎ of verse ³ is more natural as a continuation of verse ² than of verse ¹. The question is whether the _form_ of verse ² permits its being construed as apodosis. The order of words (subject before predicate) is undoubtedly that proper to the circumstantial clause (Driver _A Treatise on the use of the Tenses in Hebrew_ § 157; Davidson § 138 (_c_)); but there is no absolute rule against an apodosis assuming this form after a time-determination (see Driver _A Treatise on the use of the Tenses in Hebrew_ § 78). Close parallels (for it is hard to see that the ויהי‎ makes any essential difference) are Genesis 7¹⁰ (Yahwist), 22¹ (Elohist), or (with imperfect), Leviticus 7¹⁶ᵇ (Priestly-Code). The construction is not appreciably harsher than in the analogous case of 2⁵, where it has been freely adopted.――ברא‎] enters fully into Old Testament usage only on the eve of the Exile. Apart from three critically dubious passages (Amos 4¹³, Isaiah 4⁵, Jeremiah 31²¹), its first emergence in prophecy is in Ezekiel (3 times); it is specially characteristic of II Isaiah (20 times), in Priestly-Code 10 times, and in other late passages 8 times. The proof of pre-exilic use rests on Exodus 34¹⁰, Numbers 16³⁰ (Yahwist), Deuteronomy 4³². There is no reason to doubt that it belongs to the early language; what can be fairly said is that at the Exile the thought of the divine creation of the world became prominent in the prophetic theology, and that for this reason the term which expressed it technically obtained a currency it had not previously enjoyed. The primary idea is uncertain. It is commonly regarded as the root of a Piel meaning ‘cut,’ hence ‘form by cutting,’ ‘carve,’ ‘fashion,’ (Aramaic _baraʸ_, Phœnician ברא‎ [_Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum_, i. 347⁴]: see Brown-Driver-Briggs, _s.v._; Lane, _A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament_ 197 b; Lidzbarski, _Handbuch der nordsemitischen Epigraphik_ 244 [with ?]); but the evidence of the connexion is very slight. The only place where בֵּרֵא‎ could mean ‘carve’ is Ezekiel 21²⁴ ᵇⁱˢ; and there the text is almost certainly corrupt (see Cornill, Toy, Kraetschmar, _ad loc._). Elsewhere it means ‘cut down’ (Ezekiel 23⁴⁷) or ‘clear ground by hewing down trees’ (Joshua 17¹⁵ᐧ ¹⁸ [Yahwist])――a sense as remote as possible from fashion or make (Dillmann, Gesenius-Buhl _s.v._; Wellhausen _Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels_⁶ 387). The Aramaic _bara’a_ (used chiefly of creation of animate beings) is possibly borrowed from Hebrew. Native philologists connect it, very unnaturally, with _bari’a_, ‘be free’; so that ‘create’ means to _liberate_ (from the clay, etc.) (Lane, 178 b, c): Dillmann’s view is similar. Barth (_Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, iii. 58) has proposed to identify ברא‎ (through mutation of liquids) with the Assyrian verb for ‘create,’ _banū_; but rejects the opinion that the latter is the common Semitic בנה‎ ‘build’ (_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 498¹), with which ברא‎ alternates in Sabæan (Müller in _Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, xxxvii. 413, 415).

¹ Who, however, considers the present text to be the result of a redactional operation. Originally the place of verse ¹ was occupied by 2⁴ᵃ in its correct form: אלה תולדות השמים והארץ בְּבָרְאָם אלהים‎. When this was transposed it was necessary to frame a new introduction, and in the hands of the editor it assumed the form of verse ¹ (similarly, Stade _Biblische Theologie des Alten Testaments_ i. 349). I am unable to adopt this widely accepted view of the original position of 2⁴ᵃ (see on the verse), and Dillmann’s intricate hypothesis would seem to me an additional argument against it.

² See Geiger, _Urschrift und Uebersetzungen der Bibel in ihrer Abhängigkeit von der innern Entwickelung des Judenthums_ 344, 439, 444. The _Mechilta_ (on Exodus 12⁴⁰: Winter and Wünsche’s German translation, page 48) gives verse ¹ as one of thirteen instances of things ‘written for King Ptolemy’; and Geiger infers that the change was deliberately made for the reason mentioned. The reading alleged by _Mechilta_ is ‎ אלהים ברא בראשית‎, which gives the _sense_ but not the _order_ of LXX. The other variations given are only partly verified by our texts of LXX; see on 1²⁶ ᶠᐧ 2² 11⁷ 18¹² 49⁶.

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=2. Description of Chaos.=――It is perhaps impossible to unite the features of the description in a single picture, but the constitutive elements of the notion of chaos appear to be Confusion (תהו ובהו‎), Darkness, and Water (תהום‎, מים‎). The weird effect of the language is very impressive. On the syntax, see above.――_waste and void_] The exact meaning of this alliterative phrase――_Tōhû wā-Bōhû_――is difficult to make out. The words are nouns; the connotation of תהו‎ ranges from the concrete ‘desert’ to the abstract ‘nonentity’; while בהו‎ possibly means ‘emptiness’ (_v.i._). The exegetical tendency has been to emphasise the latter aspect, and approximate to the Greek notion of chaos as empty space (Gunkel). But our safest guide is perhaps Jeremiah’s vision of Chaos-come-again (4²³⁻²⁶), which is simply that of a darkened and devastated earth, from which life and order have fled. The idea here is probably similar, with this difference, that the distinction of land and sea is effaced, and the earth, which is the subject of the sentence, must be understood as the amorphous watery mass in which the elements of the future land and sea were commingled.――_Darkness_ (an almost invariable feature of ancient conceptions of chaos) _was upon the face of the Deep_] The _Deep_ (תְּהוֹם‎) is the subterranean ocean on which the earth rests (Genesis 7¹¹ 8² 49²⁵, Amos 7⁴ etc.); which, therefore, before the earth was formed, lay bare and open to the superincumbent darkness. In the Babylonian Creation-myth the primal chaos is personified under the name _Ti’āmat_. The Hebrew narrative is free from mythological associations, and it is doubtful if even a trace of personification lingers in the name תהום‎. In Babylonian, _ti’āmatu_ or _tāmtu_ is a generic term for ‘ocean’; and it is conceivable that this literal sense may be the origin of the Hebrew conception of the Deep (see page 47).――_The Spirit of God was brooding_] not, as has sometimes been supposed, a _wind_ sent from God to dry up the waters (Targumᴼⁿᵏᵉˡᵒˢ, Abraham Ibn Ezra, and a few moderns), but the divine Spirit, figured as a bird brooding over its nest, and perhaps symbolising an immanent principle of life and order in the as yet undeveloped chaos. Compare Milton, _Paradise Lost_, i. 19 ff., vii. 233 ff. It is remarkable, however, if this be the idea, that no further effect is given to it in the sequel. (1) The idea of the Spirit as formative principle of the kosmos, while _in the line_ of the Old Testament doctrine that he is the source of life (Psalms 33⁶ 104²⁹ ᶠᐧ), yet goes much beyond the ordinary representation, and occurs only here (possibly Isaiah 40¹³). (2) The image conveyed by the word _brooding_ ‎(מְרַחֶפֶת‎) is generally considered to rest on the widespread cosmogonic speculation of the world-egg (so even Delitzsch and Dillmann), in which the organised world was as it were hatched from the fluid chaos. If so, we have here a fragment of mythology not vitally connected with the main idea of the narrative, but introduced for the sake of its religious suggestiveness. In the source from which this myth was borrowed the brooding power might be a bird-like deity¹ (Gunkel), or an abstract principle like the Greek Ἔρως, the Phœnician Πόθος, etc.: for this the Hebrew writer, true to his monotheistic faith, substitutes the Spirit of God, and thereby transforms a “crude material representation ... into a beautiful and suggestive figure” (Driver _The Book of Genesis with Introduction and Notes_ 5).

¹ In Polynesian mythology the supreme god Tangaloa is often represented as a bird hovering over the waters (Waitz-Gerland, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_ vi. 241).

The conceptions of chaos in antiquity fluctuate between that of empty space (Hesiod, Aristotle, Lucretius, etc.) and the ‘rudis indigestaque moles’ of Ovid (_Metamorphoses _ i. 7). The Babylonian representation embraces the elements of darkness and water, and there is no doubt that this is the central idea of the Genesis narrative. It is singular, however, that of the three clauses of verse ² only the second (which includes the two elements mentioned) exercises any influence on the subsequent description (for on any view the ‘waters’ of the third must be identical with the _Tĕhôm_ of the second). It is possible, therefore, that the verse combines ideas drawn from diverse sources which are not capable of complete synthesis. Only on this supposition would it be possible to accept Gunkel’s interpretation of the first clause as a description of empty space. In that case _the earth_ is probably not inclusive of, but contrasted with, _Tĕhôm_: it denotes the space _now_ occupied by the earth, which being empty leaves nothing but the deep and the darkness.

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‎ =2.= תהו ובהו‎] LXX ἀόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος; Aquila κένωμα καὶ οὐθέν; Symmachus ἀργὸν καὶ ἀδιάκριτον; Theodotion κενὸν (or οὐθὲν) καὶ οὐθὲν; Vulgate _inanis et vacua_; Targumᴼⁿᵏᵉˡᵒˢ ‎ צדיא וריקניא‎ (‘desolate and empty’); Peshiṭtå (‡ 2 Syriac words). The fragmentary Jerome Targum has a double translation: “And the earth was תהיא ובהיא‎, and (compare Targumᴼⁿᵏᵉˡᵒˢ) _desolate_ from the sons of men, and _empty_ of work.” תהו‎ occurs along with בהו‎ in Jeremiah 4²³, Isaiah 34¹¹; תהו‎ alone in 17 passages besides. The meaning varies between two extremes: (a) a (trackless) _desert_ (Job 12²⁴ [= Psalms 107⁴⁰] 6¹⁸, Deuteronomy 32¹⁰), and (b) _unsubstantiality_ (שאין לו ממש‎, Abraham Ibn Ezra) or ‘nonentity,’ a sense all but peculiar to II Isaiah (also 1 Samuel 12²¹, and _perhaps_ Isaiah 29²¹), but very frequent there. The primary idea is uncertain. It is perhaps easier on the whole to suppose that the abstract sense of ‘formlessness,’ or the like, gave rise to a poetic name for desert, than that the concrete ‘desert’ passed over into the abstract ‘formlessness’; but we have no assurance that either represents the actual development of the idea. It seems not improbable that the Old Testament usage is entirely based on the traditional description of the primæval chaos, and that the word had no definite connotation in Hebrew, but was used to express any conception naturally associated with the idea of chaos――‘formlessness,’ ‘confusion,’ ‘unreality,’ etc.――בהו‎] (never found apart from תהו‎) may be connected with _bahiya_ = ‘be empty’; though Aramaic is hardly a safe guide in the case of a word with a long history behind it. The identification with Βααυ, the mother of the first man in Phœnician mythology (see page 49 f.), is probable.――תהום‎] is undoubtedly the philological equivalent of Babylonian _Ti’āmat_: a connexion with Aramaic _Tihāmat_, the Red Sea littoral province (Hoffmann in _Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft_, iii. 118), is more dubious (see Lane, 320 b, c; Jensen, _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, vi. 1, 560). In early Hebrew the word is rare, and always (with possible exception of Exodus 15⁵ᐧ ⁸) denotes the subterranean ocean, which is the source from which earthly springs and fountains are fed (Genesis 49²⁵, Deuteronomy 33¹³, Amos 7⁴, and so Deuteronomy 8⁷, Genesis 7¹¹ 8² (Priestly-Code); compare Homer _Iliad_ xxi. 195), and is a remnant of the primal chaos (Genesis 1², Psalms 104⁶, Proverbs 8²⁷). In later writings it is used of the sea (plural, seas), and even of torrents of water (Psalms 42⁸); but, the passages being poetic, there is probably always to be detected a reference to the world-ocean, either as source of springs, or as specialised in earthly oceans (see Ezekiel 26¹⁹). Though the word is almost confined to poetry (except Genesis 1² 7¹¹ 8², Deuteronomy 8⁷, Amos 7⁴), the only clear cases of personification are Genesis 49²⁵, Deuteronomy 33¹³ (_Tĕhôm_ that coucheth beneath). The invariable absence of the article (except with plural in Psalms 106⁹, Isaiah 63¹³) proves that it is a proper name, but _not_ that it is a personification (compare the case of שְׁאוֹל‎). On the other hand, it is noteworthy that תהום‎, unlike most Hebrew names of fluids, is feminine, becoming occasionally masculine only in later times when its primary sense had been forgotten (compare Albrecht, _Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft_, xvi. 62): this might be due to an original female personification.――מרחפת‎] Greek Versions and Vulgate express merely the idea of motion (ἐπεφέρετο, ἐπιφερόμενον, _ferebatur_); Targumᴼⁿᵏᵉˡᵒˢ מנשבא‎ (‘blow’ or ‘breathe’); Peshiṭtå (‡ Syriac word). Jerome (_Quæstiones sive Traditiones hebraicæ in Genesim_): “incubabat sive confovebat in similitudinem volucris ova calore animantis.” It is impossible to say whether ‘brood’ or ‘hover’ is the exact image here, or in Deuteronomy 32¹¹,――the only other place where the Piel occurs (the Qal in Jeremiah 23⁹ may be a separate root). The Syriac verb has great latitude of meaning; it describes, _e.g._, the action of Elisha in laying himself on the body of the dead child (2 Kings 4³⁴); and is used of angels _hovering_ over the dying Virgin. It is also applied to a waving of the hands (or of fans) in certain ecclesiastical functions, etc. (see Payne Smith, _Thesaurus Syriacus_ 3886).

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=3‒5. First work: Creation of light.=――_[And] God said_] On the connexion, see above, pages 13 ff.; and on the significance of the _fiat_, page 7.――_Let there be light_] The thought of light as the first creation, naturally suggested by the phenomenon of the dawn, appears in several cosmogonies; but is not expressed in any known form of the Babylonian legend. There the creator, being the sun-god, is in a manner identified with the primal element of the kosmos; and the antithesis of light and darkness is dramatised as a conflict between the god and the Chaos monster. In Persian cosmogony also, light, as the sphere in which Mazda dwells, is uncreated and eternal (Tiele, _Geschichte der Religion im Altertum_ ii. 295 f.). In Isaiah 45⁷ both light and darkness are creations of Yahwe, but that is certainly not the idea here. Compare Milton’s _Paradise Lost_, iii. 1 ff.:

“Hail, holy Light! offspring of heaven first-born; Or, of the Eternal co-eternal beam,” etc.

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‎ =3.= ויהי אור‎ corresponds to the ויהי כן‎ of subsequent acts.

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=4.= _saw that the light was good_] The formula of approval does not extend to the darkness, nor even to the coexistence of light and darkness, but is restricted to the light. “Good” expresses the contrast of God’s work to the chaos of which darkness is an element. Gunkel goes too far in suggesting that the expression covers a ‘strong anthropomorphism’ (the possibility of failure, happily overcome). But he rightly calls attention to the bright view of the world implied in the series of approving verdicts, as opposed to the pessimistic estimate which became common in later Judaism.――_And God divided, etc._]. To us these words merely suggest alternation in time; but Hebrew conceives of a _spatial_ distinction of light and darkness, each in its own ‘place’ or abode (Job 38¹⁹ ᶠᐧ). Even the separate days and nights of the year seem thought of as having independent and continuous existence (Job 3⁶).

The Hebrew mind had thus no difficulty in thinking of the existence of light before the heavenly bodies. The sun and moon _rule_ the day and night, but light and darkness exist independently of them. It is a mistake, however, to compare this with the scientific hypothesis of a cosmical light diffused through the nebula from which the solar system was evolved. It is not merely light and darkness, but day and night, and even the alternation of evening and morning (verse ⁵), that are represented as existing before the creation of the sun.

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‎ =4.= האור כי טוב ‎] with attracted object: see Gesenius-Kautzsch § 117 _h_; Davidson § 146.

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=5.= _And God called, etc._] The name――that by which the thing is summoned into the field of thought――belongs to the full existence of the thing itself. So in the first line of the Babylonian account, “the heaven was not yet named” means that it did not yet exist.――_And it became evening, etc._] Simple as the words are, the sentence presents some difficulty, which is not removed by the supposition that the writer follows the Jewish custom of reckoning the day from sunset to sunset (Tuch, Gunkel, Bennett, etc.). The Jewish day may have begun at sunset, but it did not end at sunrise; and it is impossible to take the words as meaning that the evening and morning _formed_ the first (second, etc.) day. Moreover, there could be no evening before the day on which light was created. The sentence must refer to the _close_ of the first day with the first evening and the night that followed, leading the mind forward to the advent of a new day, and a new display of creative power (Delitzsch, Dillmann, Holzinger, al.). One must not overlook the majestic simplicity of the statement.

The interpretation of יום‎ as _æon_, a favourite resource of harmonists of science and revelation, is opposed to the plain sense of the passage, and has no warrant in Hebrew usage (not even Psalms 90⁴). It is true that the conception of successive creative periods, extending over vast spaces of time, is found in other cosmogonies (Delitzsch 55); but it springs in part from views of the world which are foreign to the Old Testament. To introduce that idea here not only destroys the analogy on which the sanction of the sabbath rests, but misconceives the character of the Priestly Code. If the writer had had æons in his mind, he would hardly have missed the opportunity of stating how many millenniums each embraced.

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‎ =5.= יום‎ in popular parlance denotes the period between dawn and dark, and is so used in ⁵ᵃ. When it became necessary to deal with the 24-hours’ day, it was most natural to connect the night with the _preceding_ period of light, reckoning, _i.e._, from sunrise to sunrise; and this is the prevailing usage of Old Testament (יום ולילה‎). In post-exilic times we find traces of the reckoning from sunset to sunset in the phrase לילה ויום‎ (νυχθήμερον), Isaiah 27³ 34¹⁰, Esther 4¹⁶. Priestly-Code regularly employs the form ‘day and night’; and if Leviticus 23³² can be cited as a case of the later reckoning, Exodus 12¹⁸ is as clearly in favour of the older (see Marti, _Encyclopædia Biblica_, 1036; König, _Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, lx. 605 ff.). There is therefore no presumption in favour of the less natural method in this passage.――קָ֫רָא‎] _Mil‛el_, to avoid concurrence of two accented syllables.――♦לַ֫יְלָה‎] (also _Mil‛el_) a reduplicated form (לַיְלַי‎; compare Aramaic ליליא‎): see Nöldeke, _Mandäische Grammatik_ § 109; Prätorius, _Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft_, iii. 218; König ii. § 52 c.――יום ‎ אחד‎] ‘a first day,’ or perhaps better ‘one day.’ On אהד‎ as ordinal, see Gesenius-Kautzsch §§ 98 _a_, 134 _p_; Davidson § 38, _R._ 1; but compare Wellhausen _Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels_⁶ 387.

‎ ♦ “לַיְ֫לָה‎” replaced with “לַ֫יְלָה‎”

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=6‒8. Second work: The firmament.=――The second fiat calls into existence a _firmament_, whose function is to divide the primæval waters into an upper and lower ocean, leaving a space between as the theatre of further creative developments. The “firmament” is the dome of heaven, which to the ancients was no optical illusion, but a material structure, sometimes compared to an “upper chamber” (Psalms 104¹³, Amos 9⁶) supported by “pillars” (Job 26¹¹), and resembling in its surface a “molten mirror” (Job 37¹⁸). Above this are the heavenly waters, from which the rain descends through “windows” or “doors” (Genesis 7¹¹ 8², 2 Kings 7²ᐧ ¹⁹) opened and shut by God at His pleasure (Psalms 78²³). The general idea of a forcible separation of heaven and earth is widely diffused; it is perhaps embodied in our word ‘heaven’ (from _heave?_) and Old English ‘lift.’ A graphic illustration of it is found in Egyptian pictures, where the god Shu is seen holding aloft, with outstretched arms, the dark star-spangled figure of the heaven-goddess, while the earth-god lies prostrate beneath (see Jeremias _Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 7).¹ But the special form in which it appears here is perhaps not fully intelligible apart from the Babylonian creation-myth, and the climatic phenomena on which it is based (see below, page 46).

¹ Compare also the Maori myth reported in Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_ vi. 245 ff.; Lang, _Custom and Myth_, 45 ff.

Another interpretation of the firmament has recently been propounded (Winckler, _Himmels- und Weltbild der Babylonier_, 25 ff.; _Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 164, 174) which identifies it with the Babylonian _šupuk šamē_, and explains both of the Zodiac. The view seems based on the highly artificial Babylonian theory of a point-for-point correspondence between heaven and earth, according to which the Zodiac represents a heavenly earth, the northern heavens a heavenly heaven (atmospheric), and the southern a heavenly ocean. But whatever be the truth about _šupuk šamē_, such a restriction of the meaning of רקיע‎ is inadmissible in Hebrew. In Psalms 19², Daniel 12³ it might be possible; but even there it is unnecessary, and in almost every other case it is absolutely excluded. It is so emphatically in this chapter, where the firmament is _named_ heaven, and birds (whose flight is not restricted to 10° on either side of the ecliptic) are said to fly ‘in front of the firmament.’

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‎=6.= רָקִיעַ‎] (LXX στερέωμα, Vulgate _firmamentum_) a word found only in Ezekiel, Priestly-Code, Psalms 19² 150¹, Daniel 12³. The absence of article shows that it is a _descriptive_ term, though the only parallels to such a use would be Ezekiel 1²² ᶠᐧ ²⁵ ᶠᐧ 10¹ (compare Phœnician מרקע‎ = ‘dish’ [_Blechschale_]: _Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum_, i. 90¹; see Lidzbarski 370, 421). The idea is _solidity_, not thinness or extension: the sense ‘beat thin’ belongs to the Piel (Exodus 39³ etc.); and this noun is formed from the Qal, which means either (intransitive) to ‘stamp with the foot’ (Ezekiel 6¹¹), or (transitive), ‘stamp firm,’ ‘consolidate’ (Isaiah 42⁵ etc.). It is curious that the verb is used of the creation of the earth, never of heaven, except Job 37¹⁸.――ויחי מבדיל‎] on participle expressing permanence, see Driver _A Treatise on the use of the Tenses in Hebrew_ § 135, ‎5.――בֵּין־לְ‎: König _Historisch-comparative Syntax der hebräischen Sprache_ § 319 n.――וַיַּבְדֵּל‎] LXX supplies as subject ὁ θεός.――=7.= ויהי כן‎] transposed in LXX to end of verse ⁶, its normal position,――if indeed it be not a gloss in both places (Wellhausen).――=8.= LXX also inserts here the formula of approval: on its omission in Hebrew, see above, pages 8, 9.

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=9, 10. Third work: Dry land and sea.=――The shoreless lower ocean, which remained at the close of the second day, is now replaced by land and sea in their present configuration. The expressions used: _gathered together ... appear_――seem to imply that the earth already existed as a solid mass covered with water, as in Psalms 104⁵ᐧ ⁶; but Dillmann thinks the language not inconsistent with the idea of a muddy mixture of earth and water, as is most naturally suggested by verse ². Henceforth the only remains of the original chaos are the subterranean waters (commonly called _Tĕhôm_, but in Psalms 24² ‘sea’ and ‘streams’), and the circumfluent ocean on which the heaven rests (Job 26¹⁰, Psalms 139⁹, Proverbs 8²⁷), of which, however, earthly seas are parts.

Wellhausen’s argument, that verses ⁶⁻¹⁰ are the account of a single work (above, page 9 f.), is partly anticipated by Abraham Ibn Ezra, who points out that what is here described is no true creation, but only a manifestation of what was before hidden and a gathering of what was dispersed. On the ground that earth and heaven were made on one day (2⁴), he is driven to take ויאמר‎ as pluperfect, and assign verses ⁹ᐧ ¹⁰ to the second day. Some such idea may have dictated the omission of the formula of approval at the close of the second day’s work.

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‎ =9.= יִקָּווּ‎] in this sense, only Jeremiah 3¹⁷. For מָקוֹם‎ read with LXX ‎ מִקְוֶה‎ = ‘gathering-place,’ as in verse ¹⁰. Nestle (_Marginalien und Materialien_, 3) needlessly suggests for the latter ‎ מִקְרֶה‎, and for יקוו‎, יִקָּרוּ‎.――מִתַּחַת‎] not ‘from under’ but simply ‘under’ (see verse ¹⁰); Gesenius-Kautzsch § 119 _c_².――וְתֵרָאֶה‎] jussive unapocopated, as often near the principal pause; Gesenius-Kautzsch § 109 _a_.――At the end of the verse LXX adds: καὶ συνήχθη τὸ ὕδωρ τὸ ὑποκάτω τοῦ οὐρανοῦ εἰς τὰς συναγωγὰς αὐτῶν καὶ ὤφθη ἡ ξηρά: _i.e._ וַיִּקָּווּ הַמַּיִם אֲשֶׁר מִתַּחַת הַשָּׁמַיִם אֶל־מִקְוֵיהֶם וַתֵּרָא הַיַּבָּשָׁה‎. The addition is adopted by Ball, and the plural αὐτῶν proves at least that it rests on a Hebrew original, ὕδωρ being singular in Greek (Wellhausen).――=10.= יַמִּים‎] the plural (compare Genesis 49¹³, Deuteronomy 33¹⁹, Psalms 46³ ᶠᐧ [where it is construed as singular] 24² etc.) is mostly poetic and late prose; it is probably not numerical, but plural of extension like מַיִם‎, שָׁמַיִם‎, and therefore to be rendered as singular.

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=11‒13. Fourth work: Creation of plants.=――The appearing of the earth is followed on the same day, not inappropriately, by the origination of vegetable life. The earth itself is conceived as endowed with productive power――a recognition of the principle of development not to be explained as a mere imparting of the power of annual renewal (Dillmann); see to the contrary verse ¹² compared with verse ²⁴.――=11.= _Let the earth produce verdure_] דֶּשֶׁא‎ means ‘fresh young herbage,’ and appears _here_ to include all plants in the earliest stages of their growth; hence the classification of flora is not _three_fold――grass, herbs, trees (Dillmann, Driver, al.)――but _two_fold, the generic דשא‎ including the two kinds עֵשֶׂב‎ and עֵץ‎ (Delitzsch, Gunkel, Holzinger, etc.). The distinction is based on the methods of reproduction; the one kind producing seed merely, the other fruit which contains the seed.――The verse continues (amending with the help of LXX): _grass producing seed after its kind, and fruit-tree producing fruit in which_ (_i.e._ the fruit) _is its_ (the tree’s) _seed after its_ (the tree’s) _kind_.――_after its kind_] _v.i._――_upon the earth_] comes in very awkwardly; it is difficult to find any suitable point of attachment except with the principal verb, which, however, is too remote.

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‎ ‎=11.= תַּֽדְשֵׁא דֶּשֶׁא‎] literally ‘vegetate vegetation,’ the noun being accusative cognate with the verb.――תַּֽ׳‎ is ἅπαξ λεγόμενον; on the pointing with _Metheg_ (Baer-Delitzsch page 74) see König i. § 42, 7. Peshiṭtå (‡ Syriac word) must have read תוצא‎ as verse ‎ ¹².――דֶּשֶׁא עֵשֶׂב‎] LXX (βοτάνην χόρτου) and Vulgate treat the words as in annexion, contrary to the accents and the usage of the terms. It is impossible to define them with scientific precision; and the twofold classification given above――herb and tree――is more or less precarious. It recurs, however, in Exodus 9²⁵ 10¹²ᐧ ¹⁵ (all Yahwist), and the reasons for rejecting the other are, first, the absence of וְ‎ before עשב‎; and, second, the syntactic consideration that דשא‎ as cognate accusative may be presumed to define completely the action of the verb.――דשׁא‎ denotes especially fresh juicy herbage¹ (Proverbs 27²⁵) and those grasses which never to appearance get beyond that stage. עשב‎, on the other hand (unlike דּ׳‎), is used of human food, and therefore includes cultivated plants (the cereals, etc.) (Psalms 104¹⁴).――עץ‎] read וִעֵץ‎ with _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_, LXX Vulgate, Peshiṭtå, and 3 Hebrew MSS (Ball).――למינו‎, למינהו‎] On form of suffix see Gesenius-Kautzsch § 91 _d_. LXX in verse ¹¹ inserts the word after זרע‎ (rendering strangely κατὰ γένος καὶ καθ’ ὁμοιότητα,――and so verse ¹²), and later in the verse (κατὰ γένος εἰς ὁμοιότητα) transposes as indicated in the translation above.――מין‎] a characteristic word of Priestly-Code, found elsewhere only in Deuteronomy 14¹³ᐧ ¹⁴ᐧ ¹⁵ᐧ ¹⁸ (from Leviticus 11), and (dubiously) Ezekiel 47¹⁰,――everywhere with suffix. The etymology is uncertain. If connected with תְּמוּנָה‎ (form, likeness), the meaning would be ‘form’ (Latin, _species_); but in usage it seems to mean simply ‘kind,’ the singular suffix here being distributive: “according to its several kinds.” In Syriac the corresponding word denotes a family or tribe. For another view, see Friedrich Delitzsch, _Prolegomena eines neuen hebräisch-aramäischen Wörterbuchs zum Alten Testament_ 143 f.――=12.= ‎ותוצא‎‎] One is tempted to substitute the rare ותדשא‎ as in verse ¹¹ (so Ball).――After עץ‎ LXX adds פרי‎: Ball deletes the ‎ פרי‎ in verse ¹¹.

¹ In Aramaic this sense is said to belong to _‛ušb_, but Hebrew ‎ עשׂב‎ has no such restriction.

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=14‒19. Fifth work: The heavenly luminaries.=――On the parallelism with the first day’s work see above, page 8 f. The verses describe only the creation of sun and moon; the clause _and the stars_ in verse ¹⁶ appears to be an addition (_v.i._). The whole conception is as unscientific (in the modern sense) as it could be――(a) in its geocentric standpoint, (b) in making the distinction of day and night prior to the sun, (c) in putting the creation of the vegetable world before that of the heavenly bodies. Its religious significance, however, is very great, inasmuch as it marks the advance of Hebrew thought from the heathen notion of the stars to a pure monotheism. To the ancient world, and the Babylonians in particular, the heavenly bodies were animated beings, and the more conspicuous of them were associated or identified with the gods. The idea of them as an animated host occurs in Hebrew poetry (Judges 5²⁰, Isaiah 40²⁶, Job 38⁷ etc.); but here it is entirely eliminated, the heavenly bodies being reduced to mere _luminaries_, i.e. either embodiments of light or perhaps simply ‘lamps’ (_v.i._). It is possible, as Gunkel thinks, that a remnant of the old astrology lurks in the word _dominion_; but whereas in Babylonia the stars ruled over human affairs in general, their influence here is restricted to that which obviously depends on them, viz. the alternation of day and night, the festivals, etc. Compare Job 38³³, Psalms 136⁷⁻⁹ (Jeremiah 31³⁵). It is noteworthy that this is the only work of creation of which the purpose is elaborately specified.――_luminaries_ (מְא[וֹ]רֹת‎)] _i.e._ bearers or embodiments of light. The word is used most frequently of the sevenfold light of the tabernacle (Exodus 25⁶ etc.); and to speak of it as expressing a markedly prosaic view of the subject (Gunkel) is misleading.――_in the firmament, etc._] moving in prescribed paths on its lower surface. This, however, does not justify the interpretation of רקיע‎ as the Zodiac (above, page 22).――_to separate between the day, etc._]. Day and night are independent entities; but they are now put under the _rule_ of the heavenly bodies, as their respective spheres of influence (Psalms 121⁶).――_for signs and for seasons, etc._] מוֹעֲדִים‎ (seasons) appears never (certainly not in Priestly-Code) to be used of the natural seasons of the year (Hosea 2¹¹, Jeremiah 8⁷ are figurative), but always of a time conventionally agreed upon (see Exodus 9⁵), or fixed by some circumstance. The commonest application is to the _sacred seasons_ of the ecclesiastical year, which are fixed by the moon (compare Psalms 104¹⁹). If the natural seasons are excluded, this seems the only possible sense here; and Priestly-Code’s predilection for matters of cultus makes the explanation plausible.――אֹתֹת‎ (signs) is more difficult, and none of the explanations given is entirely satisfactory (_v.i._).――=16.= _for dominion over the day ... night_] in the sense explained above; and so verse ¹⁸.――_and the stars_] Since the writer seems to avoid on principle the everyday names of the objects, and to describe them by their nature and the functions they serve, the clause is probably a gloss (but _v.i._). On the other hand, it would be too bold an expedient to supply an express naming of the planets after the analogy of the first three works (Tuch).

The laboured explanation of the purposes of the heavenly bodies is confused, and suggests overworking (Holzinger). The clauses which most excite suspicion are the two beginning with והיו‎ (the difficult ¹⁴ᵇ and ¹⁵ᵃ{α});――note in particular the awkward repetition of למארות וגו׳‎. The functions are stated with perfect clearness in ¹⁶⁻¹⁸: (a) to give light upon the earth, (b) to rule day and night, and (c) to separate light from darkness. I am disposed to think that ¹⁴ᵇ was introduced as an exposition of the idea of the verb משׁל‎, and that ¹⁵ᵃ{α} was then added to restore the connexion. Not much importance can be attached to the insertions of LXX (_v.i._), which may be borrowed from verse ¹⁷ ᶠᐧ.

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‎ =14.= יהי מארת‎] (∥ יהי אור‎ in verse ³). On the breach of concord, see Gesenius-Kautzsch § 145 _o_; Davidson § 113 _b_.――מאור‎] a late word, is used of heavenly bodies in Ezekiel 32⁸, Psalms 74¹⁶; it never means ‘lamp’ exactly, but is often applied collectively to the seven-armed lampstand of the tabernacle; once it is used of the eyes (Proverbs 15³⁰), and once of the divine countenance (Psalms 90⁸).――ברקיע הש׳‎] the genitive is not partitive but explicative: Davidson § 24 (_a_).――LXX inserts at this point: εἰς φαῦσιν τῆς γῆς, καὶ ἄρχειν τῆς ἡμέρας καὶ τῆς νυκτὸς, καί.――לאתת‎] In Jeremiah 10² אתות השמים‎ are astrological portents such as the heathen fear, and that is commonly taken as the meaning here, though it is not quite easy to believe the writer would have said the sun and moon were _made_ for this purpose.¹ If we take אֹת‎ in its ordinary sense of ‘token’ or ‘indication,’ we might suppose it defined by the words which follow. Tuch obtains a connexion by making the double ו‎ = _both ... and_ (“as signs, both for [sacred] seasons and for days and years”): others by a _hendiadys_ (“signs _of_ seasons”). It would be less violent to render the first ו‎ _und zwar_ (_videlicet_): “as signs, _and that_ for seasons,” etc.; see Brown-Driver-Briggs, _s._ וְ‎ 1. b, where some of the examples come, at any rate, very near the sense proposed. Olshausen arrives at the same sense by reading ‎ לְמוֹ׳‎ simply (_Monatsberichte der Königlich-Preussischen Akadamie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin._, 1870, 380).――=16.= ואת הכ׳‎] Driver (_Hebrew_ ii. 33) renders “and the lesser light, as also the stars, to rule,” etc. The construction is not abnormal; but would the writer have said that the stars rule the night?――=18.= ‎ וּֽלְהַבדיל‎] On the comparative sheva see König i. § 10, 6 e.

¹ The prophetic passages cited by Driver (_The Book of Genesis with Introduction and Notes_ 10¹) all contemplate a reversal of the order of nature, and cannot safely be appealed to as illustrations of its normal functions.

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=20‒23. Sixth work: Aquatic and aërial animals.=――_Let the waters swarm with swarming things――living creatures, and let fowl fly, etc._] The conjunction of two distinct forms of life under one creative act has led Gunkel to surmise that two originally separate works have been combined in order to bring the whole within the scheme of six days. Bennett (rendering _and fowl that may fly_) thinks the author was probably influenced by some ancient tradition that birds as well as fishes were produced by the water (so Rashi and Abraham Ibn Ezra on 2¹⁹). The conjecture is attractive, and the construction has the support of all Greek versions and Vulgate; but it is not certain that the verb can mean “_produce_ a swarm.” More probably (in connexions like the present: see Exodus 7²⁸ [Yahwist] [English Version 8³], Psalms 105³⁰) the sense is simply _teem with_, indicating the place or element in which the swarming creatures abound, in which case it cannot possibly govern עוֹף‎ as objective.――שֶׁרֶץ‎ has a sense something like ‘vermin’: _i.e._ it never denotes ‘a swarm,’ but is always used of the creatures that appear in swarms (_v.i._).――נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה‎] literally, ‘living soul’; used here collectively, and with the sense of נפש‎ weakened, as often, to ‘individual’ or ‘being’ (contrast verse ³⁰ and see on 2⁷). The creation of the aquatic animals marks, according to Old Testament ideas, the first appearance of life on the earth, for life is nowhere predicated of the vegetable kingdom.――_over the earth in front of the firmament_] _i.e._ in the atmosphere, for which Hebrew has no special name.――=21.= _created_] indistinguishable from _made_ in verse ²⁵.――_the great sea monsters_] The introduction of this new detail in the execution of the fiat is remarkable. הַתַּנִינִם‎ here denotes actual marine animals; but this is almost the only passage where it _certainly_ bears that sense (Psalms 148⁷). There are strong traces of mythology in the usage of the word: Isaiah 27¹ 51⁹ (Gunkel _Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit_ 30‒33), Psalms 74¹³(?); and it may have been originally the name of a class of legendary monsters like Ti’āmat. The mythological interpretation lingered in Jewish exegetical tradition (see below).――=22.= _And God blessed them, etc._] In contrast with the plants, whose reproductive powers are included in their creation (verse ¹¹ ᶠᶠᐧ), these living beings are endowed with the right of self-propagation by a separate act――a benediction (see verse ²⁸). The distinction is natural.――_be fruitful, etc._] “There is nothing to indicate that only a single pair of each kind was originally produced” (Bennett); the language rather suggests that whole species, in something like their present multitude, were created.

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‎ =20.= ישרצו ... שרץ‎] On syntax see Davidson § 73, _R._ 2. The root has in Aramaic the sense of ‘creep,’ and there are many passages in Old Testament where that idea would be appropriate (Leviticus 11²⁹ᐧ ⁴¹⁻⁴³ etc.); hence Robertson Smith (_Lectures on the Religion of the Semites_², 293), ‘creeping vermin generally.’ But here and Genesis 8¹⁷ 9⁷, Exodus 1⁷ 7²⁸, Psalms 105³⁰ it can only mean ‘teem’ or ‘swarm’; and Driver (_Genesis_ 12) is probably right in extending that meaning to all the passages in Hebrew Genesis 1²⁰ ᶠᐧ, Exodus 7²⁸, Psalms 105³⁰ are the only places where the construct with cognitive accusative appears; elsewhere the animals themselves are subject of the verb. The words, except in three passages, are peculiar to the vocabulary of Priestly-Code.――But for the fact that שֶׁרָץ‎ never means ‘swarm,’ but always ‘swarming thing,’ it would be tempting to take it as construct state before נפש חיה‎ (LXX, Aquila, Vulgate). As it is, ‎ נ׳ ח׳‎ has all the awkwardness of a gloss (see 2¹⁹). The phrase is applied once to man, 2⁷ (Yahwist); elsewhere to animals,――mostly in Priestly-Code (Genesis 1²¹ᐧ ²⁴ᐧ ³⁰ 9¹⁰ᐧ ¹²ᐧ ¹⁵ᐧ ¹⁶, Leviticus 11¹⁰ᐧ ⁴⁶ etc.).――ועוף יעופף‎] The order of words as in verse ²² ‎ (והעוף ירב‎), due to emphasis on the new subject. The use of descriptive imperfect (LXX, Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, Vulgate) is mostly poetic, and for reasons given above must here be refused.――על פני‎] = ‘in front of’: see Brown-Driver-Briggs, _s._ ‎ פנה‎, II. 7, a,――LXX inserts ויהי כן‎ at the end of the verse.――=21.= ‎ התנינם‎] It is naturally difficult to determine exactly how far the Hebrew usage of the word is coloured by mythology. The important point is that it represents a power hostile to God, not only in the passages cited above, but also in Job 7¹². There are resemblances in the Aramaic _tinnīn_, a fabulous amphibious monster, appearing now on land and now in the sea (personification of the waterspout? _Lectures on the Religion of the Semites_², 176), concerning which the Arabian cosmographers have many wonderful tales to relate (Mas‛ūdī, i. 263, 266 ff.; Kazwīnī, Ethé’s translation i. 270 ff.). Rashi, after explaining literally, adds by way of Haggada that these are ‘Leviathan and his consort,’ who were created male and female, but the female was killed and salted for the righteous in the coming age, because if they had multiplied the world would not have stood before them (compare Enoch 60⁷⁻⁹, 4 Esdras 6⁴⁹⁻⁵², _Bereshith Rabba_ chapter 7).¹――ואת כל־נפש הח׳‎ Compare 9¹⁰, Leviticus 11¹⁰; נ׳‎ though without article is really determined by כל‎ (but see Driver _A Treatise on the use of the Tenses in Hebrew_ § 209 ‎ (1)).――אשר שרצו‎] א׳‎, accusative of definition, as שֶׁרֶץ‎ in verse ‎ ²⁰.――=22.= פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ‎] highly characteristic of Priestly-Code (only 3 times elsewhere).

¹ In Babylonian _tannînu_ is said to be a mythological designation of the earth (Jensen _Die Kosmologie der Babylonier_ 161; Jeremias _Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 136⁷; King, _The Seven Tablets of Creation_ 109²⁴); but that throws no light on Hebrew.

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=24, 25. Seventh work: Terrestrial animals.=――=24.= _Let the earth bring forth living creatures_] נפש חיה‎ (again collectively) is here a generic name for _land_ animals, being restricted by what precedes――‘living animals that spring from the earth.’ Like the plants (verse ¹²), they are boldly said to be produced by the earth, their bodies being part of the earth’s substance (2⁷ᐧ ¹⁹); this could not be said of fishes in relation to the water, and hence a different form of expression had to be employed in verse ²⁰.――The classification of animals (best arranged in verse ²⁵) is threefold: (1) wild animals, ‎חַיַּת הָאָרֶץ‎ (roughly, _carnivora_); (2) domesticated animals, בְּהֵמָה‎ (_herbivora_); (3) reptiles, רֶמֶשׂ הָאֲדָמָה‎, including perhaps creeping insects and very small quadrupeds (see Driver _A Dictionary of the Bible_, i. 518). A somewhat similar threefold division appears in a Babylonian tablet――‘cattle of the field, beasts of the field and creatures of the city’ (Jensen _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, vi. 1, 42 f.; King, _The Seven Tablets of Creation_ 112 f.).――=25.= _God saw that it was good_] The formula distinctly marks the separation of this work from the creation of man, which follows on the same day. The absence of a benediction corresponding to verses ²²ᐧ ²⁸ is surprising, but it is idle to speculate on the reason.

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=24.= The distinctions noted above are not strictly observed throughout the Old Testament. בהמה‎ (from a root signifying ‘be dumb’――Aramaic and Ethiopic) denotes collectively, _first_, animals as distinguished from man (Exodus 9¹⁹ etc.), but chiefly the larger mammals; _then_, domestic animals (the dumb creatures with which man has most to do), (Genesis 34²³ 36⁶ etc.). Of _wild_ animals specially it is seldom used alone (Deuteronomy 32²⁴, Habakkuk 2¹⁷), but sometimes with an addition (אֶרֶץ‎, שָׂדֶה‎, ‎ יַעַר‎) which marks the unusual reference. As a noun of unity, Nehemiah 2 ¹²ᐧ ¹⁴. See Brown-Driver-Briggs, _s.v._――חַיְתוֹ אֶרֶץ‎] an archaic phrase in which וֹ‎ represents the old case ending of the nominative, _u_ or _um_ (Gesenius-Kautzsch, § 90 _n_). So Psalms ‎ 79²; חיתו‎ in other combinations Isaiah 56⁹, Zephaniah 2¹⁴, Psalms 104¹¹; Psalms 50¹⁰ 104²⁰. In sense it is exactly the same as the commoner חַיַּת הָאָרֶץ‎ 1²⁵ᐧ ³⁰ 9²ᐧ ¹⁰ etc.), and usually denotes _wild_ animals, though sometimes animals in general (ζῶον).――רמש‎ and שרץ‎ naturally overlap; but the first name is derived from the manner of movement, and the second from the tendency to swarm (Driver _l.c._).

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=26‒28. Eighth work: Creation of man.=――As the narrative approaches its climax, the style loses something of its terse rigidity, and reveals a strain of poetic feeling which suggests that the passage is moulded on an ancient creation hymn (Gunkel). The distinctive features of this last work are: (a) instead of the simple jussive we have the cohortative of either self-deliberation or consultation with other divine beings; (b) in contrast to the lower animals, which are made each after its kind or type, man is made in the image of God; (c) man is designated as the head of creation by being charged with the rule of the earth and all the living creatures hitherto made.――=26.= _Let us make man_] The difficulty of the 1st person plural has always been felt.

Amongst the Jews an attempt was made to get rid of it by reading נַֽעֲשֶׂה‎ as participle Niphal――a view the absurd grammatical consequences of which are trenchantly exposed by Abraham Ibn Ezra. The older Christian commentaries generally find in the expression an allusion to the Trinity (so even Calvin); but that doctrine is entirely unknown to the Old Testament, and cannot be implied here. In modern times it has sometimes been explained as plural of self-deliberation (Tuch), or after the analogy of the ‘we’ of royal edicts; but Dillmann has shown that neither is consistent with native Hebrew idiom. Dillmann himself regards it as based on the idea of God expressed by the plural אלהים‎, as ‘the living personal synthesis of a fulness of powers and forces’ (so Driver); but that philosophic rendering of the concept of deity appears to be foreign to the theology of the Old Testament.

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‎ =26.= בצלמנו כדמותנו‎] LXX κατ’ εἰκόνα ἡμετέραν καὶ καθ’ ὁμοίωσιν. _Mechilta_ (see above, page 14), gives as LXX’s reading ‎ בצלם ובדמות‎.――On the בְּ‎ ‘of a model,’ compare Exodus 25⁴⁰; Brown-Driver-Briggs, _s.v._ III. 8.――צלם‎] Assyrian _ṣalmu_, the technical expression for the statue of a god (_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 476³); Aramaic and Syrian צַלְמָא‎, = ‘image’; the root is not _ẓalima_, ‘be dark,’ but possibly _ṣalama_, ‘cut off’ (Nöldeke, _Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft_, xvii. 185 f.). The idea of ‘pattern’ or ‘model’ is confined to the Priestly-Code passages cited above; it stands intermediate between the concrete sense just noted (an artificial material reproduction: 1 Samuel 6⁵ etc.) and another still more abstract, viz. ‘an unreal semblance’ (Psalms 39⁷ 73²⁰).――דְּמוּת‎ is the abstract noun _resemblance_; but also used concretely (2 Chronicles 4³, like Syrian (‡ Syriac word); Aramaic _dumyat_ = ‘effigy.’ The ‎ ו‎ is radical (form דִּמְוַת‎, compare Aramaic); hence the ending וּת‎ is no proof of Aramaic influence (Wellhausen _Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels_⁵ 388); see Driver _The Journal of Philology_ xi. 216.――ובכל־הארץ‎] Insert חַיַּת‎ with Peshiṭtå (_v.s._). Other versions agree with Massoretic Text.

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The most natural and most widely accepted explanation is that God is here represented as taking counsel with divine beings other than Himself, viz. the angels or host of heaven: compare 3²² 11⁷, Isaiah 6⁸, 1 Kings 22¹⁹⁻²² (so Philo, Rashi, Abraham Ibn Ezra, Delitzsch, Holzinger, Gunkel, Bennett, al.). Dillmann objects to this interpretation, _first_, that it ascribes to angels some share in the creation of man, which is contrary to scriptural doctrine;¹ and, _second_, that the very existence of angels is nowhere alluded to by Priestly-Code at all. There is force in these considerations; and probably the ultimate explanation has to be sought in a pre-Israelite stage of the tradition (such as is represented by the Babylonian account: see below, page 46), where a polytheistic view of man’s origin found expression. This would naturally be replaced in a Hebrew recension by the idea of a heavenly council of angels, as in 1 Kings 22, Job 1, 38⁷, Daniel 4¹⁴ 7¹⁰ etc. That Priestly-Code retained the idea in spite of his silence as to the existence of angels is due to the fact that it was decidedly less anthropomorphic than the statement that man was made in the image of the one incomparable Deity.――_in our image, according to our likeness_] The general idea of likeness between God and man frequently occurs in classical literature, and sometimes the very term of this verse (εἰκών, _ad imaginem_) is employed. To speak of it, therefore, as “the distinctive feature of the Bible doctrine concerning man” is an exaggeration; although it is true that such expressions on the plane of heathenism import much less than in the religion of Israel (Dillmann). The idea in this precise form is in the Old Testament peculiar to Priestly-Code (5¹ᐧ ³ 9⁶); the conception, but not the expression, appears in Psalms 8⁶: later biblical examples are Sirach 17³ ᶠᶠᐧ, Wisdom 2²³ (where the ‘image’ is equivalent to immortality), 1 Corinthians 11⁷, Colossians 3¹⁰, Ephesians 4²⁴, James 3⁹.

¹ Compare Calvin: “Minimam vero tam præclari operis partem Angelis adscribere abominandum sacrilegium est.”

The origin of the conception is probably to be found in the Babylonian mythology. Before proceeding to the creation of Ea-bani, Aruru forms a mental image (_zikru_: see Jensen _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, vi. 1, 401 f.) of the God Anu (_ib._ 120, l. 33); and similarly, in the Descent of Ištar, Ea forms a _zikru_ in his wise heart before creating Aṣūšunamir (_ib._ 86. l. 11). In both cases the reference is obviously to the bodily form of the created being. See, further, _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³ 506; _Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 167.

The patristic and other theological developments of the doctrine lie beyond the scope of this commentary;¹ and it is sufficient to observe with regard to them――(1) that the ‘image’ is not something peculiar to man’s original state, and lost by the Fall; because Priestly-Code, who alone uses the expression, knows nothing of a Fall, and in 9⁶ employs the term, without any restriction, of post-diluvian mankind. (2) The distinction between εἰκών (_imago_) and ὁμοίωσις (_similitudo_)――the former referring to the essence of human nature and the latter to its accidents or its endowments by grace――has an apparent justification in LXX, which inserts καί between the two phrases (see below), and _never mentions the ‘likeness’ after_ 1²⁶; so that it was possible to regard the latter as something belonging to the divine idea of man, but not actually conferred at his creation. The Hebrew affords no basis for such speculations: compare 5¹ᐧ ³ 9⁶.――(3) The view that the divine image consists in dominion over the creatures (Gregory of Nyssa, Chrysostom, Socinians, etc.) is still defended by Holzinger; but it cannot be held without an almost inconceivable weakening of the figure, and is inconsistent with the sequel, where the rule over the creatures is, by a separate benediction, conferred on man, already made in the image of God. The truth is that the image marks the distinction between man and the animals, and so qualifies him for dominion: the latter is the consequence, not the essence, of the divine image (compare Psalms 8⁶ ᶠᶠᐧ, Sirach 17²⁻⁴)――(4) Does the image refer primarily to the spiritual nature or to the bodily form (upright attitude, etc.) of man? The idea of a corporeal resemblance seems free from objection on the level of Old Testament theology; and it is certainly strongly suggested by a comparison of 5³ with 5¹. God is expressly said to have a ‘form’ which can be seen (תְּמוּנָה‎, Numbers 12⁸, Psalms 17¹⁵); the Old Testament writers constantly attribute to Him bodily parts; and that they ever advanced to the conception of God as formless spirit would be difficult to prove. On the other hand, it may well be questioned if the idea of a spiritual _image_ was within the compass of Hebrew thought. Dillmann, while holding that the central idea is man’s spiritual nature, admits a reference to the bodily form in so far as it is the expression and organ of mind, and inseparable from spiritual qualities.² It might be truer to say that it denotes primarily the bodily form, but includes those spiritual attributes of which the former is the natural and self-evident symbol.³――Note the striking parallel in Ovid, _Metamorphoses_ i. 76 ff.

¹ A good summary is given by Zapletal, _Alttestamentliches_, 1‒15.

² So Augustine, _On Genesis against the Manichaeans_ 1. 17: “Ita intelligitur per animum maxime, attestante etiam erecta corporis forma, homo factus ad imaginem et similitudinem Dei.”

³ Compare Engert, _Die Weltschöpfung_, 33.

_Man_ (אָדָם‎) is here generic (the human race), not the proper name of an individual, as 5³. Although the great majority of commentaries take it for granted that a single pair is contemplated, there is nothing in the narrative to bear out that view; and the analogy of the marine and land animals is against it on the whole (Tuch and Bennett).――_fish of the sea, etc._] The enumeration coincides with the classification of animals already given, except that _the earth_ occurs where we should expect _wild beast of the earth_. חַיַּת‎ should undoubtedly be restored to the text on the authority of Peshiṭtå.――=27.= _in his image, in the image of God, etc._] The repetition imparts a rhythmic movement to the language, which may be a faint echo of an old hymn on the glory of man, like Psalms 8 (Gunkel).――_male and female_] The persistent idea that man as first created was bi-sexual and the sexes separated afterwards (mentioned by Rashi as a piece of Haggada, and recently revived by Schwally, _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft._, ix. 172 ff.), is far from the thought of the passage.――=28.= A benediction is here again the source of fertility, but this time also of dominion: Gunkel regards this as another fragment of a hymn.

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‎ =27.= בצלמו‎] LXX omitted. The curious paraphrase of Symmachus appears to reflect the Ebionite tendency of that translator: ἐν εἰκόνι διαφόρῳ ὄρθιον ὁ θεὸς ἔκτισεν αὐτόν (Geiger, _Jüdische Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft und Leben_, i. 40 f.). See, however, Nestle, _Marginalien und Materialien_, 3 f., who calls attention to the ὄρθιον in LXX of 1 Samuel 28¹⁴, and considers this word the source of the idea that the upright form of man is part of the divine image. But LXX in 1 Samuel probably misread זקן‎ as ‎ זקף‎.――אֹתוֹ‎] _constructio ad formam_: אֹתָם‎ _constructio ad sensum_, ‎ אדם‎ being collective: see Gesenius-Kautzsch § 132 _g._――זכר ונקבה‎] The phrase confined to Priestly-Code except Deuteronomy 4¹⁶; נ׳‎ alone in Jeremiah 31²¹ (a gloss?). Although the application to a single pair of individuals predominates in the Law, the collective sense is established by Genesis 7¹⁶, and is to be assumed in some other cases (Numbers 5³ etc.). On its etymology see Gesenius _Thesaurus philologicus criticus Linguæ Hebrææ et Chaldææ Veteris Testamenti_, _s.v._, and (for a different view) Schwally, _Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft_, xi. 181 f.――=28.= ויאמר להם‎] LXX λέγων; perhaps original.――וכבשֻׁהָ‎] The only instance of a verbal suffix in this chapter: a strong preference for expression of accusative by את‎ with suffix is characteristic of the style of Priestly-Code (Wellhausen _Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels_⁶ 389).――הרמשת‎] participle with article = relative clause: see Davidson § 99, _R._ 1. The previous noun is defined by כל‎, as in verse ²¹ (_The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_ inserts the article).――After שמים‎ Peshiṭtå read ובבהמה‎ (so Ball). LXX has for the end of the verse: καὶ πάντων τῶν κτηνῶν καὶ πάσης τῆς γῆς καὶ πάντων [τῶν ἑρπετῶν] τῶν ἑρπόντων ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς.

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=29‒31.= The record of creation closes with another (tenth) divine utterance, which regulates in broad and general terms the relation of men and animals to the vegetable world. The plants are destined for food to man and beast. The passage is not wholly intelligible apart from 9² ᶠᶠᐧ, from which we see that its point is the restriction on the use of animal food, particularly on the part of man. In other words, the first stage of the world’s history――that state of things which the Creator pronounced very good――is a state of peace and harmony in the animal world. This is Priestly-Code’s substitute for the garden of Eden.

A distinction is made between the food of man and that of animals: to the former (a) seeding plants (probably because the seed is important in cultivation, and in cereals is the part eaten), and (b) fruit-bearing trees; to the latter _all the greenness of herbage_, _i.e._ the succulent leafy parts. The statement is not exhaustive: no provision is made for fishes, nor is there any mention of the use of such victuals as milk, honey, etc. Observe the difference from chapters 2. 3, where man is made to live on fruit alone, and only as part of the curse has herbs (עשב‎) assigned to him.――=31.= The account closes with the divine verdict of approval, which here covers a survey of all that has been made, and rises to the superlative ‘very good.’

Verses ²⁹ ᶠᐧ differ significantly in their phraseology from the preceding sections: thus זֹרֵעַ‎ instead of מַזְרִיעַ‎ (¹¹ᐧ ¹²); ‎ העץ אשר בו פרי עץ זרע זרע‎ instead of the far more elegant עץ עשה פרי אשר זרעו בו‎; the classification into beasts, birds, and reptiles (contrast ‎ ²⁴ᐧ ²⁵); נפש חיה‎ of the inner principle of life instead of the living being as in ²⁰ ᶠᐧ ²⁴; ירק עשב‎ instead of דשא‎. These linguistic differences are sufficient to prove literary discontinuity of some kind. They have been pointed out by Kraetschmar (_Die Bundesvorstellung im Alten Testament_ 103 f.), who adds the doubtful material argument that the prohibition of animal food to man nullifies the dominion promised to him in verses ²⁶ᐧ ²⁸. But his inference (partly endorsed by Holzinger) that the verses are a later addition to Priestly-Code does not commend itself; they are vitally connected with 9² ᶠᶠᐧ, and must have formed part of the theory of the Priestly writer. The facts point rather to a distinction in the sources with which Priestly-Code worked,――perhaps (as Gunkel thinks) the enrichment of the creation-story by the independent and widespread myth of the Golden Age when animals lived peaceably with one another and with men. The motives of this belief lie deep in the human heart――horror of bloodshed, sympathy with the lower animals, the longing for harmony in the world, and the conviction that on the whole the course of things has been from good to worse――all have contributed their share, and no scientific teaching can rob the idea of its poetic and ethical value.

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‎ =29.= נתתי‎] = ‘I give’; Davidson § 40 _b_; Driver _A Treatise on the use of the Tenses in Hebrew_ § 13.――זרע‎ (over Athnach)] wrongly omitted by LXX.――אכלה‎] found only in Priestly-Code and Ezekiel, and always preceded by לְ‎. It is strictly feminine infinitive, and perhaps always retains verbal force (see Driver _The Journal of Philology_ xi. 217). The ordinary cognate words for food are אֹכֶל‎ and מַֽאֲכָל‎.――=30.= ולכל וגו׳‎ The construction is obscure. The natural interpretation is that ³⁰ expresses a contrast to ²⁹――the one specifying the food of _man_, the other that of _animals_. To bring out this sense clearly it is necessary (with Ewald al.) to insert נתתי‎ before את־כל־ירק‎. The text requires us to treat לכם יהיה לאכלה‎ in ²⁹ as a parenthesis (Dillmann) and את־כל־ירק‎ as still under the regimen of the distant נתתי‎.――רוֹמֵשׂ‎] LXX ἑρπετῷ τῷ ἕρποντι――assimilating.――נֶפֶשׁ‎] here used in its primary sense of the _soul_ or animating principle (see later on 2⁷), with a marked difference from verses ²⁰ ᶠᶠᐧ ²⁴.――ירק עשׂב‎] so ‎ 9³, = י׳ דֶּשֶׁא‎ Psalms 37². יֶרֶק‎ (verdure) alone may include the foliage of trees (Exodus 10¹⁵); י׳ הַשָּׂדֶה‎ = ‘grass’ (Numbers 22⁴). The word is rare (6 times); a still rarer form יָרָק‎ may sometimes be confounded with it (Isaiah 37²⁷ = 2 Kings 17²⁶?).――=31.= יום הששי‎] The article with the number appears here for the first time in the chapter. On the construction, see Driver _A Treatise on the use of the Tenses in Hebrew_ § 209 (1), where it is treated as the beginning of a usage prevalent in post-biblical Hebrew, which often in a definite expression uses the article with the adjective alone (כנסת הגדולה‎, etc.). Compare Gesenius-Kautzsch § 126 _w_ (with footnote); Holzinger _Einleitung in den Hexateuch_ 465; Driver _The Journal of Philology_ xi. 229 f.

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=II. 1‒3. The rest of God.=――The section contains but one idea, expressed with unusual solemnity and copiousness of language,――the institution of the Sabbath. It supplies an answer to the question, Why is no work done on the last day of the week? (Gunkel). The answer lies in the fact that God Himself rested on that day from the work of creation, and bestowed on it a special blessing and sanctity.――The writer’s idea of the Sabbath and its sanctity is almost too realistic for the modern mind to grasp: it is not an institution which exists or ceases with its observance by man; the divine rest is a fact as much as the divine working, and so the sanctity of the day is a fact whether man secures the benefit or not. There is little trace of the idea that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath; it is an ordinance of the kosmos like any other part of the creative operations, and is for the good of man in precisely the same sense as the whole creation is subservient to his welfare.

=1.= _And all their host_] The ‘host of heaven’ (צְבָא הַשָּׁמַיִם‎) is frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, and denotes sometimes the heavenly bodies, especially as objects of worship (Deuteronomy 4¹⁹ etc.), sometimes the angels considered as an organised army (1 Kings 22¹⁹ etc.). The expression ‘host of the earth’ nowhere occurs; and it is a question whether the plural suffix here is not to be explained as a _denominatio a potiori_ (Holzinger), or as a species of attraction (Driver). If it has any special meaning as applied to the earth, it would be equivalent to what is elsewhere called מְלֹא הארץ‎ (Isaiah 6³ 34¹, Deuteronomy 33¹⁶ etc.)――the _contents_ of the earth, and is most naturally limited to those things whose creation has just been described.¹ In any case the verse yields little support to the view of Smend and Wellhausen, that in the name ‘Yahwe of Hosts’ the word denotes the complex of cosmical forces (Smend, _Lehrbuch der alttestamentlichen Religionsgeschichte_ 201 ff.), or the demons in which these forces were personified (Wellhausen, _Die kleinen Propheten_ 77).――=2.= _And God finished, etc._] The duplication of verse ¹ is harsh, and strongly suggests a composition of sources.――_on the seventh day_] _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_, LXX, Peshiṭtå read _sixth day_ (so also _Jubilees_, ii. 16, and Jerome, _Quæstiones sive Traditiones hebraicæ in Genesim_), which is accepted as the original text by many commentaries (Ilgen, Olshausen, Budde, al.).² But _sixth_ is so much the easier reading that one must hesitate to give it the preference. To take the verb as pluperfect (Calvin al.) is grammatically impossible. On Wellhausen’s explanation, see above, page 9 f. The only remaining course is to give a purely negative sense to the verb _finish_: _i.e._ ‘desisted from,’ ‘did not continue’ (Abraham Ibn Ezra, Delitzsch, Dillmann, Driver, al.). The last view may be accepted, in spite of the absence of convincing parallels.――_and he rested_] The idea of שָׁבַת‎ is essentially negative: cessation of work, not relaxation (Driver): see below. Even so, the expression is strongly anthropomorphic, and warns us against exaggerating Priestly-Code’s aversion to such representations.³――=3.= _blessed ... sanctified_] The day is blessed and sacred in itself and from the beginning; to say that the remark is made in view of the future institution of the Sabbath (Driver), does not quite bring out the sense. Both verbs contain the idea of selection and distinction (compare Sirach 36 [33] ⁷⁻⁹), but they are not synonymous (Gunkel). A blessing is the effective utterance of a good wish; applied to things, it means their endowment with permanently beneficial qualities (Genesis 27²⁷, Exodus 23²⁵, Deuteronomy 28¹²). This is the case here: the Sabbath is a constant source of well-being to the man who recognises its true nature and purpose. To _sanctify_ is to set apart from common things to holy uses, or to put in a special relation to God.――_which God creatively made_] see the footnote.――Although no closing formula for the seventh day is given, it is contrary to the intention of the passage to think that the rest of God means His work of providence as distinct from creation: it is plainly a rest of one day that is thought of. It is, of course, a still greater absurdity to suppose an interval of twenty-four hours between the two modes of divine activity. The author did not think in our dogmatic categories at all.

¹ Compare Nehemiah 9⁶ “the heavens, the heavens of the heavens, and all their host, the earth and all that is upon it, the seas and all that is in them.”

² Expressly mentioned as LXX’s reading in _Mechilta_: see above, page 14, and Geiger, _l.c._ 439.

³ In another passage of Priestly-Code, Exodus 31¹⁷, the anthropomorphism is greatly intensified: “God rested and refreshed Himself” (literally ‘took breath’).――See Jastrow (_American Journal of Theology_ ii. 343 ff.), who thinks that God’s ‘resting’ meant originally “His purification after His conquest of the forces hostile to the order of the world,” and was a survival of the mythological idea of the appeasement of Marduk’s anger against Ti’āmat. The verb there used is _nâḫu_, the equivalent of Hebrew נוח‎, used in Exodus 20¹¹.

The origin of the Hebrew Sabbath, and its relation to Babylonian usages, raise questions too intricate to be fully discussed here (see Lotz, _Quaestiones de historia Sabbati_ [1883]; Jastrow, _American Journal of Theology_ ii. [1898], 312 ff.; _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 592 ff.; Driver _A Dictionary of the Bible_, _s.v._, and _The Book of Genesis with Introduction and Notes_ 34; Stade _Biblische Theologie des Alten Testaments_ § 88, 2). The main facts, however, are these: (1) The name _šab[p]attu_ occurs some five or six times in cuneiform records; but of these only two are of material importance for the Sabbath problem, (a) In a syllabary (II R. 32, 16 a, b) _šabattu_ is equated with _ûm nûḫ libbi_, which has been conclusively shown to mean ‘day of the appeasement of the heart (of the deity),’――in the first instance, therefore, a day of propitiation or atonement (Jensen _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, iv. 274 ff.; Jastrow _l.c._ 316 f.). (b) In a tablet discovered by Pinches in 1904, the name _šapattu_ is applied to the fifteenth day of the month (as full-moon-day?) (Pinches _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, xxvi. 51 ff.; Zimmern, _Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, lviii. 199 ff., 458 ff.). (2) The only trace of a Babylonian _institution_ at all resembling the Hebrew Sabbath is the fact that in certain months of the year (Elul, Marchešvan, but possibly the rest as well) the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th days, and also the 19th (probably as the 7 × 7th from the beginning of the previous month), had the character of _dies nefasti_ (‘lucky day, unlucky day’), on which certain actions had to be avoided by important personages (king, priest, physician) (IV R. 32 f., 33). Now, no evidence has ever been produced that these _dies nefasti_ bore the name _šabattu_; and the likelihood that this was the case is distinctly lessened by the Pinches fragment, where the name is applied to the 15th day, but not to the 7th, although it also is mentioned on the tablet. The question, therefore, has assumed a new aspect; and Meinhold (_Sabbat und Woche im Alten Testament_ [1905], and more recently [1909], _Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft_, xxix. 81 ff.), developing a hint of Zimmern, has constructed an ingenious hypothesis on the assumption that in Babylonian _šabattu_ denotes the day of the full moon. He points to the close association of new-moon and Sabbath in nearly all the pre-exilic references (Amos 8⁵, Hosea 2¹³, Isaiah 1¹³, 2 Kings 4²² ᶠᐧ); and concludes that in early Israel, as in Babylon, the Sabbath was the full-moon festival and nothing else. The institution of the weekly Sabbath he traces to a desire to compensate for the loss of the old lunar festivals, when these were abrogated by the Deuteronomic reformation. This innovation he attributes to Ezekiel; but steps towards it are found in the introduction of a weekly day of rest during harvest only (on the ground of Deuteronomy 16⁹; compare Exodus 34²¹), and in the establishment of the sabbatical year (Leviticus 25), which he considers to be older than the weekly Sabbath. The theory involves great improbabilities, and its net result seems to be to leave the actual Jewish Sabbath as we know it without any point of contact in Babylonian institutions. It is hard to suppose that there is no historical connexion between the Hebrew Sabbath and the _dies nefasti_ of the Babylonian calendar; and if such a connexion exists, the chief difficulties remain where they have long been felt to lie, viz., (a) in the substitution of a weekly cycle running continuously through the calendar for a division of each month into seven-day periods, probably regulated by the phases of the moon; and (b) in the transformation of a day of superstitious restrictions into a day of joy and rest. Of these changes, it must be confessed, no convincing explanation has yet been found. The established sanctity of the number seven, and the decay or suppression of the lunar feasts, might be contributory causes; but when the change took place, and whether it was directly due to Babylonian influence, or was a parallel development from a lunar observance more primitive than either, cannot at present be determined. See Hehn, _Siebenzahl und Sabbat bei den Babyloniern und im Alten Testament_, 91 ff., especially 114 ff.; compare Gordon, _The Early Traditions of Genesis_, 216 ff.

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‎ =1.= צבא‎] Literally ‘host’ or ‘army’; then ‘period of service’ (chiefly military), LXX κόσμος and Vulgate _ornatus_ look like a confusion with צְבִי‎. Used of the host of heaven, Deuteronomy 4¹⁹ 17³, Isaiah 24²¹ 40²⁶, where Vulgate has in the first case _astra_, in the others _militia_; LXX κόσμος in all.――=2.= ויכל‎] For the alleged negative sense of Piel (see above), examine Numbers 17²⁵, or (with מן‎) 1 Samuel 10¹³, Exodus 34³³ etc.――מלאכה‎] the word “used regularly of the work or business forbidden on the Sabbath (Exodus 20⁹ᐧ ¹⁰ 35², Jeremiah 17²²ᐧ ²⁴ al.)” (Driver); or on holy convocations (Exodus 12¹⁶, Leviticus 16²⁹ 23²⁸ ᶠᶠᐧ, Numbers 29⁷). It has the prevailing sense of regular occupation or business, as Genesis 39¹¹, Jonah 1⁸.――השביעי‎¹] _The Samaritan Recension of the Pentateuch_, LXX, Peshiṭtå, _The Book of Jubilees._, _Bereshith Rabba_ הששי‎, given as LXX’s reading in _Mechilta_ (compare page 14 above).――וישבת‎] The omission of continued subject (אלהים‎) might strengthen Wellhausen’s contention that the clause is a gloss (see page 10 above): it occurs nowhere else in the passage except _possibly_ 1⁷. The verb ‎ שבת‎ (possibly connected with Aramaic _sabata_ = ‘cut off,’ or Assyrian _šabātu_ = ‘cease,’ ‘be completed’: but see _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 593 f.) appears in Old Testament in three quite distinct senses: (a) ‘cease to be,’ ‘come to an end’; (b) ‘desist’ (from work, etc.); (c) ‘keep Sabbath’ (denominative). Of the last there are four undoubted cases, all very late: Leviticus 25² 23³² 26³⁴ ᶠᐧ, 2 Chronicles 36²¹. But there are five others where this meaning is at least possible: Genesis 2²ᐧ ³, Exodus 16³⁰ 23¹² 34²¹ 31¹⁷; and of these Exodus 23¹² 34²¹ are pre-exilic. Apart from these doubtful passages, the sense ‘desist’ (b) is found only in Hosea 7⁴, Job 32¹ (Qal); Exodus 5⁵, Joshua 22²⁵, Ezekiel 16⁴¹ 34¹⁰ (Hiphil); of which Hosea 7⁴ (a corrupt context) and Exodus 5⁵, alone are _possibly_ pre-exilic. In all other occurrences (about 46 in all; 9 Qal, 4 Niphal, 33 Hiphil) the sense (a) ‘come to an end’ obtains; and this usage prevails in all stages of the literature from Amos to Daniel; the pre-exilic examples being Genesis 8²², Joshua 5¹²(?) (Qal); Isaiah 17³ (Niphal); Amos 8⁴, Hosea 1⁴ 2¹³, Isaiah 16¹⁰(?) 30¹¹, Deuteronomy 32²⁶, 2 Kings 23⁵ᐧ ¹¹, Jeremiah 7³⁴ 16⁹ 36²⁹ (Hiphil). These statistics seem decisive against Hehn’s view (_l.c._ 93 ff.) that שָׁבַת‎ is originally a denominative from שַׁבָּת‎. If all the uses are to be traced to a single root-idea, there can be no doubt that (b) is primary. But while a dependence of (a) on (b) is intelligible (compare the analogous case of חָדַל‎), ‘desist’ from work, and ‘come to an end’ are after all very different ideas; and, looking to the immense preponderance of the latter sense (a), especially in the early literature, it is worth considering whether the old Hebrew verb did not mean simply ‘come to an end,’ and whether the sense ‘desist’ was not imported into it under the influence of the denominative use (c) of which Exodus 23¹² 34²¹ might be early examples. [A somewhat similar view is now expressed by Meinhold (_Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft_, 1909, 100 f.), except that he ignores the distinction between ‘desist’ and ‘come to an end,’ which seems to me important.]――=3.= ברא ... לעשות‎] The awkward construction is perhaps adopted because ברא‎ could not directly govern the substantive מלאכה‎. LXX has ἤρξατο ... ποιῆσαι.

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=4a.= _These are the generations, etc._] The best sense that can be given to the expression is to refer the pronoun to what precedes, and render the noun by ‘origin’: ‘This is the origin of,’ etc. But it is doubtful if תולדות‎ can bear any such meaning, and altogether the half-verse is in the last degree perplexing. It is in all probability a redactional insertion.

The formula (and indeed the whole phraseology) is characteristic of Priestly-Code; and in that document it invariably stands as introduction to the section following. But in this case the next section (2⁴ᵇ‒4²⁶) belongs to Yahwist; and if we pass over the Yahwist passages to the next portion of Priestly-Code (chapter 5), the formula would collide with 5¹, which is evidently the proper heading to what follows. Unless, therefore, we adopt the improbable hypothesis of Strack, that a part of Priestly-Code’s narrative has been dropped, the attempt to treat 2⁴ᵃ in its present position as a superscription must be abandoned. On this ground most critics have embraced a view propounded by Ilgen, that the clause stood originally before 1¹, as the heading of Priestly-Code’s account of the creation.¹ But this theory also is open to serious objection. It involves a meaning of ‎ תולדות‎ which is contrary both to its etymology and the usage of Priestly-Code (see footnote). Whatever latitude of meaning be assigned to the word, it is the fact that in this formula it is always followed by genitive of the progenitor, never of the progeny: hence by analogy the phrase must describe that which is generated by the heavens and the earth, not the process by which they themselves are generated (so Lagarde, _Orientalia_ ii. 38 ff., and Holzinger). And even if that difficulty could be overcome (see Lagarde), generation is a most unsuitable description of the process of creation _as conceived by Priestly-Code_. In short, neither as superscription nor as subscription can the sentence be accounted for as an integral part of the Priestly Code. There seems no way out of the difficulty but to assume with Holzinger that the formula in this place owes its origin to a mechanical imitation of the manner of Priestly-Code by a later hand. The insertion would be suggested by the observation that the formula divides the book of Genesis into definite sections; while the advantage of beginning a new section at this point would naturally occur to an editor who felt the need of sharply separating the two accounts of the creation, and regarded the second as in some way the continuation of the first. If that be so, he probably took ‎ ת׳‎ in the sense of ‘history’ and referred אֵלֶּה‎ to what follows. The analogy of 5¹, Numbers 3¹ would suffice to justify the use of the formula before the ביום‎ of ⁴ᵇ.――It has been thought that LXX has preserved the original form of the text: viz. זה ספר ת׳ וגו׳‎ (compare 5¹); the redactor having, “before inserting a section from the other document, accidentally copied in the opening words of 5¹, which were afterwards adapted to their present position” (Bennett). That is improbable. It is more likely that LXX deliberately altered the text to correspond with 5¹. See Field, _Origenis Hexaplorum quæ supersunt; sive Veterum Interpretum Græcorum in totum Vetus Testamentum Fragmenta_, _ad loc._; Nestle, _Marginalien und Materialien_, 4.

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‎ =4a.= תולדות‎] only in plural constructs or with suffix; and confined to Priestly-Code, Chronicles and Ruth 4¹⁸. Formed from Hiphil of ילד‎, it means properly ‘begettings’; not, however, as noun of action, but concretely (= ‘progeny’); and this is certainly the prevalent sense. The phrase א׳ ת׳‎ (only Priestly-Code [all in Genesis except Numbers 3¹], 1 Chronicles 1²⁹, Ruth 4¹⁸) means primarily “These are the descendants”; but since a _list_ of descendants is a genealogy, it is practically the same thing if we render, “This is the genealogical register.” In the great majority of instances (Genesis [5¹] 10¹ 11¹⁰ 11²⁷ 25¹² 36¹ᐧ ⁹, 1 Chronicles 1²⁹, Ruth 4¹⁸) this sense is entirely suitable; the addition of a few historical notices is not inconsistent with the idea of a genealogy, nor is the general character of these sections affected by it. There are just three cases where this meaning is inapplicable: Genesis 6⁹ 25¹⁹ 37². But it is noteworthy that, except in the last case, at least a fragment of a genealogy follows; and it is fair to inquire whether 37² may not have been originally followed by a genealogy (such as 35²²ᵇ⁻²⁶ or 46⁸⁻²⁷ [see Hupfeld, _Die Quellen der Genesis und die Art ihrer Zusammensetzung_, 102‒109, 213‒216]) which was afterwards displaced in the course of redaction (see page 423, below). With that assumption we could explain every occurrence of the formula without having recourse to the unnatural view that the word may mean a “family history” (Gesenius-Buhl _s.v._), or “an account of a man and his descendants” (Brown-Driver-Briggs). The natural hypothesis would then be that a series of תולדות‎ formed one of the sources employed by Priestly-Code in compiling his work: the introduction of this genealogical document is preserved in 5¹ (so Holzinger); the recurrent formula represents successive sections of it, and 2⁴ᵃ is a redactional imitation. When it came to be amalgamated with the narrative material, some dislocations took place: hence the curious anomaly that a man’s history sometimes appears under his own _Tôlĕdôth_, sometimes under those of his father; and it is difficult otherwise to account for the omission of the formula before 12¹ or for its insertion in 36⁹. On the whole, this theory seems to explain the facts better than the ordinary view that the formula was devised by Priestly-Code to mark the divisions of the principal work.――ב{ה}בראם‎] ‘in their creation’ or ‘when they were created.’ If the _literal minuscule_ has critical significance (Tuch, Dillmann) the primary reading was infinitive Qal (בְּבָרְאָם‎); and this requires to be supplemented by ‎ אלהים‎ as subject. It is in this form that Dillmann thinks the clause originally stood at the beginning of Genesis. (see on 1¹). But the omission of אלהים‎ and the insertion of the ה‎ _minuscule_ are no necessary consequences of the transposition of the sentence; and the small ה‎ may be merely an error in the archetypal MS, which has been mechanically repeated in all copies.

¹ On Dillmann’s modification of this theory, see above on 1¹.

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_Babylonian and other Cosmogonies._

1. The outlines of Babylonian cosmogony have long been known from two brief notices in Greek writers: (1) an extract from Berossus (3rd century B.C.) made by Alexander Polyhistor, and preserved by Syncellus from the lost Chronicle of Eusebius (lib. i.); and (2) a passage from the Neo-Platonic writer Damascius (6th century A.D.). From these it was apparent that the biblical account of creation is in its main conceptions Babylonian. The interest of the fragments has been partly enhanced, but partly superseded, since the discovery of the closely parallel ‘Chaldæan Genesis,’ unearthed from the debris of Asshurbanipal’s library at Nineveh by George Smith in 1873. It is therefore unnecessary to examine them in detail; but since the originals are not very accessible to English readers, they are here reprinted in full (with emendations after _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 488 ff.):

(1) Berossus: Γενέσθαι φησὶ χρόνον ἐν ᾧ τὸ πᾶν σκότος καὶ ὕδωρ εἶναι, καὶ ἐν τούτοις ζῶα τερατώδη, καὶ ἰδιοφυεῖς [emphatic by Richt., codex εἰδιφυεῖς] τὰς ἰδέας ἔχοντα ζωογονεῖσθαι· ἀνθρώπους γὰρ διπτέρους γεννηθῆναι, ἐνίους δὲ καὶ τετραπτέρους καὶ διπροσώπους· καὶ σῶμα μὲν ἔχοντας ἕν, κεφαλὰς δὲ δύο, ἀνδρείαν τε καὶ γυναικείαν, καὶ αἰδοῖα δὲ [corrected by von Gutschmid, codex τε], δισσὰ, ἄῤῥεν καὶ θῆλυ· καὶ ἑτέρους ἀνθρώπους τοὺς μὲν αἰγῶν σκέλη καὶ κέρατα ἔχοντας, τοὺς δὲ ἵππου πόδας [corrected by von Gutschmid, codex ἱππόποδας], τοὺς δὲ τὰ ὀπίσω μὲν μέρη ἵππων, τὰ δὲ ἔμπροσθεν ἀνθρώπων, οὓς [ὡς? von Gutschmid] ἱπποκενταύρους τὴν ἰδέαν εἶναι. Ζωογονηθῆναι δὲ καὶ ταύρους ἀνθρώπων κεφαλὰς ἔχοντας καὶ κύνας τετρασωμάτους, οὐρὰς ἰχθύος ἐκ τῶν ὄπισθεν μερῶν ἔχοντας, καὶ ἵππους κυνοκεφάλους καὶ ἀνθρώπους, καὶ ἕτερα ζῶα κεφαλὰς μὲν καὶ σώματα ἵππων ἔχοντα, οὐρὰς δὲ ἰχθύων· καὶ ἄλλα δὲ ζῶα παντοδαπῶν θηρίων μορφὰς ἔχοντα. Πρὸς δὲ τούτοις ἰχθύας καὶ ἑρπετὰ καὶ ὄφεις καὶ ἄλλα ζῶα πλείονα θαυμαστὰ καὶ παρηλλαγμένας [emphatic by von Gutschmid, codex παρηλλαγμένα] τὰς ὄψεις ἀλλήλων ἔχοντα· ὧν καὶ τὰς εἰκόνας ἐν τῷ τοῦ Βηλου ναῷ ἀνακεῖσθαι, ἄρχειν δὲ τούτων πάντων γυναῖκα ᾗ ὄνομα Ὀμορκα [corrected by Scaliger, codex Ὁμορωκα] εἶναι· τοῦτο δὲ Χαλδαϊστὶ μὲν Θαμτε [corrected by W. R. Smith, _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, vi. 339, codex Θαλατθ], Ἑλληνιστὶ δὲ μεθερμηνεύεται θάλασσα κατὰ δὲ ἰσόψηφον σελήνη. Οὕτως δὲ τῶν ὅλων συνεστηκότων, ἐπανελθόντα Βηλον σχίσαι τὴν γυναῖκα μέσην, καὶ τὸ μὲν ἥμισυ αὐτῆς ποιῆσαι γῆν, τὸ δὲ ἄλλο ἥμισυ οὐρανὸν, καὶ τὰ ἐν [σὺν? von Gutschmid] αὐτῇ ζῶα ἀφανίσαι, ἀλληγορικῶς δέ φησι τοῦτο πεφυσιολογῆσθαι· ὑγροῦ γὰρ ὄντος τοῦ παντὸς καὶ ζώων ἐν αὐτῷ γεγεννημένων [A]¹ τοιῶνδε [emphatic by von Gutschmid, codex τὸν δὲ] Βηλον, ὃν Δία μεθερμηνεύουσι, μέσον τεμόντα τὸ σκότος χωρίσαι γῆν καὶ οὐρανὸν ἀπ’ ἀλλήλων, καὶ διατάξαι τὸν κόσμον. Τὰ δὲ ζῶα οὐκ ἐνεγκόντα τὴν τοῦ φωτὸς δύναμιν φθαρῆναι, ἰδόντα δὲ τὸν Βηλον χώραν ἔρημον καὶ ἀκαρποφόρον [emphatic by Gunkel, codex καρποφόρον] κελεῦσαι ἑνὶ τῶν θεῶν τὴν κεφαλὴν ἀφελόντι ἑαυτοῦ τῷ ἀποῤῥυέντι αἵματι φυρᾶσαι τὴν γῆν καὶ διαπλάσαι ἀνθρώπους καὶ θηρία τὰ δυνάμενα τὸν ἀέρα φέρειν. Ἀποτελέσαι δὲ τὸν Βηλον καὶ ἄστρα καὶ ἥλιον καὶ σελήνην καὶ τοὺς πέντε πλανήτας. Ταῦτά φησιν ὁ πολυΐστωρ Ἀλέξανδρος τὸν Βηρωσσὸν ἐν τῇ πρώτῃ φάσκειν [B]¹ τοῦτον τὸν θεὸν ἀφελεῖν τὴν ἑαυτοῦ κεφαλὴν καὶ τὸ ῥυὲν αἷμα τοὺς ἄλλους θεοὺς φυρᾶσαι τῇ γῇ, καὶ διαπλάσαι τοὺς ἀνθρώπους· διὸ νοερούς τε εἶναι καὶ φρονήσεως θείας μετέχειν.

¹ The sections commencing with [A] and [B] stand in the reverse order in the text. The transposition is due to von Gutschmid, and seems quite necessary to bring out any connected meaning, though there may remain a suspicion that the two accounts of the creation of man are variants, and that the second is interpolated. Jeremias _Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients_², 134, plausibly assigns the section from ἀλληγορικῶς to φθαρῆναι to another recension (restoring [B] to its place in the text).

(2) Damascius: Τῶν δὲ βαρβάρων ἐοίκασι Βαβυλώνιοι μὲν τὴν μίαν τῶν ὅλων ἀρχὴν σιγῇ παριέναι, δύο δὲ ποιεῖν Ταυθε καὶ Ἀπασων, τὸν μὲν Ἀπασων ἄνδρα τῆς Ταυθε ποιοῦντες, ταύτην δὲ μητέρα θεῶν ὀνομάζοντες, ἐξ ὧν μονογενῆ παῖδα γεννηθῆναι τὸν Μωυμιν, αὐτὸν οἶμαι τὸν νοητὸν κόσμον ἐκ τῶν δυοῖν ἀρχῶν παραγόμενον. Ἐκ δὲ τῶν αὐτῶν ἄλλην γενεὰν προελθεῖν, Λαχην [codex Δαχην] καὶ Λαχον [codex Δαχον]. Εἶτα αὖ τρίτην ἐκ τῶν αὐτῶν, Κισσαρη καὶ Ἀσσωρον, ἐξ ὧν γενέσθαι τρεῖς, Ἀνον καὶ Ἰλλινον καὶ Ἀον· τοῦ δὲ Ἀου καὶ Δαυκης υἱὸν γενέσθαι τὸν Βηλον, ὃν δημιουργὸν εἶναί φασιν.[B]¹

¹ The Greek text of Berossus will be found in Müller, _Fragmenta Historicorum Græcorum_ ii. 497 f.; that of Damascius in _Damascii philosophi de primis principiis_ (edited by Kopp, 1826), cap. 125. For translations of both fragments, see _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_³, 488 ff.; G. Smith, _Chaldean Genesis_ (edited by Sayce), pages 34 ff., 43 f. (from Cory, _Ancient Fragments_); Gunkel _Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit_ 17 ff.; Nikel, _Genesis und Keilschriftforschung_ 24 f., 28.

2. The only cuneiform document which admits of close and continuous comparison with Genesis 1 is the great Creation Epos just referred to. Since the publication, in 1876, of the first fragments, many lacunæ have been filled up from subsequent discoveries, and several duplicates have been brought to light; and the series is seen to have consisted of seven Tablets, entitled, from the opening phrase, _Enuma eliš_ (= ‘When above’).¹ The actual tablets discovered are not of earlier date than the 7th century B.C., but there are strong reasons to believe that the originals of which these are copies are of much greater antiquity, and may go back to 2000 B.C., while the myth itself probably existed in writing in other forms centuries before that. Moreover, they represent the theory of creation on which the statements of Berossus and Damascius are based, and they have every claim to be regarded as the authorised version of the Babylonian cosmogony. It is here, therefore, if anywhere, that we must look for traces of Babylonian influences on the Hebrew conception of the origin of the world. The following outline of the contents of the tablets is based on King’s analysis of the epic into five originally distinct parts (_The Seven Tablets of Creation_, page lxvii).

¹ The best collection and translation of the relevant texts in English is given in L. W. King’s _Seven Tablets of Creation_,