And out of the ground the Lord God formed every
beast
of the field, and every fowl of the air
Or "had formed them" F5 on the fifth and sixth days; and
these were formed two and two, male and female, in order to
continue their species; whereas man was made single, and had no
companion of the same nature with him: and while in these
circumstances, God brought them unto Adam;
or "to the man" F6; either by the ministry of angels,
or by a kind of instinct or impulse, which brought them to him of
their own accord, as to the lord and proprietor of them, who, as
soon as he was made, had the dominion of all the creatures given
him; just as the creatures at the flood went in unto Noah in the
ark; and as then, so now, all creatures, fowl and cattle, came,
all but the fishes of the sea: and this was done to see
what he would call them;
what names he would give to them; which as it was a trial of the
wisdom of man, so a token of his dominion over the creatures, it
being an instance of great knowledge of them to give them apt and
suitable names, so as to distinguish one from another, and point
at something in them that was natural to them, and made them
different from each other; for this does not suppose any want of
knowledge in God, as if he did this to know what man would do, he
knew what names man would give them before he did; but that it
might appear he had made one superior to them all in wisdom and
power, and for his pleasure, use, and service; and therefore
brings them to him, to put them into his hands, and give him
authority over them; and being his own, to call them by what
names he pleased: and whatsoever Adam called every living
creature, that was the
name thereof;
it was always afterwards called by it, by him and his posterity,
until the confusion of languages, and then every nation called
them as they thought proper, everyone in their own language: and
as there is a good deal of reason to believe, that the Hebrew
language was the first and original language; or however that
eastern language, of which the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and
Arabic, are so many dialects; it was this that he spoke, and in
it gave names to the creatures suitable to their nature, or
agreeable to some property or other observed in them: and Bochart
F7 has given us many instances of
creatures in the Hebrew tongue, whose names answer to some
character or another in them: some think this was done by
inspiration; and Plato says, that it seemed to him that that
nature was superior to human, that gave names to things; and that
this was not the work of vain and foolish man, but the first
names were appointed by the gods F8; and so Cicero F9 asks,
who was the first, which with Pythagoras was the highest wisdom,
who imposed names on all things?