Genesis-Commentary-1-to-9-Synopsis-Matthew-Poole-Trans-Steven-Dilday

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efficacious to assail. Some men will complain of words, some of sentences,
others of method. Some will find fault in overmuch brevity, others perhaps
even in excessive carefulness. In this place, a multiplicity of omissions will be
complained of; in that place, many superfluities, which by their very variety
might possibly overload and overwhelm the student. This possibility is to be
considered somewhat more carefully. Perhaps some will be anxious that the
minds of the readers might be distracted by such a great variety both of versions
and of interpretations, and that the truth, as it usually happens, would be
jeopardized in the great crowd of conflicting opinions. In response to which
several things can be put down: 1. A representation of diverse expositions was
not only designed and proposed by me, but was also in a way necessary in this
work. Otherwise, if I had prepared the entire commentary out of the
aforementioned authors, having rejected those things which might appear less
consonant with the text and the truth, and having selected and annotated those
things which I might judge to be more agreeable to them (from which
deliberation the authors were absent), I would have suffered under a most
heavy presumption that I had exercised a kind of dictatorship over my authors
and readers. 2. This variety serves not only for delight (which is by no means
to be despised, in as much as readers devour with pleasure useful things), but it
displays exceptional usefulness, in as much as, by means of discordant opinions,
with the movements of arguments, fully and faithfully exhibited, and also
patiently and tranquilly weighed, the investigation would be easier for the
reader and more reliable with respect to the truth. Now, the evidence of
truth, the power, and the authority all lie in this, that, if it would but shine
forth with its innate splendor, and if what is so worthy of attention would not
be presented in a false light, it would force itself upon human eyes and minds;
for we do not find it as difficult as we make it. The placing of errors next to
the truth will not be harmful to the truth at all; rather, from the comparison of
such, the truth itself will shine forth more brightly. 3. I might wish that these
would consider that this work was intended not for unlearned and uncultivated
intellects (the feeble capacities of which would easily be thrown into confusion
by this variety), but for learned men and for those who have their senses
exercised unto judgment, that I have prepared not milk for infants, but solid
food for adults,1 for whom, from the variety of the fare, there is little reason to
be concerned about danger or a lack of usefulness and profit. There is even
another advantage, that this variety of differing opinions will both exercise the
intellect of the reader beyond the ordinary measure and move him unto the
free exercise of his own judgment. For nothing is less worthy of a Christian
man, but especially of a theologian, than to surrender his own judgment to the
opinion or caprice of others and to concede with blind impetuosity the agenda

1 Hebrews 5:14.

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to whatever might please others. 4. That variety of versions and expositions,
and the inconsistency in them, presents itself for the most part in those passages
or matters, concerning which it might be lawful for this or that opinion to be
embraced without great danger. However, in differences of importance, let us
ardently invoke God and His promise to all the pious who seek the same Lord;
let us confidently beseech the Holy Spirit, who, if we would but yield to His
Word, which is indeed necessary for salvation, will most certainly lead us into
all truth.1 And this thus far might be sufficient to say.

Meanwhile, I apply my hand and mind to the second volume of the
Synopsis, which even now begins to sweat under a twofold press, and (if the
most merciful God will grant to me life and vigor) it will continue to sweat,
until it will have been brought to completion. Now, you, Christian reader,
with most vigorous prayers for my sake will prevail upon the Father of Lights,
that He might think it fitting to impart all gifts and helps necessary for such a
work, and that He might crown these and all other labors, which serve in the
explicating of the Sacred Scripture, with those successes so-much desired; so
that, with the darkness of all errors and ignorance finally dispelled, the Word of
God might be restored to its majesty and purity, and so that, being understood
in the right manner, it might be converted through the lively faith and constant
obedience of each Christian into marrow and blood.

1 John 16:13.

Preface to the Annotations: Genesis-Isaiah

Wherein the Authors of the ensuing Annotations (Supplemental to Mr. Poole)1
present to the Reader an Historical Account of the Translation of the Scriptures
into our English Tongue, the mighty Workings of Divine Providence conducive
to it, and the several Notes or Annotations which have been published, and a
particular Account of the Reverend Mr. Poole’s, and Their present
Undertaking, with the Reasons of it.

The same reason which teacheth us to conclude that there is a First
Being, and must be a First Cause and Mover, (whom we call God,) “that it is he
who hath made us, and not we ourselves,” and that “we are his people, and the
sheep of his pasture,” will also oblige us “to enter into his gates with
thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise,” and to “be thankful unto him”2 by
fulfilling his will; which we cannot do without some revelation of it to us. God
therefore having ceased to speak to men face to face, as to Abraham, and
Moses, etc., (which he never ordinarily did but to some particular favourites,)
we are by reason enforced to conclude that there are some books in the world
in which this revelation is to be found. The church of God (the mother of us
all) hath constantly held forth the books of the Old and New Testament (which
we have in our Bibles) for this sacred revelation, which hath justly obliged all
her children to look upon them as hung out to them for that use upon that
noble pillar, the church, looking into them upon the church’s notice, (as the
child does upon the mother’s telling it, That is the sun,) every reasonable man
finds them of so venerable antiquity, and discerneth in them such stamps of
divinity, in the majesty of their style, the purity of the matter, the sublimeness
and spirituality of the propositions contained in them, the self-denial of the
penmen, the heavenliness of the scope and end of those sacred writings, the
harmony of the parts, the seal of miracles, and principally in the mighty power
and efficacy of them upon the souls and consciences of multitudes, both for
conviction, and for support and consolation, that he easily concludes, This is
the voice of God, and not of man; and looks back upon his mother the church,

1 The authors and the portions contributed: John Jackson (Isaiah 59, 60); Dr. John
Collinges (Isaiah 61-66; Jeremiah; Lamentations; Gospels; 1 and 2 Corinthians;
Galatians; 1 and 2 Timothy; Titus; Philemon; Revelation); Henry Hurst (Ezekiel;
Minor Prophets); William Cooper (Daniel); Peter Vinke (Acts); Richard Mayo
(Romans); Edward Veale (Ephesians; James; 1 and 2 Peter; Jude); Richard Adams
(Philippians; Colossians); Matthew Barker (1 and 2 Thessalonians); Obadiah Hughes
(Hebrews); John Howe (1, 2, and 3 John).
2 Psalm 100:3, 4.

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(as a child upon his nurse,) thanking her for showing him such a treasure, and
saying, as the Samaritans to their countrywomen, John 4:42, Now we believe
these books are the word of God, not because of thy saying so, but because we
have looked upon them ourselves, and find them of a different style, nature and
matter, to have a different scope, end, power and efficacy of them upon the
souls of men, from what any other writings in the world have. Though the
truth is, that until a man comes to be fully persuaded of the truth of them from
the same Spirit that dictated them, every soul will be as apt to waver in his
faith, concerning their being the word of God, as he in Tully,1 who only
believed in the immortality of the soul from the reading of Plato’s book, which
(if I remember right) the Roman orator expresseth in words to this sense: I
have read over Plato’s book again and again; but I know not how it comes to
pass, so long as I am reading I agree with it; but no sooner is the book out of
my hands but de immortalitate animæ dubitare cœpi, I begin to doubt whether
the soul be immortal, yea or no. But, however, in one degree or other every
Christian makes that the principle of his religion, that the Holy Scriptures of the
Old and New Testament are the word of God. Some believe it more faintly and
uncertainly, some more fixedly and firmly; and accordingly the faith of
persons, as to them, is more or less operative.

This revelation of the Divine will was made perfect gradually, (as it
pleased God in succeeding times to reveal what was his secret will before, but
hid from ages,) so as (if chronologers compute right) there were more than
fifteen hundred years passed betwixt the writing of the first book of Genesis by
Moses, and the Revelation (which was the last) by John; and divines generally
judge that he sealed up the book by those words, Revelation 22:18, 19. So
that, as to things to be believed or done, we are to expect no further
revelation.

When “the mighty God, even the Lord,” had thus spoken, and God had
thus “shined out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,”2 it was but reasonable that
his people should come to the knowledge of what he had said, that they might
answer the end of the revelation both by believing and obeying.

The Old Testament being written in the Hebrew tongue, when great
numbers of the Hebrews or Jews, by their captivity in Babylon, had much
forgotten or corrupted their own language, it was thought reasonable there
should be a Chaldaic paraphrase; and the wisdom of Divine Providence
provided a Septuagint version, as for the benefit of others, so possibly of the
Jews themselves, the most of whom, before Christ’s time, were more Grecians
than Hebricians; and it is generally thought that all the books of the New

1 Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) is considered to be the greatest of the Roman
political rhetoricians. Tusculanæ Quæstiones 1:1.
2 Psalm 50:1, 2.

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Testament were written in the Grecian language.
When it pleased God that the gospel should be preached to all nations,

and the sound of it go to the ends of the earth, he so ordered it also, that soon
after true religion came into any place, some were stirred up to translate those
holy books into the language of that country; and he so far assisted them, that
though in many lesser things they failed through want of a knowledge of the
just propriety of some words in Hebrew or Greek, or the use of particles in
those languages, yet they fail not in anything whereby the reader might be led
into any pernicious error touching his salvation. And we shall observe the
penmen of the New Testament giving such a deference to the commonly
received version in their times, that although the Septuagint version which we
have appears to us more dissonant from the Hebrew than any other, yet most
of the quotations of the Old Testament which we have in the New are
apparently from that version; which teacheth us, that it is not every private
minister’s work to make a new version of the Scripture, but he ought to
acquiesce in the version which God hath provided for the church wherein he
lives, and not ordinarily, or upon light grounds, to enter into a dissent to it;
and if in any thing he sees it necessary to do it, yet not to do it (as to a
particular text) without great modesty, and a preface of reverence.

This translation of the Scriptures into a language understood by all
people in that country into which the church came was looked upon as so
reasonable and necessary, as it was opposed by none till the papists had patched
up a religion, for the upholding of which it was necessary for them to maintain,
that ignorance was the mother of devotion; after which it was very difficult in
any places where these spiritual tyrants had a dominion to get the Scriptures
translated into the language of that country. Not to instance in other places,
we shall give some short account of England. Our records tell us of a
translation of some part of them into the Saxon language (which was then a
great part of ours) within seven hundred years after Christ, and of the
translation of the whole into the same language by Beda1 within forty years
after. Beda was himself a papist, but the mystery of iniquity grew up gradually
to its height. Soon after, Bibles which the people could understand were very
scarce commodities in England, and thus it continued for six hundred years.
Wickliff,2 who lived in the time of Richard II., and died in AD 1384, being the
first we know of afterward who translated the Scriptures into a language
understood by any who were not skilled in some or other of three learned

1 The Venerable Bede (672-735) was one of the great Fathers of the Church in
England. He lived the life of a monk and devoted himself wholly to his studies. He is
remembered for his Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation.
2 John Wycliffe (c. 1320-1384) was an English theologian. Many of the central tenets
of the Reformation were anticipated in Wycliffe’s thought.

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languages. That great man easily understood, that without the Scriptures in
their own language the people must take all for the will of God that their
priests told them was so, and that the popish priests were generally persons of
ignorance, and impudence enough to entitle God to any of their own
blasphemies and superstitions. But within thirty years after the death of
Wickliff, viz. AD 1414, the council (or conventicle rather) of Constance1
decreed all Wickliff’s books to the fire; and though some were spared, yet the
battle was so hard that there were very few that escaped. This was our state till
the year AD 1527, (in all which year the poor people of the land of our nativity
were without a teaching Bible, (as to the common people,) and indeed without
a teaching priest,) yea, and for some time after this, as we shall hear.

In the year AD 1527 God put it into the heart of Mr. Tindall2 to
translate the New Testament into English; as also the five books of Moses (he
being then an exile in Germany for his religion). But he lost all his papers by a
shipwreck in his passage to Hamburg, and had his work to begin again; which
yet that faithful and most unwearied servant of God did accomplish, adding
some prefaces to the several books, and some notes to the particular chapters
and verses; the publishing of which much nettled the popish bishops in England,
and all means were then used to suppress it. Amongst others, the then bishop
of London advised with one Packington a merchant of that city concerning the
most accommodate mean to that design. The merchant could think of none so
probable, as with a sum of money to buy up the whole impression. The bishop
approving it, furnished him with a round sum for that purpose; which the
merchant (being more a friend to Mr. Tindall than the bishop knew) sent to
Mr. Tindall, and had the impression sent him (some few copies being (as we
must imagine) first sold off). With this money Mr. Tindall supported himself
in his exile, and was also enabled to go on with his translation of the other part
of the Bible,3 and to prepare a perfect English Bible (Sculterus’4 Annales in
anno 1532). In the meantime, a passage happened so pleasant, that I shall think
it worth the while here to relate it: Sir Thomas More5 being lord chancellor,
and having several persons accused for heresy, and ready for execution, offered

1 The Council of Constance was convened to address the papal schism and to continue
reform within the Roman Church. However, it condemned the reforming efforts of
John Wycliffe and Jan Hus, who was granted a safe passage to the council and then
condemned to be burned at the stake in 1415.
2 William Tyndale (c. 1494-1536).
3 See John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs 12.
4 Abraham Sculterus (1566-1624) was a German, Calvinist historian, whose Annals of
the Renewal of the Gospel throughout Europe provides an account of the first twenty
years of the Reformation. Scultetus was also a professor at the University of
Heidelberg and a delegate to the Synod of Dordt.
5 Sir Thomas More (1480-1535).

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to compound with one of them for his life (George Constantine), upon the easy
terms of his discovery to him who they were in London that maintained Tindall
beyond sea. After that the poor man had got as good a security for his life as
the honour and truth of the chancellor could give him, he told him it was the
bishop of London maintained him, by sending him a sum of money to buy up
the impression of his Testaments. The chancellor smiled, saying that he
believed he said true. Thus was the poor confessor’s life saved.1 But to return
to our story. In the year 1536 Mr. Tindall was martyred at Villefort in
Flanders, for translating into English the New Testament and part of the Old
(saith Sir Richard Baker, Chronicle 2822). But his great adversary, Sir Thomas
More, was the year before gone to his own place, being executed for treason.
Mr. Tindall and Mr. Coverdale,3 (as Mr. Fox telleth us,) before Mr. Tindall’s
death, had translated the whole Bible. But it came not out till after his death,
under the name of Thomas Matthews (with the addition of the Apocrypha,
translated by John Rogers4). The Lord Cromwell,5 with Archbishop
Cranmer,6 presented it to the king, and obtained an order from his majesty for
leave for any of his subjects to read it; but this was not without the great regret
of the bishops.

About thirteen years after this (or not so much) the Lord Cromwell
obtained letters from King Henry VIII for a subject of his to reprint at Paris the
Bible in English; the king also wrote a letter to Bonner7 (at that time his
ambassador in France) to further it. Grafton and Whitchurch8 undertook the

1 See Foxe, ibid.
2 Sir Richard Baker (1568-1645) was learned in matters of religion and history. His
Chronicle of the Kings of England, from the Time of the Romans’ Government unto
the Death of King James is here cited.
3 Miles Coverdale (1487-1568) began his career as an Augustinian monk, but he
embraced the Reformation. His work as a translator was his most important
contribution to the English Reformation.
4 John Rogers (c. 1500-1555) was a minister and a Bible translator. Tyndale
persuaded him to leave the Roman Church. He was the first to be martyred under
Mary’s persecution.
5 Lord Thomas Cromwell (c. 1485-1540) was an English stateman, instrumental in
Henry VIII’s break with Rome. Eventually, he fell out of favor with Henry and was
executed.
6 Thomas Cranmer (1489-1555) contributed significantly to the theological defense of
Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Consequently, he was soon made
Archbishop of Canterbury. He vigorously promoted the Reformation until his
martyrdom under Queen Mary.
7 Edmund Bonner (c. 1500-1569) was Bishop of London. He was given the moniker,
“Bloody Bonner,” for his persecution of Protestants under Queen Mary. He died in
prison under Queen Elizabeth.
8 Richard Grafton (c. 1513-1572) and Edward Whitchurch (c. 1520-1580) were
English printers; they produced the 1537 Matthew’s Bible and the Great Bible, as

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work, upon what seeming encouragement from Bonner may be read in Mr.
Fox’s 2nd volume of his Martyrology, 1641 edition, p. 515-516. But how it
came to pass I cannot tell, (though Bonner’s treachery was suspected in the
case,) when it was upon the point finished, the copies were seized, and ordered
to be burnt, and the work had wholly ceased but for the covetousness of the
officer, who sold four great dry fats filled with them to a haberdasher to lay
caps in. By this means having recovered some copies, they came to London,
and there made a new impression.

But after this, my Lord Cromwell being put to death, the bishops and
popish party made so great complaint to the king, (whose warmth for the
Reformation much abated in the latter part of his life,) that the sale of the
English Bible was again prohibited, and the printer imprisoned; and although
the bishops promised the king they would make a more correct translation, yet
it was never done during that king’s reign.

But in AD 1577, which was the nineteenth or twentieth of the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, some bishops published a new translation; but till that time
the Bibles used in churches were Tindall’s and Coverdale’s, being allowed by
the public authority of King Edward VI., AD 1549-1552. And to this day the
Psalms in our Service Book are according to Tindall’s and Coverdale’s Bibles;
which should make us wary in our censures of that translation, though we see
reason in many things to dissent from it. Only we having a more correct
translation established by authority, why (for the avoiding the offence of the
less knowing people) we have not made use of that, but retained a translation
not undertaken by any public authority, and confessed to be more imperfect, is
what I cannot, nor count myself obliged to account for. Possibly God for the
honour of his martyr hath so ordered it.

After this, King James coming to the crown, being a prince of great
learning and judgment, and observing the different usage of some words in his
age from the usage of them in King Henry VIII. or in Queen Elizabeth’s time,
and also the several mistakes (though of a minute nature) in those more ancient
versions, was pleased to employ divers learned men in making a new
translation, which is that which at this day is generally used. With what
reverence to former translators, what labor, and care, and pains they
accomplished their work, the reader may see at large in their preface prefixed
to those copies that are printed in folio, and in their epistle to King James in
our Bibles of a lesser form; of which translation (though it may not be without
its more minute errors) yet I think it may be said that it is hardly exceeded by
that of any other church.

By this history (reader) thou mayst understand the mighty workings of
Divine Providence, and wonderful goodness of God to this nation in the plenty

well as the Book of Common Prayer.

57

we have of Bibles, and that of a very correct translation (though possibly not in
every little thing perfect). Mr. Fox (if we remember right) tells us a story of
two maids in Lincolnshire, that in Queen Mary’s time parted with a
considerable part of their estate for a few leaves of the Bible. How good is God
to us, that we for a few shillings can have the whole revelation of the Divine
will! upon which account we offer it to the consideration of any thinking
English man or woman, what he or she will answer for his or her ignorance in
the Holy Scriptures, or for the ignorance of his or her children, if (having so
much means as we have to learn to read) and shall neglect the teaching of their
children to read it, or learning themselves, in case their parents have neglected
them; or, being able to read, shall neglect the practice of it, in exercising
himself in the law of the Lord day and night, and living up to the rule of it. The
English Bible is come to us at the price of the blood of one martyr, and the
unwearied labour of a multitude of holy and learned men, succeeding one
another for more than sixty years, before we had the translation so perfect as
now it is in all hands.

Poor Christians in popish countries either have not this pot of spiritual
food, or must cry out, “Death is in the pot.”1 Our English translators in their
preface observe, that of late the church of Rome would seem to bear something
of a motherly affection to her children, and allow them the Scriptures in the
mother tongue, but it is indeed a gift not worthy of its name. They must first
get a licence in writing before they use them, and, to get that, they must
approve themselves to their confessors to be such as are, if not frozen in dregs,
yet soured with the leaven, of their superstition. Yet this seemed too much to
Clement the Eighth,2 who therefore frustrated the grant of Pius the Fourth.3
They will allow none to be read but the Doway Bibles, and the Rhemish
Testaments,4 (the corruptions of which have been sufficiently manifested by
many learned men,) nor will they trust their people with these without the
licence of their own bishops and inquisitors. This is the liberty they boast of
giving to any of their religion to read the Scriptures in English; what it is worth

1 2 Kings 4:40.
2 Pope Clement VIII (1536-1605), under whose authority the Clementine Vulgate was
published (1592) and declared to be the only authorized edition of the Bible, replacing
the Sistine Vulgate, withdrew the right of bishops to grant licenses to the laity to read
the Bible in the vernacular (1596), granted by Pope Pius IV (1564), limiting that
power to the Papacy and Inquisition.
3 Pope Pius IV (1499-1565) reconvened the Council of Trent, confirmed its decrees,
and promulgated the Tridentine Creed, Tridentine Index, and accompanying rules
concerning prohibited books (1564), which conferred authority to the bishops to grant
licenses to approved laity to read the Bible in the vernacular.
4 The Douay Old Testament (1609) and the Rheims New Testament (1587) constitute
the Douay-Rheims Bible. It is a Roman Catholic English Version of the Latin
Vulgate.

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let any man judge.
In the mean time, those who are not affected with the mercy of God to

us in this particular, must declare themselves neither to have any just value for
God in the mighty workings of his providence to bring this about; nor yet for
the blood of holy Mr. Tindall, who died in his testimony to this truth, that no
people ought to be deprived of so great a good; nor for the labours and pains of
those many servants of God who travailed in this great work, and thought no
labour in it too much; nor indeed for their own souls, to the salvation of which,
if the Holy Scriptures in our language doth not highly contribute, we must lay
the blame upon ourselves.

But although we have the Bible in a language we understand, yet we
may see reason to cry out as Bernard1 does with reference to the Song of
Solomon, Here is an excellent nut, but who shall crack it? heavenly bread, but
who shall break it? For though the papists and such as have ill will to the good
of souls make too great an improvement of the difficulties in holy writ, in
making them an argument against the people’s having them in a language which
they can understand; (for Augustine said true when he said, There are fords in
them wherein lambs may wade, as well as depths in which elephants may
swim;) and what others observe is as true, that things necessary to be believed
or done in order to salvation, lie plain and obvious in holy writ: yet it is as
true, that there is much of holy writ of which the generality of people must say
as the eunuch, “How can I understand, except some man should guide me!”
Acts 8:31; (not to mention the seeming contradictions that are betwixt the holy
penmen of those sacred books;) and indeed it is hard to say what book of
Scripture is so plain that every one who runneth can read it with
understanding2 (such a vast difference there is betwixt the capacities of those
who yet have the same honest hearts). This hath made wise and learned men
not only see a need of larger commentaries, but also of shorter notes,
annotations, and paraphrases, etc. Nor is this a late discovery. It is upward of
three hundred years since Lyra wrote his short notes upon the whole Bible.
What Vatablus and Erasmus3 (though all of them papists) have done since is
sufficiently known, to say nothing of many others of that religion. Amongst the
Reformed churches, there hath been a learned Piscator in Germany, Junius and

1 Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1157) was a Cistercian monk and abbot, whose learning
and austere piety caused him to become very influential in his day. He wrote a
commentary on the Song of Solomon.
2 See Habakkuk 2:2.
3 Desiderius Erasmus (1467-1536) was a Dutch humanist, a classical scholar, and a
Roman Catholic theologian. Although he never left the Roman Church, he sought the
reformation of its corruptions, and he contributed greatly to the Reformation through
the production of his various editions of the Greek New Testament. He was certainly
one of the greatest and most influential scholars of his time.

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Tremellius elsewhere, who did the same things; but all these wrote their notes
in Latin, not in the peculiar language of any country. The ancientest notes we
have in English were those ordinarily known by the name of the Geneva Notes,
after two years labour finished 1560, by those good men who, flying from
Queen Mary’s persecution, took sanctuary there. A work so acceptable to
protestants in the beginning of our Reformation, that their Bible with those
Notes annexed was (as is observed by the authors of our Late English
Annotations1) printed above thirty times over by Queen Elizabeth’s printers
and their heirs and successors. There wanted not one indeed who fifty years
after boldly reflected on that excellent work in the most public pulpit of our
University of Oxford; but how grateful his reflections were to the University at
that time may be read in the preface to the English Annotations: he was in the
same pulpit checked and confuted by the doctor of the chair, and suspended by
the governors of the University.2 The labours of Erasmus in his Paraphrase on
the New Testament were so acceptable, that by public order they were to be in
every church exposed to public view and use, and (if we mistake not) ought to
be so still. After these, were published Diodate’s Notes written in Italian, since
translated into English.3 About the year 1640 some deliberations were taken
for the composing and printing other English notes (the old Geneva Notes not
so well fitting our new and more correct translation of the Bible). These were
at first intended to be so short, that they might be printed together with our
Bibles in folio or quarto. But those divines who were engaged in it found this
would not answer their end; it being not possible by so short notes to give

1 The English Annotations were the product of some notable members of the
Westminster Assembly, but, although they are often referred to as the “Westminster
Annotations,” they were not in fact an official production of that Assembly. The
English Annotations are more accurately described as a production commissioned by
Parliament which included the work of some members of that august Assembly. The
contributors include: The Pentateuch by John Ley; 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2
Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Job by William Gouge; Psalms by Meric
Casaubon; Proverbs by Francis Taylor; Ecclesiastes by Edward Reynolds; Song of
Solomon by Mr. Smallwood; Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Lamentations by Thomas Gataker;
Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets by Mr. Pemberton (revised in the second
edition by Bishop Richardson); the Gospels by John Ley; and Daniel Fealty
commented on the Pauline Epistles. The remaining books are thought to have been
completed by John Downham and John Reading, and the overall production was
supervised by John Downham.
2 This incident occurred in 1612. Dr. Robert Abbott protested that the Geneva Notes
were “guiltie of mis-interpretation, touching the Divinitie of Christ and his Messiah-
ship, and as Symbolizing with Arrians and Jews,” a charge which was refuted by Sir
Thomas Bodley, founder of the Bodleian Library.
3 The Annotationes in Biblia were published by Giovanni Diodati (1576-1649), a
Swiss Protestant and delegate to the Synod of Dordt. He published his annotations in
Italian in 1607, and they were translated into English in 1648.

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people any tolerable light into the whole text; yet we cannot say it gave so
general a satisfaction (by reason of the shortness of it) as was desired and
expected. So as upon the second edition it came forth quite a new thing,
making two just volumes. This was so acceptable to the world, that within
sixteen years it was ready for a third edition, with some further enlargements;
before which also were published the Dutch Annotations translated into our
language.1

So that at this day (besides the shorter Geneva Notes) we have three
sorts of annotations in our own language; those of famous Diodate, the Dutch
Annotations, and those of our own divines (originally so wrote). After which,
new annotations may seem superfluous. It seems therefore reasonable that we
should give our readers some short account of our undertaking. We dare say
nothing could be farther from the thoughts of our reverend brother (now at
rest with God) who at first began this work, than to reflect any dishonour upon
those eminent persons who laboured before in works of this nature, nor is any
thing further from our thoughts. (They all of them did famously in their
generations.) And if it should appear to any of our readers that any of us have
seen further into any particular texts than those did who went before us, yet we
hope all our readers will understand there is little honour due to us upon that
account, because we had all their shoulders to stand upon.

The pains which our reverend brother (o( makari/thj) took in his
Synopsis Criticorum is such, as not only will make his name live in the churches
of Christ, but also eminently fitted him for giving the sense of the whole
Scripture in Annotations of this nature, which he undertook and carried on by
his own hand to Isaiah 58, designing that two volumes should comprehend the
whole, and that the first should determine with his notes upon the Song of
Solomon. What occasioned his first thoughts and undertaking himself tells us
in his paper of proposals published with reference to that work, in these words:
“But although there are many excellent comments upon divers parts of the
Scripture, and some entire comments, or large annotations, upon the whole, in
the English tongue; yet because of the too much brevity of some, and the
unequal composure of others, as being done by divers hands, and the prolixity
of those that have been written upon particular books, it hath been often and
earnestly wished that there were some short and full comment, wherein all
those passages which need the help of an interpreter might be sufficiently
cleared,” etc. As the first edition of our English Annotations, after which
followed the translation of those of the learned Diodate into our language, and
then those of the Low Country divines of Holland, (though all of them

1 The Synod of Dordt commissioned a translation of the Bible, with annotations, into
Dutch, all which was translated into English and published by Theodore Haack in
1657.

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deservedly valuable,) seemed much too short to satisfy the thirst of many pious
souls after the fuller knowledge of the Scriptures; so the larger edition of our
English Annotations seems capable of some amendments, by which they might
be made more serviceable to those that use them, especially in these
particulars.

1. The whole text is not printed in them, so as those who will use
them must make use of a Bible also for the understanding of them. Our
reverend brother (with whom also we concur) rightly judged that it would be
of more advantage to have the entire text in the reader’s eye while he is seeking
the sense of any particular place, and while he reads a chapter to have a
commentary under his eyes in which he might find the sense of any part of it,
and satisfy himself as to any difficulty occurring in it.

2. As some (very eminently learned men) had been too large in those
Annotations, (saying almost all that hath been said by any upon the texts they
handled,) so others had been as much too short, and that especially in the New
Testament (which seems to Christians to need the fullest explication); and
others, from their variety of learning, had mixed several quotations out of the
fathers, and critical and philological notions, possibly not so proper for the end
for which such annotations are designed, which is to give the unlearned
Christians the true sense of the Holy Scriptures, that those who can, might read
and understand the will of God.

That our reader may not mistake our design or undertaking, we desire
that he should know, that we do not pretend (as some have vainly fancied) to
translate Mr. Pool’s Synopsis Criticorum; that would have asked six volumes
instead of two; and when it had been done, would have signified very little,
unless for those who (being learned men) needed no such translation:1 possibly
in a whole leaf of that book six lines would not serve our purpose. Nor have
we had any ambition either to say something that none had said before us, (we
have observed that those who have had such an itch have for the most part
happened to say what those who came after them would not subscribe,) nor yet
to say all that we knew was said before us; (that had been to have confounded
our readers only with a variety of senses;) we have only hinted the senses which
in our judgment have seemed fairest, and least constrained, and shortly showed
the consonancy of them to other scriptures. We have avoided all polemical
discourses, as no way proper to our design, and very rarely hinted those
practical conclusions which have arose from the text when opened (the most
we have done of that nature is in our discourses upon the parables).

Our reverend brother (designing but two volumes, and the first to end

1 Whereas Latin is no longer a part of regular ministerial training, and whereas the
Synopsis is full of profitable matter for the motivated layman, a translation is
warranted.

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with the Song of Solomon, though since it hath been determined to conclude it
with the prophet Isaiah, that all which he lived to finish might be
comprehended in one volume) had a hard task to contract his discourses so as
to bring them within that compass, and thereby was necessitated not to give the
entire sense of each verse in his notes, but only of those words or terms in the
verse which he conceived to stand in need of explication, referring by letters in
the text to the parts of the commentary. This was not necessary in such parts
of the Scripture where the entire sense of the whole text is given; nor indeed as
to some parts is it possible (such we mean as are opened harmonically); of
which nature are the three first evangelists. It is confessed by all, that the
evangelists make up but one entire history, though some of them have some
things which the others have not, and they seldom agree in the phrases and
circumstances of any one piece of history. This made it reasonable that, with
the interpretation of one evangelist, should be joined what the others had with
reference to the same piece of history; which method hath been accordingly
pursued (being the same in which the most judicious Mr. Calvin and others
have gone before us); nor indeed could any other course have been taken
without a needless writing the same things over and over again; so as that in our
notes upon Mark we have only enlarged in the explication of what he hath
which we did not meet with before in Matthew; and in the explication of Luke,
we have only opened what he hath which was not in Matthew or Mark. Where
they all three concurred, or but two of them concurred, in any story, we have
opened what they all or both say in our notes upon the first of them; and when
we have come to it again in one or both the other, we have only referred to our
former notes. John (having little which the other evangelists have) we have
considered by himself mostly, yet sometimes taking in something from him,
where we found it completory of any thing related by the other evangelists.

In magnis voluisse sat est, it is enough to have willed in great things.
We cannot say that we have left no room for others to come after us, and add
to or correct what we have said. But this we can say in truth, that we have not
willingly balked any obvious difficulty, and have designed a just satisfaction to
all our readers; and if any knot remain yet untied, we have told our readers
what hath been most probably said for their satisfaction in the untying of it.

If it had pleased God to have lent a little longer life to our reverend
brother, the work had very probably been done to greater advantage, and more
general satisfaction. We are but entered upon his harvest, and have wanted his
sickle; we cannot pretend to any double portion of his spirit. His mantle
dropped from him before he was translated (we mean his Synopsis). We have
taken that up; out of that great work of his we have taken so much as we judged
proper for his design in this work, and made use of great number of other
authors, some of which he left out, or very little considered, in his Synopsis,

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upon design to make a further use of them in this English work, as thinking
their labours more proper for this than his other work.

Our design, good reader, was not to tell thee how the fathers
interpreted texts, (Aquinas,1 Justinianus,2 and others have done that work,)
nor yet to tell thee any grammatical niceties, or what learned men have
critically noted upon terms or phrases, (that is done in the Synopsis
Criticorum,) nor yet to tell thee what conclusions of truth may be raised from
the verses, (that hath been done profitably upon many books of Scripture by
Mr. Dickson,3 Hutchinson,4 Fergusson,5 Guild,6 Durham,7 and some others,)
much less to handle the controversies that have risen from any portion of
Scripture. Our work hath been only to give thee the plain sense of the
Scripture, and to reconcile seeming contradictions where they occurred, and as
far as we were able to open scripture by scripture, which is its own best
interpreter, comparing things spiritual with spiritual, “that thy faith might not
stand in the wisdom of men, but in the wisdom and power of God.”8 If we
have reached this end, it is all we aimed at; if thou gettest any good by what we
have done, remember thy sacrifice is due at another altar, even His who
“ministereth seed to the sower,”9 who both watereth the furrows of the field,
and blesseth the springing of the corn; let Him have the praise, and we only thy
prayers, that we may live a useful life, and die a happy death, and “attain to the

1 Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224-1274) was perhaps the greatest of the mediæval scholastic
theologians.
2 Justinian I (483-565) was the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire from 527 until
his death.
3 David Dickson (1583-1662) was a Scottish Presbyterian divine. Dickson served his
church as a minister and Professor of Divinity at Glasgow and at Edinburgh. He was
ejected in 1662, after the Restoration, and he died later that same year. He co-
authored the Sum of Saving Knowledge, and he wrote commentaries on the Psalms,
the Gospel of Matthew, and the Epistles of Paul, including Hebrews.
4 George Hutcheson (1618-1674) was a Scottish Presbyterian divine, who wrote
commentaries on the Minor Prophets, Job, and the Gospel of John.
5 James Fergusson (1621-1667) was a Scottish Presbyterian divine, who wrote
commentaries on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians.
6 William Guild (1586-1657) was a Scottish minister and theologian. He served as
Principal of King’s College (1640), but, having allied himself with the Royalists
during the Civil War, he was deposed in 1651. He wrote commentaries on the Song
of Songs and Revelation.
7 James Durham (1622-1658) was a Scottish Presbyterian divine. He served as a
minister and Professor of Divinity at Glasgow. He co-authored the Sum of Saving
Knowledge and authored learned commentaries on the Song of Solomon and
Revelation.
8 1 Corinthians 2:5.
9 2 Corinthians 9:10.

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resurrection of the dead,”1 in which we shall all see and understand more
perfectly than we yet do.

1 Philippians 3:11.

Commentary on Genesis



The Argument of the Book of Genesis

This Book is called Genesis, i.e. generation, or birth, giving an account
of passages during 2300 years and upwards, viz. from the creation of all things,
to the death of Joseph. In which history Moses, by Divine inspiration, treats of
the creation of the world, with all the parts and uses in it, and of it, but chiefly
of man, who alone was made after God’s image; where he lays down God’s
concessions and prohibitions to him; and man’s transgression, together with the
woeful effects, and the remedy of them in the promise of a Saviour; the
original, progress, and preservation of the true church, springing from Abel,
and carried on by Seth, Enoch, etc.; and the ground and rise of apostacy, begun
in Cain, and carried on by his posterity, separating themselves from the holy
seed, till by their monstrous provocations they had brought a universal deluge
to destroy all mankind from off the earth, excepting only Noah and his family;
out of which, as the church did again spring forth, so another cursed race
carrying on the former enmity to a greater height, not only fell into idolatry,
after it had continued a considerable time in Shem’s race, but breaking out into
all outrages, and tyrannical oppressions, it was almost extinct among those
numerous nations that Noah’s posterity sprang out into. But God calling
Abraham into the Land of Promise, who was an idolater in Chaldea, and giving
him temporal and spiritual promises, and especially that of the Messiah coming
out of his loins, and assuring it by a special covenant sealed by circumcision, the
church began now to take root, and to be embodied in Jacob’s family under the
name of Israel; and here God undertook the protection of his people and
worship, by the visible presence of Christ her Head, that Angel of the
covenant, going continually with them, comforting and defending them, till
they came into Egypt, where the church continued until Joseph’s death; where
this Book ends.



Chapter 1

The whole visible creation asserted in general, 1. Showed in particular
the condition of the rude matter of it, 2. The formation of the several
creatures on the several days. (1.) Light produced by the powerful word of
God, 3; approved and separated from the darkness, 4; named, and the first day
declared, 5. (2.) The firmament formed, its use, name, and time, 6-8. (3.)
The waters separated from the earth; sea and dry land named and approved, 9,
10. The earth brings forth grass, herbs, and trees; approved, and time
declared, 11-13. (4.) The firmament furnished with sun, moon, and stars;
their uses assigned, their names, with approbation, and time of doing, declared,
14-19. (5.) Waters and air furnished, approved, blessed, and time of it
declared, 20-23. (6.) The earth furnished with living creatures sensitive, and
approved, 24, 25. Rational man in both sexes created upon consultation,
according to God’s image, with dominion over the other creatures; and
blessed, 26-28. Food appointed for man, 29; for beasts, 30: the whole
approved on the sixth day.

[4004 BC] Verse 1: In the beginning (John 1:1, 2; Heb. 1:10) God
created the heaven and the earth (Ps. 8:3; 33:6; 89:11, 12; 102:25; 136:5;
146:6; Is. 44:24; Jer. 10:12; 51:15; Zech. 12:1; Acts 14:15; 17:24; Col. 1:16,
17; Heb. 11:3; Rev. 4:11; 10:6).

[In the beginning] In the first place, he sets forth the event as a whole,
so that the Author of the world might be known, for the world was not from
eternity, as the philosophers supposed; then, he sets forth that God created
something out of nothing. Because of this verse, the Septuagint translators call
the book Ge/nesin/Genesis, either because, in this verse, it is declared that the
world was created by God or because it is declared that the origins of all things
in the earth are here comprehended (Vatablus). Now, most fittingly did Moses
set before his readers the history from the creation of the world. For the world
harmonizes with the Law; the Law harmonizes with the world, as Philo1 says.
See what things, concerning the entire creation, have been brought together by
us in Concerning the Truth of the Christian Religion 1 (Grotius).

[In the beginning, ty#$)i r"b];@ This expression has reference either to
time or to order (Fagius). 1. Certain interpreters apply the term to order
(Fagius out of Kimchi2): As the first of all things (lkh@& a, of all things, is to be

1 Philo was a first century Jewish scholar of Alexandria, Egypt. In him, one finds a
synthesis of Platonic philosophy and Hebrew exegesis and theology.
2 David Kimchi (c. 1160-1235) was a famous Spanish Rabbi. He wrote a

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understood;1 for it is a common practice among the Hebrews in matters not
ambiguous to leave something unstated, as in Job 3:10;2 Isaiah 8:4 [He will take
away the wealth of Damascus; it does not say who will do it (Vatablus)]) God
created the heaven and the earth; then He created what things were brought
forth from them (Fagius). In the beginning, or, in other words, before all
things: He created nothing before those things. Compare with John 1:1
(Lapide, Philo in Drusius). The first thing that God created was, etc. (Arabic).
If a question will be moved concerning the Angels, it will be asserted that the
purpose of Moses was only to discuss the visible fabric (Clario). In the
beginning, namely, of time (Lyra, Estius, Menochius, Tirinus, Piscator), or of
the production of things or of the creation (Lyra, Piscator), or of the universe
of things (Tirinus), of the world (Piscator), of the creature, as Christ explains it
in Mark 13:19 (Ainsworth). In, or at the time of, the immediate beginning
(Estius). I translate ty#$i)r"b;@ as in the beginning, or at first. Certain Hebrews
judge the b here to be superfluous: Just as hnwF #O $)rbI f@ in Num. 10:13, 143 is
read without the b, hnwF #O )$ rI, in Num. 2:9,4 so also ty#$)i r" is employed
instead of ty#i)$ rb" ;@ in Deut. 33:21,5 which I thus render: He made provision
for himself first, that is, he made provision for himself to take part in the first
entry into the borders of the Promised Land (Gataker’s Cinnus 153). Peter
Picherel, a most learned man, paraphrases the passage as follows: The heaven
and the earth appeared in the beginning; God created them. The Hebrew: In
the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth; that is, In the beginning
of the heaven and the earth, God created them. This form of speech is not
unusual. Psalm 2:7: I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me;
or, that is, I will declare the decree of the LORD: He hath said unto me, etc.6

commentary on the entire Old Testament and a Hebrew grammar, as a result of which
he has long been respected for his profound scholarship.
1 If ty#i)$ r"b;@ is understood as referring to the first in the series of created things, then
the rest of the series, all of the other things soon to be created, is implied.
2 Job 3:10: “. . . because it shut not up the doors of my womb (mother’s being
implied), nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.”
3 Numbers 10:13, 14a: “And they first (hnFw#O $)rIb)@f took their journey according to
the commandment of the Lord by the hand of Moses. In the first place (hnwF #O )$ rbI @f)
went the standard of the camp of the children of Judah according to their armies . . .”.
4 Numbers 2:9: “All that were numbered in the camp of Judah were an hundred
thousand and fourscore thousand and six thousand and four hundred, throughout their
armies. These shall first (hn#F )$o rI) set forth.”
5 Deut. 33:21a: “And he provided the first part (ty#)$i r)" for himself, because there,
in a portion of the lawgiver, was he seated . . .”.
6 Hebrew: yla)' rm)a f hwhFO y; qxo l)e hrFps;% )a .j There is a grammatical ambiguity:
LORD/hwFOhy; might be read in the absolute state, forming a construct chain with

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So it is in Proverbs 31:30: beauty is vain: but a woman fearing, etc.; that is,
The beauty of woman is vain; but, she who feareth, etc.1 So it is in Genesis
3:22: Lest he put forth his hand, and eat from the tree, etc.; in other words,
Lest he put forth his hand to the tree, and eat.2 So it is in John 4:54: This
second sign Jesus did, when he had come out of Judæa into Galilee; that is, This
second sign Jesus did in Galilee, when he had come out of Judæa into it.
Picherel records these in On Creation, which is found in his Short Theological
Works. 2. Other interpreters apply the term to time. In the beginning of the
creating (thus )rFbf@ is treated as )robf@3) of God; or, when God created; or,
more clearly, when God first created the heaven and the earth, then the earth
was empty, etc., so that it would be referred to the following verse. So, the
w4 either is to be rendered as “then” or is superfluous (Vatablus, Grotius).
Before He was creating or forming the heaven and the earth, that is, this
universe such as it is now, then the earth was empty, etc. (Grotius). The
Chaldean Version translates in wisdoms,5 that is, most wisely (Vatablus).
Others explain in the beginning with reference to Christ; thus, many Christian
interpreters (Ainsworth). Aquila6 translates it, e0n kafali/di, in summation,
that is, summarily, as if he should say, God, creating the heaven and the earth,
in those, simultaneously created, as it were, all remaining things summarily
(Lapide). It can be rendered in summary or in brief; as if he should say, the
summary or sum of the things created is the creation of the heaven and the
earth; for the rest of the created things are comprised in them (Malvenda).

qxo/decree. Consequently, the verse would read: I will declare the decree of the
LORD: He hath said to me, etc. However, hwhOF y;/LORD might also be read as the
subject of rm)a f/hath said. Then, the verse would read: I will declare the decree: the
LORD hath said to me, etc. There is no substantial difference in meaning.
1 Hebrew: t)ar:yI h#%f)$ i ypiy%Oha lbhe ew.: h#$%f)i/woman can be either the absolute in
construct with ypyi hO% a/beauty, the beauty of woman is vain, but she who fears, etc.; or
the subject of the next clause, beauty is vain, but the woman who fears, etc.
2 Hebrew: lk)a fw: Myy%xI aha C('m' Mg@a xqalfw: wOdyF xla#$;y-I Np%.e The grammatical
ambiguity rests in whether Myyx%I aha C('m,' from the tree of life, belongs with the
preceding clause, lest he stretch forth his hand and take also from the tree of life, and
eat, or with the succeeding clause, lest he stretch forth his hand and take; also from
the tree of life eat.
3 Although the Hebrew text has the verb in the perfect ()rFb)f@ , here the verb has been
repointed to capture the gerundial force of the infinitive absolute ()rbo )@f .
4 The w here mentioned is the conjunction between the first and second verses.
5 Aramaic: Nymidq: ab.;@
6 Aquila of Sinope produced his Greek version of the Old Testament in the second
century of the Christian era. Aquila’s translation champions the cause of Judaism
against Christianity in matters of translation and interpretation. The product is
woodenly literalistic.

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ty#$i)r" is derived from #$)Or/head: it does not denote a beginning simply,
but that first beginning, chief and to be admired, of all things (Fagius). The
Hebrews say that seven things were created before the world: Paradise, the
Law, Ceremonial Worship, Israel, the Throne of Majesty, Jerusalem, and
Messiah (Munster).

In the beginning, to wit, of time and things, in the first place, before
things were distinguished and perfected in manner hereafter expressed. Or the
sense is this, The beginning of the world was thus. And this phrase further
informeth us, that the world, and all things in it, had a beginning, and were not
from eternity, as some philosophers dreamed.

[He created, )rbF ]@f It is taken in two ways: 1. to create out of
nothing (Fagius, Drusius, Estius), as it is proven from the words, in the
beginning, because, of course, nothing was made before those things (Estius):
2. to bring forth from preexisting material something excellent; thus it is said
afterwards that He created the sea-monster and man1 (Fagius, Drusius).

[God, Myh$li )]v Moses makes use only of this name of God in the
description of the creation (Vatablus). This word (as Ibn Ezra2 points out) is
not the substantial name of God; it does not reveal the essential nature of God,
but His potency, which shines forth with particular brilliance in the creation
(Fagius). They maintain that God is thus designated because He is Lord and
Judge of all (Vatablus). The Kabbalists3 note that hwOFhy/: Jehovah signifies the
mercy of God, Myhil$ )/v Elohim the judgment (Fagius).

[Myhil$ )v )rbF @]f Woodenly, Gods created.4 Here, the plurality in
God is intimated with the unity; although the Jews try frivolously to refute it
(Munster, Fagius, Piscator, Ainsworth), they and the ancient Hebrews
recognize it as truth. Come and see the mystery of the word, Elohim: there
are three degrees, and every degree by itself alone (that is, distinct);
nevertheless, they are one, united in one, and are not divided one from
another, says Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai, in the Zohar,5 upon the sixth section of

1 Man was created from the preexisting material of the dust of the ground (Gen. 2:7;
3:19). All of the animals of the land were brought forth from preexisting material of
the earth (1:24; 2:19). It appears that the creatures of the sea were likewise brought
forth from the preexisting material of the waters (1:20, 21).
2 Abraham Ibn Ezra (c. 1089-1164) was a renowned Spanish Rabbi. At the heart of
his work is his commentary on the Hebrew Bible. He commented on all of the books,
with the exception of Chronicles, and his exegesis manifests a commitment to the
literal sense of the text.
3 The Kabbalah is a set of secret, esoteric Rabbinic doctrines, handed down orally and
based on a mystical interpretation of the Hebrew Scripture.
4 Although Elohim/Myhl$i )v is formally plural, it takes the singular verb, )rbF f@.
5 The Zohar is one of the principal texts for Kabbalists. It was probably written by

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Leviticus (Ainsworth). By a threefold explanation the Jews try to obscure the
word, Elohim. 1. They say that Elohim is singular, as much in word as in
significance; from which they set forth the word as God, and not as Gods. But
he speaks falsely and contrary to the nature of the sacred tongue, whoever says
that the word, Elohim, is singular and is to be set forth in the singular, since the
singular form of it is well-known, either l)' or hl@A$ )v. For whatever name,
with a plural ending, has its own familiar singular from which it is formed, is
never taken as a singular thing, unless it be thus taken figuratively. 2. They
assert that Elohim is put in the plural because it points to God’s virtues and
qualities, which are many. But if you would that the name of each thing be put
in the plural because of its many virtues, what, pray, will be the confusion of
language! 3. Others say that Elohim is spoken in the plural for the honor of
God, and this from civilized custom; just as MynId)o /j lords is spoken concerning
one lord in Genesis 42:30 and Isaiah 19:4.1 And this is the idiom of the
Israelite language, says Ibn Ezra, so that kings might speak of themselves in the
plural number. Response: It might be so in foreign and barbarous tongues:
what is this to the sacred tongue, to which purity and simplicity are particularly
belonging and all pretence is displeasing (Fagius’ Comparison of the Principal
Translations)? But to many this argument appears invalid. So it is with
Drusius, and with the Dutch Version, Cajetan,2 and Mercerus, whom Drusius
cites in Concerning Things Sought by Epistle 66. For Elohim, when it is
spoken concerning one, has a singular sense; and it is spoken concerning one
calf in Exodus 32:4, one angel in Judges 13:22, and one idol in Judges 16:23.
The Hebrews note three vocabulary words which have plural endings but retain
a singular sense: Elohim, Adonim/lords, Baalim (to which might be added
yd@#A $a/Almighty). Each language has its own peculiarity. Who concludes that
Athenas, Thebas, tenebras, etc.3 are plural because they are expressed in the
plural? So it is with the Hebrews: MyyxI a is life, and MymI a is water4 (Drusius’

Moses de León in the thirteenth century, but it has traditionally been attributed to
Simeon ben Jochai, a second century Rabbi and mystic.
1 This linguistic phenomenon is, of course, invisible in translation. Genesis 42:30:
“The man (#y$ )ih,f singular), who is the lord of the land (CrE)fhf ynd" o)j, plural), spake
roughly to us, and took us for spies of the country.” Isaiah 19:4: “And the Egyptians
will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord (MyndI )o ,j plural); and a fierce king (Kl7 me ew,@
singular) shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts.”
2 Thomas Cajetan (1469-1534) was an Italian cardinal and one of the more able
opponents of the Reformation. His commentary on the Pentateuch, In Quinque
Libros Mosis, is likely the work here cited.
3 These are Latin words which, although written with plural endings, are singular in
meaning.
4 Note the masculine, plural My -I endings.

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Concerning Things Sought by Epistle 66). In verse 2, He is the Spirit of
Elohim. If Elohim, by virtue of its number, implies plurality, then the Holy
Spirit is the Spirit of Himself (Drusius on verse 2). [He who would know more
concerning this controversy, let him consult the polemical authors.]

[The heavens and the earth, Cr)E hf f t)'w: MymI #a %hf$ a t)]' By the
heavens and the earth is intended this universe, such as it now is. Whence the
world to come derives its name, 2 Peter 3:13 (Grotius). Others understand
the heavens and the earth in this way: first, God created these out of nothing;
then, He created the remaining things from these as from preexisting material
(thus Kimchi in Fagius’ Comparison of the Principal Translations). He created
the material of the heavens and the earth (Piscator). Others understand all
heavenly and earthly creatures (Fagius, Vatablus, Lyra, Estius, Ainsworth). For
thus Acts 20:11 is explained1 (Estius). And the Hebrews prove this from the
particle, t),e which is not only a simple case marker,2 but it expresses the sum
of the matter (Kimchi and Ibn Ezra in Fagius and Ainsworth). (And so the
angels were created with these [Estius].) God created heavenly bodies and
earthly bodies (Vatablus, Lyra), in their own essential forms, not, however, in
their accidental forms (Lyra). And the h3 in MymI #a $ha% a, the heavens, they call h
of h(yf dIyh:% a, or the article of notification or a demonstrative article, as if he
should say, this heaven and this earth (Fagius). It appears that Moses has
sufficiently explained his own mind in chapter 2, furnishing
an) akefalai/wsin, a summary, of the preceding narrative: He says, So the
heavens and the earth were completed with the host of them, and, again, These
are the generations of the heavens and the earth, on which day He made the
heavens and the earth. With these words, he is not designating another heaven
and another earth than those which we see. Now, the heavens are composed of
three regions: 1. in which are birds, 2. in which are clouds, 3. in which are
stars. Now, by the name of earth, water is comprehended, as it is plain from
Psalm 121:2; 124:8 and Jeremiah 10:11 compared with Psalm 146:6 and Acts
4:24; 14:15; likewise, from Genesis 1:15, so that they might light the earth, for
it applies even to the sea, Acts 27:30, 33 (Gataker’s Cinnus 158). The heavens
and the earth here signify the entire universe. Consult Genesis 2:1; Psalm
33:6; 124:8; 146:6. See Acts 14:15; 17:24 (Picherel).

[The heavens] Namely, the Empyrean, the abode of God (thus
Bonfrerius, Lapide, Menochius). Thus Theodoret,4 Alcuin,1 Rabanus,2 and

1 The relationship between this discussion and Acts 20:11 is not readily apparent.
Perhaps Acts 10:11 or 17:24 is intended.
2 t)e is frequently used to mark the direct object.
3 The h is the definite article.
4 Theodoret (393-457) came up under the tutelage of Theodore of Mopsuestia and

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Bede3 in Tirinus. But He created not an empty one, but one filled with angels
(Tirinus). For the firmament, that is, the eightfold heaven and graded spheres
were created on the second day (Lapide). This does not satisfy Piscator. For
God observes this order, that He progresses consistently from the less perfect
to the more perfect. Neither does he agree that a perfect heaven is here to be
understood, when the earth signifies just the material of the earth.

God created the heaven and the earth; made out of nothing, either, 1.
The heaven and earth as now they are with their inhabitants. So this verse is a
summary or brief of what is particularly declared in the rest of this chapter.
Or, 2. The substance and common matter of heaven and earth. Which seems
more probably by comparing this verse with the next, where the earth here
mentioned is declared to be without form, and the heavens without light; as
also with Genesis 2:1, where the heavens and the earth, here only said to be
created, are said to be finished or perfected. Yet I conceive the third heaven to
be included under the title of the heaven, and to have been created and
perfected the first day, together with its blessed inhabitants the holy angels, as
may be collected from Job 38:6, 7. But the Scripture being written for men,
and not for angels, the Holy Ghost thought it sufficient to comprehend them
and their dwelling-place under that general term of the heavens, and
proceedeth to give a more particular account of the visible heavens and earth,
which were created for the use of man. In the Hebrew it is, the heavens and
the earth. For there are three heavens mentioned in Scripture: the aerial; the
place of birds, clouds, and meteors, Matthew 26:64; Revelation 19:17; 20:9.
The starry; the region of the sun, the moon, and stars, Genesis 22:17. The
highest or third heaven, 2 Corinthians 12:2; the dwelling of the blessed angels.

John Chrysostom. With such instructors, it is not surprising that his comments on the
Scripture are sober, sound in judgment, and clear in expression. He commented on
most of the books of the Bible.
1 Alcuin of York (c. 735-804) was an English scholar who taught at St. Peter’s School
in York and in the Palace School of Charlegmagne. He wrote commentaries on
Genesis, Psalms, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, John, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, and
Revelation.
2 Rabanus Maurus (c. 780-856) was a Benedictine monk and Archbishop of Mainz in
Germany. He wrote theological treatises, an encyclopedia, a martyrology, and
commentaries on most of the Old Testament, Matthew, and the Pauline Epistles,
which were based chiefly on the exegetical writings of the Church Fathers and Bede.
3 Bede (c. 672-735), known as the Venerable Bede, was an English monk whose fame
rests largely on his ecclesiastical history of England (c. 731). He wrote many other
works, including commentaries on the Pentateuch, Kings, Esdras, Tobias, the
Gospels, Acts, and the Catholic Epistles. His interpretive work is characterized by his
commitment to the tradition of the Fathers and by his use of the allegorical method of
interpretation.

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Verse 2: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was
upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters (Ps. 33:6;1 Is. 40:13, 14).

[Now, the earth] The Hebrew: And the earth.2 I render it, For3 the
earth (and it frequently occurs as the equivalent of for, as in Psalm 1:24
compared with Psalm 128:25). That is to say, Moses makes plain by an
enumeration of the parts how, in the universal proposition, he said that the
world was created by God. He is saying that what things are in the world, God
created individually, the light and all other things (Picherel’s On Creation).

[Earth] Thus it is named by way of anticipation, because thus it is
called afterwards when divested of the waters6 (Vatablus).

The same confused mass or heap is here called both earth, from its
most solid and substantial part; and the deep, from its vast bulk and depth; and
waters, from its outward face and covering. See Psalm 104:6; 2 Peter 3:5.

[Was empty and void] This is the correct rendering as it appears out of
Jeremiah 4:237 (Grotius). wh@ bowF wh@ to@, empty and void, signify almost one
and the same thing (Munster, Vatablus). w@hto@ is unformed matter; wh@ bo is
form itself (Kimchi and Nahmanides8 in Fagius). Verbatim: Desolation and
emptiness or desolate and empty (Vatablus, Montanus), deserted and void
(Chaldean), deserted and uncultivated (Syriac), uncultivated and void
(Tigurinus), void of plants and animals (Estius). It was confusion and
emptiness, left desolate by the sons of man, and empty of every beast (Targum
Jerusalem9). The earth was a thing to be astonished at to some degree, and that

1 Psalm 33:6: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of
them by the breath (xwa @rbw; @, by the Spirit) of his mouth.”
2 Hebrew: Cr)E hf fw:. The simplest translation of the w is, of course, “and”.
3 For is to be understood as introducing an elucidation of the general statement, God
created the heavens and the earth, by means of an enumeration of the particulars.
4 Psalm 1:2: “But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law (wtO rwF Otb;w@, for
in his law) doth he meditate day and night.”
5 Psalm 128:2: “For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and
it shall be well (bw+O w:, for it shall be well) with thee.”
6 Genesis 1:9, 10.
7 Jeremiah 4:23: “I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void (wh@ to
w@hbwo F); and the heavens, and they had no light.”
8 Moshe ben Nehman Gerondi, or Nahmanides (1194-1270), was a medieval Spanish
rabbi, a philosopher, a Kabbalist, and a Biblical commentator. His commentary on
the Torah is characterized by his own careful philological work, an uncritical
acceptance of the teachings of the rabbis of the Mishnah and Talmud, and mysticism.
9 Targum Jerusalem is also known as Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. It is a medieval
Aramaic rendering of the Hebrew Torah. It is more than a translation, including
additional narrative and interpretative material.

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on account of desolation and emptiness. Courageous souls are stricken with
dread, who approach vast and deserted places. Rabbi Salomon1 derives
w@ht/o@ empty from hhtf ,f@ to wonder at, to marvel (Fagius). Fuller renders it, a
thing astonishing and shameful (for hhftf@ is to be astonished at, and thfb@f
[which is from hhbf f@, for h most often turns into t] signifies in the Chaldean
and Syriac to be ashamed of and to make ashamed), not astonishing and
shameful in and of itself, but comparatively with the subsequent beauty, just as
certain members are called as) xhm/ ona/uncomely in 1 Corinthians 12:23
(Fuller, Sacred Miscellany 3:3). The Septuagint translators render it
ao) /ratoj, invisible, kai\ ak) ataskeu/astoj, and disordered. Aquila:
ke/nwma kai\ ou)de/n, emptiness and a void. Theodotion:2 keno/n kai\ oud) e/n,
empty and void (Drusius). w@ht@o is emptiness, that is, empty, which is to say,
without inhabitants; wh@ bo is void, without ornaments (Ainsworth). w@hto@ is
disorder and disarrangement, in which all things are confused; wh@ bo is void,
namely, of cultivators and households (Malvenda). It was unformed, that is,
not yet separated from the waters, nor covered with plants and animals; and it
was empty, that is, ineffectual for producing plants (Piscator). wh@ t@o imports a
regard for the earth’s purpose; it was vain because it was without the
inhabitants for which it was made, and indeed, without its own, it was
destitute. So it is in Isaiah 49:4: I have labored (w@htol;) in vain;3 and in Isaiah
45:18.4 w@hbo has regard to the location; it was free from occupants (Oleaster).

Without form and void; without order and beauty, and without
furniture and use.

[Darkness upon the deep] Darkness, supply was, after the use of the
Scripture: as in 2 Chronicles 9:5, compared with 1 Kings 10:6.5 So it is also in

1 The details of the life of Rabbi Salomon Jarchi (Solomon Jarchi ben Isaac) have
been obscured by the mists of time. It is relatively safe to associate him with the
twelfth century. He commented on the whole of the Hebrew Bible, and the principal
value of his commentary is its preservation of traditional Jewish interpretation.
2 Theodotion was a linguist and convert to Judaism, who translated the Hebrew
Scripture into Greek in the middle of the second century AD. His translation appears
to be an attempt to bring the Septuagint into conformity with the Hebrew text.
3 Isaiah 49:4a: “Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for
nought (w@htlo ); , and in vain . . .”
4 Isaiah 45:18b: “He hath established it, he created it not in vain (w@hto-)lO ), he
formed it to be inhabited.”
5 In 1 Kings 10:6a, the verb of being is expressly stated: “And she said to the king,
True was the word (rbfdf@ha hyFhf tme))e that I heard in mine own land . . .” In 2
Chronicles 9:5a, the verb of being is not stated, but implied: “And she said to the
king, True was the word (rbdf @fha tme))e which I heard in mine own land . . .”

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2 Samuel 23:18, compared with 1 Chronicles 11:201 (Ainsworth). MwOht;@
signifies waters, which, being less substantial, were covering the earth
(Grotius). The terms the earth, the deep, water, are taken up for the same
object, so that we might perceive it as fluid, shadowy, and disarranged (Clario).
The deep signifies the immeasurable quantity and abundance of the waters
(Vatablus, Lapide, Estius), and likewise the extent of them (Kimchi in Fagius).
Rather, thus He calls the whole mass consisting of earth and water (Estius,
Menochius).

Upon the face, the surface or uppermost part of it, upon which the
light afterward shone. Thus not the earth only, but also the heaven above it,
was without light, as is manifest from the following verses.

[And the Spirit of God] Most of the Hebrews understand this to be an
elemental wind, called the wind of God for intensification; as the mountains of
God,2 and as Nineveh is called a great city to God3 (Fagius, Drusius, Vatablus).
(For what is great to God, it is requisite that it be truly great [Drusius]).
Regarding this, they understand a dispatch from God to dry up the waters
(Onkelos in Fagius). The Chaldean Version: A wind in the sight of God, that
is, stirred up by God, just as in Psalm 147:18 (Vatablus). And the winds of
God (Arabic), but this appears forced. How was a wind able to blow, when
there was not yet wind (Munster)? For wind is nothing other than driven air
(Drusius). Add that the word tpxe erAm;/brooding does not signify simple
motion, but agitation (of such a kind as we will at last describe) (Fagius).
Consequently, others understand this of the Holy Spirit. Thus the more
learned (Vatablus, thus Munster, Lyra, Fagius in Comparison of the Principal
Translations, Lapide, Bonfrerius, Menochius, Tostatus, Ainsworth, Piscator,
Drusius, Grotius, Estius) and almost all of the fathers and more recent rabbis,
says Tirinus. h0 du/namij diaplastikh\, the formative power, or e0ne/rgeia
zwtikh,\ life-giving force, as Chrysostom calls it (Grotius). The counsel,
mind, and will of God (Lyra, Fagius): just as the will of the craftsman hovers
over the material which he is preparing to form (Lyra, Estius). The Jerusalem
Targum: the Spirit of mercies from the Lord (Fagius). See what things are in
Concerning the Truth of the Christian Religion, and add Job 26:13 (Grotius).
hn} th~| ar) xh|~ ta\ pra/gmata om( ou~ pefurme/na, nou~j d 0 ei0selqwn_ au) ta,_

1 In 1 Chronicles 11:20a, the verb of being is expressly stated: “And Abishai the
brother of Joab, he was chief (#$)ro hyhF f )wh% ) of the three.” In 2 Samuel 23:18a,
the verb of being is not stated, but implied: “And Abishai, the brother of Joab, the
son of Zeruiah, was chief (#)$ ro )w%h) among three.”
2 Psalm 36:6a: “Thy righteousness is like the great mountains (l)-' yrr" :hka ;@, like the
mountains of God).”
3 Jonah 3:3b: “Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city (Myh$li )l' hlwf Odg-:% ry(i, a
great city to God) of three days’ journey.”

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ek0 thj~ at) aci/aj ei)j ta/cin hg1 age. In the beginning, things were confused
(and running together); but mind, entering in, brought them into order, says
Anaxagoras1 in Eusebius’2 Preparation for the Gospel3 10 (Gataker).

The Spirit of God; not the wind, which was not yet created, as is
manifest, because the air, the matter or subject of it, was not yet produced; but
the Third Person of the glorious Trinity, called the Holy Ghost, to whom the
work of creation is attributed, Job 26:13, as it is ascribed to the Second Person,
the Son, John 1:3; Colossians 1:16, 17; Hebrews 1:3, and to the First Person,
the Father, every where.

[Was brooding, tpexre Fm;] They translate it, He was hovering over.
Thus Numenius4 said that Deuteronomy 32:115 is the interpreter,
em0 fe/resqai, to be borne (Grotius). He was hovering over (Septuagint). He
was stirring (Montanus, Tigurinus). He was breathing or blowing in (Arabic,
Chaldean, Oleaster, Samaritan Version). He was brooding over (Junius and
Tremellius, Syriac). He was stirring Himself (Pagnine), as if floating, as if
stirring the very chaos to break up, to rise up, and to take up form. This is a
metaphor drawn from birds stirring their young to fly. See Deuteronomy
32:11 (Picherel’s On Creation). Some say that the PxarF signifies to sit on
eggs, but they have not yet brought forward an example of this sense. Twice
only does Pxra F occur in the Sacred Books outside of this passage:
Deuteronomy 32:11 and Jeremiah 23:9.6 In each of the passages, it has the
notion of motion and agitation (Gataker’s Cinnus 161). A comparison is being
drawn with birds (doves and hens) sitting on eggs (Munster, Vatablus, Rabbi
Salomon in Fagius). As perched birds first hover over their eggs and young,
then sit, emit heat, incubate, and quicken them, so also the Holy Spirit, by
means of an infused, life-giving warmth, bestowed a prolific energy upon the
waters (Menochius), was warming them by an hidden potency, inasmuch as He
was remaining steadfast for the occasion (Vatablus). A comparison is being
drawn, either with the kite falling upon the prey, says Capnio,7 or, with the

1 Anaxagoras (c. 500 BC-428 BC) was a Greek philosopher.
2 Eusebius (c. 267-338) was Bishop of Cæsarea, author of that famous Ecclesiastical
History, and supporter of Constantine the Great.
3 Praeparatio Evangelica.
4 Numenius was a second century Platonist. It was his belief that Plato was largely
dependent upon Moses; he called Plato an “Atticizing Moses.”
5 Deuteronomy 32:11: “As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over (Pxr' Ay): her
young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings.”
6 Jeremiah 23:9: “Mine heart within me is broken because of the prophets; all my
bones shake (w@pxrj F).”
7 Johannes Reuchlin or Capnio (1455-1522) was a reformer and a philologist, largely
responsible for the introduction of Hebraic studies into Germany. He was Professor
of Greek and Hebrew at Wittenburg (1518) and he published works on Hebrew

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eagle that, while stirring her nest and hovering over her young, moves them to
hover (Fagius, Ainsworth, Piscator). tpxe erFm:; moving (participle) serving in
the place of He was moving (imperfect), just as in 1 Kings 10:1, the participle
serves in the place of the perfect of 2 Chronicles 9:1.1 Compare 1 Samuel 31:1
with 1 Chronicles 10:1.2 Or, the participle is serving in the place of a
periphrastic construction (the verb of being and a particle combining to make a
single verbal idea), just as in 1 Kings 8:7, the participle serves in the place of
the periphrastic construction of 2 Chronicles 5:83 (Ainsworth).

Upon the face of the waters, i.e. upon the waters, to cherish, quicken,
and dispose them to the production of the things after mentioned. It is a
metaphor from birds hovering and fluttering over, and sitting upon their eggs
and young ones, to cherish, warm, and quicken them.

Verse 3: And God said (Ps. 33:9), Let there be light: and there was
light (2 Cor. 4:6).

[And He said] Concerning these words, see the passage of Dionysius
Longinus4 in the annotations of Concerning the Truth of the Christian Religion
(Grotius). Nine times it occurs in this chapter. They maintain that a tenth is
included in the first words, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the
earth. For this reason, the Hebrews allege that the world was founded by God
with ten words (de Dieu).

[He said] That it, He decreed (Vatablus, Piscator, Bonfrerius,
Ainsworth, others). He willed (Arabic, certain interpreters in Vatablus).

[Let there be, yhiy]: Others: Let it come forth (Vatablus).
He commanded, not by such a word or speech as we use, which
agreeth not with the spiritual nature of God; but either by an act of his
powerful will, called the word of his power, Hebrews 1:3, or, by his
substantial Word, his Son, by whom he made the worlds, Hebrews 1:2; Psalm

lexicography, orthography, and grammar, and on Kabbalistic interpretation.
1 1 Kings 10:1a: “And when the queen of Sheba heard (t(ma #a ,$o participle) of the fame
of Solomon . . .”. 2 Chronicles 9:1a: “And when the queen of Sheba heard (h(mf #; f,$
perfect) of the fame of Solomon . . .”.
2 1 Samuel 31:1a: “Now the Philistines fought (Mymixlf ;ni, participle) against Israel.”
1 Chronicles 10:1a: “Now the Philistines fought (w@mxjln; i, perfect) against Israel.”
3 1 Kings 8:7: “For the cherubims spread forth (My#r&i :p)o% their two wings over the
place of the ark.” 2 Chronicles 5:8: “For the cherubims spread forth (My#&ri p: o% w@yhy; Iw% A)
their wings over the place of the ark.”
4 Dionysius Longinus is the name traditionally ascribed to the author of On the
Sublime. On the Sublime was likely composed during the first century, and it is a
compilation of literary extracts coming from a period spanning more than a thousand
years. It includes a reference to this passage in Genesis.

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33:6, who is called, The Word, partly, if not principally, for this reason, John
1:1-3, 10.

[Light] The Hebrews understand this of the sun; however, that it was
created on the fourth day, they maintain to be spoken by repetition. To the
more learned, the light is somewhat obscure, not perfect or complete, which
afterwards would be made more distinct by the created sun (Vatablus). Junius
maintains that the light was produced by an elemental fire located in its own
habitation. Fuller does not approve. 1. This fire was not yet created, since it
is a part of the expanse created on the second day. 2. Fire does not shine in its
own sphere because it is too thin, is not dense. 3. Thus, there would be no
distinction between the light and the darkness, because this fire would light
everywhere (Fuller’s Miscellany 1:12). It appears that the very quality of light
was through a great part of heaven, from which, like material packed together,
the sun and the stars were made (Estius). That light was uniformly diffused
through the deep, just as it is now diffused through the air by the sun. That
light was not produced by some natural agent, but produced in the very waters
immediately by God; and in the space of twenty-four hours, it completed a
cycle, because God was producing light successively in the various parts. This
is the position of Molina1 (Bonfrerius). It appears that substance was bright.
Perhaps it was a bright cloud, as in Exodus 14:19 and Deuteronomy 1:33
(Menochius), which made up day and night by its circular motion, from the
condensing of which the sun is formed. Thus Zanchius2 in Fuller and Fuller
himself. This does not satisfy Bonfrerius. 1. What cloud, I ask, would be able
to penetrate that entire deep of the waters even unto the earth, since the sun is
not capable of it? 2. What would be accomplished by that substance? 3.
Where was it located (Bonfrerius)? Many think that it was the sun, as yet
unformed and imperfect (Menochius, Lyra on verse 4).

There was light; which was some bright and lucid body, peradventure
like the fiery cloud in the wilderness, giving a small and imperfect light,
successively moving over the several parts of the earth; and afterwards
condensed, increased, perfected, and gathered together in the sun.

Verse 4: And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided
the light from the darkness (Heb. between the light and between the darkness).

[And He saw] I render it as He had seen or He had foreseen: like a
most excellent and most provident architect, He deliberated and foresaw what
things He was about to make (Picherel).

1 Luis de Molina (1535-1600) was a Jesuit theologian.
2 Jerome Zanchius (1516-1590) was an Italian Reformer. He had the opportunity to
study under Peter Martyr Vermigli, to teach Old Testament in Geneva, and to teach
with Zacharias Ursinus in Heidelberg.

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[And God saw the light, that it was good] This is an antiptosis,1 such as
that in Do you know me, in what delights I am?2 I even admit the possibility of
a transposition of the words in the place of And God saw that the light was
good (Drusius). Thus Virgil: The city which I build, it is yours.3 Mark 6:16b:
Whom I had beheaded, John, this is he.4 Romans 6:17b: But ye have obeyed
from the heart, unto which you were handed over, the form of doctrine5
(Gataker’s Cinnus 165). Or, you might translate He saw, that is, He approved,
because it was good (Drusius’ Of Sacred Observations 15:4).

[He saw] He perceived, He observed, He recognized (Vatablus,
Piscator). Seeing that God had found (Arabic).

[That it was good] Pleasant, useful, agreeable (Vatablus, Lyra,
Menochius, Drusius), suitable for its own purpose (Grotius).

[And He divided] Others: And He distinguished, that is, He made a
separation (Vatablus), He separated (Samaritan Text, Malvenda), He made a
distinction (Junius and Tremellius). 1. He divided with respect to place: For
we have light, when darkness is upon those on the other side of the earth. 2.
He divided with respect to time: For they succeed one another. 3. He divided
with respect to cause (Menochius out of Lapide). Now, at first, these were in a

1 Antiptosis is the substitution of one case for another. Genesis 1:4a: Myhil$ ) )r:y%AwA
bwO+-yk@i rwO)ha-t).e Here, rwO)ha, the light, does grammatical double-duty. It serves
as the accusative direct object of the verb )r:yA%w,A He saw, and it also serves as the
implied nominative subject of the noun clause, that it/the light was good.
Consequently, it is said that rw)O ha, the light, is case-changing. It is noteworthy that,
as this formulaic expression (bw+O -yki@ Myhli o)e )r:ywA% A) is repeated throughout this
chapter (1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25), it is repeated with the noun clause (bw+O -yki@, that it was
good) serving in the place of the direct object, without any other explicit direct object,
until verse 31.
2 Terence’s Eunuchus 1035: Scin’ me in quibus sim gaudiis? Of course, the case
change is undetectable in translation. Me serves as the accusative direct object of
scin’, and, by means of a case change, as the subject of sim. Publius Terentius Afer
(d. 159 BC) was a Roman playwright.
3 Virgil’s Æneid 1:573: Urbem quam statuo, vestra est. Although Urbem is the
subject of est, it is in the accusative case, having been attracted to its relative pronoun,
quam, which is serving as the accusative direct object of statuo.
4 Mark 6:16b: O3 n e0gw_ ap) ekefa&lisa Iw) an& nhn, out3 oj es) tin. Iw) an& nhn/John and
its relative pronoun, 3On/whom, are introduced in the accusative, serving as the direct
object of ap) ekefa&lisa, I had beheaded. However, the reader must mentally change
their case into the nominative so that they might also serve as predicate nominatives
for e)stin/is.
5 Romans 6:17b: up( hkou/sate de/ e0k kardi/aj ei0j on3 paredo/qhte tu/pon didaxhj~ .
u(phkou/sate, ye have obeyed, usually takes a dative object, but here the object
(tu/pon/form) is in the accusative, probably because its relative pronoun (o3n) having
been expressed first, is in the accusative.

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way confused and intermingled, as if you ignited a lamp in the darkness.
[Between the light and the darkness] Hebrew: Between the light and

between the darkness.1 This is a Hebrew pleonasm2 (Junius). Thus it is in
Genesis 32:16b: between a drove and between a drove. Livy’s History of
Rome3 3:2: between Roman citizens and between foreigners. Horace’s Satires
1:7: Between brave Hector, the son of Priam, and between Achilles the strife
was mortal (Gataker).

He observed with approbation that it was pleasant and amiable,
agreeable to God’s purpose and man’s use; and made a distinction or separation
between them in place, time, and use, that the one should succeed and shut out
the other, and so by their vicissitudes make the day and the night.

Verse 5: And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called
Night (Ps. 74:16; 104:20). And the evening and the morning were (Heb. And
the evening was, and the morning was) the first day.

[And He called] He ordained that thus Adam and his posterity would
call it (Menochius).

[The light, day] For that light was spread abroad as the sun is now
(Menochius). From this place, day is put for the light. 1 Corinthians 3:13:
The day will make known, that is, the light will make known (as it is in
Ephesians 5:13) (Ainsworth).

[Evening was accomplished, and morning, one day] See the things
noted in Concerning the Truth of the Christian Religion (Grotius).
brE(e/evening, from br(A ,f to tie or to bind, for He binds the day up with the
night. rqebo@/morning, from rqba @,f to discern, for then things are discerned
from one another (Oleaster). MwyO /day appears to be named after the
commotion and busyness of it;4 hlfyl: f/night appears to be named after the
howling of wild animals5 (Ainsworth). The sense is, with the evening and the
morning, the first day is complete (Vatablus, Lyra, Estius, Menochius,
Castalio). For here a part is set down for the whole, as in Daniel, evening-
mornings is set down in the place of days,6 and in the poets, four autumns is set
down in the place of four years (Castalio). Others have it thus: There was the

1 Hebrew: K7#ex$ ha Nyb'w@ rwO)hf Nyb.@'
2 Pleonasm is the use of more words than are necessary to express an idea with
clarity.
3 Titus Livius (c. 59 BC-17 AD) wrote a history of Rome, Ab Urbe Condita, from its
founding to the time of Augustus.
4 Perhaps MwyO /day is being related to MyF/sea.
5 llayF means to howl.
6 Daniel 8:14: “And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days
(rqebo brE(e, evening-mornings); then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.”

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evening and the morning of the first day (Vatablus, Ainsworth, Estius in Fagius,
Junius and Tremellius). That is to say, Thus the first day was completed
(Vatablus). And when the night and the day passed, etc. (Arabic). Picherel
translates it in this way: And thus the evening time of the first day and the
morning time were. It is possible even thus to be translated: And thus,
consisting of the evening time and the morning time, was the first day, that is,
consisting of night and day, the beginning part of each standing for the whole.
Thus Daniel 8:14; Isaiah 34:10; 4 Esdras 9:44.1 Nevertheless, the time is not
necessarily continuous, as in Leviticus 8:35 and Nehemiah 1:6 (Picherel).
There was evening and morning, one day (Tigurinus), or the first day
(Piscator). Evening time and morning time are the first day, that is, together
they constituted the first day (Gataker’s Cinnus 167). Here evening signifies
night, and morning signifies day (Drusius, Piscator, Ainsworth, Castalio). It
appears to express something else (Lyra). He places first the evening as the
completion of the day (artificial), and he places the morning as the completion
of the night (Lyra). He remembered the evening first, because the Hebrews
(like the French formerly and the Germans [Castalio]) begin the day from the
evening (Vatablus, Drusius’ Of Sacred Observations, 8:9). The fifth of the
Gymnosophists,2 when asked whether he thought the day or the night to have
been first, responds, thn/ nu/kta hm( e/ra| mia~|,3 that is, night came first by one
day, o3ti tw~n ap) or/ wn er0 wth/sewn, an) a&gkh kai\ ta_j a)porh/seij
a)po/rouj ei]nai, that is, he ought not to wonder that strange questions had
equally strange answers made to them (Clement of Alexandria’s4 Stromata 6;
Plutarch’s5 The Life of Alexander). For the Ancient Night, A0 rxai/h nuc\ , is
to Hesiod6 the most ancient among the gods: Theon’s Aratus7 38 (Gataker).
Thales,8 according to Lærtius,1 following the old philosophy, taught that

1 4 Esdras 9:44: “And those thirty years I did nothing else day and night, and every
hour, but make my prayer to the Highest.”
2 The Gymnosophists were an ancient Indian, ascetic sect. They believed that food
and clothing were hindrances to the contemplative life. Alexander the Great is
reported to have questioned some from this sect during his campaign in India.
3 Poole’s text appears to differ from the commonly received text of Plutarch, which
reads: th_n hm9 e/ran h(me/ra| mia,~| that is, the day came first by one day.
4 Titus Flavius Clemens Alexandrinus (died c. 215) was the head of the Christian
catechetical school in Alexandria, Egypt. He was trained in pagan philosophy before
his conversion to Christianity.
5 Mestrius Plutarchus (c. 46-127) was a Greek historian.
6 Hesiod lived around the turn of the seventh century BC. In his poetry (particularly,
Theogony), he preserves a most ancient form of Greek mythology.
7 Theon of Alexandria (c. 335-c. 405) was the last director of the famous Alexandrian
library. He produced a commentary on the poems of Aratus (c. 310-c. 240 BC), a
Greek poet.
8 Thales (c. 635-c. 543) is among the oldest extant Greek philosophers.

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darkness was prior to light: now, Thales was a Phoenician originally, as
Herodotus2 and Leander3 testify. The Orphic Hymns:4 Nu/kta qewn~
gene/teiran a)ei/somai, h)de\ kai\ a)ndrw~n, that is, I celebrate Night as
Mother of men and of gods (Grotius’ Concerning the Truth of the Christian
Religion). Therefore, David begins from the evening, as it is in Psalm 55:17,
Evening and morning (Drusius’ Of Sacred Observations, 8:9, Castalio,
Bonfrerius, Estius). Perhaps he begins from the evening because at evening the
first part of the day is completed, just as at morning the second and last part is
completed (Drusius’ Of Sacred Observations, 8:9). The other Sabbath Festival
Days were begun from the evening, as it is in Leviticus 23 and elsewhere
(Menochius). Formerly, the Athenians were beginning to reckon days from the
evening, according to Macrobius and Gellius5 (Bonfrerius).

It is acknowledged by all, that the evening and the morning are not
here to be understood according to our common usage, but are put by a
synecdoche each of them for one whole part of the natural day. But because it
may be doubted which part each of them signifies, some understand by
evening, the foregoing day; and by the morning, the foregoing night; and so the
natural day begins with the morning or the light, as it did with the ancient
Chaldeans. Others by evening understand the first night or darkness which was
upon the face of the earth, Genesis 1:2, which probably continued for the space
of about twelve hours, the beginning whereof might fitly be called evening; and
by morning the succeeding light or day, which may reasonably be supposed to
continue the other twelve hours, or thereabouts. And this seems the truer
opinion, 1. Because the darkness was before the light, as the evening is put
before the morning, Genesis 1:5, 8, and afterwards. 2. Because this best
agrees both with the vulgar and with the Scripture use of the terms of evening
and morning. 3. Because the Jews, who had the best opportunity of knowing
the mind of God in this matter by Moses and other succeeding prophets, begun
both their common and sacred days with the evening, as is confessed, and may
be gathered from Leviticus 23:32.

1 Diogenes Lærtius was a biographer of Greek philosophers, writing his Lives and
Opinions of Eminent Philosophers probably sometime during the third century AD.
2 Herodotus (c. 484-c. 425) was a Greek historian, sometimes called “The Father of
History”.
3 Almost nothing is known of Leander of Miletus, and only a few quotations from his
history of Miletus survive.
4 These hymns are traditionally ascribed to the mythical Orpheus, but they were likely
composed by a multiplicity of authors, possibly as late as the early centuries of the
Christian Era.
5 The writings of Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius (395-423) and Aulus Gellius (c.
125-c. 180), Latin grammarians, find their principal value in their preservation of the
quotation of earlier writers, which quotations would be otherwise lost.

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Were the first day; [evening and morning] did constitute or make up
the first day; day being taken largely for the natural day, consisting of twenty-
four hours: these were the parts of the first day; and the like is to be
understood of the succeeding days. Moreover, God, who could have made all
things at once, was pleased to divide his work into six days, partly to give us
occasion more distinctly and seriously to consider God’s works, and principally
to lay the foundation for the weekly sabbath, as is clearly intimated, Genesis
2:2, 3; Exodus 20:9-11.

[One day] That is, the first, a cardinal number for an ordinal number
(Fagius, Vatablus, Drusius). Thus Genesis 2:11, the name of the one is Pison;1
Exodus 18:3, 4;2 Mark 16:2, on the one, that is, the first of the week.3
Compare with Exodus 12:2;4 Haggai 1:1, mia|~ tou~ mhnoj\ , on the one of the
month;5 Exodus 12:18;6 Genesis 8:13.7 Thus Cicero says, In the eightieth and
one year, he was dead (Drusius). dxf)e MwOy clearly signifies the first day, Ezra
10:16, 178 and Nehemiah 8:29 (Gataker’s Cinnus 153). Suetonius10 in
Augustus:11 . . . orders for three volumes: one (that is, the first) concerning

1 Genesis 2:11a: “The name of the first (dx)f he ,f the one) is Pison.”
2 Exodus 18:3a, 4a: “And her two sons; of which the name of the one (dx)f ehf, or the
first) was Gershom . . . And the name of the other (dx)f ehf) was Eliezer . . .”
3 Mark 16:2a: thj~ miaj~ sabbat/ wn.
4 Exodus 12:2: “This month shall be unto you the beginning (#)$ ro, the first, ordinal)
of months: it shall be the first (Nw#O )$ r,I the first, ordinal) month of the year to you.”
5 The Septuagint version of Haggai 1:1 is here cited. This is a literal rendering of the
Hebrew original: #d$ xE lo a dx)f e MwOyb@;.
6 Exodus 12:18: “In the first month (N#)o$ rIbf,@ the first, ordinal), on the fourteenth day
(r#(fo f h(fbfr@ :)ba ;,@ fourteen, cardinal) of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened
bread, until the one and twentieth (MyrI#;o(ew: dhf)ehf, one and twenty, cardinal) day of
the month at even.”
7 Genesis 8:13a: “And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first (txa)ba ;@
twO)m'-#$#'$w,: six hundred and one, a cardinal for an ordinal) year, in the first (Nw#O $)rIbf@,
first, ordinal) month, the first (dxf)eb@;, one, cardinal for an ordinal) day of the month,
the waters were dried up from off the earth.”
8 Ezra 10:16b-17: “And Ezra the priest, with certain chief of the fathers . . . sat down
in the first (dxf),e one, a cardinal for an ordinal) day of the tenth (yrIy#oi(hj f #d$ xE ola,
ordinal) month to examine the matter. And they made an end with all the men that
had taken strange wives by the first (dxf),e one, a cardinal for an ordinal) day of the
first month (NwO#$)rIh,f ordinal).”
9 Nehemiah 8:2: “And Ezra the priest brought the law . . . upon the first (dxf)e, one, a
cardinal for an ordinal) day of the seventh (y(iyb#i %;h$ a, ordinal) month.”
10 Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (c. 75- c. 130) was a Roman historian.
11 De Vita XII Cæsarum, “Divus Augustus.”

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burial rites; a second, an index of deeds accomplished by himself; a third, a
summary of the entire reign (Gataker out of Casaubon1). The opinion of
Nahmanides is the most straightforward, that one, not first, is rightly said, since
a second day had not yet occurred, with respect to which the first would have
been called (Fagius).

Verse 6: And God said, Let there be a firmament (Heb. expansion) in
the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters (Job 37:18;
Ps. 136:5; Jer. 10:12; 51:15).

[Let there be a firmament (Septuagint, Samaritan Text, Arabic,
Oleaster, Munster)] Others render (yA qirF, not as firmament, but as expanse
(Montanus, Pagnine, Tigurinus, Junius and Tremellius, Munster, Fagius,
Vatablus), span, distention, expansiveness (Vatablus), a thing stretched out or
extended (Ainsworth, Estius in Fagius), in the manner that curtains are
stretched out (like a tent which is held up by cords, lest it should fall [Grotius]),
or just as silver is spread out and thinned by the hammer (Fagius and Drusius).
Therefore, God is said to stretch out the heavens, Isaiah 40:22; 42:52 and
Psalm 104:2 (Vatablus). Grotius renders it ta/sij/extension (which is Plato’s
expression). (qArF is to spread out. Spread, or beaten, plates are called
Myxpi a y('qru@ I in Numbers 16:38 (Bonfrerius). Ainsworth translates it, spread
out firmament. This expanse is a diffuse body of air (Vatablus, Drusius,
Castalio, Grotius, Estius). For what, except air, separates the lower waters,
that is, the sea, from the upper? Neither is there another name for the air
among the Hebrews than (Ayqir/F firmament and MyIm#a $f/heavens (Castalio).
This name is demonstrated to be attributed to air in the Chaldean Paraphrase of
Psalm 19:1 and in Rabbi Kimchi on Psalm 77 (Grotius, Drusius’ Of Sacred
Observations 8:18). What is more marvelous than waters resting in the
heavens? says Pliny3 in his Natural History 31. Birds of heaven they are called,
as it is in Jeremiah 9:10; Hosea 2:18; Matthew 8:20; 13:32 (Estius). Other set
it forth as firmament, and they understand it with respect to the heavenly
spheres (Lyra, Menochius, Tirinus). Still, this expression also includes the
atmosphere, spread from heaven to earth and, as it were, established in its own
place (Menochius). The Septuagint translators render it stere/wma, either

1 Isaac Casaubon (1559-1614) began his career as Professor of Greek at Geneva and
finished his career as a prebendary of Westminster and Canterbury. He was a learned
critic, and he produced annotated editions of Greek and Latin authors. He was among
those that sought a reunion between the Protestant and Roman churches.
2 Isaiah 42:5a: “Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens, and stretched
them out; he that spread forth ((qar)o the earth, and that which cometh out of it.”
3 Gaius Plinius Secundus, or Pliny the Elder (23-79), distinguished himself as a
learned author, a distinguished Roman Procurator, and a courageous soldier.

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because (qra ,F to stretch out, is sterew,~ that is, to make firm, to establish;
thus the Septuagint translators render it in Psalm 136:6; Isaiah 42:5; 44:24
(Drusius); or because often the heaven is compared to a tent, which is said
ph/gnusqai, to be fixed (that is, to be established with cords in consequence
of the pegs fastened into the earth) as far as it is stretched out, Isaiah 42:5; or
rather making use of (qra : from the Syriac, which signifies pie/zein, to press
down (Luke 6:38). And, as it happens, the Hebrew word (qra F first signifies to
press down, and then to spread out; for things are spread out by means of
pressing, like plates of copper.

[In the midst] Not the mathematical middle, but an expression taken
from rough stock (Fuller’s Miscellany 1:6). K7wtE f@ or K7wtO is sometimes in or
within, sometimes in the midst of a thing. Here, the Hebrews conclude that
the waters, which they determine to be suspended and hanging in a high place
above the firmament, are a similar distance above the firmament as these waters
are below. And Rabbi Salomon notes that it is not l(,a on top of, but
l(am'/above, or from above (Fagius).

[Above the firmament] Waters are said to be above the heavens in
Psalm 148:4.1 Hence the sluices of heaven; see Genesis 7:11 (Grotius).

[And He divided the waters from the waters, MyImflf MymI Nyb']@
Separating in the interval of waters unto waters (Montanus), between waters
and waters (Chaldean, Syriac, Munster, Tirinus, Septuagint). Thus the
Hebrews used to denote the separation by Nyb,'@ in the interval, to which the
l/unto corresponds. Thus, lxol; #$dEq-o Nyb@,' in the interval of the holy unto
the profane, as it is in Ezekiel 22:26; 42:20; 44:23. Similarly, Isaiah 59:2, your
iniquities have made a separation Mkye h'l$ )v Nyb'l; Mkeyny" b'@, between you
and between your God (Gataker’s Cinnus 166). They maintain that the
MyIm/a waters is grammatically dual2 because of these two sets of waters. But it
is plural as it appears from the Ethiopic word ymf/water, whence the plural
cannot be other than MyIma (de Dieu). Question: How are waters above the
heavens? Some understand waters real and natural, but of another, that is, of a
celestial, nature (Lyra), which are close beneath the highest Empyreal heaven.
Thus the Fathers and others (Lyra, Fagius’ Comparison of the Principal
Translations, Lapide, Bonfrerius, Oleaster, Menochius), and Gregorie in his
Notes and Observations 23, who thus adds: 1. (AyqirF/firmament is to be
taken in accordance with a complete platform; l(ma /' above is not able to be

1 Psalm 148:4: “Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above
(l(am') the heavens.”
2 The MyI –A ending indicates that the noun is dual in number.

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rendered otherwise, whatever Pareus,1 Junius, and others might have said. 2.
In the Psalms and the Song of the Three Holy Children, the waters above the
heavens, which are called to praise God, cannot be those in the clouds, for the
rains and dew are distinguished from them.2 3. That abundance of waters in
the great flood could not come from any other place than this great deep,
Genesis 7:11; 8:2. 4. Hence God is said to have set the beams of the chambers
(of course, the upper chambers, as the Saxon rightly translates it) in the waters,
Psalm 104:3, and (what is the same) above many waters, Psalm 29:3
(Gregorie’s Notes and Observations 23). 5. These waters are not clouds, for
those were not yet created (Lapide). If you ask for what use these waters might
be: With the waters which are set forth a greater probability obtains, that the
waters there pent up are for a terror to men, whom from that source God
displays that He is able to punish. For this reason they also say that fire is there
pent up for the coming conflagration of the world (Fagius’ Comparison of the
Principal Translations). These waters serve partly for the ornament of the
universe, partly for interposing and preventing us from viewing the Empyreal
heaven, which is in other respects most clear, and brighter than our sun
(Tirinus out of Bonfrerius). Contrariwise, others understand for the upper
waters the waters of the clouds (thus Vatablus, Castalio, Drusius, Piscator,
Ainsworth, Grotius, de Muis). Thus Rambam,3 Tibbon,4 and others of the
Hebrews in de Muis. Thus Ibn Ezra who deserved to be called wise (Fagius’
Comparison of the Principal Translations). It is not plausible that Moses,
speaking of waters, would make no mention of rain, which Josephus5 and the
Sibyl6 remember in the creation. From this source, water is said to drop from

1 David Pareus (1548-1622) was a Calvinist, serving the Reformed Church as a
minister, churchman, and professor. He wrote a commentary on the whole Bible, and
it was held in high estimation among the Reformed.
2 See Psalm 148:4, 8. The Song of the Three Holy Children 38, 46: “O all ye waters
that be above the heaven, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. .
. . O ye dews and storms of snow, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all
for ever.”
3 Moses Maimonides, or Rambam (1135-1204), is reckoned by many to be the
greatest Jewish scholar of his age. Maimonides’ command of the Hebrew Scriptures,
Rabbinic tradition, natural science, and Aristotelian philosophy is staggering.
4 The Tibbon family produced a several rabbis. This may be a reference to to Samuel
ben Judah Ibn Tibbon (c. 1150-c. 1230), who wrotes commentaries on the entire
Hebrew Bible, or Moses Ibn Tibbon (thirteenth century), who wrote a commentary on
the Pentateuch.
5 Flavius Josephus (37-93) was an eyewitness to the final siege of Jerusalem.
Josephus’ value both to the historian and to the student of the history of the
interpretation of the Scriptures is incalculable.
6 This is probably a reference to the Sibylline Oracles. They claim to be the work of
ten pre-Christian Sibyls, prophesying of the coming of Christ and the spread of
Christianity.

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heaven, 2 Samuel 21:10 (Castalio). Thus Moses would have omitted this
singular benefit of God (Piscator). Clouds are above the heavens, that is, over
the lowest part of them (de Muis). Although the heavens might not be above
the totality of the waters, it is sufficient if it has liquid below itself (Castalio).
Moses acknowledges only two collections of waters; but the clouds are also
waters, Psalm 104:3 (Piscator). Just as any part of the water is called water, so
also any part of the heavens is called by the name of the whole (Ainsworth).

A firmament; or, an extension, or a space or place extended or
stretched out, and spread abroad like a tent or curtain, between the waters,
though not exactly in the middle place; as Tyrus is said to sit, or be situated in
the midst of the seas, Ezekiel 28:2, though it was but a little space within the
sea. But of these things see more in Gen 1:7.

Verse 7: And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which
were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament
(Prov. 8:28; Ps. 148:4): and it was so.

[And He made] Why is God said to make what He has previously
made? For the elements and the rudiments were created on the first day. Thus
Abarbanel1 (de Muis). Answer: He made something secondarily, that is, He
molded (Lyra, de Muis). In this way, h#o(f f is taken up in Deuteronomy 21:12,
she shall make (that is, trim) the nails,2 and in 1 Samuel 12:63 (de Muis).
Therefore, He made by giving to it accidental properties, not substantial form
(Lyra).

[And it was thus accomplished, Nk'-yhyi :w]A This is said (says
Nahmanides) to intimate that thus they are bound to endure; that is to say, they
have been made firm, stable. For Nk@'/thus or so is derived from Nnw" kO ,@ to
establish4 (Fagius).

The firmament here is either, 1. The starry heaven; so called, not
from its solidity, but from its fixed, durable, and, in a sort, incorruptible and
unchangeable nature. Or, 2. The air; called here, the expansion, or extension,
because it is extended far and wide, even from the earth to the third heaven;
called also the firmament, because it is fixed in its proper place, from whence it

1 Isaac Abarbanel (1437-1508) was one of the great Spanish rabbis of his age and a
stalwart opponent of Christianity, in spite of the danger. He held fast to a literal
interpretation of the Scripture, over against Maimonides’ philosophical allegorizing.
He commented on all of the Law and the Prophets.
2 Deuteronomy 21:12: “Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall
shave her head, and pare (htf#;o(wf :) her nails.”
3 1 Samuel 12:6a: “And Samuel said unto the people, It is the Lord that advanced
(h#(fo )f Moses and Aaron.”
4 Nn"wkO @ is the third person, masculine, singular, perfect, Polel form of Nwk@ @.

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cannot be moved, unless by force. The waters under the firmament are seas,
rivers, lakes, fountains, and other waters in the bowels of the earth. The
waters above the firmament, or above the heavens, as they are called, Psalm
148:4, are either, 1. A collection or sea of waters placed by God above all the
visible heavens, and there reserved for ends known to himself. Or rather, 2.
The waters in the clouds; for the clouds are called waters, Psalm 18:11; 104:3,
and are said to be in heaven, 2 Samuel 21:10; Matthew 24:30, and the
production thereof is mentioned as an eminent work of God’s creation, Job
35:5; 36:29; Psalm 147:8; Proverbs 8:28; which therefore it is not credible
that Moses in his history of the creation would omit, which he doth, if they be
not here meant; and these are rightly said to be above the firmament, i.e. the
air, because they are above a considerable part of it. As God commanded and
ordered it, so it was done and settled.

Verse 8: And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and
the morning were the second day.

[Heaven] By which I understand what the Scripture usually
understands (Ainsworth, Piscator), namely the atmospheric heaven, as it is in
verse 30 below; Leviticus 26:19; Deuteronomy 28:23 (Piscator); Daniel 7:2,
13; Psalm 8:8 (Ainsworth), the starry heaven, Genesis 1:16, 17, and the third
heaven, 2 Corinthians 12:2; Matthew 22:30 (Ainsworth); Ephesians 4:10
(Piscator). With this heaven, I suppose its inhabitants, the angels, to be
created, not on the first day; for this heaven, the domicile of the angels, was
prepared only ap) o_ katabolhj~ ko/smou, from the foundation of the world,
or after the foundation of the world (Piscator).

[Evening was accomplished] They explain this in the same manner as
what was said previously. See verse 5. Rabbi Salomon Jarchi asks: Why upon
the completion of this day is it not said, as in the others, He saw that it was
good? Response: 1. Because the angels fell on that day. But this is not drawn
from the Scripture (Lyra). 2. Because the work of the waters, begun on the
second day, was not complete until the third day; therefore, in the work of the
third day it is repeated twice, and He saw that it was good, one on account of
the work of waters, the other on account of the fecundity of the earth (Lyra out
of Rabbi Salomon Jarchi). God created as good artificers do: He does not
approve the works, neither does He let them drop from His hands, unless
perfect (de Muis). This reasoning does not satisfy; for, concerning the not yet
organized earth, He said, He saw that it was good. He is not expressing it in
this place (as He does in previous verses when it is said that He created the
heavens, the earth, and the deep, or as He does in following verses when it is
said that He created man) because it was given a sufficient number of times
with the other days to be understood here (Bonfrerius). Some commentators

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with some plausibility suppose the deed accomplished by one continuous
motion, that the more subtle waters were carried upwards, and the denser
waters were carried into cavities of the earth, valleys, and seas (Estius).
Picherel opens the difficulty in another way. He supposes, in the midst of the
second day (as the rabbis and certain Christian commentators judge), not on the
third (as it is acknowledged that most think), the deed to be completed, which
is narrated in verses 9 and 10. And thus that rm)e y,o He said, in verse 9 he
translates as a pluperfect, as it is in Genesis 12:1 compared with Acts 7:2-4,1
and he, parafra/zwn/paraphrasing, renders the passage, But God had said,
let them gather themselves together into one place . . . now, He had foreseen
that to be good. And thus its own good is reckoned to each day, He had
foreseen it to be good. Add that such a hysteron proteron2 is used in verse 24
(as it will be there noted), as in Genesis 2:8, 9. And there He put the man . . .
And He brought it to pass that from the earth every tree was sprouting; that is,
Now, previously He had brought it to pass that from the earth every tree was
sprouting. For, before the man was placed, God had brought forth the plants.
And verse 17, in which, after the prohibition of the fruit, it is said, And God
formed . . . the beasts, that is, previously He had formed. These things are
found in Picherel.

Verse 9: And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered
together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so (Job 26:10;
38:8; Ps. 33:7; 95:5; 104:9; 136:6; Prov. 8:29; Jer. 5:22; 2 Pet. 3:5).

[He said moreover] That is, He had said (Vatablus). At the time He
had said (Hebrews in Grotius), in as much as it is a e0pa&nodoj/recapitulation
(Grotius), for it was performed on the second day (Vatablus, Grotius). Grotius
notes that the past tense to the Hebrews is sometimes past, sometimes
imperfect, sometimes pluperfect. So it is in Genesis 2:2: He finished, that is,
He had finished (Grotius). See what is written on Psalm 1:1 (Vatablus).

[Let them be gathered together (thus nearly all interpreters), ww@ qy@F I3]
Only Castalio and Junius translate it, Let them flow together; all of the
remaining commentators (with the exceptions of Ainsworth and Piscator, who

1 In Acts 7:2-4, Stephen relates that God appeared to Abraham in Mesopotamia before
Abraham moved to Charran. However, Moses first relates that Abraham moved from
Ur to Charran (Gen. 11:31), then that God appeared to Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3). One
possible reconciliation between these two accounts would be to translate rm)e y%wO A, He
said, in Genesis 12:1 as a pluperfect, and He had said, placing God’s speech and
appearance to Abraham before his sojourn in Charran.
2 Hysteron proteron is a rhetorical device which presents ideas in an order other than
their logical or chronological.
3 ww@ qy@f I is a Niphal (passive) form of hwFqf, to collect.

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translate it, Let them flow together) render it, Let them be gathered together
(Fuller), as unto an anticipated place (Piscator). The implication of the
expression is noteworthy; God gathered that inconstant and flowing element,
as if with a ruler or measuring line, wqA, into one place (Fagius). It is properly,
Let them make their way in a straight flow and rush. (For wqA is a plumb line, a
straight line.) We see the force of a direct movement (naturally the shortest)
introduced into the elements, especially the water (Fuller’s Miscellany 3:4).
Aquila and Symmachus1 translate it suzh/tw, let it be organized, let it come
together, let it come into position (Drusius). Others: Let them extend, or let
them expand themselves over one region. It is called a measuring line, wq,A
because it might be stretched out (Oleaster). Question: How might this be
accomplished, since the waters were previously covering the entire earth?
Responses: 1. The water, previously sweet, now made saltier and thicker, was
occupying less space (Lapide). 2. The vast deep and abyss of waters is in the
bowels of the earth (Bonfrerius). 3. On this day, God caused the earth to
swell into mountains and to sink down into valleys and vast channels, etc.
(Lapide, Bonfrerius).

The waters under the heaven; both the great abyss, or deep of water
which is shut up in the bowels of the earth, Genesis 7:11; Psalm 24:2; 33:7;
136:6; as also the sea and rivers, all which are here said to be gathered together
into one place, because of their communication and mixture one with another.

[Dry land] Thus the earth is called in Jonah 1:9; 2:10; Matthew 23:15,
chra_/dry; and the sea is called u9grh_/wet by the Poets (Drusius’ A Miscellany
of Sacred Expressions 1:88).

Let the dry land appear; for hitherto it was covered with water,
Genesis 1:2; 2 Peter 3:5.

Verse 10: And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering
together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

[And He called] And He had called (Vatablus).
[The earth, CrE)e] CrE)e is from Cw@r, to run, because animals run
upon it (Piscator, Ainsworth).
[The gathering together, hwq" ;m]i This signifies, not so much the
collection of waters, as the channel (Fagius). The Chaldean calls it the dwelling
of the gathering together of the waters, that is, the channel of the sea. Thus,

1 Symmachus (2nd century) produced a Greek translation of the Old Testament, which
survives only in fragments. Symmachus’ work is characterized by an apparent
concern to render faithfully the Hebrew original, to provide a rendering consistent
with the rabbinic exegesis of his time, and to set forth the translation in simple, pure,
and elegant Septuagint-style Greek.

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they call a dwelling: 1. the glove of the hand, 2. the field of planting, 3. the
quiver of arrows, 4. the church of the congregation (Fagius). I translate it the
anticipation of waters,1 because there, by a certain geometrical rationale, they
might anticipate, hold the place, and maintain the boundaries and limits which
God fixed for them (Malvenda).

[Seas, Mym@iyA] MyF/depths MymI ,f of the waters, as if were (Nahmanides
in Fagius). Seas is put in the plural number: either 1. because of immensity
(Nahmanides in Fagius), or 2. because of the diversity of the nature of the Sea
in diverse locations (Rabbi Salomon in Fagius), or 3. because there is no one
sea encircling the land (Ibn Ezra, Fagius). The Hebrews call any great gathering
together of waters Sea, like the Sea (that is, the lake) of Galilee (Lyra).

He called them not sea, but seas; because of the differing quantity and
nature both of several seas, and of the rivers, and other lesser collections of
waters, all which the Hebrews call seas. The separation of the waters was
begun on the second day, Genesis 1:6, etc., but not perfected till this third day;
therefore God’s approbation of that work is not mentioned there, but here
only.

Verse 11: And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass (Heb. tender
grass), the herb yielding seed (Heb. 6:7), and the fruit tree yielding fruit after
his kind (Luke 6:44), whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

[Let it sprout (Septuagint, Chaldean, Arabic, Montanus, Pagnine,
Ainsworth, Tigurinus), )#d'$ t: ]a@ It could properly be rendered, Let it sprout
with sprouts2 (Montanus, Vatablus, Oleaster). In like manner, we say to live a
life or to sin a sin, etc. (Castalio). Let it sprout, that is, let it receive the power
of germination (Lyra, Estius), or let it supply nutriment. God alone actively
produced the sprouts.

Let the earth bring forth; the sense is: For the present let it afford
matter, out of which I will make grass (as man’s rib afforded matter, out of
which God made woman); and for the future let it receive virtue or power of
producing it out of that matter which I have made, and suited to that end.

[The herb, etc.] Here, singulars are given in the place of plurals
(Vatablus).3 The herb, the herb seeding, etc., which is expressed through

1 Here hwq" m; i is being derived from the verbal root hwqF ,f to wait for, rather than from
hwFqf, to gather.
2 Hebrew: )#e$dE@ )#$'dt: a@.
3 Genesis 1:11: “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass ()#de$ E, singular), the
herb (b#oe(,' singular) yielding seed, and the fruit tree (C(', singular) yielding fruit
after his kind . . .”

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apposition,1 that is, which seeds finally become herbs; or supply an and, and
herbs producing seed, that is, herbs, both tender, which do not yet have seed,
and mature (Vatablus).

[b#e(& ' )#e$d]E Sprout herb (Chaldean, Syriac, Arabic, Montanus,
Pagnine, Ainsworth, Tigurinus), the herb of grass (Septuagint) or green
(Samaritan Text, Munster, Vulgate), small plants herbs (Junius and
Tremellius). )#$de E is the tender herb; b#e(& ' is the more robust, which has
already matured (Munster, Fagius, Vatablus, Grotius, Hebrews in Oleaster).
)#ed$ E is also a genus name (Fagius): herbage, or a grouping of many herbs
(Rabbi Salomon in de Dieu). b#e&(' is a species name (Fagius): it is properly
used of whatever particular sprout (de Dieu).

[b#&e(' )#ed$ ]E Some understand )#de$ E adjectivally, the green herb2
(Vulgate, Menochius). It indicates both its color and its vigor (Menochius).
However, others understand it substantively (which is better), the grass and the
herb, with the w/and omitted which is customary in this language, just as it is in
Habakkuk 3:11, the sun, the moon stood still, that is, the sun and the moon3
(Fagius).

[And the herb producing seed, (yA rIzm; a] It ought to be translated, the
seed of which would sow itself. It is to be understood particularly of unaided
sprouting (Fagius). Scattering seed (thus Junius and Tremellius, Ainsworth), as
Pliny says (Grotius). The Chaldean version renders it, whose offspring of its
seed would be able to be sown. By offspring it intends grains (Fagius). Which
would be sown by sowing (Syriac).

Grass; that which groweth of itself without seed or manuring, and is
the food of beasts.

The herb yielding seed, for the propagation of their several kinds, to
wit, mature and perfect herbs, which alone yield seed. So afterwards God
made man, not in the state of children, but of grown and perfect age.

[The fruit-bearing tree producing fruit, yrIp%; C('] Tree of fruit, that
is, fruit-producing tree; this Hebraism employs the genitive adjectivally4
(Fagius, Vatablus). Thus Moses himself explains himself, adding h#e(o o C('

1 Hebrew: b#oe(' )#d$e @.E )#$de E@/grass and b#(eo '/herb are almost identical in meaning;
hence the suggestion that the two words simply stand in apposition, the grass, that is,
the herb seeding, etc.
2 )#de$ @E is derived from the verbal root )#df$ @F, to grow green.
3 Habakkuk 3:11a: “The sun and moon (xAry" F #$me#e$, without the w-conjunction) stood
still in their habitation.”
4 The noun in the absolute state in a construct chain can serve as an adjectival
genitive, as yrIp%;, of fruit does here, tree of fruit.

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yrpI ;%, the tree producing fruit (de Dieu). Others: trees with fruit, that is,
already laden with them (Fagius, Menochius). Whence the Hebrews
(impartially and rationally, says Lyra) say that the world was founded in
September, when all things are mature (Fagius). Thus Rabbi Eliezer1
concludes, and his followers, because it is written in Deuteronomy 32:4, the
works of God are perfect. Therefore, just as man was created in a perfect
state, capable of procreating, so also it is to be said of those things sprouting of
the earth (Lyra on verse 12). On the other hand, Rabbi Joshua2 maintains,
with his followers, that the world was made in the month of March, when the
earth begins to sprout herbs. Whence also March is called the first month,
Exodus 12:2 (Lyra on verse 12).

[According to its own kind, wnO ymli ;] They render it kind/genus
(Septuagint, Chaldean, Syriac). Species (Samaritan Text, Montanus, Malvenda,
Junius and Tremellius, Ainsworth). Genus and species are confused by the
Hebrews (Vatablus).

After his kind, i.e. according to the several kinds of fruits.
[The seed of which is in itself] Significantly, this is said concerning
plants, because plants do not need (as animals do) the opposite sex in order to
bring forth what is like unto themselves, but unto this end their own seed is
sufficient for them (Estius). Of which the offspring of the seed (the sprout
[Syriac]) is in itself (Chaldean). Of which the sprout would be of itself
(Arabic). With these words, a reproductive force is given to the plants in the
moment of creation, which was given to the animals at a separate time
(Castalio).
Whose seed is in itself; now is by my constitution, and shall be for the
future. In some part of itself, either in the root, or branch, or leaf, or bud, or
fruit. The sense is, which is sufficient of itself for the propagation of its kind,
without any conjunction of male and female.

Verse 12: And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed
after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his
kind: and God saw that it was good.

The last clause is so often added, to show that all the disorders, evil and
hurtful qualities, that now are in the creatures, are not to be imputed to God,
who made all of them good; but to man’s sin, which hath corrupted their

1 Rabbi Eliezer was one of the greatest rabbis of the first and second centuries of the
Christian era. His work is marked by great commitment to the Scriptures and strict
adherence to the traditional teaching of the rabbis that preceded him.
2 Rabbi Joshua was a contemporary of Rabbi Eliezer, and their views are frequently
juxtaposed, as they are here, as opposites. Rabbi Joshua’s exegesis emphasizes the
literal interpretation of the text in its grammatical and historical setting.

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nature, and perverted their use.

Verse 13: And the evening and the morning were the third day.

Verse 14: And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the
heaven to divide the day from the night (Heb. between the day and between
the night; Deut. 4:19; Ps. 74:16; 136:7); and let them be for signs, and for
seasons (Ps. 74:17; 104:19), and for days, and years.

[Let there be luminaries] The sun was created on the fourth day (in
accordance with the opinion of the Greek and the Latin interpreters), and
before it, the light, the herbs, and the trees; lest men should persuade
themselves that the sun is the cause of the light and of the herbs, and also
entertain an opportunity to commit idolatry (Vatablus). The Hebrews, on the
other hand, say that the sun was created on the first day, as it was said in verse
3, and that Moses omitted the narrative which he had begun concerning the
creation of the celestial and descended to the terrestrial, inasmuch as the
terrestrial is more familiar to us; afterward, on the fourth day, Moses returned
to the things omitted, namely, the arrangement of those heavenly objects. In
which case, it ought to be translated, He had said, etc. From the Sacred Books
you would not be able to say at what time they were created, but only that they
were created within the timeframe of the fourth day (Vatablus). The substance
of the luminaries was made on the first day; but what had been previously
unformed was formed on the forth day, and at that time received the power to
penetrate into these lower regions (Lyra).

[tro)mo ; yhiy]: yhyi :, let there be (a singular verb in the place of a
plural) luminaries (Vatablus). It is to be understood distributively, that is, Let
every single one of the luminaries be. So it is in Genesis 49:22, the daughters
(that is, every single one of the daughters) was advancing.1 Thus also in Joshua
2:42 and Ecclesiastes 10:13 (Malvenda). Or, it will be, namely, the light will
be luminaries, that is, it will be divided into those (Cajetan). Nahmanides: The
light, created on the first day, was obstructed by the extension of the
firmament: therefore, God prepared in the firmament certain places, through
which that first light might pour its own rays into the earth as by an instrument.

1 Genesis 49:22b: “His daughters (twnO b,f@ plural subject) runs (hd(F jc,f singular verb)
over the wall.”
2 Joshua 2:4a: “And the woman took the two men (My#$in)F J yn'#,$; plural), and hid him

(wOnpc;% t; i@wA, singular, pronominal, direct object suffix).”
3 Ecclesiastes 10:1a: “Dead flies (twEmf ybw' @z;, plural) maketh to stink (#$y)bi y; ,A

singular verb) and maketh to ferment ((Ayb@yi ,A singular verb) the ointment of the
apothecary.”

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And he observes that rwO)m;/luminary is called an instrument by which rw)O ,
that first light, lets down its splendor. For this reason, the sun and the moon
are called twOrwO)m;/luminaries. And certainly m is accustomed to be added to
a word to denote an instrument: as Ngm"@ a is an instrument by which one is
protected, that is, a shield;1 so xtA p@' m; i, a key, is an instrument by which a thing
is opened;2 xaw@p%m,a a bellows,3 etc. (Fagius).

Let there be lights; to wit, more glorious lights than that created the
first day, which probably was now condensed and reduced into these lights;
which are higher for place, more illustrious for light, and more powerful for
influence, than that was. Note here, that herbs and trees were created before
the sun, whose influence now is necessary for their production, to show that
God doth not depend upon the means or upon the help of the creatures in his
operations.

The day, i.e. the artificial day, reaching from sun-rising to sun-setting.
[For signs and for seasons] Here is a cyclical division of time into days,
months, the four seasons of the year, and years (Scaliger’s Concerning a Certain
Chronological Thesis,4 Gataker).
[For signs, tt)o lo ;] By which some understand influences (Vatablus,
Ibn Ezra in Fagius). Others understand wonders and portents, as in Joshua
10:12 and Isaiah 38:7, 8 (Vatablus). Still others understand: 1. not the
vanities of astrologers (whom the Fathers condemn) but natural prognostics
(Lapide, Bonfrerius, Menochius, Ainsworth) of fair weather or foul, of rain, of
frost, etc. (Lyra, Vatablus, Menochius); 2. signs for sowing, reaping,
navigating, etc. (Fagius, Lyra, Menochius); 3. signs of times, namely, of days,
years, months (Menochius), or signs of the four seasons of the year (Oleaster).
For signs some understand prognostics which portend an evil coming upon the
world, like in Jeremiah 10:2, be not dismayed by the signs of heaven (Fagius,
Ainsworth). twOtw)O /signs are sunte/leiai, the perfection or completion, of
months, Ben Sirach 43:6, 7,5 not eclipses and comets, as the Jews foolishly
suppose (Scaliger’s Concerning a Certain Chronological Thesis).
Let them be for signs; for the designation and distinction of times, as
months, weeks, etc.; as also for the signification of the quality of the weather
or season, by the manner of their rising and setting, Matthew 16:2; by their

1 NngA @F means to cover or to defend; Ng"m@ a is an instrument of protection.
2 xtpa f% means to open; xatp'@ m; i is an instrument by which a thing is opened.
3 xpanF means to blow; xwa %pm% a is a bellows, an instrument for blowing.
4 De Thesi Quadam Chronologica.
5 Wisdom of Ben Sirach 43:6, 7: “He made the moon also to serve in her season for a
declaration of times, and a sign of the world. From the moon is the sign of feasts, a
light that decreaseth in her perfection (suntelei/aj).”