CREATION

The idea of 'creation' – calling into existence out of nothing – did not first enter the human mind as a result of philosophical speculation. The Greek philosophers never arrived at it. In the myth of creation in Plato's Timaeus the divine Demiurge (lit. 'worker', 'craftsman') fashions the world out of matter which is already thereby imposing form upon it, much as a potter makes vessels out of clay. To-day we often speak of the work of a craftsman or artist as 'creative', but the Bible does not do so. Creation in the biblical sense is creatio ex nihilo – out of nothing. It is utterly beyond the power of man to perform; it is essentially miraculous, and can be accomplished only by the living God, the God of miracle (Jer. 32.17, RV marg.). Aristotle thought that the material world must be eternal; he could not conceive how matter could have had a beginning in time. The idea of creation, now of course a well-known philosophical notion, was originally a gift from revelation to philosophy, like many other ideas (that of personality, for example).

If the Hebrew mind did not arrive at the idea of creation by way of philosophical speculation, how then was that idea reached? Jehovah was known to the Hebrews as the Lord and Controller of history: through their experience of having been called and guided, protected and disciplined, amidst the vicissitudes of their nation's life, the prophetic knowledge of God as the Lord of the nations had been attained. The fertility-baals and the foreign deities were no gods at all. The doctrine of God as the Creator of the whole world, of all that exists, reaches its highest and most emphatic expression in the Second Isaiah: 'Thus saith Jehovah that created the heavens; he is God; that formed the earth and made it; he established it, he created it not a waste; he formed it to be inhabited: I am Jehovah, and there is none else' (Isa. 45.18; read Isa. 43-46 continuously to savour the fully developed prophetic consciousness of God's transcendent power and holiness as Creator). The Lord who had been encountered in history was revealed to Israel as the almighty ruler of the destinies of nations; and it was inevitable that the prophets should conclude that the world of nature – the theatre and stage of history – was also his handiwork and empire. The P story of creation (Gen. 1.12.4a) was, of course, written down as we now have it a century or so after the time of the Second Isaiah; but many scholars to-day are coming to think that the material underlying the P tradition is much older than the Exile and may well have moulded to some extent the thought of the Second Isaiah and his predecessors. The J story of creation (Gen. 2.4b-25) is, of course, much older than Amos, and proves that the prophetic insight into the nature of God as Creator was current in Israel even before the days of Elijah.

Alongside of Israel's encounter with God as the Lord of history we must set another factor in the development of the biblical knowledge of God as Creator. There was also the deeply religious awareness of standing in the presence of God, recognized as the source and ground of one's own existence. The God revealed in their nation's history was revealed to prophetic minds in Israel as the 'thou' over against whom the 'I' is defined. This awareness includes consciousness of dependence upon God, of creatureliness in the presence of the Creator, of being responsible to him for all one's thoughts and words and deeds. Such an awareness is compellingly present in the J narrative of the Creation and Fall, and, unless it is communicated to us as the truth of our condition – the basic fact of our existence – we shall not have understood the deep meaning of that narrative. This sense of creaturely dependence upon God and of responsibility before him is, of course, present throughout all the books of the Bible; notably we find it in the magnificent poetry of Job 38-41. Unless I know that I am created by God, am utterly dependent upon him, am responsible to him and am judged by him, the creation of the world will be for me only a philosophical speculation (even though I may regard it as intellectually the most satisfying hypothesis about the world's origin and raison d’être) or merely a 'dogma' of the Creed (even though I may assent to it as the teaching of the Church). To know that God made me (and therefore all the world) is to understand the parables of Creation aright; it is this kind of 'existential' knowledge which the Genesis stories of the Creation can communicate to us or awaken in us. When they do so – when I can say that they are true for me – then I know that God has spoken his word to me through them, and they are indeed for me sacred scriptures.

THE FIRST CREATION STORY

1. 1-2.4a; (P)

The distinctive character of the P Creation Story is displayed not only by the stylized phrases, often repeated, but by the whole Priestly conception of the created world as the scene of the manifestation of the glorious majesty of God – 'even his everlasting power and divinity' (Rom. 1. 20). The universe as God planned and made it is like P's ideal Tabernacle: everything in it reflects the glory of God 'after its kind' – sun and moon and stars, day and night, trees and herbs and grass, beasts and birds and fishes – everything performs its duly ordained liturgical office, like the priests and levites of the sanctuary in their appointed courses. And finally man, as the arch-priest and crown of the whole created world, exercises dominion under God in this vast, cosmic theocratic empire, in which everything that happens redounds to the glory of God. 'In the beginning', as at the end of the world process (according to Rev. 21.22), there is no need of a temple made with hands; such things are needful only as a result of man's fallen state. Nor in the original creation was there need of sun or moon to give light: light, which throughout the Bible symbolizes the revelation of God's truth and glory, is created before the sun, on the first 'day', and thereby God's majesty is revealed to the angelic hosts (cf. Job 38.7). How stupid was the old objection that light was created three days before the sun was made! The author is poetically telling us concerning the first creation precisely the same thing as John the Seer tells us about the New Creation, New Jerusalem: 'the city hath no need of the sun . . . for the glory of God did lighten it' (Rev. 21.23). The whole world in God's original design was his Temple, not in the sense that he could be confined within it or was dependent upon it: the P school had learnt (and indeed had taught) the lesson of the Exile that God was infinitely greater than his Temple and was not destroyed along with it. God transcends the universe which he has made, just as his Presence is not confined within the Temple on Mount Zion; nevertheless God is present to his works which he sees to be good, and his glory is revealed in them to the eyes which are illumined by his light. 'The heavens declare the glory of God . . .' (Ps. 19, which may be read as a commentary upon P's creation story).

Once we have imaginatively grasped the Priestly conception of all created things as ceaselessly fulfilling their appointed 'liturgy' (service) to the greater glory of God, we shall come to hear P's stylized refrains almost as liturgical ‘responses’ – antiphons in the great offering of praise and thanksgiving that continually ascends from the creation to the Creator. Each divine act of creation is introduced by 'And God said'; the refrain 'And it was so' occurs six times; 'God saw that it was good', six times, leading to the climax ' very good '; ' there was evening and there was morning ' is the repeated refrain of each creative act; and there are recurring phrases like "after its kind'. These reflections prompt the question whether perhaps our P Creation Story took shape in the liturgy of the Temple. It may quite effectively be used in recital, the refrains being chanted antiphonally by the choir or some part of the congregation; and it is not improbable that it took its origin in this way. We do not know; but it is clear that as a great Hymn of the Creation it might be fittingly used when the people of God are come together to sing their Te Deum in glad and solemn commemoration of that day 'when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy' (Job 38.7; cf. Ps. 100).

1
In the beginning: The phrase means 'at the beginning, before the creation of anything'. It is not used in any philosophical sense, for the Hebrew mind did not speculate upon such questions as the relation of time to eternity. The biblical writers everywhere are content to assert God's lordship over time (cf. Ps. 90.4; 11 Pet. 3.8, etc.). They do not discuss whether God is 'outside time', or what happened 'before time began'. They conceive time as stretching in an endless succession backwards and forwards, and they treat of those deep questions which pass man's understanding by means of parable and poetic image. IN THE BEGINNING might almost be read as 'once upon a time', provided that we do not assume that what follows is 'merely' fairy-tale. The fact here to be asserted is: IN THE BEGINNING GOD; this is the fundamental certainty of revelation. The N.T. amplifies: 'In the beginning the creative Word of God, now made known in Christ (John 1.1; Col. 1.16; Heb. 1.2; Rev. 3.14, etc.).

God: The word used is the ordinary Hebrew word for God, Elohim. It is plural in form, but it is not therefore to be regarded as merely a survival from an earlier polytheistic stage of religious development. It represents a deep biblical insight: God is not, and never was, a lonely God. There is personality in God, and a person could not exist alone. The Bible could never have used the name for God which we find in Greek philosophers and mystics like Plotinus, 'the Alone'. God did not need to create a world in order to possess an object for his love. We cannot, of course, imagine what God is like in the transcendence of his being, or how he can exist apart from the world as a society of love. The O.T. writers convey the richly personal or societal nature of God's being by their imagery of God surrounded by his heavenly court, his angels, spirits, ministers – the ‘sons of God'. We have here a poetical conception, which is spoilt if taken in a woodenly literalistic way (cf. for examples, I Kings 22.19-22; Job 1.6-12; Isa. 6.1-8). God is the supreme and 'only' God, but he is not 'alone'. Hence the use of the plural in several passages (e.g., Gen. 1.26, 'Let us make man'; 3.22; 11.7, etc.). The Christian Fathers and the older commentators regarded such passages as adumbrations of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Of course the O.T. writers had no such conception in mind; but yet they were in their own way insisting upon that truth which the doctrine of the Trinity teaches – that a 'unitarian' or lonely God is not the God of the historic biblical revelation.

created: Whether the word (bara') means creation ex nihilo in an absolute sense may be left to the specialists to decide. But it is clear that something very near that is intended. The word is used only of God and is frequent in the Second Isaiah (Isa. 40-26, 28; 42.5; 45.7, 12, 18). It implies something utterly beyond human imitation or comprehension, for the work of creation is essentially miraculous.

the heaven and the earth: That is, the whole universe. The first verse constitutes a summary of the story that is unfolded in the rest of the chapter.

2
waste and void: 'Without shape and desolate.' It is not implied that this undifferentiated watery substance was what the Creator had to go to work upon, but that the first stage of creation carried the process only thus far. Everything as yet was in a state of chaos (tohu wa-bohu), but the work will continue: God did not create the earth to be a tohu but to be inhabited (Isa. 45.18).

darkness was upon the face of the deep: We must not import into the biblical symbolism any modern scientific notions, such as that darkness is only a negative quality, a mere privation of light. In the Bible darkness is positive; it is as real as light; it signifies mystery (and, in some contexts, evil). God, considered as transcendent and ineffable, is said to dwell in thick darkness (I Kings 8.12; Ps. 18.11; 97.2, etc.). There is thus a real dualism of light and darkness in the Bible (cf. esp. the Fourth Gospel), but it is not an ultimate dualism, since God is the Creator and Lord of the darkness as well as of the light (Ps. 104.20; Isa. 45.7). Therefore darkness is no embarrassment to him as it is to us (Ps. 139.11f.). In the biblical symbolism God's utter sovereignty is expressed by proclaiming his lordship over the darkness and over 'the deep', i.e., the waste of waters: the sea was always a terrifying element to the Hebrews. In the primitive cosmogony of the Semites the deep (Heb. tehom) seems to have been associated with the beginnings of things (cf. the Babylonian Tiamat); it symbolizes the dark and mysterious unknown. God's power is nowhere more dramatically described than in those O.T. passages in which he is portrayed as in control of the deep and of the waves and storms of the sea (e.g., Ps. 33.7f.; 93; 107.23-32). It is against this background that we must understand the Sea-Miracles of Jesus, the Stilling of the Storm and the Walking on the Sea (cf. Mark 4.41: 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? '; also Mark 6.51); so, too, must we understand the symbolism of (e.g.) the 'darkness over all the earth' at the Crucifixion.

the spirit of God moved: Ruach is wind, breath or spirit; it denotes the vital element in man (cp. 'gave up the spirit', Mark 15.39), and when used of God it might refer to his life-giving power (cf. 2.7 and note below). But here the expression is hardly more than a Hebrew idiom meaning 'a very strong wind', and it can scarcely be used to support a doctrine of the Creator Spirit. Nevertheless, whatever the expression 'spirit of God' might mean as a Hebrew idiom taken by itself, the sentence as a whole suggests a remarkable poetic image of God hovering or brooding (RV marg.) like a mother-bird over the new-born world (cf. Deut. 32.11, the only other use in the O.T. of the word here translated 'moved').

3
And God said, Let there be . . .: Here we meet with the O.T. doctrine of the creative word of God. The biblical writers seek to go beyond the anthropomorphic conception of God as making the world with his hands out of some pre-existent material, as a potter makes vessels of clay – though on occasion they are not at all averse to anthropomorphism. They do this by means of the conception of creation by fiat (LET THERE BE); God calls the world into existence simply by speaking a word: 'God said, Let there be . . . and it was so.' Thus the absolute power and creativity of God are most effectively suggested; God utters his word and his will is immediately accomplished (cf. Ps. 33.6, 9: 'By the word of Jehovah were the heavens made, and all the host of them (i.e., the stars) by the breath (ruach) of his mouth. . . . For he spake and it was done; he commanded and it stood fast'). God not only creates the world with his word; he also orders it and controls the processes of nature with his word, and with his word he makes known his will to men (cf. Ps. 147.18f.: 'He sendeth out his word and melteth them (sc. the ice and snow) . . . he showeth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel'). God's word spoken by his prophets has an irresistible self-fulfilling efficacy; it must inevitably accomplish that to which it is sent (Isa. 55.11). In the Gospels attention is called to this same power of the word which is spoken by our Lord; he casts out the demons with a word (Matt. 8.16); he need 'speak the word only' and a sick man is healed (Matt. 8.8; cp. Ps. 107.20); he commands even the wind and the sea, and they obey him (Mark 4.41). The N.T. depicts Christ as calling into existence the New People of God and as thus achieving the New Creation (cf. 11 Cor. 5.17; Gal. 6.15), the' earnest' of the New Heaven and New Earth. The Fourth Gospel brings the biblical thinking about the creative word of God to its climax in its teaching that Christ is the Incarnate Word of God: the very word which was God's instrument in the first creation, without which was not anything made that was made, became flesh and dwelt among men, so that his disciples beheld his glory, full of grace and truth (John 1.1-14).

light: In the biblical symbolism light is a recurring and pregnant image. It bears a wide and varied range of meanings. It often signifies the presence of God himself (cf. I John 1.5, 'God is light'), or the favour of God's presence (cf. 'the light of thy countenance', Ps. 89-15; 90.8, etc.), or the dwelling-place of God (I Tim. 6.16, etc.). It denotes the character of God, in accordance with which his people must walk (Ps. 89.15; Rom. 13.12f.; I John 1.5ff.). Since the only bright light that was known in the ancient world was the light of the sun, 'light' is often used (as here) synonymously with 'day' (cf. I Thess. 5.5). Sometimes light symbolizes prosperity and darkness adversity; often light represents moral probity and darkness evil deeds (John 3.16-21; cp. 13.30). Above all, it should be noted that wherever 'light' is mentioned in the Bible in a symbolic sense the idea of revelation is not far away; light is the frequent and obvious symbol of the unveiling of the truth (cf. Eph. 5.13). Hence the Fourth Gospel speaks of Christ as 'the light of the world' (John 11.9; cf. 12.35f.); the coming of Christ was the coming of the 'true light ' (John 1.4f., 9). Perhaps the culminating biblical word on the theme of light belongs not to St. John but to St. Paul: 'It is God who said, Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts, to give the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ' (11 Cor. 4.6). In the first part of this verse St. Paul is clearly alluding to Gen. 1.3. As the word of God, active in the work of creation, is incarnate in Jesus Christ, so the light which illumined the first day of creation is revealed as the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And as it was in the beginning, so it shall be at the end: the day of the Lord will be the day of light, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, the day of revelation, of unveiling: in the end, as at the beginning, the light exists apart from the sun and moon and stars, because in the biblical poetic imagery it is the light of God's own presence.

4
God saw . . . that it was good: This recurrent phrase emphasizes the joy and satisfaction of the Creator in his work. It also expresses the biblical insight that the world as made by God was in no way defective or marred by evil.

5
there was evening and there was morning: In the Hebrew reckoning the day begins and ends not as with us at midnight, but at sunset. Hence the Bible often speaks of 'night and day' whereas we should say 'day and night' (e.g. Mark 4.27). (A survival of this biblical way of reckoning is seen in the Christian Church in the liturgical practice of saying the Collect of the Day for the first time at Evensong on what we should call the day before it.) It is hardly necessary to add that the 'days' of creation are to be understood as poetic symbols and not as definite periods of time, whether of twenty-four hours, or of a thousand years, or of a geological epoch.

6
a firmament in the midst of the waters: The ancients believed that the sky was something solid (which is what FIRMAMENT literally means). It was like a great inverted basin, beaten out as from metal, and quite impenetrable except through doors. The stars were fixed in the solid sky like jewels. Above the sky was water, and rain came down through doors or sluices* from the waters above the firmament (cf. Ps. 148.4). Above these waters was the abode of God himself. The firmament rested upon pillars at the ends or corners of the earth. For glimpses of the primitive cosmology in the O.T. see (e.g.) Job 26.11; 37.18; Ps. 104.3, 13; Amos 9.6. The calling into being of the sky, which divides the upper from the lower waters on which the earth floats or in which it stands on pillars, is the work of the second day of creation.

9-13
On the third day of creation the earth is separated off from the waters below the firmament and the vegetable kingdom is created. The Hebrews conceived of the earth as a relatively small area of land floating on (or standing in) the abyss of waters; cf. Exod. 20.4; Ps. 24.2; 136.6, and many other such passages. There is a magnificent description of the third day of creation in Ps. 104.6-8; cf . also Job 3 8.8-11.

14-19
On the fourth day of creation the sun, moon and stars are made. They are thought of as fastened on to the firmament, in which they have been assigned regular tracks. These LIGHTS give the earth its necessary physical illumination-perhaps the making of the firmament had cut off the regions beneath it from the source of the divine light – but they are distinct from and inferior to the light which had appeared on the first day, a light which was much more than merely physical. Three points should be noted in this section. First, there is here expressed a deep sense of the regularity of the heavenly bodies in their appointed courses. Their regularity is, however, liturgical, like that of the priests in their courses at the Temple; it is not that of Kepler, who aspired to turn the universe into clockwork, 'believing that this was the highest thing he could do to glorify God ' (H. Butterfield, Origins of Modern Science, 1950, p. 59). But though P's universe is very different in conception from the mathematical orderliness of Newton's 'clean and empty heavens', it too proclaims its 'great Original', for P unquestionably shares the Psalmist's conviction that 'the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handywork' (Ps. 19.1). Secondly, there is also here the clear understanding, so germane to the biblical outlook, that God is the Lord of time; times and seasons, days and years, have been predetermined by God when he made the heavens. This truth would seem of particular importance to the P school with their special interest in the liturgical calendar. And thirdly, we should note that in view of the unquestioned universal belief of the ancient world (outside Israel) that the heavenly bodies are living, divine beings (even Aristotle believed this), P's silent rejection of this view is very impressive. The worship of 'the host of heaven' (i.e. the stars) was a commonplace of pagan religion; but the men of the Bible, because they know the Creator, are not addicted to the worship of the creature (cf. Deut. 4.19; Jer. 44.17ff.; Wisd. 13.2, etc.).

20-23
On the fifth day of creation are made the birds and the fishes – all the creatures of the air and the sea. They receive the divine approval and blessing; they are to BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY (one of P's characteristic phrases), that they too may perform their appointed function in the created order, the liturgy of adoration of what we should call the world of nature.

24-31
The sixth day of creation sees the climax and completion of the immense divine work. First comes the creation of the beasts and reptiles, which is followed by the crowning event of the whole process, the creation of man. Man is conceived of as the high-priest of the order of creation; the world that God has made is a theocracy (like the Jewish nation after the Exile), ruled over by a high-priest who is God's vice-regent, to whom is committed the dominion over all created things.

26
Let us make man: For the plural LET US see note on 1. 1, God (Elohim). The word for MAN (adam) here is collective – ' mankind'. P does not speak of the creation of a pair of individuals, a man and a woman (as does J), but of the human species; in the same way he has already spoken of the creation of fish, beasts, etc., AFTER THEIR KIND, not as individual fishes, beasts, etc. It is mankind as such that is made in God's image.

in our image, after our likeness: The Bible makes it clear that there is an essential difference between man and even the highest mammals. It is well aware that man shares with the animals certain characteristics, chief of which is his mortality (cf. Ps. 49.12: 'Man is like the beasts that perish'; also Ps. 144.3f.). But he differs from the animals in that God 'visits' him, i.e., holds converse with him (Ps. 8.4): there is that in man which the animals do not possess, namely, man's responsibility before God, the fact that he can answer God's address, hear his law and make (or withhold) his conscious and deliberate response. There is that in man which is capable of responding to the divine Word; man is akin to God in this respect at least, that he hears God's Word: as we say, 'like speaks to like'. This is what is meant by P when he says that man is made in God's image and implies that no other creature is so made. All the rest of the creation obeys God's will without conscious volition: the stars in their courses mechanically complete their appointed liturgy; even the animals fulfil by instinct the law of their creation. To man alone is given the responsibility of conscious choice; man alone of all created things is free to disobey the Creator's will. Thus it is that man alone is conscious of his responsibility before God, is aware that he stands in the presence and under the judgment of God. Some theologians have suggested that the image of God was lost by man at the Fall (i.e., as the result of sin), but this is not the biblical view. P teaches that the divine image in man is transmitted from generation to generation, even after sin has entered the world (Gen. 5.1, 3; 9.6). The biblical position can best be summarized by saying that the divine image is defaced but not obliterated at the Fall (or by man's sin). Sometimes, too, theologians from the time of Irenaeus (died c. A.D. 202) onwards have attempted to build theories on a supposed distinction between IMAGE and LIKENESS. But no such distinction exists in P's intention; we have here a straightforward case of Hebrew parallelism, in which a second phrase repeats the meaning of the phrase that has gone before. The words mean: 'in God's image, that is to say, in his likeness' (so W. Eichrodt).

let them have dominion: It has become the fashion in certain quarters to assert that God's likeness in man is most clearly perceived in the fact that man shares in God's creativity; we hear much about man's 'creative' powers, as artists, craftsmen, scientists, and so on. The imago Dei is made to consist in man's capacity for creative activity. This is not what the Bible teaches. It is clear that P thinks of the likeness of God in man as manifest in man's sharing in the Creator's dominium over the rest of the created order, especially over the animal world. This essentially biblical teaching is most clearly enunciated in Ps. 8.5-8:

Thou hast made him but little lower than Elohim (see on 1. 1),
And crownest him with glory and honour.
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands;
Thou hast put all things under his feet:
All sheep and oxen,
Yea, and the beasts of the field;
The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea,
Whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

Clearly God's image in man is not obliterated. May we not see (e.g.) in the marvels of modern science, and in the astounding dominion over the world of nature which man has achieved thereby, a partial fulfilment of the divine intention in the creation that man. should 'subdue' the earth (v. 28)? But man must remember that he is lord of creation and ruler of nature not in his own right or to work his own will; he is God's vicegerent, charged with the working of God's will, responsible to God for his stewardship. Otherwise his science and industry will bring not a blessing but a curse; they will make of the earth not a paradise but a dust-bowl or a Hiroshima. When we survey human history and review the sad spectacle of man's age-long effort to subdue the earth to his own ends and not to God's glory, we understand that the divine image in man is indeed defaced. The doctrine of the imago Dei is closely connected with the doctrine of the dominium; the former shows us what man is, the latter shows us what is his function., When the image is obscured, then the dominion is impaired; when the image is restored, the dominion is fulfilled. The N.T. shows how in Christ the true divine image in man has by God's grace been restored; we see in Christ what we cannot see in fallen humanity, the perfect image of the invisible God, as it had been first brought forth (prototokos) before all creation (Col. 1. 15; cf. Heb. 1. 3). It is not in fallen mankind that the promise contained in Gen. 1.26-28 will be fulfilled; it will be fulfilled in the redeemed humanity of the Last Adam, the Church of Christ: 'whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son' (Rom. 8.29): 'we are transformed into the same image, from glory to glory' (11 Cor. 3.18): our 'new man' is being I renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him' (Col. 3.10). Cf. also Heb. 2.5-10.

27
And God created man: The unique significance of the creation of man is emphasized by the way in which the weighty word 'create' (bara', see on 1. 1), not hitherto employed except in the summary in v. 1, is now used three times in rapid succession.

male and female created he them: By insisting that woman is not created after man (contrast J, Gen. 2.18ff.) but along with him, P teaches that men and women are equally important and are complementary to each other in God's design. In the Creator's original inten­tion there was no superiority of the man, just as in the 'new creation' in which the original intention is re-established there is no distinction of male and female in Christ (Gal. 3.28)-whatever distinctions there may be between the Fall and the Restoration of all things in Christ. It is also explicit in P's teaching that the division of mankind into two sexes is not a result of the Fall; it is part of God's original plan, which he saw was 'very good'. On this insight our Lord based his teaching concerning the institution of marriage (Mark 10.6). Despite the fact that J in his account of the creation places the creation of woman after that of man, there is, as we shall see, no fundamental divergence of outlook between his teaching and that of P; see notes on the section 2.18-25.

28
And God blessed them: In its context this phrase sounds like a blessing given at a marriage: man and woman are blessed and are to be fruitful and multiply. Thus there is no suggestion that child-bearing as such is a punishment for sin; procreation belongs to the world which God saw to be 'very good'. In the strength of the divine blessing the human race goes forward to its task of replenishing and subduing the earth. As he blesses, God makes provision for the sustenance both of human and of animal life (vv. 29f.). This provision is of a purely vegetarian diet; in the creation as God planned it there was to be no ' struggle for existence'. It is thus implied that 'nature red in tooth and claw' is in some way (we are not told how) a result of the entry of sin into the world. Cf. 6.21 and 9.3 with notes ad loc.

30
wherein there is life: Heb., literally 'a living soul' (RV margin). See note on this phrase under 2.7.

31
behold, it was very good: There is a significant variation of the formula now that the climax of the creation has been achieved: God sees the finished work, and he sees it to be very good.

2.1-4a. On the seventh day the Creator rests from his work. After the Exile, perhaps at the very time when the traditional P material was being collected and written down, the Sabbath was becoming more and more markedly a distinguishing feature of the life of the Jews (cf. Neh. 10.31; 13.15-22). An attempt was being made rigorously to enforce the law of total abstention from any kind of work on the Sabbath; and at a still later period this law was kept by devout Jews with fanatical enthusiasm (cf. I Mac. 2.34-41 and the evidence of the Gospels). It is clear that the Sabbath was not so observed in pre-Exilic times (see, e.g., 11 Kings 4.22f.). By the days of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, however, the keeping of the Sabbath had become a recognized sign of devotion to Jehovah (cf. Jer. 17.21-27, but perhaps this passage is a later addition; Ezek. 20.12-20; cf. Isa. 56.2-8; 58.13f.). Various explanations of the meaning of the Sabbath are given in the different strata of the O.T. In the prophetic passages above listed it is a 'sign' between Jehovah and the People of the inviolability of the covenant between them; in Deut. 5.12-15 it is a memorial of the deliverance from Egypt; in P it is a memorial of the finished work of the creation and of the Creator's rest (Gen. 2.1ff.; Exod. 20.11; 31.17). The question of the actual origins of the Sabbath amongst the early Israelites in far-off nomadic days is very obscure and complicated (see N. H. Snaith, The Jewish New Year Festival, pp. 103ff .); perhaps it was a lunar festival (cf. 11 Chron. 2.4)-the week of seven days is, of course, based upon the lunar month and the Sabbath would thus correspond to the quarterly phases of the moon. Nomads travel by night (for safety in moving their herds), and the moon is more important in their lives than the sun, since they do not depend upon the latter as settled agriculturalist peoples do. P's explanation is indubitably aetiological, that is, it discovers a developed religious motive to sanction or re-interpret a custom which had its origins in a much more primitive (and probably to later eyes somewhat disreputable) view of things.