In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth.
By the heaven some understand the supreme heaven, the heaven of
heavens, the habitation of God, and of the holy angels; and this
being made perfect at once, no mention is after made of it, as of
the earth; and it is supposed that the angels were at this time
created, since they were present at the laying of the foundation
of the earth, ( Job
38:6-7 ) but rather the lower and visible heavens are meant,
at least are not excluded, that is, the substance of them; as yet
being imperfect and unadorned; the expanse not yet made, or the
ether and air not yet stretched out; nor any light placed in
them, or adorned with the sun, moon, and stars: so the earth is
to be understood, not of that properly so called, as separated
from the waters, that is, the dry land afterwards made to appear;
but the whole mass of earth and water before their separation,
and when in their unformed and unadorned state, described in the
next verse: in short, these words represent the visible heavens
and the terraqueous globe, in their chaotic state, as they were
first brought into being by almighty power. The (h) prefixed to both words is, as Aben
Ezra observes, expressive of notification or demonstration, as
pointing at "those" heavens, and "this earth"; and shows that
things visible are here spoken of, whatever is above us, or below
us to be seen: for in the Arabic language, as he also observes,
the word for "heaven", comes from one which signifies high or
above F1; as that for "earth" from one that
signifies low and beneath, or under F2. Now it was the matter
or substance of these that was first created; for the word
(ta) set before them
signifies substance, as both Aben Ezra and F3 Kimchi
affirm. Maimonides F4 observes, that this particle,
according to their wise men, is the same as "with"; and then the
sense is, God created with the heavens whatsoever are in the
heavens, and with the earth whatsoever are in the earth; that is,
the substance of all things in them; or all things in them were
seminally together: for so he illustrates it by an husbandman
sowing seeds of divers kinds in the earth, at one and the same
time; some of which come up after one day, and some after two
days, and some after three days, though all sown together. These
are said to be "created", that is, to be made out of nothing; for
what pre-existent matter to this chaos could there be out of
which they could be formed? And the apostle says, "through faith
we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so
that things which are seen were not made of things which do
appear", ( Hebrews 11:3
) . And though this word is sometimes used, and even in this
chapter, of the production of creatures out of pre-existent
matter, as in ( Genesis 1:21
Genesis
1:27 ) yet, as Nachmanides observes, there is not in the holy
language any word but this here used, by which is signified the
bringing anything into being out of nothing; and many of the
Jewish interpreters, as Aben Ezra, understand by creation here, a
production of something into being out of nothing; and Kimchi
says F5 that creation is a making some new
thing, and a bringing something out of nothing: and it deserves
notice, that this word is only used of God; and creation must be
the work of God, for none but an almighty power could produce
something out of nothing. The word used is "Elohim", which some
derive from another, which signifies power, creation being an act
of almighty power: but it is rather to be derived from the root
in the Arabic language, which signifies to worship F6, God
being the object of all religious worship and adoration; and very
properly does Moses make use of this appellation here, to teach
us, that he who is the Creator of the heavens and the earth is
the sole object of worship; as he was of the worship of the
Jewish nation, at the head of which Moses was. It is in the
plural number, and being joined to a verb of the singular, is
thought by many to be designed to point unto us the mystery of a
plurality, or trinity of persons in the unity of the divine
essence: but whether or no this is sufficient to support that
doctrine, which is to be established without it; yet there is no
doubt to be made, that all the three Persons in the Godhead were
concerned in the creation of all things, see ( Psalms 33:6 ) . The
Heathen poet Orpheus has a notion somewhat similar to this, who
writes, that all things were made by one Godhead of three names,
and that this God is all things F7: and now all these things,
the heaven and the earth, were made by God "in the beginning",
either in the beginning of time, or when time began, as it did
with the creatures, it being nothing but the measure of a
creature's duration, and therefore could not be until such
existed; or as Jarchi interprets it, in the beginning of the
creation, when God first began to create; and is best explained
by our Lord, "the beginning of the creation which God created", (
Mark 13:19 )
and the sense is, either that as soon as God created, or the
first he did create were the heavens and the earth; to which
agrees the Arabic version; not anything was created before them:
or in connection with the following words, thus, "when first", or
"in the beginning", when "God created the heavens and the earth",
then "the earth was without form", &c F8. The
Jerusalem Targum renders it, "in wisdom God created"; see (
Proverbs
3:19 ) and some of the ancients have interpreted it of the
wisdom of God, the Logos and Son of God. From hence we learn,
that the world was not eternal, either as to the matter or form
of it, as Aristotle, and some other philosophers, have asserted,
but had a beginning; and that its being is not owing to the
fortuitous motion and conjunction of atoms, but to the power and
wisdom of God, the first cause and sole author of all things; and
that there was not any thing created before the heaven and the
earth were: hence those phrases, before the foundation of the
world, and before the world began are expressive of eternity:
this utterly destroys the notion of the pre-existence of the
souls of men, or of the soul of the Messiah: false therefore is
what the Jews say F9, that paradise, the righteous,
Israel, Jerusalem were created before the world; unless they
mean, that these were foreordained by God to be, which perhaps is
their sense.