TIP OF THE DAY 50: Ambiguity: Example of ambiguity and commentaries on the issue

MJ. Smith

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Luther on ambiguity in Scripture:

When Luther insists against Erasmus [in their 1525 debate] that the Bible is not obscure or dark but plain and clear, it is important to notice that he does not mean by “the Bible” or “Scripture” exactly what Erasmus meant: this long and complex text, with so many obviously obscure passages. Indeed, he does not precisely say that “Scripture” is clear. He says that res scripturae, the “matter” of scripture, is clear, and he glosses this as follows: “What kind of deep secret can still be hidden in the scripture, now that the seals have been opened, the stone rolled away from the grave, and the deepest secret of all revealed: that Christ, the only Son of God, has become man, that there is one eternal God in three persons, that Christ has died for us, and that he reigns for ever in heaven?” What is clear, we may say, is not exactly “scripture” but “the gospel”—“the rule of faith,” as we may recall it was sometimes called in the early church^[1]

 

QUESTION: Provide an example of Biblical ambiguity that is frequently discussed in Bible commentaries.

SOFTWARE: A book search on Bible commentaries limited to the passage Gen 1:1 for the search argument "when God" provided the examples. I have deliberately included very technical and very non-technical discussions as well as dscussions across time and theological streams. The intent is for everyone to find that there are commentaries at their level and interests.

ANSWER: from Sproul, R. C., ed. The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition). Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2015.

created. This translates a Hebrew word reserved for God’s creative activity alone. Linguistically possible, though less likely, is the translation “When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form and void.” God’s creative activity is not merely the ordering of preexistent matter (like an artisan fashioning a product); other passages clearly teach that the universe was created ex nihilo; (i.e., out of nothing; John 1:3; Heb. 11:3; 2 Pet. 3:5) and that only God is eternal and transcendent (e.g., Ps. 102:25–27; Prov. 8:22–31). Not even the darkness exists apart from God’s creative word (Is. 45:7). While the narrative here is fully consistent with the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, the emphasis falls on God’s progressive ordering and filling of a world that is both formless and empty (v. 2 note).^[2]

from Hamilton, Victor P. The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1–17. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1990.

Among the most well-known passages of Scripture is its very first verse, traditionally translated as above. Nevertheless, no small controversy among biblical scholars has swirled around both the translation and the meaning of the verse.

The issues are at least twofold. First, should v. 1 be translated as an independent clause, which is the approach taken in this commentary? Or is the verse to be understood as a dependent clause, “When God began to create …,” and thus subordinated to some following main clause? Second, what is the relation of v. 1 to v. 2, and for that matter, what is its relation, chronologically, exegetically, and theologically, to the remainder of the chapter?

First, the proper translation of the verse. A number of options are available here: (1) The first word, b^erē ʾš îṯ, is in the absolute state (i.e., it functions independently of any other word) and all of v. 1 is an independent clause and a complete sentence. (2) The first word is an indeterminate noun, used as a relative temporal designation: “Initially (or first, to start with) God created.…” (3) The first word is in the construct state (i.e., it functions in close connection with another word, usually a noun) and the verse is a temporal clause subordinated to v. 2: “When God began to create … the earth was without form and void.” (4) The first word is in the construct state and the verse is a temporal clause subordinated to v. 3, with v. 2 taken as a parenthesis: “When God began to create the heavens and the earth—the earth being without form and void—God said.…”

How shall we decide among these possibilities? A knowledge of the Hebrew language will not be sufficient in itself to settle the matter, for all four positions have been advocated by competent Hebraists, both ancient and modern. A survey of the extensive literature on the subject reveals that interpretations (1) and (4) have by far the widest support.

The main lines of argument in support of taking v. 1 as a dependent clause which prepares for the main clause in v. 3 are as follows. (a) The vowels in the word b^erēʾšîṯ indicate the word to be construct, not absolute, and the phrase must thus translate as “In the beginning of,” not “In the beginning,” for which one would expect bārēʾšîṯ. (b) In the “second” Creation account (2:4bff.) the temporal construction is employed—“when the Lord God made the cosmos”—and is a structural parallel to 1:1. (c) The word rēʾšîṯ occurs some fifty times in the OT, and all of these, except possibly Isa. 46:10, are in the construct state.³ Is it likely that Gen. 1:1 contains an exception? (d) Taking the first verse as a dependent clause provides further substantiation for the Babylonian background of this “Priestly” account of creation. That is, in the Babylonian Epic of Creation—the Enuma elish—the first nine lines parallel the first two verses of Genesis. Thus:

(1) protasis	(2) parenthetical clauses	(3) apodosis
Gen. 1:1	Gen. 1:2	Gen. 1:3
Enuma elish, lines 1–2	lines 3–8	line 9

Specifically then, Gen. 1:1—“When God began to create the heavens and the earth”—is the equivalent of the first two lines of Enuma elish: “When above, the heaven had not been named (and) below, the earth had not been called by name.”

Several of the more recent translations of the Bible have accepted this rendering: NEB, NAB, NJPS, RSV, and AB, but only in a footnote. Others, however, have retained the traditional translation; among them, NASB, NKJV, NIV, and JB.

The issue between these two options—“In the beginning when” and “In the beginning”—is not esoteric quibbling or an exercise in micrometry. The larger concern is this: Does Gen. 1:1 teach an absolute beginning of creation as a direct act of God? Or does it affirm the existence of matter before creation of the heavens and the earth? To put the question differently, does Gen. 1:1 suggest that in the beginning there was one—God; or does it suggest that in the beginning there were two—God and preexistent chaos? The latter approach separates itself from the former in that it dictates the existence of chaos prior to creation. But the concept of the creation of chaos would be a contradiction in terms.

In order to avoid this conclusion, several scholars (e.g., Westermann) have opted for the traditional translation, not on the basis of objective linguistic grounds—for they believe the Hebrew word itself to be ambiguous in form—but on the grounds of the wider context of the chapter. It is claimed, for instance, that the Creation story of Gen. 1 is a deliberate repudiation and demythologizing of a pagan cosmogony such as is found in Enuma elish.

If that be the case, is it possible to believe that the author would leave unchanged and unmolested, and thus endorse, one of the distinguishing concepts of the mythical worldview, viz., the creation of the world from preexistent matter which is outside the creator’s divine activity? Would such a vestigial motif be left undisturbed? Thus, speaking of v. 1, Brevard Childs says, “This verse can be interpreted grammatically in two different ways.… While there is a choice grammatically the theology of P excludes the latter possibility [viz., that 1:1 is a dependent, temporal clause subordinated to v. 3] … we have seen the effort of the Priestly writer to emphasize the absolute transcendence of God over his material.”

But one does not argue for the translation of 1:1 simply on the grounds of a biblical writer’s creation theology. While this is a legitimate criterion, if it is the only criterion the case for seeing absolute creation is seriously weakened. In our opinion valid lexical, grammatical, syntactical, comparative, and stylistic arguments have been advanced to substantiate the translation In the beginning.

They may be presented briefly as follows. Lexically, P. Humbert’s two studies are quite correct in their observation that rēʾšîṯ is almost always used in the OT in the construct state, the one departure being Isa. 46:9–10—“I am God … declaring the end [ʾaḥ^arîṯ] from the beginning [mērēʾšîṯ].” It cannot be denied that the prophet, in quoting God, is thinking in terms of God’s absolute disposition over beginning and end, with beginning and end indicating not “a specific period of time within history, but rather historical time as such.” Now if one grants that, apart from the possibility of Gen. 1:1, Isa. 46:10 is the only bona fide illustration of this word in the absolute state, then this one example is sufficient to demonstrate that rēʾšîṯ may be used to express a temporal meaning by use of the absolute state construction.

The same word used here in Gen. 1:1, b^erēʾšîṯ (preposition plus noun), appears four other times in the OT (Jer. 26:1; 27:1; 28:1; 49:34, “in the beginning of the reign of X”). Each time the noun is followed by another noun. Only in Gen. 1:1 is the noun followed by a verb in a finite form (specifically, a perfect form). This construction is not frequent, but it is known in most of the Semitic languages. Here contrast needs to be made with Gen. 2:4b, literally, “in the day of Yahweh God’s making earth and heavens.” Everybody agrees that this is a relative sentence, “when Yahweh God made earth and heavens.” But the noun in this verse is followed not by a verb in a finite form, as in 1:1, but by a verb in a nonfinite form (specifically, an infinitive construct). Is it not plausible to suggest a different nuance in the two verses by virtue of their different verbal forms?

The absence of the article is not a fatal argument against construing the word as absolute. For one thing, if as we have argued Isa. 46:10 shows rēʾšîṯ used in an absolute sense, it also provides us with an illustration of this word used both absolutely and indeterminately, and thus an exact parallel to Gen. 1:1. Second, all the ancient versions translate the word as an absolute and the whole verse as an independent clause Third, the Masoretes understood the word to be absolute, for they accented the word with the disjunctive accent called a ṭip̄ḥá, which is normal for words in the absolute state, rather than with a conjunctive accent, which is normal for words in the construct state.

Syntactically, the argument in support of the traditional translation, or the translation that subordinates the first verse to the following, revolves around the interpretation of the verse’s relationship to vv. 2 and 3. Related to this matter is the comparative cosmogonic literature, that is, the alleged parallel in syntax between Gen. 1:1–3, 4bff. and lines 1–9 of Enuma elish. It is more accurate to say that there is a syntactical similarity between Enuma elish 1–9 and Gen. 2:4bff., but not between Enuma elish 1–9 and Gen. 1:1–3. If there is any parallel between Gen. 1:1–3 and Enuma elish 1–9 it is this: Gen. 1:2 parallels Enuma elish 1–8, and Gen. 1:3 parallels Enuma elish 9. Obviously Gen. 1:1 is unique. Gunkel was quite correct when he said, “The cosmogonies of other people contain no word which would come close to the first word of the Bible.”

On stylistic grounds the traditional translation conforms to the pattern of sentence lengths throughout the chapter. The rule is not long sentences combining subordinate and principal clauses, but rather a whole series of brief, terse sentences in paratactic style. Thus H. Shanks can say, “Why adapt a translation that has been aptly described as a verzweifelt geschmacklose [hopelessly tasteless] construction, one which destroys a sublime opening to the world’s greatest book?”

Finally, we may say a word about the interpretation that takes the first verse of the Bible with adverbial force, “initially, first,” zuerst as opposed to im Anfang. Though this translation is possible, such a nuance would be expressed more directly in Hebrew by the phrase bāriʾšōná (Gen. 13:4; Num. 10:13–14; etc.), rather than by b^erēʾšîṯ.^[3]

from Clifford, Richard J. “Genesis.” In The Paulist Biblical Commentary, edited by José Enrique Aguilar Chiu, Richard J. Clifford, Carol J. Dempsey, Eileen M. Schuller, Thomas D. Stegman, and Ronald D. Witherup, 11–64. New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2018.

In 1:1–3, “heaven and earth” is a Heb. idiom for the universe, “heaven” here referring to the sky, not to the heaven where God dwells. Genesis 1 does not describe the beginning of all reality, for “heaven and earth” was preceded and in a sense paralleled by the heavenly world that had always existed. Both worlds have servants—heavenly and earthly beings. Until recently, verse 1 was rendered as an independent sentence, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” which has been understood in either of two ways: (1) an independent sentence describing God’s first action, with verses 2 and 3 describing God’s subsequent actions, that is, God first created chaos and then created order; (2) the title of the cosmogony. Recent major translations (NABRE, NJPS, NRSV, CEB), however, translate differently, viewing verses 1–3 as a single “when … then” construction (“1:1: In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth … 1:3: “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’ ”) with verse 2 as a parenthesis describing primordial chaos.^[4]

from Arnold, Bill T. Encountering the Book of Genesis: A Study of Its Content and Issues. Edited by Walter A. Elwell and Eugene H. Merrill. Encountering Biblical Studies. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1998.

As the important seventh day stands outside the purview of the creation formula, so do the first two verses of Genesis. These opening words of the Bible pose two interconnected questions, resulting in two mutually exclusive interpretations. First, we have to deal with the meaning of the first word of verse 1, bĕrēʾšît, traditionally translated “in the beginning.” Second, the answer to this question will impact how the first three verses relate to each other.

The issues involved in interpreting bĕrēʾšît are complicated and require some knowledge of Hebrew to understand fully. In sum, the noun has a prefixed preposition in a form that would often take a definite article, especially for a phrase such as “in the beginning.” Without the definite article, this particular spelling of the word would normally occur in a bound or construct form with a following noun, a genitive. However, in Genesis 1:1 there is neither a definite article nor another noun bound to it as we would expect. For this reason, some scholars have argued the term is a dependent temporal clause: “In the beginning when God created …,” or “When God began to create …” In this case, verse 1 would be dependent on the main clause of verse 2: “When God began to create …, the earth was formless and empty …” Another possibility is that verse 1 is dependent on verse 3, assuming verse 2 is parenthetical: “When God began to create … (now the earth was formless and empty …), God said …” In either case, God set to work with preexistent, primordial substance. He created the world out of preexistent matter.

Though these translations are possible, they are not required by the rules of Hebrew grammar. There are other examples in the Old Testament of similar temporal designations without the definite article, and there is no need to take the first word as a dependent clause at all. Instead, all the ancient translations of the Old Testament and the vast majority of contemporary translations and commentaries assume the traditional understanding of the opening words as an independent main clause: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” But that is far from the end of the matter.

Of those who assume this traditional understanding of verse 1, there is further variety. Some have taken verse 1 as describing an original, perfect creation. Between verses 1 and 2, the fall of Satan occurred, resulting in the contamination of God’s creation. Verse 2 thus describes the condition of earth as a result of Satan’s fall. Verse 3 then begins a description of God’s “re-creation” or reconstruction of the chaotic world. This is commonly referred to as the “gap theory,” since verse 2 describes a gap of an indeterminable period of time. Many who hold this view place dinosaurs and pre-Homo sapien anthropoids in this nebulous gap of time.

However, the gap theory does literary and linguistic injustice to the text of Genesis 1:1–3. A more balanced approach takes verse 1 as an independent main clause summarizing the events of verses 2–31. Verse 1 is a title or superscription for the entire chapter. The expression “the heavens and the earth” is Semitic merismus, a rhetorical device expressing totality (like alpha and omega, and everything between). Verse 1 then explains that everything that exists does so as a result of God’s creative activity about to be described in the chapter. Verse 2 describes the situation prior to creation, the preexisting chaos. Though this interpretation presupposes the prior existence of chaotic matter, it does not necessarily portray chaos that is beyond God’s control or antagonistic to his creative processes. Elsewhere in the Bible, it is clear that God created the universe from nothing and did so without taxing his powers or energy (Pss 33:6, 9; 148:5; Heb 11:3).

In addition to taking the first verse as a superscription, it is also possible to see it as describing the first act of creation. This would also take verse 1 as an independent main clause, and has the advantage of being the most ancient and traditional way of reading Genesis 1:1–3. This approach interprets the first three verses synchronically: verse 1 is the first creative act, verse 2 is the consequence of verse 1, and verse 3 is the first creative word. This interpretation has the support of ancient translations and modern scholars, and is most compatible with the biblical teaching of creatio ex nihilo (that is, the teaching that God created the universe from nothing and did so effortlessly).

Regardless of our interpretation of Genesis 1:1–3, the importance of the preexistence of God is central. As we shall see, other ancient peoples had an interest not only in the creation of the world, but also in the creation of the gods! By contrast, Israel never tried to explain the origins of God. God always has been, and before he created, he was alone. He simply spoke and the rest of the universe came into existence. This was a radical and new concept in the ancient Near East, as it is for modern believers. Indeed, this is the first step in our journey of faith. If we can accept this great biblical truth, the rest will be easy.^[5]

From Carasik, Michael, ed. Genesis: Introduction and Commentary. Translated by Michael Carasik. The Commentators’ Bible. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2018.

ABARBANEL’S QUESTIONS

♦            Why is the Creator called “God” throughout this chapter rather than “Lord” (that is, the Tetragrammaton), which is the name linked to creation by all the prophets?

♦            Once “God created the heaven and the earth” (v. 1, OJPS), doesn’t that already imply their complete material existence? So if God created them “in the beginning,” what was left to be created afterward? (I cannot accept the explanations of Rashi and Ibn Ezra, nor, for that matter, that of Nahmanides.)

♦            Why is the creation of the spiritual beings, the angels, not mentioned? They are one-third of the world, and the highest third of it at that.

RASHI

When God began. R. Isaac said: There was no need to begin the Torah until “This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months” (Exod. 12:2), the first commandment given to Israel. So what was the point of starting with “the beginning” (OJPS)? Because “He revealed to His people His powerful works, in giving them the heritage of nations” (Ps. 111:6). If the nations of the world should say to Israel, “You are thieves! You have conquered the land belonging to the seven nations of Canaan,” they can reply, “The whole world belongs to the Holy One. He created it and gave it to whomever He wanted to. He first willed to give it to them, and then He willed to take it from them and give it to us.” When God began to create. This verse absolutely demands, “Explain me as our Sages did!” According to the midrash, this verse means, “God created heaven and earth for the sake of reshit [beginning].” They were created for the sake of Torah, which is called “the beginning of His course” (Prov. 8:22), and for the sake of Israel, which is called “the first fruits of His harvest” (Jer. 2:3). But when you mean to interpret the text straightforwardly, interpret it this way: “At the beginning of the creation of heaven and earth, the earth was unformed and void and dark. God said, ‘Let there be light.’ ” The text is not saying that heaven and earth were created first. If it were, it would have to say barishonah, which is how you say “in the beginning” (OJPS) in Biblical Hebrew; bereshit, the word that is actually used, only occurs in construct with the following word, e.g., “at the beginning of the reign of” So-and-So. For other examples, see 10:10 and Deut. 18:4. Here too the text must be understood as if bara were a gerund, not a past tense: “At the beginning of God’s creating.” For a similar Hebrew grammatical form, see “When the Lord first spoke to Hosea” (Hosea 1:2), more literally, “at the onset of the Lord’s speaking with Hosea.” Notice that that phrase is immediately followed by the words, “the Lord said to Hosea.” If you insist that our verse is saying heaven and earth were created first, you would have to assume that there is a missing word, “At the beginning of everything, God created heaven and earth.” We do find examples of this, e.g. in Job 3:10; Amos 6:12; Isa. 8:4 and 46:10, where the Hebrew text is missing a word that needs to be filled in. But if this is what you think in our case, what about the water, which already exists in v. 2? For we are never told the water was created. So it must have preceded the creation of earth—and of heaven too according to our Sages, who say that heaven (shamayim) was created from a combination of fire and water (esh-mayim). You are, therefore, forced to admit that our verse says nothing about what was created when. God. And not “the Lord.” At first the intention was to create heaven and earth using the divine aspect of justice represented by the word elohim, “God.” But He saw that such a world was not viable and so He prefixed the Tetragrammaton to it: “When the Lord God made earth and heaven” (2:4).

RASHBAM

When God began to create.  I shall lay out the explanations of earlier commentators on this verse to demonstrate why I do not see things their way. Some understand the Hebrew to mean “In the beginning God created” (OJPS). But this is impossible; as v. 2 tells us, there was “a wind from God sweeping over the water,” meaning that the water too already existed. Moreover, the first Hebrew word of the text does not mean “in the beginning,” but “at the beginning of,” as in 10:10, where we read that “the beginning of [Nimrod’s] kingdom was Babel.” One who explains it to mean “when God began to create heaven and earth,” following the syntax of “When the Lord first spoke to Hosea” (Hosea 1:2), is saying that before heaven and earth were created, the earth was “unformed and void,” and (again) that the water had already been created. But this too is obviously nonsense. There is no “earth” to be “unformed and void” if the earth has not yet been created before the water was fashioned. To understand the straightforward sense of the verse, you must understand this basic point: Biblical texts regularly mention things that are not yet relevant in order to foreshadow later texts. For example, 9:18 tells us that “the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth”; why does it add, “Ham being the father of Canaan”? Because in 9:25 Noah will say, “Cursed be Canaan.” If Canaan had not already been mentioned, we would have no idea why Noah was cursing him. Another example. When “Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father’s concubine” (35:22), why does the verse continue, “and Israel found out”? After all, Israel does not say a word to Reuben about it. But it is meant to prepare the reader to hear Jacob to say on his deathbed, “Unstable as water, you shall excel no longer; for when you mounted your father’s bed, you brought disgrace—my couch he mounted!” (49:4). The same phenomenon is found in many other places.

Now, this whole passage about the six days of creation is meant to prepare the reader to understand “Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy.… For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and sea, and all that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day” (Exod. 20:8, 11). That is why v. 31 says “the sixth day”—the same “sixth day” that the Holy One would speak of when He said “Six days you shall labor and do all your work” (Exod. 20:9). Moses wanted to demonstrate to the Israelites that the word of the Holy One was truth. “You think this world has been in existence forever just as you see it now, full of all kinds of good things? Not so! Rather, ‘When God had begun to create …’” and so forth. That is, near the start of creation—when the upper heavens and the earth had all been in existence for however long a time—at the period when the story starts, the earth was unformed and void and so on.

IBN EZRA

When God began. The philologists say that “in” of “in the beginning” (OJPS) is extraneous here, as it is in the expression “at first” (compare 13:4 with “these shall march first” of Num. 2:9). But the sheva under the preposition in our verse makes clear that “in the beginning” is not the correct translation. Others say that our word always means “the beginning of,” and that a following word must be understood here: at the beginning of the evening, or the night, or the darkness. But they have forgotten “He chose for himself the beginning part” (Deut. 33:21), which has no “of.” Grammatically, this is of course correct; but the mind cannot actually conceive of a beginning in the abstract, a beginning that is not the beginning of something. Still others agree that the preposition is extraneous and take it as a title: “The Beginning.” This (in their view) would be intended to prevent people from thinking that heaven and earth had no beginning. In my opinion our word does indeed indicate “of,” just as it does in “At the beginning of the reign of King Jehoiakim” (Jer. 27:1). Do not be surprised to see such an expression connected to a past tense verb (“created,” OJPS)! The Hebrew of “When the Lord first spoke to Hosea” (Hosea 1:2) and “city where David camped” (Isa. 29:1) displays precisely this same syntax, though some point out that the apparent verb in the Hosea verse is the same as a noun in Jer. 5:13. As to what it means, all this will become clear to you in my comments to v. 2. God. Since we have a singular form elo’ah, we realize that elohim, the more common way to say “God,” is a plural form. But this is a standard phenomenon of language. One who is lower refers to one who is higher by using plural forms. In Arabic, the great refer to themselves by using the plural. The holy tongue does the same thing. In “the owner must acquiesce” (Exod. 22:10) and “a harsh master” (Isa. 19:4), the nouns have plural form but the verb and the adjective are singular. (In fact, some of the simplest prepositions in the Hebrew language take suffixes as if they were plural nouns.) In our verse, too, though “God” has its plural form, the verb is explicitly singular. Now, speech is referred to as a “tongue” or (in Hebrew) a “lip” because we see that that is where the sounds come forth. Similarly, the rational soul is called “heart,” though the actual heart is a physical body and the soul is not, because the heart is the primary physical repository of the rational soul. In just this way, God is called elohim, which more properly refers to the angels who do His will. See my comments to Exod. 23:20–21, where I will explain somewhat of the mystery of God’s name. Do not by any means believe Saadia’s assertion that human beings rank higher than the angels. I have completely refuted his arguments in my book Basic Hebrew Grammar.  Here, I need say nothing more than to remind you that prophets are the greatest of human beings, and that the prophet Zechariah addressed the angel who spoke to him (Zech. 1:9) as “lord.” The great Joshua too fell on his face before the angel of the Lord: “Joshua threw himself face down to the ground and, prostrating himself, said to him, ‘What does my lord command his servant?’ ” (Josh. 5:14), and so did Daniel. But why go on? “Praise the God of elohim” (Ps. 136:2) is quite enough to demonstrate that the real meaning of the word elohim is “angels.” But judges, who are responsible for upholding God’s laws, can also be referred to as elohim. Just remember that “god” is a description, not a name. Moreover, you should not imagine (as some do based on Ps. 104:4) that angels are creatures of air and fire.  Create. Most of the commentators say that this Hebrew verb refers specifically to creation ex nihilo, making something out of nothing, as in “if the Lord make a new thing” (Num. 16:30). But they have forgotten “God created the great sea monsters” (v. 21), which were brought forth from the waters (see v. 20). In v. 27 “created” is used this way three times! “I form the light, and create darkness” (Isa. 45:7) is even more disastrous for their theory; here God is “creating” nothingness—light is a substance, darkness merely its absence. The correct explanation is precisely this: The word ברא is two different verbs: one, a verb that means “to create out of nothing,” and another that is an alternate form of the verb ברה. Compare “to eat something” (2 Sam. 3:35, the ה form), versus “feeding on the first portions” (1 Sam. 2:29, the א form). The essential meaning of this other ברא is “to cut” or “to make a precise delineation.” Scientifically minded people will understand what I am talking about. But natural philosophers differ on the larger question. Some think that the Holy One is continuously creating the Torah and the Throne of Glory, and that they have no beginning or end; others say that this is true only of the Holy One Himself. Heaven and earth. Both words are preceded in Hebrew by the particle et, marking the direct object. It is sometimes omitted, as in “God created man” (5:1), and in a few rare cases is even used with the subject (see 1 Sam. 17:34). But the same word can also mean “with” or “from.” The Hebrew of our verse literally says “the heaven and the earth” (OJPS), to make clear that the words refer to the same sky and earth that we ourselves see. Be aware also that the Hebrew word is always “heavens,” in the plural. The word implies both physical height and metaphorical stature, as it does in Arabic, which largely follows the same pattern as Hebrew. Unlike English “skies” or “heavens,” the Hebrew word is a dual form that, like the words for “noon” and “millstones,” is never found in the singular. (Scholars of astronomy will understand why.) Saadia says that the earth is like the point at the center of a circle; the heavens that surround it constitute the circle. He also says that their creation also implies the creation of everything in them (e.g., water and fire). Others think water is implied in the creation of earth and air is implied in the creation of heaven. In my opinion, the “heaven and earth” of our verse are the “expanse” of v. 6 and the “dry land” of v. 9. For on each individual day, only a single thing was created: light on Day One, the sky on Day Two, plants on Day Three, the lights on Day Four, and the living creatures on Days Five and Six; see Psalm 104 for proof. But a circle cannot be created before its center, nor can the center be created before the circle, so the Sages said that heaven and earth were created simultaneously, using as their proof the verse “My own hand founded the earth, My right hand spread out the skies. I call unto them, let them stand together” (Isa. 48:13). But that is not what this verse means. After all, how could the Holy One “call” to something that did not yet exist? He is simply saying, “I created them, and when I call them, they stand together before Me like servants ready to do their Master’s will.” See also Ps. 119:89–91. For our part, we will rely on the words of Moses, God’s messenger. If we find some scientific fact that comports with them we will certainly be happy, just as we will when we find some profound rabbinic explanation that comports with scientific fact. So we will not ask when the angels were created, nor whether heaven or earth was created first. We can say, however, that “heaven” refers to the upper heavens, above the firmament, and earth to the earth below the waters. For the sphere of fire is above that of air, which is above that of water, with the earth below it.

KIMHI

God. The Hebrew word implies rulership, and has plural grammatical form, as we sometimes find also with human rulers. In this first chapter, no other divine name but this is used, since this chapter explains the formation and governance of the world. We learn that there is a God ruling the world, and that it was made by a single Creator, who decided to create the world and used His wisdom to do so. Since the verb used here is singular, there can be no question of plural gods (and see Ibn Ezra’s comment). Began. The noun “beginning” (OJPS) is not in construct form here, but in absolute form, as in “I foretell the end from the beginning” (Isa. 46:10). The OJPS translation is therefore the correct one. To call it “beginning” is pushing the boundaries of language, as that is a word of temporal sequence, and time itself began only with the movement of the spheres. Create. The Hebrew root can include fashioning something out of preexistent materials: “When God created man, He made him in the likeness of God” (5:1); “Fashion a pure heart for me, O God” (Ps. 51:12). But (unlike “form” of 2:7) it does not have to involve creation of a physical object; compare “But if the Lord brings about something unheard-of” (Num. 16:30). Here creation is creation ex nihilo. See “All who are linked to My name, whom I have created, formed, and made for My glory” (Isa. 43:7), where “creating” refers to bringing forth something from nothing, “forming” to infusing the matter with form and structure, and “making” to perfecting the various separate individuals of each kind. Heaven and earth. The direct object marker et that precedes each of these words is discussed in detail by our Sages. They conclude that all “the generations of the heaven and of the earth” (2:4, OJPS) were created along with them. Imagine a farmer who plants many different kinds of seeds at once, some of which sprout after two days, some after three, and some after four.

NAHMANIDES

When God began. Rashi’s comment citing R. Isaac is questionable. It was in fact quite necessary to start the Torah with creation, which is the root of faith. One who does not believe in creation but thinks the world has always existed is one who denies the essential principle ^[A]—he has no Torah whatsoever. The correct answer to the question of why the Torah begins here is that the Account of Creation is a profound mystery that is not explained in the text. It cannot be thoroughly understood except by means of the tradition that goes back to our master Moses, who received it directly from the Almighty. Those who do know it are required to conceal it. That is why R. Isaac said the Torah did not really need to begin with creation, let alone with all the fussy details of what was created on which day—not even the story of Adam and Eve, their sin and their expulsion from the garden of Eden. All this could not really be fully comprehended from the text alone. Much less so was there a necessity for the stories of the Flood and the Tower of Babel. Ordinary Jews could easily have gotten along without all these. Exod. 20:11, “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and sea, and all that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day,” would be enough for them to believe what they needed to believe. Those few individuals who passed down the Oral Law as given to Moses on Mount Sinai would still have full knowledge. R. Isaac was simply giving a superficial reason for why the Torah begins here, telling the story of the creation of man and how the Holy One “made him master over His handiwork, laying the world at his feet” (Ps. 8:7). The garden of Eden, the choicest of all created places, was made for them to dwell in until their sin expelled them from it, just as the generation of the Flood was expelled for their sin from the world as a whole, only the most righteous one among them (and his sons) escaping. Their offspring, in turn, were scattered throughout the world, seizing for their various clans whatever parts of the earth they could. It is therefore fitting that when a nation goes on sinning, it should lose its place and another nation should come along and take possession of it. That has been God’s rule for the world forever. All the more so should this be true of Canaan, the nation cursed in 9:25–27 with being an eternal slave to his brothers. That nation could certainly not claim the choicest of all settled lands; instead, that land came into the possession of the servants of the Lord and descendants of His great friend, Abraham: “He gave them the lands of nations; they inherited the wealth of peoples, that they might keep His laws and observe His teachings” (Ps. 105:44–45). That is, He expelled those who rebelled against Him and settled there those who served Him, letting them know that they inherited the land because of their service to Him: “So let not the land spew you out for defiling it, as it spewed out the nation that came before you” (Lev. 18:28). As our tradition puts it: “To explain the Account of Creation to flesh and blood would be impossible, so the text conceals it behind the phrase, ‘God created.’ ” When God began to create. The midrash cited by Rashi is actually profoundly obscure. There are many other things that are called reshit (“beginning”), each with its own midrash. (Those of little faith make fun of how many there are.) There are midrashim saying that the world was created for the sake of the first loaf (Num. 15:20), the tithes (Deut. 18:4), the first fruits (Exod. 23:19), and even Moses (Deut. 33:21). What the Sages meant by this was that the world was created by means of the 10 sefirot, and that reshit refers specifically to the sefirah of Hokhmah (“Wisdom”), which is the basis of everything: “The Lord founded the earth by wisdom” (Prov. 3:19). Tithing is also a clear reference to this. Giving a “tenth” is an obvious allusion to the 10 sefirot. And so for everything that is called reshit. “Israel” is in fact a reference to the Assembly of Israel. ^[B] It is impossible to go on at length about this in writing. Even alluding to it is quite dangerous, since people will “explain” such allusions in completely false ways. I have only said even this much in order to stifle those with little faith and less wisdom, who make fun of rabbinic tradition. With regard to the order of creation, Rashi says the creation of light preceded everything else, and Ibn Ezra explained it this way as well; see particularly his comment to “the earth” of v. 2. According to him, nothing at all was created on the first day but light. The difficulty with Rashi’s comment is his statement that reshit occurs only in construct form. But see again Deut. 33:21, not to mention Isa. 46:10, “I foretell the end from the beginning.” (He had some other grammatical arguments as well.) But now hear the straightforward explanation of this verse, correctly and clearly. The Holy One created all things from absolute zero. The Hebrew verb used here for “create” is the only word we have in the language for creation ex nihilo. Nothing that is “made” (rather than “created”), under the sun or above it, comes literally from nothing. The Holy One brought forth from complete nothingness an extraordinarily subtle substance lacking any mass, but having the power to bring into existence things ready to receive form and to move from potential to actual. This was the first material substance, what the Greeks call hyle. After this hyle, God “created” nothing else. Instead, He “made” and “formed” things. For everything was fashioned from this hyle—the forms were clothed in matter and arranged appropriately.

The Holy One is called “God” (elohim) in this connection because that name—deriving from a combination of el (“power”) and hem (“them”)—describes Him as master of all powers. (The deeper meaning of this will be revealed later.) The straightforward sense of this passage is therefore correctly understood as follows: God first created heaven, bringing forth its substance from nothing, and earth, bringing forth its substance from nothing. “Earth” in this larger sense includes all four of the elements: earth, air, fire, and water: “The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array” (2:1). With this creation, consisting physically of nothing more than a vanishingly small point with no physical matter, all the created things of heaven and earth were indeed created. The direct object marker et implies the essence of a thing, though our Sages always take it to imply something additional coming into play, for they derive it from the verb ata as in “Morning came” (Isa. 21:12). So they said that “et the heaven” implies that the sun, moon, stars, and constellations came into being along “with” heaven, and that “et the earth” implies that along “with” the earth all the trees, the plants, the garden of Eden, and in fact every material thing came into being. ^[C] It seems to me that this created “point,” once clothed in form (bohu), must be what the Sages call the Foundation Stone. ^[D]

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS

When God began. The word reshit occurs with the preposition ב and no suffix just five times: here and in Jer. 26:1 and 27:1—all at the beginning of the verse—and in the middle of a verse in Jer. 28:1 and 49:34 (Masorah). The Torah begins with ב—the second letter of the alphabet, not the first—because it is surrounded on three sides, the east, west, and south, but open on the north side, from which come evil winds that do harm to the world (Hizkuni). If you look at the opinions of those who lived in the time of Moses, it is obvious that philosophy was sorely lacking in those days (Gersonides). Reshit here does indeed mean “the beginning of,” as Rashi says; it implies “at the beginning of time.” As to the -im ending of elohim, that does not imply anything about the plurality of God; think of the name Ephraim and many others. The mem is there because otherwise we would read the word as elohei, “God of” (Abarbanel). To create. Creation from nothing takes no time at all (Sforno). Heaven and earth. The Holy One could certainly have made these out of two different kinds of hyle—but this is philosophy and has nothing to do with those of the Torah faith. As Jer. 23:28 puts it, “How can straw be compared to grain?” In fact, this verse is intended to refute three philosophical ideas: (1) that time has no beginning; (2) that it is impossible to create something from nothing; and (3) that God, being one, could not produce multiplicity. But these two were created from nothing at the beginning of time. That is why there is no “God said” here; that phrase invokes creation from something that already exists. I explained things differently in my commentary to Tractate Avot, but there I relied on Nahmanides’ opinion. Now I have carefully explained the real truth (Abarbanel).

from Louth, Andrew, and Marco Conti, eds. Genesis 1–11. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001.

1:1 In the Beginning God Created the Heavens and Earth

Heaven and Earth Were Created Through the Word. Origen: What is the beginning of all things except our Lord and “Savior of all,”¹ Jesus Christ “the firstborn of every creature?”² In this beginning, therefore, that is, in his Word, “God made heaven and earth” as the evangelist John also says in the beginning of his Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him nothing was made.”³ Homilies on Genesis 1.1.⁴

The Beginning Is the Word. Origen: Scripture is not speaking here of any temporal beginning, but it says that the heavens and the earth and all things that were made were made “in the beginning,” that is, in the Savior. Homilies on Genesis 1.1.⁵

Heaven and Earth Are the Formless Matter of the Universe. Augustine: Scripture called heaven and earth that formless matter of the universe, which was changed into formed and beautiful natures by God’s ineffable command.… This heaven and earth, which were confused and mixed up, were suited to receive forms from God their maker. On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis 3.10.⁶

God Created the Matter and the Form of Heavens and Earth. Basil the Great: [The Manichaeans assert that] the form of the world is due to the wisdom of the supreme Artificer; matter came to the Creator from without; and thus the world results from a double origin. It has received from outside its matter and its essence and from God its form and figure. They thus come to deny that the mighty God has presided at the formation of the universe and pretend that he has only brought a crowning contribution to a common work, that he has only contributed some small portion to the genesis of beings. They are incapable from the debasement of their reasoning of raising their glances to the height of truth. Here below arts are subsequent to matter—introduced into life by the indispensable need of them. Wool existed before weaving made it supply one of nature’s imperfections. Wood existed before carpentering took possession of it and transformed it each day to supply new wants and made us see all the advantages derived from it, giving the oar to the sailor, the winnowing fan to the laborer, the lance to the soldier. But God, before all those things that now attract our notice existed, after casting about in his mind and determining to bring into being time which had no being, imagined the world such as it ought to be and created matter in harmony with the form that he wished to give it. He assigned to the heavens the nature adapted for the heavens and gave to the earth an essence in accordance with its form. He formed, as he wished, fire, air and water, and gave to each the essence that the object of its existence required. Finally, he welded all the diverse parts of the universe by links of indissoluble attachment and established between them so perfect a fellowship and harmony that the most distant, in spite of their distance, appeared united in one universal sympathy. Let those men therefore renounce their fabulous imaginations, who, in spite of the weakness of their argument, pretend to measure a power as incomprehensible to man’s reason as it is unutterable by man’s voice. God created the heavens and the earth, but not only half—he created all the heavens and all the earth, creating the essence with the form. Hexaemeron 2.2–3.⁷

God Created Things out of Nothing. Nemesius of Emesa: Even if it is granted that the God of all things followed an order [in the creation], he is shown to be God and Creator and to have brought all things into being out of nothing. On the Nature of Man 26.⁸

The Condition Before the Birth of the World. Basil the Great: It appears, indeed, that even before this world an order of things existed of which our mind can form an idea but of which we can say nothing, because it is too lofty a subject for men who are but beginners and are still babes in knowledge. The birth of the world was preceded by a condition of things suitable for the exercise of supernatural powers, outstripping the limits of time, eternal and infinite. The Creator and Demiurge of the universe perfected his works in it, spiritual light for the happiness of all who love the Lord, intellectual and invisible natures, all the orderly arrangement of pure intelligences who are beyond the reach of our mind and of whom we cannot even discover the names. They fill the essence of this invisible world, as Paul teaches us. “For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers” or virtues or hosts of angels or the dignities of archangels. To this world at last it was necessary to add a new world, both a school and training place where the souls of men should be taught and a home for beings destined to be born and to die. Thus was created, of a nature analogous to that of this world and the animals and plants which live on it, the succession of time, forever pressing on and passing away and never stopping in its course. Is not this the nature of time, where the past is no more, the future does not exist, and the present escapes before being recognized? And such also is the nature of the creature that lives in time—condemned to grow or to perish without rest and without certain stability. It is therefore fit that the bodies of animals and plants, obliged to follow a sort of current and carried away by the motion that leads them to birth or to death, should live in the midst of surroundings whose nature is in accord with beings subject to change. Thus the writer who wisely tells us of the birth of the universe does not fail to put these words at the head of the narrative. “In the beginning God created”; that is to say, in the beginning of time. Therefore, if he makes the world appear in the beginning, it is not a proof that its birth has preceded that of all other things that were made. He only wishes to tell us that, after the invisible and intellectual world, the visible world, the world of the senses, began to exist. Hexaemeron 1.5.

Creation Known from Revelation. Basil the Great: We are proposing to examine the structure of the world and to contemplate the whole universe, not from the wisdom of the world but from what God taught his servant when he spoke to him in person and without riddles. Hexaemeron 6.1.

To Moses Was Revealed the Beginning. Chrysostom: Notice this remarkable author, dearly beloved, and the particular gift he had. I mean, while all the other inspired authors told either what would happen after a long time or what was going to take place immediately, this blessed author, being born many generations after the event, was guided by the deity on high and judged worthy to narrate what had been created by the Lord of all from the very beginning. Accordingly he began with these words: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” He well nigh bellows at us all and says, “Is it by human beings I am taught in uttering these things? It is the one who brought being from nothing who stirred my tongue in narrating them.” Since we therefore listen to these words not as the words of Moses but as the words of the God of all things coming to us through the tongue of Moses, so I beg you, let us heed what is said as distinguished from our own reasoning. Homilies on Genesis 2.5.

Trust God’s Revelation to Moses. Chrysostom: Let us accept what is said with much gratitude, not overstepping the proper limit nor busying ourselves with matters beyond us. This is the besetting weakness of enemies of the truth, wishing as they do to assign every matter to their own reasoning and lacking the realization that it is beyond the capacity of human nature to plumb God’s creation. Homilies on Genesis 2.5.

Heaven and Earth. Chrysostom: Why does it proceed, first heaven then earth? The temple’s roof made before its pavement? God is not subject to nature’s demands