CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY DATE DUE imr 21 "^ Mosaic cosmogony onnj 1924 031 786 928 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. A LITERAL TEANSLATIOK FIEST CHAPTER OP GENESIS, WITH ANNOTATIONS AND EATIONALIA. ROBERT GEORGE SUCKLING BROWNE, B.D., rORMEBLY OF OAIUS' AND OF ST. JOHn's COLLEGES, CAMBRIDGE ; FELLOW, TWICE ELECTED, OF DULWICH COLLEGE, AND VICAR OF ATWICK, YORKSHIRE. LONDON : JOSEPH MASTERS, ALDEESGATE STEEET, AND NEW BOND STREET. MDCCCr.XlV. ][i ^. k h LONDON : PKINIED BY JOSEPH MASTEES AND SON, ALDEESaATE STREET. THIS ATTEMPT TO TTTBN THE ENTIRE LIGHT OF HOLY SOEIPTUEE ON THE PATH OP SCIBHOE IS INSCRIBED TO THE PEESIDBNT, THE COHNCIL AND THE FELLOWS OP THE ROYAL SOCIETY THE AUTHOR. Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031786928 PREFACE. The little book which you hold in your hand, courteous reader, is designed to obviate and clear away difficulties by affording a correct view of the Mosaic account of the Creation. The religious and intellectual world is not, that I am aware, in possession of accurate Scriptural authority, upon which to proceed to any precise decision upon im- portant and interesting subjects. Men of science are con- stantly at a loss to determine what they may and what they may not accept, as Divine communication. They are frequently brought up on a sharp curb in their excursions in the pursuit of knowledge. If this had been the design of the Author of all things and the Creator of man, the creature would have had the sole and simple duty of a meek submission. But since that benign Being has vouch- safed clear and bright disclosures, and the obscurity, that has supervened and made those disclosures unintelligible, is the result of the creature's ignorance and presumption, it can be no excess of duty if human efforts be made to dissipate that darkness, which human frailty has created. The labour of dispersing these clouds, hanging over and obscuring Divine revelation, is not inconsiderable. Light will not always be found, bow diligently soever it may be PREFACE. sought, in the mysteries of criticism, or the caprices of in- terpretation. It is latent in regions, too little trodden and too little known. The explorers of that terra incognita return laden with wealth, that exposes them to the amazed incredulity of indolence. This terra incognita is not the page of the Word of God, as it is one while fairly, another while faintly, and not unfrequently falsely ren- dered in human translations; but that Word of God, which breathes the very tones and accents, in which the inspired Servant of the Most High wrote it under the dic- tation of the Holy Spirit. These sonorous tones and these living accents, or their equivalents, it has been my labour of reverential love to awaken and to vindicate and to transfer to these pages. The geologist will exclaim impatiently at my presump- tion in tracing a sketch of a theory, that suits my views of the Mosaic Cosmogony. I have observed that, with those views, this planet may have undergone various and re- peated disruptions ; no limit to the number, or kinds, being possible. Its ignifluous state at some period is evi- dent. That state may have been recurrent. But there must have been, subsequently to the last recurrence of an ignifluous state, some less terrific, some modified, some ex- plosive, disruption. By this disruption, whenever it hap- pened, the azoic bed was broken up and inequalities on the earth's surface produced. Was it not by this last dis- ruption, or by a series of similar disruptions, creating these inequalities, that the beds were formed for receiving "into their several places" the superincumbent waters ? If so, this last disruption, or series of disruptions, was the pro- PREFACE. Vll cess adopted by the Creator to restore to habitable order the Tohu and Bohu, that exceeding desolation, which pre- vailed up tOj or at, that time. With deference I tender these hypotheses. With a similar feeling I invite Chemis- try and Astronomy to aid me in the elucidation of my sacred subject. Such strength as I possess lies not in these in- teresting departments of knowledge. Whatever may be the award of Science upon these mat- ters, I must insist most solemnly and emphatically, that no theory can be true, or acceptable, which does not respect Divine Revelation. And that Divine Revelation, given by the aid of human language, I have laboured to place, and feel assured I have placed, in its true light. Not only is there no theory of an ex nihilo creation propounded by the inspired Prophet, but the notion is untenable, that Moses, in the two opening versicles, intended a Creation, indefi- nitely before the reconstruction of the earth, introductory to the ex humo creation of man. " There shall be light," was not the primal behest of Omnipotence in this stage of the earth's existence. " In the beginning," here intended, God renovated, that is, He prepared and made habitable the earth and its atmosphere. Nor, furthermore, was the creative power exerted, nor is it represented as having been at that period exerted, in creating the sources, or places, of light : the sun, the moon and the stars. Their previous existence is as surely asserted, as is the previous existence of the earth. The Expanse is the atmosphere, in which the bird of wing flies and the fertilizing clouds are suspended. This vast laboratory, in which nature operates immense analyses, solutions, precipitations and combina- PREFACE. tions ; this grand receiver, in which all the attenuated and volatilized productions of terrestrial bodies are received, mingled, agitated, combined and separated, is denominated "the heavens." But the "heavenly bodies" move not in those " heavens," although through them this planet enjoys their brilliancy. The independence of thought, I have asserted, is not in- compatible with a profound respect for the opinions of others. It is the conviction that many of those opinions are grounded upon difiSculties, thrown in the way of searchers after truth by translators and commentators, that emboldens me to demand a hearing and expect for- bearance. Vociferous and startled prejudice has my fullest permission to envelope me in its vapour. Its volume will not shock me. My object is the vindication of the sacred Word of the God of Truth. The septuagenary has no dread of human censure ; no thirst for human applause. In patience he awaits that good time, when he may be humbly hopeful, that his strenuous and fearless efforts in the highest and most holy cause, that can engage the mind of man, may receive the, " Well done \" of his Saviour and his God. THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. A MTEEA.I/ TBANSIiATION OF THE CoSMOGONIO POETION OF THE Book of Genesis, bt Moseb, oe compiled feom Ancient Eecoeds, undee the guidance of God's Holt Spieit. Genesis I. 1. In the beginning God restored^ to order the heavens and the earth. 2. Seeing that the earth had been and was in existence^ an exceeding desolation : and darkness (was) on the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God brooded on the face of the waters. We obtain here the introductory statement. We behold what this globe and its surrounding atmosphere were, be- fore a single act of renovation, or reconstruction, had taken place. How this planet and its component parts were reduced to a state of Tohu and Bohu, we are not enlight- ened. Whether it proceeded from Plutonic, or Neptunian confusion, or both, we are not forbidden, but rather solicited, ' We have liere an instance of the logical concordance between tlie sub- ject and the predicate. The subject, D'li'jbi, being in the plural number, the predicate would formally be in the plural number also ; but as God, not gods, is intended, the predicate is put in concordance with the intended subject. Of simUar construction is " n'ri^*? 1°^," God saith. — See Lee's Hebrew Grammar, Art. 216. 3 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. to investigate ; if investigation may aid the pursuit of science and elevate our knowledge, and if our progress in science, and our increase of knowledge refine and deepen our faith. Tohu and Bohu/ utter desolation, it was, when the Spirit of God, whether in meditation or in efficacious influence, we are not told, sate like a bird on her eggs, and " brooded on the face of the waters." " In the beginning." What is the scope of this phrase, " in the," rather a, " beginning ?" Is this " beginning," that ascertained and definite, that unvaried and discernible, point of time, which we are wont to assign to those magic words ? Is this beginning the actual conjuncture in which, as to this globe, non-existence and existence met ? Verily and emphatically, it is not. A very little consideration will show that " the beginning," theologically viewed, is a ' Few attempts at a translation could be less felicitous, than that of Tohu and Bohu, by the Seventy ; " ^ Se yrt ^v adparos Koi iKaTaffitevacrTos." T?his has been rendered by the author of " Creation in Plan and in Progress," lite- rally. " Now the earth was invisible and unfurnished." Another learned translator, the Dean of Lichfield, has rendered this passage, " The earth moreover was viewless and un&shioned." What the Seventy had in view in their translation, or, rather, their perversion, of the sacred original, I am at a loss to conjecture. It was not for lack of better understanding, for in Jeremiah iv. 23, they have well and truly rendered the same terras Tohu and Bohu, " ovBfv," nought ; a concise representation of the actual state of the earth nt the time. The " apyhv koI aStdKpiTov," of Symmachus, is pre- ferable to the Septuagint version ; and Theodotion's " Keyhy kcH owfleV," is very good. The " K^vaifjia, Kal owfleV,'' of Aqmla, is scarcely so good ; the former term has a germ of the theory of La Place. For these versions I am indebted to the Dean of Lichfield's Notes ad locum, not having access to the books themselves. I am further in the learned Dean's debt, for the following suggestions. " They," the LXX, I suppose, " may have called it ci6pmos, because there was no human spectator, or because it was on all sides surrounded by the primeval waters ; so Theodoret, Qu. 5 in Gen.'' The reader wiU see a still more strange translation of Tohu and Bohu, by the LXX, in Isa. xxxiv. 11 ; the Latin Vulgate is nearer to coiTectness ; the English version is correct. The Dean of Lichfield's work is. The Book of Genesis, according to the Version of the LXX. Cambridge, Maemillan and Co. 1855. GENESIS I. 1, 2. 3 shifting and dissolving phrase of Holy Scripture ; that is^ it is a phrase susceptible of various modifications. " In the beginning was The Word." (S. John i. 1 .) How many ages, an absolute complement of eternity, before " the be- ginning," recorded by Moses ! " From the beginning it was not so," (S. Mat. xix. 8,) are the words of The Word of God, manifest in the flesh, and they point to a time after the creation, or ex-humo formation, of man. I must be permitted to insist a while on this matter, that, " in the beginning," as applicable to human and mundane affairs in Holy Scripture, has no stereotyped, or settled meaning ; its signification is by the context alone determinable. Any good Hebrew Lexicon will supply the various meanings of the Hebrew word fli^iSI, reshith. We read this word in 1 Sam. ii. 29, "the chiefestoi all the offerings of Israel :" in Jer. xlix. 35, " the chief of their might :" in Amos vi. 1, "chief of the nations:" in Dan. xi. 41, "the chief of the children of Ammon :" and in Dent, xxxiii. 21, " the first part," that is, a post of honour and emolument. The Syriac cognate, ]AajBj>, rishitho, has similar significations, and the root, — a^i, rish, in S. Luke xvi. 24, rnKt-^ . m.% rish tsebeh, means, " the tip of his finger." In Ezekiel xxxvi. 11, our word reshith, is employed in the plural num- ber, and signifies " your beginnings." 0ur phrase then, " in the beginning," points to a period of time, some five days before the formation of man, when " God recreated the heavens and the earth." We have the highest, that autho- rity, by whom all things were made, for this acceptation of " the beginning." " Have ye not read," said our Lord, meaning in that sacred record which puny modern scholar- ship presumes to question, " that He who made them at the beginning, made them a male and a female ?" And what is the meaning or scope of the Hebrew verb, in our authorized version, rendered by " created ?" To B 2 4 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. English ears and understandings the sound ' comes natu- rally, and by long use almost irresistibly, as the represen- tation of an ex nihilo creation. But in the teeth of all the Rabbinical and Cabbalistic fancies of Jewish Commenta- tors, and with reverential deference to modem criticism, in the Hebrew Bible, it is not so ; there Moses has sanc- tioned and recorded, — has beyond rational question and all critical douht, written, " God re-created," in the sense of renovated or created anew. Hereby we are instructed that God reduced to their present order, and harmony, and heauty, — made habitable and self-sustaining, the aerial, fluid and solid constituent elements of the world we live in. R. D. Kimchi, in his endeavour to ascertain the shades of difference existing between the terms used in the Mosaic Cosmogony, has assumed that our Hebrew verb >^")3, Bara, has the full signification of ex nihilo creavit. Our own Castell, a profound and self-denying scholar, has entertained the same groundless notion. And even our illustrious Bryan Walton, was not inaccessible to this oblique ray of Rabbinical ignis fatuus ; otherwise, these two last worthies would not have encumbered, the latter his glorious Polyglott Bible, and the former his, in all other respects, most valuable Lexicon, with a weight of senseless Rabbinical rubbish. I have not met with any scholar of eminencfe, who has maintained this opinion, until I was startled with it in the very able and eloquent Essay, " On the Mosaic Record of Creation," in reply to " Essays and Reviews." I have not only the strong feel- ing of regret, but moreover, a sense of liability to the heavy charge of presumption, in my venture to differ from the learned author of that brilliant Essay. He will, how- ever, should this presumption ever reach his ear, or ohtrude itself upon his eye, rather sympathize than be offended with me, who rather seek to uphold with feeble hands the Truth of God, than to conciliate by suppression of convic- tions the favour, or the applause of man. Our translators GENESIS I. 1, 3. 5 have rendered this verb, approved and employed by Moses, ii12, Bara, by the Latin-bom verb, created, and that with- out qualification. In thus rendering it they have been in error, if the opinions of the; profoundly learned, if the sense of cognate words in kindred languages, if circumstances at- tending the process of reducing to form and order the earth on which we live ; if phenomena, that teach another doctrine from the bowels of the earth ; if all these, taken together, may establish that, which the highly accomplished and inspired Prophet, writing in his own language, might be assumed without these vouchers to determine. And is there want of reverence, I would ask, towards the Great and Bountiful Creator, in thus accepting His Word as He commanded and inspired His holy Prophet to deliver it ? Is there aught of irreverence in believing that at the time of man's creation, whatever He had the will to have done for other beings, or for other races, God did not, as He declares He did not, create ex nihilo, but reduced to order, to utility, and to its visible and wondrous loveliness the earth, intended for the habitation of His creatures? There is no question of the power of God to do whatever omnipotence may accomplish ; but of the time when that power was exercised. Irreverence might rather be im- puted, though impute irreverence I would not, to those who wrest the language of Holy Scripture to a sense it does not bear, and limit the Sovereignty of Eternal Ma- jesty over this atom in His dominions, to a few thousands of years. It is not questioned, whether the Great Archi- tect of the universe could have created man ex nihilo ; yet, " The Lord God created man in His own Image," and " formed man of the dust of the ground." It is not de- nied, that the same dread Power could have created Eve ex nihilo. It was, nevertheless. His supreme pleasure to create, literally " to build," woman of the matter detached from man. It is necessary to the determination of the power of the terms rendered in our venerable translation by the b THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. verbs, to form, to create, to make, that we become familiar with them, and perceive, as a nearer view of them will easily bring us to perceive, their similar and interchangeable, or convertible, meaning and value. We will pursue this investigation a little further, having this object in view. God is recorded, not to have formed, not to have made, but to have "created great whales ;" here the verb, tXl3, bara, the verb rendered " created " in T T * the first verse, is employed : God " made the beast of the earth," here tlU^V, asah, is found. " And God said. Let T T ' US make man :" here again we have HtW/ asah. But in the record, " so God created man," there is exhibited the verb S^"13, bara ; and in chap. ii. v. 7, when the same act T T is recapitulated, we have the process, " formed," expressed in the third creative, or cosmogonic, term, "l^i^ yatsar. We have then, these three verbs, used interchangeably for the same and similar acts ; and that, whether the materials out of which the formation takes place, be supplied, or specified, or not. There has been enough said, I imagine, to prove that there is no eminence enjoyed by any one of these terms, but since one of them, I need not write J^")^ T T ' bara, has been elevated by cabbalistic canonization to an importance it is neither by origin nor usage entitled to, and a theory is flowing from its apex, I must adduce further evidence of that simple term's simplicity. It has been seen, that the verbs employed in the Mosaic Cosmogony, are, J^13 bara, r\ll/i! asah, and ^Ifi yatsar. Now let us T T T T - T look more nearly into these prominent Hebrew words, taking in the first place J^"l3. The Arabic word, derived from it, means, to cut, to cut ofi', to fit, to adapt. And the Syriac derivative, 1^, is loosely explained by created, in an unqualified manner.^ As the signification of our ' Yet though the seemingly absolute term, created, is not adverbially .luulilied, its application brings it down to the sober standard. Take for ci- GENESIS I. 1, 2. 7 Hebrew word Buxtorf, Gesenius and Lee, give created anew, adapted, made newly, or anew. As its primary meaning Gesenius gives, he cut, cut out, carved, planed down, polished. And our own illustrious Lee charac- terizes it as "a silly theory," that this means, created ex nihilo. A reference to the Lexicons, will furnish abundant proof that J^13 is used on various occasions by as various agents. Places in Joshua, chap. xvii. verses 15, 18, exhibit this verb in the sense of cutting down trees. And this is only one of very many places, where our verb acknowledges agents and agencies, other than the Lord Jehovah. And even were it otherwise, were this verb reserved to the sole use of the great Jehovah, I must take leave to say, that objectless reservation would appear to me more like a sub- sequent change, arising from a groundless abstinence,^ than many places that are so reasoned upon and accounted for. The next Cosmogonic verb is Hti'^, asah, which sig- nifies, he worked, laboured ; and thence by metonymia, he made, fabricated, produced. The primary idea, says Ge- senius, lies probably in forming, shaping, cutting. He imagines this verb may have been formed by softening the consonants in the verb 3^1?, atsav, he formed, fash- - t' ample, S. Mark xiii. 19, loi—S^ V,£iJ lAa;£3 »»j> ^ from the begin- ning of the creation which God created ; a creation undefined, is alluded to. The same maybe predicated of S. Luke xi. 50, fSoXl >u;sZj> ^iO, irom the time when the world was created. But in Ephes. iv. 24; Col. i. 16 ; S. Mark ii. 27 ; Ephes. ii. 10, this verb is exhibited as the synonyme of, made, formed, fashioned, and the like. ' The Author of the able Essay on " The Mosaic Eecord of Creation," has laid strong emphasis on the circumstance that the Hebrew term for Creator, has been no where used, except when applied to (31-OD. But is not this a mere Jewish notion, or manner of paying homage to the Creator ? Is not Jewish abstinence from the naming the name, Jbhotah, founded in Jewish misapprehension ? I think no stress can be laid, nor any hypothesis be placed, upon the circumstance. 8 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY, ioned.^ As there is no especial prominence claimed for this word, no more needs to be said about it. The third verb, prominently employed in the Mosaic Cosmogony, is ~)V\ yatsar, he formed, fashioned, made. It is, says Buxtorf, "proprii figulorum verbum ; latius tamen inde usurpatur." The Syriac cognate, U»0 1 > tsurtho, means an image. In Isa. xliii. 7, these three Hebrew verbs are employed in what appears by the particle, P|^, prefixed to the last clause, to be an ascending climax ; if so, J^")3 forms the first or lowest step of that ascent. The passage reads : : rn^ii';;-?]*^ vrn-^'!^ rnx"i3 ^l^^il) V'P'^ ^IiP^lI ^7^ Our venerable Version has this rendered thus : " Even every one that is called by My Name : for I have created him for My glory, I have formed him, yea, I have made him." The particle before the last verb, emphatically marks some greater and important circumstances in this anthropogony. It must be plainly apparent by this time, that no one of these Hebrew verbs is of notable and exclusive force, and much less of Divine appropriation ; they are used as con- vertible, and almost as synonymous, terms. Besides these texts of Holy Writ already put forward, I might easily cite many others, and they would afford as many further argu- ments. If the reader, to see one more example, will turn to Isa. xlv. 7, he will read : " I form the light, and create darkness ; I make peace, and create evil : I the Lord do all these things." In this passage, the light is formed, not by the verb J^")3^ bara, but by -)^i^ yatsar; the darkness, a negative condition, is created by i^"13 : the Divine Agent makes peace by T\U^)2 asah ; He creates evU by J^^3 : He ' G-esenius sees in fingendo the oi-igin of facio, and in |U')X'"'^ the sotu-ce of the Latin maohiaa, machinor ; G-erm. macheu, and the English make. Our Hebrew verb, nto», has several shades of signification lying in cognate verbs. GENESIS I. 1, 2. 9 does " all these things " by T]il!)), asah.i Our version has continued the rendering of 'iC\'2, bara, by the verb create ; but that version, beautiful and venerated as its language is, too loudly calls for revision, to be allowed to conclude the question, or to exclude philological light. Let us take a view of the several parts in this group of operations. Is there any behest, upon which an emphasis communicated by the dignity of the word applied, would be more desirable and more graceful, than that by which Elohim said, " I form the light ?" Yet we perceive that the word of hypothetic dignity, is not employed, but "y^^ yatsar. Further, God is represented as the Creator of darkness and of evil, by the verb of imagined emphasis and dignity ; but He is the Maker, HC^y, of peace ; and " all these things " He does by the same participle of the verb, supposed to be of inferior cast or mould. And is our word of importance employed, when God created all the living creatures of the earth, of the air, and of the waters ? No indeed ! It was His pleasure to issue His " Fiant," and the earth and the waters brought forth abundantly. But I will dwell upon that, which must be as clear, as the noonday, no longer. The Prophet Moses, Divinely guided, has described a restoration of this planet, not a creation of it. And they, who contend for that operation having been an ex nihilo creation, surrender their theory by their accept- ance, or complacent laudation, of the theory of La Place, and their applause of the ingenious experiments of Plateau in illustration, if not in confirmation, of it. Theories, whether Neptunian, Plutonic, or of solar ex-dedition, had ' In Psalm cir. 30 we read tlie term bara, used to specify tlie formation of man and living creatures, and a Hebrew verb, signifying, to renew, to restore, employed to describe the restoration of the earth. " Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created," ;i>n3;, they are formed, or fashioned, " and Thou," *ini;n, "renewest the face of the earth." 10 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. a subject upon which to operate ; that subject Jehovah GroD, acted upon by the verb X"13. As a climax to the argument concerning the especial claims and dignities of the verb Bara, I ask, in what terms does Moses mention the process of reducing the heavens and the earth to habit- able condition in the decalogue, just received at the mouth of God ? Does the holy Prophet retain his notion of the sole propriety of Bara being employed in the creative act ? Not so ; the verb there used, is " asah." It does not escape my observation, nor my memory, that there is a text of Holy Scripture, that will be put forward to invalidate my arguments and subvert my opinion. The Word of God, Ep. Hebrews, chap. xi. verse 3, will be pro- duced as an inspired commentary upon the words of an inspired Prophet. It is doubtless incumbent on me, to grapple with and investigate that Word of God, and to prove, if I may prove, that therein S. Paul is in perfect harmony with the view I am constrained to take of the Words, as written, or sanctioned, by the inspired Prophet. S. Paul writes to the Hebrews : " nla-ru voovi/.ev xaTYiprMM TOiif cxi&va; f>rji/,(HTi Osov, eij to /a^ ex ipaji/ofisvaJV to. fi^snofx-sva ysyovevai" ; a writing which has not yet been understood, and has, I have the presumption to declare, been hitherto misrepresented by translators, commentators^ and lexico- graphers. In making this affirmation, I am most sensi- tively aware of the charge I subject myself to of temerity, and of the responsibility I incur in venturing to differ from every authority within my reach ; including Schleusner, Parkhurst, Rosenmiiller, Macknight, Bengel, Winer, Seb. Castellio, Luther, the Latin Vulgate, and so, as a matter of course, our English translators and revisors. Chrysos- tom, whose works are not before me, and whom I am quoting from Schleusner, sub voce i^alvta, says, " Sijxov lo-xiv, OTi If om ovTcuv ta. ovTa iTroi'ijo-ev 6 6eo;, Ix raiv ij.r) ^laivo/XEWcuv ra ^ot.iv6fj.sva., Ix tSiv oix ui^sotcutcuv to. ifea-TuiTx." Thus Chrv- GENESIS 1. 1, 2. 11 sostom takes part with the multitude ; and that multitude may be far greaterj had I access to the records of opinion to view, but not to be alarmed at them.* A sense of what is due to that Word of the God of Truth, who cannot con- tradict in one place what He has uttered in another, is the staff of my strength, emboldening me to take upon myself and to bear this, otherwise, crushing load of accountable- ness. The rational solution of this passage by the applica- tion of the acknowledged canons of criticism, involves nothing less than harmony with, or contradiction of, the Mosaic Cosmogony, as I have, I trust successfully, made it out. Rosenmiiller, not discountenanced by Bengel, ad- vocates the reading of the negative /x^, before ex (paivoftei/cuv, " a not unusual Hellenistic transposition,"'^ Seb. Castellio follows this arrangement, rendering, " ita ut ex non extan- tibus facta sint ea quae cernuntur." Winer considers that our clause " is erroneously supposed to contain a transposed negation." He might, however, have been numbered in the category of authorities, who have mistaken this pas- sage ; his approval of the rendering of Schulz, including both in that category : " so that things which may be seen, were not made of things visible.'" Our English version is correct as regards the negative, ' I take this opportunity of eayiag, that I am aurroimded by an oppres- sive poverty of books, and am compelled to take on trust, many things I have written. Let this be some plea with the candid for many errors I may be led into, in adducing others' authority ; with the rest of the world 1 have infinitesimal sympathy. 2 "Adverbium ixi] ad (paimiievav recte refertur, qua transpositione nihil esse usitatius Hellenistis ostendit Heinsius ad huno locimi ex 2 Maccab. vii. 28." And this dictum of EosenmiiBer finds an echo in Bengel, who speaks of this clause as, iuv6ii€va — e| ovk tvTuv. The passage from 2 Maccab. vii. 28, proves no more than the antiquity of the error con- cerning an ex nihilo creation. S. Paul's " koXovvtos rh. /lii ivra &s ovti" has a diSerent and facile resolution. Ep. Bom. iv. 17. The sentiment occurring in Job xxxviii. 4, seqq., is more allusive to a fashioning, than an ex nihilo creation of the earth. 12 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. although with the Vulgate, not in this so correct, it misses the mind of the inspired writer, i But the obscurity which has so long hung like a cloud over this very important clause, has arisen from another source. With the forbear- ance and patience of the reader, I hope to make it so clear, that they who run may read ; for I must entreat him to descend with me to the simplest elements, in my efforts to dissipate long standing, and, as it were, prescriptive dark- ness. For that which has for ages been regarded as both the true and the expedient, may not be eliminated, except by radical necessity and irrefragable argument. It will facilitate the operation, if I first establish the signification of the Greek verb, (paivoo. In the active voice, this verb signifies, I bring to light; I cause something to appear. The middle voice, if>am[j.ai, means, I cause myself to appear, I am here : the passive voice, ^a/vojaai, has the signification I am brought to the light, I am made to appear, I am caused to be present, I am caused to be.^ This last form of ipai'vo), the passive ^aivo[/^at, as the most obvious and the ' With respect to the transposition of the negative, too much is made of it. The sense is not affected, whichsoever way it be taken, whether fii) 6K (patvoiiivav, or Ik fiii (paivofjievav, but propriety points to the former. " That which is denied," truly says Winer, " is iK (paim/ievcev ri 0KeTr6ii.eva yfyoveyai, and the negative is, in perfect conformity to rule, prefixed to this sentence." Schleusner writes, " ra /i}; iJ)oiy(f;n6va, quse oHm non erant, i. q. ri /i^ Si/ra." No one questions this. But his reference to Eom. iv. 17, a place so entirely different ; and to the place iu 2 Mao. vii. 28, where we have only the dicta of a rustic woman, related in an apocryphal history, is unfortunate, to say the least of it ; not but that the person using this language, has more in- fluence upon opinion against it, than against the history recording the dicta ; it proves the antiquity of the error ; but error does not improve by age. " (palvofiai, I am made to appear ; that which exists not cannot be made to appear ; ctia.lvofi.ai therefore, is equivalent to, I exist ; hence v\ymTo," S. Luke v. 6, signifies a rupture so complete, as to let go whatever may have been contained ; even p^fei, ibid. v. 37, carries this meaning, though not intensified by the preposition ha ; and such positive rup- ture of the net would have frustrated our Lord's gracious purpose. Still more so ; and a benevolence would have GENESIS I. 1, 2. 15 resulted in an injury, had the ships sunk ; and they are as surely represented to have sunk, as the nets to have broken, with the weight of the fishes taken. This however was so obvious, and the consequences so apparent, that the imper- fect time is duly marked, and the rendering is, " so that they began to sink." They were in the act of sinking ; they were ready to sink ; they sank not. So their net was ready to break ; " parum abfuit quin rumperentur retia," as Schleusner has it sub voce, and Rosenmiiller ad locum. Here then, both in our text under discussion, and these ancillary examples, we have a form and mode of expression, exquisitely calculated to express an action, or event, inchoate and not complete, so wrested in the pas- sage from S. Paul, as to entirely conceal the meaning ; so perverted in the place from the Gospel of S. Luke, as to represent the frustration of our Lord's gracious design ; and again, so legitimately accepted in the succeeding ver- sicle, as to conceive and to transmit the intention of the writer. I must take leave to observe, that there are errors of graver importance in our English Version, whose source is a misapprehension, or neglect, of the precise scope and the flexible yielding, of the tenses.^ I trust that I have settled beyond question, what was the mind of the inspired Prophet in his use, or even sanc- tion, of the terms Bereshith and Bara, in the opening of this sacred record of the cosmogony. If I shall, after all my endeavours, have failed to carry the reader with me, the failure has lain in the weakness of my advocacy, not ■ The Christian pubKe has deep obhgations to the five reverend Clergy- men, who have revised portions of the Christian documents, and have rec- tified many erroneous renderings of the tenses. It may, through then- amendments be understood, that the followers of the Cross are not saved hj faith, or by the faith, but are in the process of being saved. The con- summation depends upon their adherence in faith and practice, to then- profession ; upon their holding fest the faith. The process is present ; the consummation is future. 16 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. in the fallibility of the truths I have proposed^ nor in the inconclusiveness of the arguments that support them. I proceed now to give some account of the sacred title of the Almighty Agent in these procedures; the sacred title D''n^!!^, Elohim. This title cannot be heard, or men- tioned, or written, without reverence, whether it fall upon our ear, or from our lips, or our pen, as a remnant of patri- archal, or of natural religion, describing the unknown object of heathen worship, or whether, as in this plural form it, commonly does, it designates the One true God. The word Elohim, in this text, signifies that awful Being, who claims to be recorded to all future generations, to the Jews first, as the depositaries of His oracles for the behoof of all mankind, as the Divine Architect, who, in this begin- ning, reduced to habitable order, the earth on which we live. This same word, with the article H, ha, the, D^n'^SH haElohim, always represents the One true God : there is one place, Exod. xviii. 11,^ I can call to mind no other, where this rule does not hold ; yet even there it may be a plural of comprehension, though not of excellence. The sin- gular number of this sacred plural is ill'^i^. It is not traced by the learned to any source ; Arabic, Syriac, and other ancient and modern forms of speech, and signifying objects of worship, have been derived from it. The Syriac l6l— ^) alloho, is the Allah and Alia of the modern Orientals. I must advert to another designation of any, and es- pecially of the One Great and Good, object of human veneration. I mean 7}«^^ El. Some of the learned have ' In this place the Englisli Version is superior to the LXX., and the Vulgate as well, as CasteUio. It is a correct translation, while those are conjectural interpretations. The supplying "He was," before " aboTC them," is the one cause of this superiority. It is " good exceedingly." Yet this passage would read without that supply. " Now I know that Jehotah is greater than all gods, because in the thing wherein they dealt proudly above them." GENESIS I. 1, 2. 17 regarded this word as an abbreviation of nh^, Eloah, as n^, Yah, is of m^H^ Yehovah. But, I humbly sug- gest, it might with more reason be considered the parent, than the offspring of that word. For 'j^, El, is a term pregnant with all those qualities and properties, which we are wont to ascribe to Omnipotence; strength, might, power, precedence, majesty. It proceeds from the root, '7''^, or ViK, which as a verb is obsolete, "but," as writes Gesenius, "is of wide extent in its derivatives."! El is generally sustained by some adjunct, when applied, kut' k^oxYiv, to the true God ; h^-lt> ^i'7^| '^Hl, El Elohe ' One derivative from this root, a root which means primarily, to roll, to twist, to twirl, signifies a ram, from his twisted horns ; and the ram be- ing a symbol of strength, our word comes to signify tropically strength, fortitude, dignity, excellence. Its other tropical meanings, the hntel, or arch of a door, the monarchs of the forest, the heroic and migbty amongst men, I pass by, to make an observation upon that symbol of strength, the primary meaning above-mentioned, the ram. Our revisers under King James, thought right to mate a change in the first verse of the 29th Psalm, and to substitute its tropical for its proper sense, rendering D'^« »;.?, " ye mighty," instead of " sons of rams," a Hebrew phrase for 7/oung rams, as it still stands in our Prayer Book Version. I consider this change a failure. For the offering of young rams, the choice symbol of power, and strength, and aU excellence, to the LoED of the universe, was a very significant, and in those times a most becoming, ascription of glory and strength ; it was the most apt as well as the most beautiful protasis to the apodosis in the latter limb of the versicle. The adoption of the tropical signification in Ps. Ixxxix. 6, is imperative: tbe" angels that excel in strength," is the right rendering of Ps. oiii. 20 ; but there we read, ni 't!3?j great, or mighty, in strength, and all good feeulties. The phrase, " O ye mighty," in Ps. xxix. 1, has found its way both into King James's and the Prayer Book, or older version. But the older ver- sion has followed the Septuagint, which (I have D. Mill's and Carpzovius's edit, of the Vat. copy before me,) gives both the tropical and the primary meaning, " wo! 0eoB," and " vioiis K(>mv." The Hebrew would read AngHce, " Bring to Jbhotah the sons of rams : bring to Jehovah glory and strength." WMch means ; make to Jehovah that offering of young rams, which is the significant ascription of glory and power. " Vox Heb.," says Sohleusner, " duoem quoque denotat. Duces gregis sunt arietes." lex. in Sept. sub voce Kpi6s. C 18 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. Israel, (11 H^ I^^'i'7^? bifi, El Elohim Yehovah ; and many others. It is, however, applied to God without support by David in Ps. xxii. 1, "ijn3Ty ilTib "hii "h^," Eli, *' ■ T ; --; T T Elij lammah ezavtani, My God, my God, for what hast Thou forsaken me?i This passage is quoted by our Blessed Redeemer in that unrepressed outburst of pas- sion, which possibly confessed His bodily and His Divine Spirit's agonies on the cross. S. Matthew and S. Mark, have left varying records of this exclamation. The for- mer has : " 'H\), 'H\), Xajxa a-a^oi-)(ban ;" and the lat- ter, "'E\(m, 'EKm):, Xafji-na. (ra^ocx^avl." S. Luke and S. John are both silent as to this exclamation of their dying Master. But S. Luke tells us that"AIl His," Jesus', " acquaintance, and the women that followed Him from Galilee stood afar off, beholding these things." And S. John has left us informed that " there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene." From the same witness we learn, that there was " the disciple standing by, whom He loved." Had we not the sure testimony^ of those impious and cruel mockers, we could have no doubt of this exclamation having been uttered, for those " afar off," might have heard it, and those, who stood by the cross, could scarcely avoid, or miss, hearing it. We ' The interpretation given to these, and thought necessary as being Hebrew or Syriac words, by the holy BvangeKsts in the reeeiTed text, is, " eee nov, 0€f /iou, iVoTi ju6 ^7KoTc\i7rEs." The cod. Alex, and a codex in the royal library, have " ^yKaTfAmes ;" a reading preferable, for by it the suffering Eedeemek would have said not, " Wherefore hast Thou forsaken Me ?" but, "Wherefore hast Thou only not forsaken Me?" The Cam. Cod. (Bezse) has " antSicras." 2 This allusion is pointed to those by-standens, who said, "This man caUeth for EUas ;" and, " let us see, whether Elias wUlcome." Dom. Dio- dati infers positive ignorance of the language of this exclamation. Bcugel has much concerning the " dereliction ;" but our LoEU's use of this passage in the Psahns was more intended to call attention to the rightful applica- tion of it, and the fulfilment of prophecy, than to complain ; in my opinion. GENESIS I. 1, 2. 19 perceive then, that here was a short exclamatioiij not ori- ginal, but a quotation, which has been uttered perhaps,^ but certainly handed down to us, in the broken Hebrew of that age ; a mixture of Hebrew and Chaldaic, or Syriac. There are various lections,^ but they do not disprove this position, the low condition of Hebrew learning even amongst the holy Apostles ; at least they must have been supposed to repress their better, and that inspired, know- ledge of the sacred language, that their style of speaking and of writing, might be intelligible. ^ Let me return from this digression. We are, then, in full possession of the knowledge from an infallible source, that in the beginning there was a wondrous act of Almighty power exerted ; an act of reno- vation, or restoration ; and that this stupendous work was effected by the Eternal God. And what did Omnipotence restore, or renovate ? In the first instance He reduced to order D^pti'il hashshamayim, the heavens ; a term, which may be philosophized upon as long as the intellect of ' Diodati, " De Christo arsece loqueute," P. 3, c. 1, " De ChriBto HeUe- nista," reverently and justly observes, " quis neget, Christum linguas omnes caUuisse ?" 2 The readings on this place are numerous. A few of these are : the Cod. Alexaudrinus has ; for S. Matt, xxvii. 46, " 'HXi, 'HXi, \i/j.a (ra$ax6ayel ;'' for S. Mark xv. 34, " 'E\at, 'E\at, Ki/jta /rt^axBavei." The Cod. Vat. has this place in S. Matt. " 'EAwe!, 'EXweI, \efi.a(raPaKTaiie\ ;" and S. Mark, " 'E\ut, 'E\ai, \aiia^a$aJ2, waters; because waters are there. Some philolo- gists have deduced the former limb of this term from DXJf', which in one of its forms, the hithpael, means, to wonder ; because waters are suspended in a wonderful manner. Others again, and I am entering upon a very GENESIS I. 1, 2. 21 ingenious and truthful, if not the truer; theory, consider this word to be a compound of Ji^J^^ esh, fire, and D^P, waters J because the heavens were made at the beginning of those elements chiefly, fire, that is caloric, and water. There is at all events a felicity in this theory, concerning our atmosphere, or vapour-circle. Through the teaching of a single word we should learn those con- ditions of air, which constitute the order, the salubrity, and all the adaptations of our terrestrial abode. We thereby become acquainted with that moisture and that caloric, which in combination generate the fluidity, the elasticity, the expansibility, and the gravity of our sur- rounding medium; conferring upon all the inhabitants of our globe, salubrity of air, the delights of sound, the charms of sight, and that wholesome coercion, which pre- serves all things in consistency. This is no place for a lecture in the branches of Natural Philosophy ; yet may we see that all these interesting and grandest verities may lie in the composition of one single word. We may con- ceive it to be far from impossible that Moses, the man of God, may have been divinely guided to drop from his pen a pregnant vocable, pressed down and running over with all the philosophy that this age of elevated and vaunted science^ has attained to. The succeeding action of bara was upon F"li^n fij?, eth ' I say " eleTated," because science does surely advance with strides credi- table to the finite human intelligence. I write " Taunted," because science is becoming, and has long become, puffed up inordinately by its advance- ment. And is not this self-gratulation inordinate ? Science, truly, is a bright quartering upon the escutcheon of humanity ; its brightness, never- theless, is rather a flickering, than a certain Hght ; rather dazzling, than definite; rather crescent, than fiill; rather hopeful, than satisfactory. Science is yet in leading-strings. Science can no more walk alone, than a newly- born infant. When science shall be much older and much further advanced, it will have strength to ask itself innumerable questions, which it wfll be impotent to answer. 32 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. ha-aretz, which is coupled to U^t^t^Jl, hashshamayim, by 1, vau, the conjunctive particle. This reduction of the earth to order contemplated, we must suppose, and not only contemplated, but actually brought to perfection, that process, by which the more solid materials of this globe were elevated, or depressed, in that manner and in those various degrees, which were calculated to form mountains, heights, and elevated plains, and to leave valleys and varied hollows for the courses of rivers, the depths of lakes and seas, and the vast abysses of oceans. And the crasser parts disrupt, loosened, and displaced by earth- quakes and other convulsions, whether occasioned by cata- clysm or ecpyrosis, recovered somewhat approaching their positions, by virtue of that gravity, which was charged by the Divine Lawgiver with the furtherance of these results ; results, that gradually took place during that evaporation, which commenced and ended in an atmosphere. These cumbrous elements may be supposed, I say, to have re- covered somewhat approaching, not their actual positions, which by their preponderance they had occupied, until those occurrences threw them into that disorder, which is amongst the phenomena recognized by the geologist, and which is eloquent of revolution and violence. The Eternal Omnipotence, by His power and His wis- dom, and these Grodlike attributes moved by His still more Godlike will to produce the summum bonum, the greatest possible amount of happiness, reduced to order and harmony, and loveliness, the heavens and the earth. We now come upon the conjunctive particle, 1, vau, again ; a particle, which is susceptible of whatsoever power, or signification, the context may require. ^ And here ■ N'oldius has given upwards of seventy shades of signification to this mouosyllabio particle. His seventy-fourth notice describes it as redundant, an expletive. This particle is the ^irdnjitioj' ;8oB, the Digamma, of the jEohc &ree]is. GENESIS I. 1, 3. 23 its office is to connect the former position with its enarra- tion, the protasis with the apodosis ; it has to perform the operation of ushering in the wherefore of the preceding reconstruction. It here signifies quia, eo quod, equivalent to, for thatj seeiag that, because, forasmuch as. God reduced to order the earth, because, or seeing that — what ? Because the earth was, that is, existed, had previously existed, lilbl ^T\r\, — an hendiadys, or emphatic word- painting of a picture by a repetition of its features in synonymous terms : Tohu and Bohu mean, an exceed- ing desolation. This globe was in that plight, to which it had been brought by Neptunian or Plutonic disturbances, the awful agencies of Jehovah, that had convulsed and disrupted, and left it in utter confusion ; its component parts deranged and undistinguishable ; its attraction of cohesion only not destroyed. I have already defined the meaning of nn'^n, hayethah, as beiug not the logical copula, but as a verb denoting positive and substantive existence. The Hebrew language possesses no copula, like the English, is, was, &c. ; or, as a certain learned grammarian^ has expressed it, " When T\^T\, means the copula, it is omitted." The unlearned reader will perceive, wheresoever he may open the English Bible, that the mere copula, is, and was, and are, and were, are printed in italics, which announce that it is supplied to the English Version and that it is not found in the Hebrew original. In the present case the verb, was, does not appear in italics ; and it would be in error, if it intended any thing short of actual, substantive, existence. How long it had been in existence man cannot affirm. His conjectures, founded upon ma- turest deliberation, and the most plausible premises, are, after all, only conjectures. Geological inquiry is free. The age of our globe, whether it came into being as the ^ Bwald, quoted by ProfesBOr lee, sub Tooe, rrijj e^titit- 24 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. theory of La Place indicates, or in what unknown and uu- discoverable, GoD-designed, process soever, can only be communicated by Omniscience. And on this matter Om- niscience is silent in His Word. Yet in His works He speaks. Man is not forbidden reverently to read and to interpret those works. The next information vouchsafed in the sacred record is : " And darkness upon the surface of the deep." Here dark- ness is coupled in grammatical construction with the earth ; and may be supposed to be a condition, which existed. Or it may be taken, as our translators have taken it, as not only an additional but an independent statement, needing the aid, which our Version supplies in italics, of the copula, was : " and darkness was upon the face of the deep." Now darkness is to be regarded as a negative state ;i a state of inhibition ; the absence, or, as the Hebrew word suggests, the withholding of light. " The light hath been, or, pro- phetically, shall be, dark in his tabernacle," '^Tti'n "Ti^ I7nj^3 Job xviii. 6 j iii. 9, and other places give similar indications of '^ti'lH being a state of inhibition. The verb "^JiTI which Professor Lee, sub voce "itti'n considers to be a cognate, and ^£(Xm, its Syriac derivative, of '^Ei'n, signifies, to withhold, or keep back, any thing ; the act of withholding, or prohibition. There is nothing, then, to restrain us from the affirmation, that as silence is the absence of sound, so is darkness the absence of light. There was, therefore, an absence, or withholding, of light on the surface of the deep. Light had not yet been per- mitted to shine forth from the bounty of the Divine Source through those ministering agencies, that were ordained by His wisdom and goodness to confer that crowning glory 1 "Ante lucem oreatam tenebras vocat Moses, non prirationem lucis sed meram negationem." Bochart's Hierozoicon, Hb. 2, cap. 16, 1. 64 Vol. ii. col. 256. Ed. Lexiaden, 1692. It was withheld, not then cimted. ' GENESIS I. 1, 2. 35 on inanimate and animate nature. Light was, as regarded the earth, in posse, not in esse : in possibility, not in exist- ence. Its latent, or absent, essence was not yet perfected to present existence. The Hebrew term for " deep," is Dinil, from the root, On to excite, to disturb, because of the usual commotion, or tumultuousness of the waters. We read in the next place, " And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." " The darkness darkeneth not from God :" to God " as the darkness so the light." The Breath, the Spirit of God, the vivifying presence of God, is presented to us as in the state of incuba- tion; an intimation, whether descriptive or figurative, abounding in the grandeur of simplicity. Our translators have rendered the Hebrew verb employed in this descrip- tion, by "moved;" the Vulgate by "ferebatur;" Seb. Castellio by "sese super aquas libraret;" Luther by " schwebete auf dem wasser." These renderings are cor- rect as far as they go, for they convey the tremulous and hovering action of birds in this state of incubation. The " eTzeifispsTo," of the Septuagint, "sustained Himself," is in the same feeling, but scarcely of the same felicity, as the rendering of Seb. Castellio. But birds in this state have another instinct ; they ruffle their feathers in such man- ner, as to more effectually cover and more warmly embrace their embryo young. And this loving instinct is in- herent in the Hebrew verb here employed, Pini, ra- khaph. Its cognate verb, DH"!, also signifies, to be soft, to soothe, to be fond of, to cherish ; whence the Syriac verb, J>Q_l,i, rchem, loved, ex intimis viscerihus, that is, ex- ceedingly. Our word in this place, JlDH^P, is the par- ticiple of that voice^ of the verb, P|n"l, which signifies an intensive action, pihel, and represents the Spirit of God ' I prefer the term voice, to the usual one conjugation. My reasons are obvious, and, I think, unanswerable. 26 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. intently brooding. The kind of action of the kal voice partakes of the signification of the congeneric verb, ^ni, widened, enlarged, became broad; the motion and the enlargement exactly describing the act more avium incuban- tium, the natural procedure. Here, then, we are favoured with an authentic representation of the Eternal Mind under circumstances of the most lively interest. It is not written, and we are unable to conceive, what was the con- templation of that Eternal Spirit, Who sat brooding on the face of the waters.^ Man is not inhibited the indulgence of sober imagination ; he may form reverential conjectures ; he may, indeed he can but, conceive an awakening energy, worthy of the Agent and the occasion. Yet human con- ceptions, probably not even tangent of Divine thought, are not knowledge. The terms used by the inspired penmen, depicting the attitude, the, if I may be allowed the expres- sion, Schesis Divine, convey to us with most vivid deline- ation and colouring, that Godlike love was the motive power. This was the extent of the communication thus ' My amplification, deaoriptive of the attitude and manner of the Spirit of OrOD, goes not one hair's breadth heyond the terms dictated to the holy Prophet by that Holy Spirit ; it is entirely restrained and defined by those words in their etymologies and their apphcation. I put before the reader without comment, the opinion of the learned Bochart. *' In creatione, Dei Spiritus (dicitm-) motitasse se super faciem aquarum, Greu. i. 2, nempe ut incubatione suS vim vivifioam aquis inderet, ut ex iia cffitera emergerent." Bocharti Hierozoicon : lib. i. c. 3, col. 14, 1. 17. Ed. J. Leusden, Lugd. Bat. 1692. The indefatigable and learned Grlassius says : " Quando, Q-en. i. 2, dici- tur de Spiritu Dei, quod fuerit nomp, super facie aquarum (qute Tox part. pih. est) ea voce non motatio et inoubitus passivus, sed fortissima evepyem et actio, Spiritus Sanoti videhcet, rebus omnibus vitam, motum, et ee- sentiam in creatione commimicantis, intelligitur." And S. Basil, &lassiolau- datus, writes, " (rvveOaKire koX ^uoyoveT 7^v tuv uSaToij/ tpvcriv Kara rijif 6iK(Jfa TTjs iirtaa^o^trris opi/iOos Koi ^wtik^v Tiva ^vva.}i.iv ivietffrjs rots virodoKTrofiej/ois" Further on, Glassius : " Solarum aquarum fit mentio, quia materise iUius confusffi et permixtse superficiei supernatabant," &c. Glassii Phil. Sac. Hb. 3, Tract. 3, Can. 26. GENESIS I. 3, 4, 5. 27 far conferred. The benevolent Energy, we may venture to suppose, was designing a habitation for His creatures generally, and especially for mankind, whom His pre-con- ceived regard would distinguish by forming them after His own Image of spiritual innocence and personal dignity ; and whom, even after their fall from that spiritual like- ness. He still so loved, that He gave the sinless Atoner, that by Him they might yet burst the shell of dust, and rise His glorified Images for evermore. 3. And God saith :1 There shall be light; and there is light. 4. And God beholds the light, that {it be) good ; and God makes a division between the light and between the darkness. 5. And God calls the light, day; and the darkness called He, night ; and there is evening and there is morn- ing ; the first day. It is patent that, as regards the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the English Version, I have made a chaiige from the ' " And GrOD saith." The oral speech of the Deity is occasionally imme- diate. The command given to Adam, Gen. ii. 16 ; the address to him, iii. 9 ; to Cain, iv. 9 ; the addresses to Noah, to Abraham, and frequently to the Prophets ; these are immediate communications. It is sometimes me- diate, through divinely inspired persons, "in vrhom,'' says Origen, "an enlightened mind is moulded into words by the Spirit of G-OD." But it is speaking metaphorically, when the irresistible decree of God's will is expressed in the form of human language. "And God saith." This applies to the Will of God ; that there be light ; that there be an expanse ; that the earth bring forth grass ; that there be places of light ; that the waters bring forth ; and the hie. The " 6 slTrtii'" of S. Paul, 2 Cor. iv. 6, Mes in the same category. It is the will of God that is announced, not the 28 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. formula of command to that of a decree. I do this with much reluctance. But I purpose to translate literally; and literally I translate. Seb. Castellio is the nearest to correctness of the translators within my reach ; his render- ing is : " Jussit Deus, ut existeret lux, et extitit lux." " Jussit" as to signification, is not an ohjectionable, I almost think it the preferable, rendering of IDX, but the deviation from the present tense in jussit necessitates a second deviation in the verb " extitit ;" deviations on no account to be commended. It is neither my predilection nor my desire, to violate the reading of our venerable ver- sion in this instance, in which it adopts the rendering of the Septuagint and the Vulgate, and rises above them both. The celebrated Longinus, in his Treatise on the Sublime, does willing homage to the " ysveirSai ipujf, xki syBveTo," which was his lection, or his memory, of the Sep- tuagint version, as a rare example of his subject. Yet is that less effective than our, " Let there be light, and there was light."' For my own, and the satisfaction of the admirers of this beautiful passage, I am delighted that I can admit that, it is grammatically allowable ; the Hebrew indicative future tense being grammatically, that is by the scheme laid down by grammarians, equivalent to, and con- vertible with, the imperative mood. When this future words defining that will. As Musculus, quoted by (Jlasse, shews : Moses speaks of God after the manner of men. But God did not speak in the manner of men ; His speech is through the power and working of His will." The Word of God is that most holy and omnipotent attribute, by which He decrees and on the instant accomplishes His decree. Or, as S. Augustine has said, " He spoke, and efiects were produced by the word in- teUigible and eternal, not audible and transient." In this Mosaic cosmo- gony, Diyine power and efiicaoy, manifested in the creation and conserva- tion of the tilings created, are called, " the Word of God." God is the efficient cause. Much more of the same tendeni'v may be seen in the Sacred Pliilology of Glasse, Tract 1, o. 7. De ' kuBpavoTraBfla. ' The change of the tense in " God said," makes a fm-thcr change ne- cessary. The more correct, and that an equally subUme, reading is, " Let there be light, and there is Ught !" GENESIS I. 3, 4, 5. 29 tense can be so used^ it is written in an apocopated form, ^rV', for nin^, and the corresponding subsequent mem- ber, as in the present case, has the apocopated form also, in order to observe a mutual relation. i The render- ing of our place is allowably, " Let (there) be light : and light (accordingly) exists. "^ The Greek language is the fountain of this idiom. It is not so frequent, as will be made to appear, in the style of our holy Prophet. " And light exists !" Am I expected to give a circum- stantial account of the procedure, instituted, and the agen- cies, charged with the evolution of this inestimable gift ? Is the worm demanded to scrutinize the ways, and to test the appliances of his Maker ? Must I be grandiloquous of chemical affinities, of combinations, of decomposition, of combustion, of all the terms of the lecture-room and all the processes of the laboratory ? Shall I announce, ex cathedrd, that our globe, charged with self- generated and depositions of extraneous light, and hermetically sealed by superincumbent waters and circumambient vapour, was, through the partial subsidence of the one, and the partial attenuation of the other, at that moment permitted to set free its brilliant captive ?^ Shall I be loquacious of light 1 Lee's Heb. Gtrammar, Artt. 233, 3, and 119, 8, 9. ' Ibidem, Art. 233, 3. Yet is there a more pMosophical view taken of this repetition of the apocopated form in Art. 233, note f, PP- 347, 8. According to the Arabian rationale, we have in these members the declara- tion of cause and effect, announced in similar terms. In the first instance, the Creator commands, There shall be, or. Let there be, light : and, So let there be, was the assent of the writer. Or, more in extenso, Let there be light ; and accordingly, let it be assumed that there existed hght. The aiatiTe particle thus asserts its force. But the gist of the matter lies in the certainty, that this form, apocopated as it is, is present or future of its own right, and is the permissible imperative only; that is, 'iT, is a form of iTil^, not of the imperative 'rP^. 3 My allusion is to a diamond, which was first exposed to the sun's rays, and then immediately covered with black wax. This diamond is said, when uncovered in the dark several years afterwards, to have given forth the long imprisoned Kght. 30 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. absorbed, of light combinedj of latent light ? Ere I do this, my reader, I had need attend a course of lectures by that charming little professor, the glow-worm, and learn of him, by what faculty he absorbs and emits light ; by what influences, or apparatus, he can be obscure or bril- liant, at his pleasure. It is enough for me that light " At the voice Of GrOD, as with a mantle did invest The rising world of darkness and of deep."' It is all-sufficient, we might in reason suppose, and in gratitude acknowledge, that we know the existence, feel the blessing, and enjoy the charms, the primary and the blended effluences, of light. In the narrative, we reverently treat of, the Spirit of God has studied neither to illumine the wise, nor to dazzle the ignorant. He has seen fit to dictate the whole history of this wonderful restoration of our planet in a manner, that should be accommodated to the needful intelligence of the unsophisticated ; and yet so complete, so pregnant with marvels, that man's enlarged erudition should scarcely be able wholly to satisfy bald curiosity by the liberation of the courses and principles of action from a compressed brevity. And the details of the whole procedure are not recorded in any other order than that in which they were intended to unfold themselves to man ; and in which they actually unfolded themselves. At the time of the decree, or mandate, that light should be, the gross components of our earth had settled down by gravitation nearer towards the earth's centre, and the sur- rounding vapours had, by expansion, produced by an acces- sion of caloric, become somewhat less opaque, and there was probably some eradiation of earth-born light through nature's, that is God's, chemistry ; and the very air, as it became gradually more pure, might assert its innate light ;2 ' MUton. 2 If a hollow cyhnder be fitted witli an air-tight piston, and the piston be inserted when the cylinder is filled with air, heat will be disenffnged in "6"6>- GENESIS 1. 3, 4, 5. 31 yet still more probably rays from another source, not yet apparent and so not yet recorded, were beginning to pene- trate the less pitchy gloom and to make themselves felt in their genial influences. Those rays, though not yet regis- tered, because not yet so vivid as to mark the mountain's shadows, were indirectly acknowledged in their effect : they were the second cause, commissioned by the Great First, to separate between the light and the darkness; that is, erroneously say the commentators, to make them succeed each other at appointed intervals; for we read, "And God beholds the light, that {it be) good." The Omnipotent requires of the ministers of His Will, whether animate or inanimate, whether angels or archangels, whether the beam of light or the dew-drop, that they conform them- selves to His gracious purpose and do Him the homage of subserving His beneficence. The reader's attention is called to the circumstance that light is declared to exist in appropriate language ; but the copula, as in all similar instances, has to be supplied in any English version.! Qur venerable English Bible is warranted in its rendering of the repeated particles, 1^3^ between, by the preposition "from;" "from the darkness;" in that announcement, " And God makes a division between the light and between the darkness." It is again only in con- formity with my purpose to give a verbatim translation, that I have adhered to the Hebrew usage in this instance. This same repetition will be found to occur in the sacred original in Gen. xxvi. 28, rendered by our version, " be- twixt us and thee :" again, Exod. xi. 7, " between the Egyptians and Israel ;" and, once more, Joshua xxii. 25, " between us and you :" and elsewhere. The repetition in the Hebrew tongue becomes familiar and savours of sufficient Tolume to ignite a piece of fungus, placed within the cylinder. And a glass lens, furnished at the end of the cyhnder, mU reveal a viyidly brUHant light on the first compression of the confined air. ' " And GI-OD beholds the Hght, that good," is the formula in the Hebrew. 32 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. pleasing qiiaintness and ancient simplicity; but in the more exact and polished language of the Augustan age, it takes the semblance of an antiquated grotesque : " Nestor componere lites Inter Peleiden feBtinat et inter Atreiden."' I will next make a few observations upon the term divided, separated, or, as I have rendered it, "makes a division" between the light and the darkness. Few terms or conditions, could be imagined more opposed than these, light and darkness ; few could less require to be defined, strong as is their contrast. Is then, this sentence in a stu- diously concise history, a mere expletive ? Let us look into it more closely. What signification does our holy Prophet, allowing him to speak for himself, assign to the verb, 7'T3, badal, in other parts of his sacred writings ? There is no question that its primary meaning is, to divide, and that it generally requires by Hebrew usage, a repeti- tion of the preposition before each of the things di'\'ided. But the manner of efiecting the division varies : it is to be sometimes effected by the insertion of somewhat between the things to be divided ; as a curtain, a wall. This is exemplified in Exod. xxvi. 33, " and the vail shall divide unto you between the holy place and the most holy." And again, Ezek. xlii. 20, " to make, by a wall, a separa- tion between the sanctuary and the profane," unconse- crated, "place." Every thing, therefore, in the language of our holy penman, encourages us to infer that, he in- tended to convey the notion of some intervening phase, or arrangement, that should serve as a division between the darkness of night and the light of morning, and between the light of day and the darkness of the night. And hence our text may be regarded as the announcement of that space of time which is occupied by the soft refracted light, that inures the eye gradually to the blaze of day, or forms 1 Hor. Ep. Lib. 1, 2, 11. GENESIS I. 3, 4, 5. 33 the otiose and enjoyable season of evening twilight; the crepusculum, or dubious lightj of the Roman poet. My reader, I feel assured that these words, inspired by the Great and All-wise God, are not empty words. They, like all His words, are replete with significancy. If the foregoing be not the development of those words, I have still to seek it. It appears unnecessary to deviate from our venerable version, by rendering the Hebrew verb and the prefix to its object, 7 i^lp"', yikra le, by a peri- phrasis. Our English verb, to call, in one of its significa- tions, though not its first as erroneously given by Johnson, means, to name, to give a name to, any person or thing. The phraseology of the Hebrew, nevertheless, is, " God calls to the light, day; and to the darkness called He night." By the Divine will, the duration of light^ was ordained to constitute the day, called conventionally the artificial day, and the duration of darkness the night, amongst the first inhabitants of the world restored. There is great perplexity in later habits with respect to these portions of time. Whilst night maintains its most appro- priate designation, day has been variously understood. The night is the natural night, and the day natural would appear as precisely defined. But some have called the time from noon to noon, the natural day, and others, that from sunset to sunset; the nychthemeron, wx^iJ^epov.^ 1 It must be mentioned that the Hebrew term for day, ia from an obsolete verb avj to be warm ; maldng the warmth, not the light, the characteristic of the day. Gesenius, by an effort too fe,r-fetched, endeavom-s to make the Hebrew word for night, W, with ri paragogic, r^^, laUah, to signify cold rather than darlmess. I prefer to consider it, as do the many, to be a word primitive. Our English yerb, to call, is through the Greek Ktt\ea, toco, to call out, from the Hebrew, 'fip, kol, sound, noise : rrrr 'r\p, kol TehoTah, thunder. The Syriac V^>0 L^S, bath kolo, the daughter of sound, means the voice. Barth, with the linea oocultaus under the r, becomes bath. 2 Amongst the earliest and simplest notions on this subject, indefiniteness has prevailed. The Dual Form, D??!??, haarbaim, marks the two evenings j D 34 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. The Scriptural day is the interval between the dawn and the departure of that good light, which then, in the earth's throes to right itself in obedience to the Divine mandate, to some considerable degree broke through the almost im- pervious vapours ; and the night the time of that light's absence. And these terms, or their equivalents, might well satisfy the present and after ages, though day be more glorious, and the milder rays of night more lovely. " And there is evening and there is morning, the first day." In my rendering of this sentence I have, contrary to the decision of some learned modern translators, given ^^X, as an ordinal ; the following five cosmogonic days being so specified, consistency requires, though the form of the term does not,i that the day under discussion be simi- larly announced. The verb, is, supposes positive existence, the actual being of evening and morning.^ between that on one day and that on the succeeding, was the Jewish Day, the time when the Paschal Lamb was to be slain. But the Samaritans, the Caraite Jews, and the Babbins, imagined the two eyenings to be, the one when the sun sets, and the other when twihght is being merged in darkness. The former notion of haarbaim, the two evenings, makes it clearly Tisible that our blessed LoED both ate the Passover and was Himself offered as an all-suiEcient Sacrifice within the seasons appointed for killing and eating the Paschal Lamb. The same interval is the vvx^'hl'-^pov of Daniel viii. 14, denoting the 260 days to have been days of twenty-four hours. The Hebrew terms employed, signifying " evening morning,'' are 1p3 319, erevboker; in Syriac, t^t »«SD>, rmeshtsphar, evening-morning, a day. ' TniJ, is commonly cardinal ; sometimes ordinal. The " day one" of Q-esenius savours more of the counting-house, than of consistency or good taste. The Dean of Lichfield's " One Day" is pure of this taint. 2 The Hebrew term for evening, 3T», is from the verb, 3T», arav, whose meaning is, to intermingle, to interweave ; also to be black, whence TfS, 5rev (orave), a raven, and, tropically, to grow dark, to draw towards night : a further meaning is, to be sweet, pleasant. It requires no great exercise of the imagination to blend tliese characteristics of that delightful hour together and to acknowledge their truth and justice. This interweaving of light and darkness ; this interval that delays the approach of darkness, sweet and pleasant as it is found by the lover of nature's softest charms, GENESIS I. 3, 4, 5. 35 The children of science are earnestly bent on taking the royal Psalmist's words literally, and to ascribe to the Creator in His very act of creation, the magnificence of regarding a thousand years as one day ;i measuring the extent of time gained as facilitating their adjustment of evidence. If by this day they understand a light- day, and proceed to add a corresponding night of darkness, they would assuredly be making out an additional fourteen thousand years, or thereabouts. But these anxieties are is copiously and graphically presented in the word, selected by Moses under the guidance of that Great Being, Whose worts are models of Order and fitness, and Whose words most aptly describe them. ISor is the word used to mark the first morning of the renovated world less admirably suited to its office by its parentage and endowments. This word, "Vj^i boter, the dawn, has for its root the verb composed of the same radical letters, and the primary signification of which is, he divided, laid open ; the secondary, he cleaved the ground, ploughed ; the third, he burst forth, broke forth, or through, as Ught through the darkness. Our word thus undergoes an aesthetic training from one stage of perfection to another, until it becomes matmre and vigorous to convey with effect the burst of light through darkness, the break of day, or day-break. ' Psalm xc. 4: also 2 S. Peter iii. 8. How will Dr. Colenso reconcile this arithmetically ? — or that of Isaiah, xxx. 17. " One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one," &o. ? It is true that philosophers have found them- selves in bounds too narrow in the Mosaic Cosmogony, aa that Cosmogony has been exhibited in translations hitherto received, " And when," says Cuvier, " they had succeeded in converting the six days of creation into so many inde- finite periods, the lapse of ages no longer forming an obstacle to their views, their systems took a flight proportioned to the periods, which they could then dispose of at pleasure." The theories of our own Burnet, of Woodward, of Schenohzer, of Whiston, of Leibnitz and Descartes, of Demaillet, and of many others, some mere modifications or extensions of these, have only to be glanced at, and that glance will convince an intelligent and unbiassed mind, a mind only biassed by respect for the Word of God, that the time has arrived, when the Dictum of the Creator should be weighed in the scale of fair criticism ; shoiild be honestly viewed and honestly interpreted. As the matter rests at present, the most inteUigent and most earnest seekers for truth read one thing in the volume of God's Word, and another, writ- ten as plainly and emphatioally, in the volume of His glorious works. And this is a fatal discrepancy. D 3 36 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. put to rest, and these caliginous notions, offspring of the misinterpretation of the very outset of the Mosaic Cosmo- gony, are utterly dissipated, if they will only regard the Creator's operations upon the earth through His Almighty decree as a restoration, not an ex nikilo, nor a de novo, creation. By an allowable conception of the probable antiquity of our globe, of not only its nucleus but of its exterior rind, an antiquity not restrained to myriads of years, the exigencies of pbenomena, interpreted on scien- tific grounds by geological inquiry, may be satisfied, our reverence for God's Word preserved untarnished, and the love of truth indulged with freedom and with innocence. And further, should there arise, as whispers have reached me that there have arisen, from the earth's entrails, indi- cations of a pre-Adamite race of human, or quasi human, inhabitants of this globe in its possible state of habitable- ness, before convulsions had reduced it to Tohu and Bohu, that " exceeding desolation," from which oiir sacred his- tory relates its recovery, I can see no irreverence to the bountiful Author of that glorious recovery, but the reverse, in accepting that teaching from the profoundest pages of His volume of Nature. I say deliberately, it would be the reverse of irreverence ; it would be an ascription of benevo- lence, which would be a sweet savour to the God of love, that He had not suffered the earth to lie fallow and unpro- ductive of happiness for so long a period. Yet does philo- sophy stand in need of unmistakeable and most conclusive evidence of this fact, before she accept a theory upon foundations, in the Word of God unrevealed. At the same time the intelligence of man rejects not, nor feels called upon to reject, direct testimony to truth, which may only have been unrecorded, because that truth concerns not the present race, not being necessary to its welfare. Let science, however, be duly impressed with the convic- GENESIS I. 6, 7, 8. 37 tioiij that theories founded on deductions from false testi- mony, or from fallacious premisses, are more humiliating than tacit or avowed ignorance.' 6. And God saith : There shall be an expanse between the waters, and it shall be effectively separating between waters with respect to waters. 7. And God labours with reference to the expanse and effectively separates between the waters, which {are) under the Expanse, and between the waters, which [are) above the Expanse : and it is so. 8. And God calls (to) the Expanse, Heavens : and there is Evening and there is Morning; a second Day. " And God saith." The announcement of this Will of ' Conjectures of the antiquity of many of the extinct mammalia and of contemporaneous human bones, found in Denmark and Switzerland, in our own islands, in France and in America, are wonderful and profoundly in- teresting. Many dates are assigned on less, on more, and on seemingly most, certain data. Sir Charles Lyell is of opinion that, if the present delta of the Mississippi has required, as he maintains, a minimum of more than one hundred thousand years for its growth, it would follow, if the claims for the Natchez man to have existed with the mastodon are admitted, that North America was peopled by the human race more than a thousand cen- turies ago. Tet, what a lesson of caution has been read by the fossil man of Abbeville ! And to what a sane conclusion has Professor Huxley come ■with reference to the fossil skulls from Engis and Neanderthal ! " Evidence &c.," pp. 156, 7. The " conclusion," p. 159, is lugubriously presumptu- ous. The "probably" — 1. 10, is an assumption in the teeth of admissions ; and the " if" in the closing paragraph is the expression, the reluctant ex- pression, of a misgiving after aU. Science has unlimited time for all her calculations respecting man's abode, this planet. Let science use her data wisely. She will find her task scien- tifically more easy and more conclusive, if she will lend her vast power to the support of Scriptural Truth. 38 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. God is in the sacred Text, as I have rendered it, in the time present. And, in addition to its literal fidelity, I cannot but think it gives animation and vigour to the narrative. I adopt the term Expanse, as perfectly representing the Hebrew, Pj?"l, rakian,i and the thing designated. For the same reason I admit the excellence of Seb. CastelHo's " liquidum." The Seventy in their interpretation of the term have assisted to perpetuate the barbaric notion of both Jew and Gentile, and have rather countenanced the " ovpctvov 7roXu;)(;aA)cov" of Homer,^ than the more philosophi- cal expression of the term, selected by the holy Prophet. I deliberately say, the more philosophical signification of Rakian. For I am persuaded that in his choice of this term our man of God studiously kept his eye on the truth, while he avoided doing violence to the deeply seated pre- 1 I write this word Rakian, because, if sounded with the nasal sound gi¥en by the Prench to this termination, it will best represent the generally accepted power of the Hebrew », gnain, or A-yin. Professor Lee, an iUus- trioiis authority in every thing that concerns Oriental literature, wrote it by h, having a punctum occultans under it, thereby consigning it to the obscurity of our h in the words, honour, honest, hour, and others. As MichaeHs has said of its Syriae representative, \S, " Utteris nostris scribi nequit." Some notion may also be formed of its power, if we should at- tempt to rectify our unfortunate enunciation of the proper name, Jacob : the j, to be given as y, would, with s in its proper place and duly sounded with the French nasal sound, be yan^cov, 3|»!, for, besides other impro- prieties, we harden the final non-dageshed b, which in that state is quasi r in softness. The German j is soft yod, or y ; but as soon as it reaches our climate, it becomes harsh dg, or j, as we pronounce it. This habit tends to improprieties in our enunciation of Yehovah, Tesus, or lesus 'IrieroDj— Yonah, Yob, and many other names, and other words. And this is not a trifting matter. The IsraeUtes that dwell amongst us have lost their Hebrew literature, but they have retained their proper names, and their organs of speech have not changed, so that their nationality can be concealed. They are revolted by our improprieties and are repulsed from our worship by that, which in their ears is more than ignorance. = " Obpavhy iro\ix<^\Koy," i. e. (TTfpfhv, \lav i(rxvp6v. Horn. II. t. 504 Od. y. 2. GENESIS I. 6, 7, 8. 39 possessions of his countrymen. ^ For the great majority of the Israelites believed rakian to be spread out like a solid hemispheric arch over the earth, shining and pellucid as sapphire. " And they saw the God of Israel : and under His feet as it were a work of the transparency of sapphire, and as it were the very Heavens in its brightness," The qualifications, "as it were," which are just representatives of the particles of comparison and similitude in the Hebrew original, declare the hypothetic nature of this description. In the arch of sapphire the common people imagined the stars to be fixed ; and above it the celestial ocean, " the waters above the firmament," with windows in the rakian, through which the water fell as rain upon the earth.^ Our holy Prophet ventured not to dissipate these erroneous notions for the same reason that he said nothing to shock the settled belief in the sun's diurnal journey round the earth. For their ignorance and prejudices he was silent on these matters, as "for the hardness of their hearts" he was fain to veil some portion of the moral brightness, that could alone be entirely acceptable to the pure Being, whom they worshipped. Yet rays of philosophical light burst ' I say the prepossessions of his counfrymen. Tor, pace Dr. M'Caul, the Jews did entertain the erroneous notion that there was, not a solid hemisphere but a solid hemispheric vault, under which the birds flew, and through the windows in which rain passed. The " Kpi Chap, xixvi. 27. = Ezet. vi. 11. ■ Ezek. XXV. 6. ' 2 Sam. xxii. 43. ' Ohemista have given the name of caloric to the matter of heat, in order to distinguish it from the sensation, which this matter produces. The etymon is through the Latin, caleo, to be hot, from the Hebrew p)?, kalah, to roast, to burn. The king of Babylon is said to have " roasted in the fire," ^} d)^, Zedekiah and Aiab by aid of this verb. GENESIS I. 6, 7, 8. 41 power of caloric is so predominant, that it expands, I had almost said beats and stamps out, water into a space 1400 times greater than its aqueous volume. And although this amazing dilatation has been increased artificially to a tenfold degree^ the fluid so produced is probably less rare- fied, than that which extends into the more elevated regions of space. And this permanently elastic fluid, the work of the conflict chiefly between fire and water, the ministering agents of Omnipotence, is the rakian of Moses.^ Has not then, I confidently ask, the All-wise Designer hereby stamped and beaten out intensely His vassal, water, by the action of His more potent vassal, fire^ even to mole- cules, in comparison with which impalpable dust is moun- tainous ?2 Has He not so intensely dissipated it in inap- preciable atoms, that while the lower and less rarefied stratum sustains vegetable and animal life and aflbrds buoyancy to the wings of birds and the fertilizing clouds, the higher forms an inexhaustible fountain of a fresh and salubrious medium, and is pervious to the glories of the sun and the gentler rays of far off luminous bodies? When should I have done, if I would enumerate all the wonders and all the beneficial influences of rakian upon the globe we inhabit ? Rakian is confessedly an indispen- sable and an inestimable provision of the Omniscient ; and ' And this is the meaning of 2 S. Pet. iii. 5, as Winer has well conceived and given it : " koI 777 4( Sdaros koI Si' SSotos avvsaTaaa," — " out of water, (as that in which it was contained) and through water, i.e., through the agency of water, which partly descended into the lower parts of the earth, and pajrtly formed the clouds in the sky." This is a very sensible view of this vexed passage and account of the theory ; except that, besides the clouds in the sty, there was the permanently elastic fluid of the expanse, or atmos- phere, to be formed by the union of the water and caloric. Throughout this discussion I assume water to be the ponderable base of oxygen and hydrogen gases. See PhU. Tr. 1808. 2 The vesicles of water, which form clouds, are from 1.380 to 1.390 of a hne in diameter. 43 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. its existence by a marvellous dilatation constitutes it an expanse. A few words must be said upon the nature and the lead- ing properties and the consequent advantages of our ex- panse. Whilst its fluidity and its elasticity are conferring much inestimable benefit and various delights of existence upon the earth's inhabitants, the expansibility of our at- mosphere has a primal and immediate claim to our notice. It is the expansion of the air which constitutes a conside- rable power in its gravity ; and the pressure of its gravity and extension produces many very important results in the economy of nature. The gravity of a column of air 45 miles in height is equal to a similar column of water 35 feet in height, and to a column of mercury of similar dimensions and 30| inches in height. Whence every square foot of the earth's surface sustains an atmospheric pressure of 2160 lbs., and every inch square a weight of 15 lbs. These are calculations made by scientific experi- ence and may be surely relied upon ; although they have the tone and the ring of that veritable doctrine of the hydrostatic paradox. Reader, on your bodily surface, downwards, laterally and upwards, for the atmospheric pressure is in all directions, wheresoever it meets resist- ance, the pressure you bear, according to your bulk, is reckoned by tons ; and it is this constriction alone, that preserves your vessels from bursting by the internal pres- sure of your circulating fluids, and that keeps them in tone and vigour. And this same gravity is in the ratio of the vertical density of the expanse ; and in that ratio is its action in the conservation of the restored and reconstructed earth and waters. We have only to imagine what must be the sum of the atmospheric pressure upon the surface of this globe and we shall be conducted to an estimate of the probable re- sults of that pressure. It has been calculated that a globe of lead sixty miles in diameter would represent the amount GENESIS I. 6, 7, 8. 43 of that pressure of our atmosphere. This expansion of our atmosphere not only appears calculated to exercise a salu- tary counterpoise to the aqueous^ but even by its lateral ex- tension to the more solid portions and accessories of the earth's surface ; not only binding down the surface of the waters, but assisting gravitation in the maintenance of the status quo, the natural and artificial arrangements, of ex- crescences. It is beyond all doubt the actual conservator of the fluids on the face of the earth, which, but for its in- hibitory intervention, would forthwith be converted into vapour by the heat of the sun. I neither conceal from my reader, nor shut my own eyes to, the Srspsco[ia, or firmament, of the Septuagint. Though expanse be the most eligible and the most approved mean- ing of the most intensitive derivative of the verb, rakan, I am not unaware, nor backward to acknowledge, that rakan and its Syriac derivative, Moi, rkan, have in the simple and subdued forms the signification, to make firm (as a foundation by stamping), and, to expand, (as God expanded the earth) .^ And if we should concede that lateral, or superficial, expansion was alone intended with respect to the heavens in the term, rakian, we should not be much at fault in the estimate of an annus, or concen- tric ring, of 45 miles in thickness, compared with that ring's mean circumference, of 24,135 miles : it would be little more than Tirth part of that circumference, and a finger-ring of similar proportions would be something like the most intensely hammered gold leaf. Nor should we make a damaging concession, if we should accede to the interpretation of rakian by crTSf>eeoj«.a ; that interpretation rather leaning upon metonymia, the taking of the effect for the cause, than upon the more accurate rendering of a substantive, proceeding from the most intensive form of its ' Ps. cxxxTi. 6 ; Isa. xUi. 5 ; xHt. 24. 44 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. parent verb.' And then in the sense of state, or product, the usual scope of these Greek nouns, what a a-Tsgecojiia, or firmament, we have in rakian ! We have a concentric ring, of 45 miles in vertical density, and equal in weight to a sphere of lead of 60 miles in diameter, which though fluid and elastic is permanent, being conserved in its perma- nency by compensation, encompassing and resting equally upon the face of the earth and its waters. The Glossaria Veterum have proffered columna, a column, as a signification, or equivalent, of sementans semen : Aben Ezra per Tll jnj, dare semen, exponit. aiassius : Phil. Sacr. Lib. 3, Tr. 3, Can. 27, p. 388. And Can. 32, p. 395, where the emphatic effect of the verb and its cognate noun is treated of. Ed. Amst. 1711. Eor an explanation of the immediate apposition, in- stanced in "fruit-tree" see Lee's Heb. Gr. Art. 219. ^ This supplementary copula I have supphed as applicable to the whole, as one procedure. As the plural of the predicate is not in use it seems the preferable mode of dealing with lil2"'?, ki-tov. 3 And the Creator assigned to the dry the name of earth. The Hebrew word VTM, erets, has for its root Y^, ratsats, t» break, to crush ; orintrans., to become broken, to burst : the earth undergoing that treatment in culti- Tation. In the same manner the Latia terra, from tero, to bruise, to bray, to crumble to pieces. From erets proceed the Syriac artho, the Arabic erd, E 50 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. were not unready to acknowledge the Eternal WiU. We scarcely need the announcement, " and it is so." There are few geognostic facts more satisfactorily ascer- tained, than that this globe had suffered convulsions, pro- bably many convulsions, previously to, and greater than, that of the Noachian Deluge. One illustration will serve without encumbering our immediate purpose : it is intel- ligible and it is conclusive. I allude to the depression of vast countries with their Flora and their Fauna to become the beds of oceans ; and the re-elevation of these countries in a condition habitable and productive. Nor are these alternations conjectural, or inductions from insufiBcient premisses. That they have been ocean-beds is proved by their containing a vast deposit of marine remains ; and that they had been previously inhabited by animals, if not man, by substrata, beneath the marine deposits, of the remains of terrestrial animals. Life, therefore, has often been disturbed by terrible convulsions. But whatever changes had occurred upon other disturbances, it is with the Tohu and Bohu that were the result of the event, im- mediately preceding the Mosaic Cosmogony, that we are concerned. Nor are we further interested — we should have been vouchsafed further and direct communications if we had been interested — even in that catastrophe, than to feel convinced that that confusion of God's works happened by His ordinance, as the renovation we treat of is the be- the Q-erman erde, the Saxon eard and the English earth. The Diyersions of Purley are ingeniously erroneous on this subject. The collections of waters are denominated seas. The Hebrew term, ni^p, mikTeh, has respect to the immense power of such assemblages of waters. The root^ nju, sig- nifies to make strong a rope by twistiug and winding it, or its component strands : thence, to be strong : the objective form, spoken of waters, means their collections, or assemblages in great force. The Hebrew word for sea is, W, yam, from an obsolete verb, Dp;, yamam, whose cognate rron, hamah, signifies to make a noise, to roar. " He compassed the waters with bounds, untU the light and the darkness come to an end." Job sxvi. 10. GENESIS I. 9 13. 51 hest of His bounty. This earth bears the vestiges of dis- turbance, on •which side and to what depth soever it be in- vestigated. Whether the chaotic darkness, which prevailed when God recreated the heavens and the earth and His Spirit brooded in darkness on the face of the deep, were the immediate consequence of a Plutonic disruption, or whether Plutonic agency had been previously charged with the derangement of terrestrial order, and Tohu and Bohu were attributable to some other abnormal occurrence, we have no warranty from the Word of G-od ; nor is human science of maturity to determine. The predominance of pitchy darkness, the displacement and ascendancy of the waters, the silence observed in respect of even the lowest forms of life, and the announced Will of God that even the creeping thing be caused to come forth, most probably in the sense of, to be produced ;i all these circumstances taken together with the exceeding desolation described, and moreover the evidences of Plutonic action and of a spasmodic disruption, as if by the combined powers of fire and water, leave small room for doubt what was the agency set to work by the Omnipotent Disposer of events. It is enough for man that he is made cognizant of the utter desolation, from which the inspired Prophet relates the restoration ; and more than enough that he is in the enjoyment of the happy consequences of the earth's rein- station in order and beauty. The dry^ was the arena, on which man was destined to be located ; the arena of his probation preparatory to a more elevated existence. ' The signification of the Hebrew verb, ^fSJ, yatsa, here used in the cau- satiye form, is, to go forth, but not in the sense of giving existence. It is the same verb that is applied to the fact of the earth's bringing forth, literally causing to go forth, the grass, &c. in the twelfth verse. ^ The intensive form of the Hebrew adjective indicates the fullest accom- plishment of the Divine Will. " The Dry" is opposed to the previous state of the earth, overwhelmed in water. So, as Gesenius ingeniously and well observes, " ^ {»)p> expresses the object, or purpose. * The verb is in the prseterite tense. ^ The vau here causes the two nouns to coalesce, as Hendiadys, present- ing one idea. See Gesenius. 56 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. 15. Yea/ they have heretofore existed^ for places of light in the expanse of the heavens ; to give light upon the earth ; and it shall be so.^ 16. And God continues to appoint* the two places of light the great : the place of light the great, for the rule of the day : and the place of light the small, for the rule of the night ; the stars also. 17. And God continues to place them in the expanse of the heavens for to cause light upon the earth : 18. And for to rule in^ the day and in the night : and for to divide between the light and between the dark- ness : and God beholds that [it be) good. 19. And there is evening and there is morning, a fourth day. Once more the awful will of the Creator goes forth. In the present instance that will is, that places of light shall exist, or appear, in the expanse of the heavens. We have been conducted through the state of darkness ; we have witnessed all the ameliorations consequent upon the acces- sion of light ; we now arrive at that more complete deve- lopement, wherein the full blaze of the source, or place, of light bursts upon an awakened world. I deliberately write the source, as that which the Omnipotent designer ' The Tau is intensiye, or cumulative. ^ The verb is in the prseterite tense. 3 The verb, ia the apocopate form, may signify, is, shall be ; or, be it. ^ The force of the present tense is, that God is appointing, which is equivalent to continues appointing, or, more euphoniously, continues to appoint. The verb, asah, haa this signification frequently. With the par- ticle, ), as in this place, it means, to cause the object to become something. " I will make thee for a great nation." Gren. xh. 2 ; xlvi. 3. Also to con- stitute, or appoint, to an office : It is " Jehovah, who made" — that is, appointed — " Moses and Aaron." ISam. xii. 6. Jeroboam " made priests of the lowest of the people," that is, constituted, or appointed priests. 1 Kings xii. 31. ' I have preferred in to " over," as the more genuine signiiication of the Hebrew particle, f GENESIS I. 14 — 19. 57 constituted, or ordained to be, the source of light. For it is, beyond doubt, the same light, to which was, and again is, committed the province of distinguishing between the day, that is the light, and the night, that is the darkness. This advance in the work of renovating the heavens and the earth is a very important one. The earth is now no longer a partaker of light as it was refracted by an ex- panse, or atmosphere, more or less dense, but glowed be- neath the direct beams of the orb of day, and enjoyed the light reflected by the queen of the darkness. The announcement, contained in these words of Holy Writ, is made in terms of great peculiarity. The predicate is not in formal, but in logical,^ accord with the subject. For we have no need to regard the predicate as a mere formula, preserved throughout this series of behests in order to mark some ideal connection, or relation, in the terms employed. Though a great and a small, greater and smaller, light are spoken of by the holy Prophet, writing down to the level of the science of the people for whom he wrote, one only is xo.t' e^o^riv the place of light j the in- ferior orb being merely the vehicle of borrowed light. Therefore, we may presume, the predicate is adapted to declare the apparent beginning to be, or the appearance, of one place of light only. Whatever be the view a de- ference to the canons of human language and a reverence of the Word of God may suggest, so it is, that the Omni- potent wills the greater and the lesser and the little orbs of light to be, or to appear. And in this conviction with regard to the scope of the sacred text the reader may not for an instant imagine, that the author of these pages questions the creative power of Omnipotence, with refer- ence to the two greater, or, in contemplation of their sem- blance, the far off lesser orbs of light. Beyond all ques- ' See Lee's Heb. Grrammar : art. 215. 9. 58 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. tion that great Being, who at some period, not revealed, caused those orbs of light to be : beyond all question He, who fashioned and projected and prescribed their paths to all these goodly orbs ; orbs, which even in this our Solar System reckon distances by hundreds of millions of miles and exercise the control of attraction and acceleration of velocity over spheres thus distant, and whose diameters are measured by thousands of miles ; and who by His law of gravitation, or attraction, holds these enormous and most distant globes to their orderly and harmonious revo- lutions : beyond all question, I repeat, the Author of this Solar System alone, must be acknowledged to be a Being of infinite power and wisdom. And we further read that the stars, those far off heavenly bodies, as great and some of them greater than any, our glorious centre itself not excepted, in this our Solar System, but described as the distance of countless millions of miles represents them, are emanations from the same Almighty power and wis- dom. What measure of the profoundest homage shall we deem sufficient to render at His footstool, whose works, and all of them conceived in the sanctity of benevolence and executed in the beauty of order and harmony, are so vast that, in the case of our nearest star, Sirius, hundreds of mil- lions of miles of approach or recess tell not upon the mag- nitude and brilliancy of its appearance ; that our stupendous system, in which the outermost planet revolves around the sun in an orbit of something like seventeen thousands of millions of miles, and some of our comets excurse ten thousands of millions of miles beyond the orbit of Saturn, yet appears to those distant spheres, as they appear to us, a mere cluster of orbs ; that, were this our place of light with its attendant planets and their attendant satellites swept from the universe, there would seem no void ? There can be no question whether these marvels had a Designer, a Creator, and have an Upholder and Governor; nor GENESIS I. 14 — 19. 59 whether that Being be as abounding in goodness, as in those Godlike attributes of power and wisdom. It is our privilege to know that this great and good Being is the God, whom we serve in the deep and steadfast humility of a loving dependence. We contemplate Him as the centre and the perfection of all excellencies ; of truth and of con- sistency, the highest excellencies. And in all reverence we read His revealed Word by the light of the unerring commentary of His works. By the light, I say, of that commentary. For in these days of iterated and careful inquiry, and so of more exact and mature knowledge, we have a fuller and deeper acquaintance with His creative operations, traced in globes of light on the azure expanse, or proclaimed audibly from the bowels of the earth, than in the brief, though deeply graven and most sacred, record of His written Word. When, therefore, we read that God appoints these places of light as distinctions between the day and the night, we accept and acknowledge, yea, we bow to these dispensations : they are all this and every thing else, that may challenge the tribute of our grateful admiration. In the Divine behest, There be, or. Be there, we recognise and understand the intimation, that these places of proper and of reflected light shall appear. For if, and there is not a particle of doubt upon this matter in the record of Moses, this terraqueous globe existed pre- ' viously to the cosmogony here recorded, it had, it could not have subsisted for a day without, all the accessories of a sphere, poised in space. At the least it had a centre of attraction, around which to assert its right of way ; in all probability an atmosphere, suited to the purpose, for which its Creator designed it ; possibly for the habitation of man ; of man, translated without the bitter taste of death ; or of man subject to the dissolution of the earthy and the ethereal essences. Beyond doubt the dwellers, if dwellers there were, on this globe enjoyed the light and the mag- 60 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. nificence of all those brilliant orbs, that roll at distances not too great for them to be visible to the naked eye ; centres as they are of systems like our own : not only enjoyed their light and gazed in wonder on their loveli- ness, but found that light acceptable in their sometimes darkness and a brightly burning chart in their orderly arrangements. But that these were all of them designed solely for the use and ornamentation of our planet we may well in justice and in deference to the Almighty Contriver hesitate to pronounce, or to conceive. Those orbs, that rule a day and a night at distances that render them in- visible, except to human vision cunningly assisted by art : those distant suns, whose light has travelled at the rate of upwards of ten millions of miles a minute for unknown thousands of years and have yet only now, and perhaps not even yet, arrived on the field of artificial sight ;i nay ! even one of the largest of the planets in our Solar System, that not very long ago'^ lay hidden in its dimness and dragged its tardy course around its exacting centre aU unperceived ; or that other far beyond it, but recently dis- covered; these were not surely made, nor except by the boldest rhetorical flight can be said to have been made, for the use, or the ornamentation, of this, one of the most in- considerable of God's works in His boundless universe. We are bound to acknowledge that throughout His works the All-wise Designer is studiously systematic and does nothing without a purpose. We may not question, much less im- pugn, that exquisite nicety and even delicacy of adjust- ment, by which all His designs converge to the one pur- 1 Christian Huygens, born at the Hague, 1629, a celebrated Mathema- tician and Astronomer, beheved the extent of the muTerse to be so vast, that there might be stars, whose hght liad not yet reached tliis planet. 2 Uranus, or Georgium Sidus, discovered by Ilerschel on Mai-ch 13, 1V81. The apparent diameter of this planet being but about four seconds, it can seldom be seen plainly by the naked eye. GENESIS I. 14 — 19. 61 pose of a sustained equipoise and an universal harmony. Far be it from us to pronounce that the equipendency of the millions of millions of revolving orbs might not be affected by the annihilation, or even the displacement, of any, even some inferior, unit in the inconceivable whole. The hu- mility proper to the human intellect might teach us this, and a greater, degree of diffidence in our conjectures and also in our calculations, even if science had not desiderated Uranus and Neptune, long before they were discovered, in order to account satisfactorily for seeming irregularities in the planetary motions, i Yet, this possibility stated^ it cannot be maintained, that the countless and invisible orbs, that are artificially discovered in far off space and beyond our system, were made for the sole aggrandisement of this, our, planet. No more is it possible for us to con- ceive, nor required of us to hold, that these orbs, once more permitted to appear and fulfil their functions of com- municating light and heat to the earth as well, as dis- charging those functions of continuing it in its orderly courses, were then first created, or then first existed. In- deed it would be far from any strain, I conceive, upon the language of the sacred original, if we should accept its meaning in the sense of their having previously existed, and of their being referred to, or, rather, confirmed in, their wonted duties. " Let the luminaries be to divide," does not deny their former existence. And the Word of GrOD is rather. Inasmuch as they have existed for these pur- I Professor Eobinson [Edinburgh Philosophical Transactions, Vol. I.], informed the scientific world, in his Paper on the Greorgiiun Sidus, that all the irregularities in the planetary motions could not be accounted for from the laws of gravitation ; for which reason he was obUged to suppose the existence of planets beyond the orbit of Saturn even before the discovery of the Georgium Sidus. Encyc. Brit. Vol. ui. p. 124, note. This antici- patory conjecture received a further confirmation ia the successful restdt of the search for the planet Neptime, discovered ui 1846 by Leverrier and Adams, from observing the aberrations of Uranus. 63 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. poses ; Inasmuch as they have existed for the purpose of shining upon the earths The verb in this place is not a construc- tive, nor a normal^ imperative : it may by a not uncom- mon strain intend the intimation of certainty, or assur- ance,2 but this would be a strain to meet a foregone and, I think I have shewn, an erroneous conclusion. The natural sense of the existence, asserted, is positive and in time in- definitely past. And the light, that was lately charged to pierce through the lessening darkness of the as yet imper- fect expanse, was beyond doubt a radiation from this great place of light, our orb of day : and with his light those rays of heat also found their way through the rarefying atmosphere and united their genial influence with the abundant moisture to array the regenerate earth with verdure. The introduction of the stars upon the expanse of the ' Indeed I hare no hesitation in saying that the assertion of the preTioua existence of these luminaries is in positive terms made. The fact that a prseterite may be a prophetic future ; that is, may be used for a fature tense ; does not affirm that it must always be so. If so, the natural occu- pation of prseterites and futm-es is gone. They are doomed to expend themselTes in non-natural senses. We have before us a remartable instance of the weakness of human nature. Those Jews, whosoever, and how few, or how many soever, who were employed by Ptolemy to translate the Bible into the Greek language, proposed to themselves the servile gratification of their royal patron by the production of a hterary marvel rather, than to set before him the Word of G-OD in its simple power and natural majesty. 2 Lee's Heb. Gram. Art. 236, 3. I must crave permission to differ from Professor Lee in his version of the passage (Gen. xxvi. 3), which he puts forward as an illustration of his theory. I read : " Sojourn in this land J and I will be with thee, and I wiE bless thee : for to thee and to thy seed I win give all these lands ; inasmuch as, or because, I have esta- bKshed," not, I will establish, "the oath, which I sware to Abraham, thy father." The reason for what God was pleased to promise lay in the oath He had confirmed : " which I have heretofore established ;" and which He had heretofore sworn to Abraham. See oh. xxii. 16, IV, 18 : " By Myself I have sworn ;'' the manner of confirming the oath, and by which it was then established and confirmed. GENESIS I. 14 — 19. 63 heavens is truly grand and bears, I almost think, peculiar marks of inspiration. Subject to the appointment ex- pressed in reference to the two lights, even the great ones, the terms used are divided by a pause resembling our semi- colon j^ "moreover the stars." I have pronounced this, and I consider it, a truly grand and a very significant in- troduction. It is sufficiently concluded in the record of the great Designer's doings to be referred to His autho- rity : sufficiently remote by its enunciation to be regarded as a separate and independent act of that authority. I have declared my opinion, that the introduction of the stars upon the map of the heavens bears the stamp of in- spiration. For while in later and almost recent ages of comparative advancement in all knowledge and refinement there has prevailed a mass of the most absurd errors^ of opinion, concerning the form of the earth we inhabit, the Hebrew Prophet rightly estimated, or at the least he rightly represented, the figure of those distant and, seem- ingly, minute and feeble luminaries.^ By Moses in the place of God's holy Word, here investigated and discussed, and by the earlier writer, the righteous Job, and after ' Zakef katon. This is to be regarded only as a human commentary, or pvmctuation. The very terms of this limb of the historical sentence vin- dicate its independence. 2 Heraclitus concluded that our planet was of the shape of a canoe : Anaximander pronounced it cylindrical j and Leucippus likened it to a drum. Our own Burnet belieTed it to be a perfect sphere ; and, though not far from the truth in that faith, mixed it up with a fanciful, not to say absurd, theory. And the, in other respects, able and niustrious Kepler considered our planet to be endued with hfe, furnished with vital fluids, performing the process of assimilation, possessing instinct and voUtion, and having sympathies, and antipathies down to the most elementary molecules. ^ The term, ijis, kokav, is from an obsolete verb, 3M, kavav, whose cog- nates in the Arabic and Ethiopio signify, to roU up. Hence the primary meaning of kokav is a globule, or little globe ; and hence, by a marvellous stride of intelligence, very Hke inspired knowledge, is used by Moses, and before him by the righteous Job, to signify a star. 64 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. these by the inspired writers generally, those feeble and minute, but interesting and most beauteous, heavenly bodies are denominated, and in that denomination des- cribed as, globes. The remaining clauses of this portion of the Mosaic Cosmogony being conceived in terms, already with studied veneration discussed and settled, I proceed not to encum- ber my pages and to harass the reader with useless repetitions. 20. And God saith : The waters shall bring forth abun- dantly the creeper, the animal of life : and fowl shall fly above the earth : in the face of the expanse of the heavens. 21. And GrOD fashions the sea-monsters the great ;! and every animal of life the creeping ; which the waters brought forth abundantly according to their species ; and every bird of wing according to its species ; and God beholds that {it be) good. 22. And God blesses them to the extent^ of saying. Be fruitful ; and multiply ; and fill the waters in the seas : and the fowl shall multiply in the earth. 23. And there is evening and there is morning, a fifth day. We have already had many proofs, that our holy Pro- ' I have endeavoured to preserve the simplicity of the original as closely, as possible. " The sea-monsters the great ; every animal of life the creep- ing" and " the bird of wing" are the Hebrew idiom, and have a pleasant character about them. 2 ■' — to the extent of saying" is the best way that occurs to me of giving eflfect to the particle, ), prefixed to the infinitive : blesses them for to say would be exact, but would read uncouthly. Tet have I heard this phraseology commonly in the mouth of old people. GENESIS I. 20 — 23. 65 phet manifested great tenderness for the prepossessions and much forbearance with the ignorance of his country- men. He was, as I have already observed, under that Divine influence, that guided him to lead them gently by the hand and by no means to shock or to revolt them. While, however, he deferred to their prejudices and humoured their erroneous notions in secular and unim- portant matters, and couched his most solemn communi- cations in language, that should not alarm their unen- lightened minds, he yet luxuriated in all that richness of diction and that graphic phraseology, which might engage their attention and fix his instructions in their memory. In speaking of the vast multitudes of living creatures, that should be produced in the waters, he has exhibited a very notable example of Onomatopoeia; and also an effective instance of the emphatic force of the verb, acting on its cognate substantive. The actual terms, employed to an- nounce the Creator's ordinance, are, " The waters shall be all of a creep with the creeper." And " ishretsu sherets" informs the ear that it must be so. Through want of consideration and unaequaintance with the meaning, well defined in the words, of the sacred ori- ginal, there has arisen a vast amount of animadversion upon this act of the Mosaic Cosmogony. It has been sup- posed and argued, that this will of the Creator, as delivered by the holy Prophet, ruled that the waters should produce both the reptile and the fowl of the air. This miscon- ception has been made a ground of cavil and erected into a charge of inconsistency by weak and ill informed minds. i It has had its origin in the erroneous versions^ of this ' Boohart has elaborately answered the several forms, taken by this error : it has been lately taken up again and fondled by Dr. Colenso. See Bo- chart's Hierozoicon, Vol. I. eol. 55. 2 The Septuagint has : " 'ElayayeVia tA SSara IpTrerA \fivxav ^axray, xal ircTciyt^ TTeTS/ieya :'' the Vulgate : " Producant aquae reptile animse virentis P 66 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. passage^ that have obtained currency and authority. The Septuagint has led the way ; and its erroneous course has et volatile super terram :" Seb. Castellio : " ut aqua natatiles ederet ani- mantea et volucres, quae super terram per aerem Tolarent ;" Eng. Ver. : " Let the waters briug forth abundantly the moTing creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven." There are three marginal suggestions appended to this Version : the text,. " life," is right ; " soul" is a translation of 'jivx'h, not of ttW, nephesh, which means the breath of life, and so Kfe : but the second, " let fowl fly," is an approach toward and almost a correct version ; and stills the controversy about the waters producing both reptiles and fowls : the third, " in the face of the iumament of heaven," if " firmament" be adhered to, is the right rendering ; " in the open firmament," the text, is only an interpreta- tion, of the Hebrew. Luther gives : " Es errege sich das wasser mit webenden und lebendigen thieren, und mit gevogel, das auf Erden unter der Beste des himmels fliege." The Dean of Lichfield : " Let the waters bring forth creeping things of Uving souls, and winged things flying over the earth along the firmament of heaven." This last, a faithful adherence to the errors of the Septuagint and all its copyists, is simply wrong ; and gives the handle to ancient and modern would-be critics. The version of the Pentateuch, Longman and Co., London, 1859, and made by no mean scholar of the name of "Wellbeloved, is the best rendering of this place that I know of. It reads : " Let the waters swarm with Kving things and let flying creatures fly above the earth under the firmament of heaven." The verb " swarm" is accurate, not as translation, but as interpretation ; the absence of the characteristic creeping from the " hving things" is a defect : the " flying creatures fly" is admirable. It is very singular that G-lasse, " Glassius eruditissimus," in his Philologia Sacra — Lib. iii. Tr. 2, Can. 22, — countenances the error of the supplemen- tary that, adopted by the EngUsh Version ; giving the original passage as an instance of the ellipsis in the Hebrew of the relative, \p, or "iii'N, qui, quEe, quod. I cannot refram from observing upon the cu-eumstance, that this Hebrew verb, which is used to signify the abimdance of the produce of the waters, is employed to describe the swarming of the IsraeHtes in the land of Egypt. Exod. i. 7. Indeed the whole of that historical passage is most forcibly and unanswerably opposed to the argument of a recent critic, who endeavom-s to diminish the number of the Israehtes, when they left the land of Egypt. " Now the children of Israel were fruitfiil, yea they swarmed, yea they multiphed, yea they became exceedingly mighty through their numbers, yea the land became filled with them." Every term that could serve to intimate abundant increase is applied ; and, as if the holy penman is not yet satisfied with the statement he has made by no less than four most expressive verbs, he enlists Bimeod meod, an iterated adverb, signifying I'xcessive excess of the increase afllrmed. GENESIS I. 20 — 23. 67 been followed by the Vulgate, the English Version, the Lutheran, that of Seb. Castellio, and of late by the Dean of Lichfield. I know of one version only, which has escaped the error : that version is, " and let flying creatures fly above the earth." The English Version would have been in this respect a true one, if the relative pronoun, " that" had not been inserted as the complement, whereas it is an ingenious, not to say blundering, perversion, of the sen- tence. The translation, I have given at the head of my discussion of this portion of the sacred Cosmogony, is as literal and correct a presentation of the words of the sacred original, as I am enabled to devise in the English language. The accentuation, that is the punctuation, alone would, I must think, shew it to be in the estimation of those, who added it, a separate and independent ordinance. But a glance at the terms will be enough to determine the mind of the Hebrew writer. These terms do not, like the Sep- tuagint, present the noun and the participle in formal accord, as the object of some following, or preceding, action ; but this member of the sentence is a complete member, having the noun, " fowl," as its subject and for its predicate the verb, " shall fly." But the matter is re- duced to certainty by a comparison of our passage with its interpretation, or amplification, in the next chapter : "And Jehovah formed out of the ground every animal of the field and every bird of the air." It would have seemed enough to have marked the locality of the bird of wing, that the Creator's blessing to them is, that they multiply in the earth. We now arrive at that formulary of declaring the will and the exercise of the creative power of the Deity, by which He is represented to have made,' or formed, or fashioned, or designed and prescribed form and charap- ' We have here the true sense of Bara : God designed for completely forming. The "Bara laasoth" of i;. ii. v. 3, illustrates my meaning; " formed for completion." F 2 68 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. teristic movement and appetite to, the inhabitants of the deep and the fowls of the air. In the preceding clause God saith, The waters shall bring forth in abundance the living creatures ; in the clause now before us we are told that the forms and habits are assigned to these creatures, not by the waters, nor by mere chance, nor by any inde- pendent second causes whatever, but, through the means He adopts, by God Himself : God prescribed forms to the monsters of the deep ; the monsters of stupendous length, the whale and the serpent and the dragon and the croco- dile, and every thing living in the waters receive at His bidding their forms according to their species ; and so of every fowl of the air according to its species. The admi- rable skill, by which they are adapted to their element, their distinctive modes of reproduction, their aptitudes for maintaining their variously diversified habits and instincts, is the result of Divine selection and prescription. The Hebrew word, rendered " whales" in our English version, intends any animal on the land, or in the water, whose characteristic is length of form.' The whale, being amongst the most huge and lengthy of aquatic animals, and possess- ing very interesting natural peculiarities and great com- mercial importance, is, I suppose on these^ accounts, chosen by our translators as the most prominent representative of the monsters of the deep. But any serpent, the dragon, or crocodile would answer the meaning of the Hebrew word here used. The notable and vexed word, leviathan, more correctly liviathan,^ composed of the Hebrew word, ren- ' pf), Tannin, an animal of great length. Thia word is supposed to derive from ]», Tanan, to extend, to stretch out. In the Greek we find T€iViB, ravia, Tirali/ai, of similar signification : raivta, ttenia, a long worm. 2 Or, still more probably, a sympathy with the Vulgate, which in this, and many other instances, is a servile following of the Septuagiut. 3 Liviathan, im'^, compounded of rnb, lavah, and jn, a long reptile. From this verb proceeds the noun, rrib, hviah, a coil, or wreath ; and JFi n'lV, liviah tan, a coil a serpent, that is a coiled serpent,— or any lengthened monster, that can move in a tortuous manner. GENESIS I. 30—23. 69 dered " whales/' tannirij or tan, and a prefix, from a verb signifying a tortuous gait, an obliquity of motion, or a pur- pose to entangle by coils, well represents man's subtle spiritual eneray metaphorically ; naturally it is a synony- mous term with that, which represents all the monsters of lengthened forms on the land, or in the waters : Bochart advocates its signification of the crocodile, but Lee truly denies the tortuous power of that animal. I have desired to record an opinion ; but I shrink from a controversy, in which so great names are opposed. Length is the property represented in " tan/' and the Jackal, outstretched in its body, head and tail as it runs, is included in that designa- tion. It will not escape the sedulous reader, that I have preferred to render the Hebrew terms, leminehem and lemineho, by, after their, and its, species ;i as being more close to the etymology and less liable to be misunderstood by speculative theorists. 24. And God saith : The earth shall cause to go forth the animal of life according to its species ; cattle and reptile and the wild beast of the earth according to its species ; and it is so. 25. And God designs^ the wild beast of the earth accord- ing to its species, and also the cattle according to ' The root of J'P is )1D, to take, or wear the appearance. Hence Exod. XX. 4 et ahbi, TOlon, image, likeness. In the same manner the Greek iSe'o from lS(?v, from etSa, videre ; and elKiiv, an image, from elKa, similia sum. " W TO^ reinri," — "an image (was) before mine eyes." Job iv. 16. Ab- solute likeness, or similitude, not, if I may depend on the distinction, casual resemblance, or similarity, constitutes species. Nor will this distinction be invalidated, or in any wise affected, by a casual variety, not perpetuated ; much less by a lusus natw to Zlwp ;" E. V., " Let the waters be gathered together." Indeed by virtue of the precedent themselves have set up, importing a Greek idiom into sacred Hebrew literature, they convert every future tense to an imperative form of speech ; whether there exist a shadow of a plea for it, or not. Their one brilliant suc- cess chains them to this indulgence. When I write indul- gence, I feel conscious that licence would have been a better term for the assumption. For if by canons,' made to suit a liberty, that liberty be countenanced; that liberty, so cushioned, is yet a licence. It is a Greek usage arbitrarily forced upon Hebrew simplicity. In no case, not even in that much lauded passage, " Let there be light," is it con- sonant with the Hebrew terms, or the Hebrew writer's in- tention : the future would be more naturally rendered as a future, and would be preferable as regards perspicuity : moreover, it would not be a first step in a wrong direction.^ ' Such is the case, as I have abeady shewn in a note upon the ^'places of light" when a verb has for its third radical a quiescent n : Lee's Heb. Grram. art. 119, 9 ; or when the paragogio n, or the epenthetic J" seem to indicate commands, prohibitions, or exhortations." Artt. 233, 234, 235. 2 I am aware of the opposition this doctrine will evoke. I entertain no misgiving upon it. Hebrew grammar has been made almost entirely, and actually so in these and similar instances, to account f6r the views of the Seventy. 113 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. But if this be, and it cannot reasonably be denied that it is, the case with future tenses, rendered as imperatives after a Greek idiom, allowed by canons that have been framed to meet this licence, where shall I find words to mark this practice, when extended to prseterites ? If this be barely allowable in the example, " Av)]5^Ta)o-«v (poio-T^pej," " Let there be places of light," it cannot but seem extrava- gantly licentious to assign the same form of translation to a prseterite tense^ in a connected member of the same sentence : " xai ea-Tcoirav s'lg a-rnAsla," " and let them be for signs :" and further the same licence is carried out to as great an extreme, when the same prseterite at the com- mencement of the fifteenth verse is rendered, " xui ea-ruKrav els ^aixnv/' "and let them be for lights." Now in the Hebrew original, the ipsissima Dei verba, these verbs are in past tenses, or times : and they record the previous being of these places of light. "We need not to be re- minded that a mandate is most naturally uttered in the imperative mood. And yet in this record of the earth's regeneration there occurs no imperative, except in those repeated injunctions, "Be fruitful and multiply," &c. We might therein be trained to regard those futures not as mandates, but as decrees of such things, as should by Divine Volition take place ; and much more should we cease to look upon the prseterites as mandates ; and learn to think of them as Divine records of things that have been. It might suit the artful designs of a greedy and unscrupulous invader to amaze the children of nature by the prediction of an eclipse : there is no room for the ' If it be allowed to render nihp 'n? by " To'rid'liTacrav ipaxrTTJpes," and it is only allowable, the allowanoe does not extend to the preterite, vn. The conjunction prefixed to this prseterite is illatiTe, not copulative. It signifies moreover, or even as, since, seeing that, inasmuch as. Or, if it be taken as a copula, it connects and gives continuity to the sentence, intro- ducing the apodosis. RECAPITULATION. 113 thought that the Creator intended His decrees to take the nature of a prophecy and so to display His Omniscience to the host of heaven, before man was created. The fact may, and needs, not be ignored that prophecies are frequently couched in a prseterite tense, thence denominated the pro- phetic future ; because it intimates that the thing prophe- sied shall as surely come to pass, as if it had already happened. Yet to seize every opportunity to represent pro- phetically, or imperatively, both that, which is announced as a decree, and that, which records a matter of history, is a looseness of translation, we should not do wisely to coun- tenance, much less to imitate, in any, and especially in a sacred, document. In the twenty-sixth verse however, our venerable Version not only imitates, but outstrips, the Sep- tuagint in this extravagance. In the sacred original God is represented to say, " We will make man." And the Sep- tuagint as a matter of necessity as well, as propriety, renders the Hebrew by a Greek future, "miri(raiiji.ev." But the English Version, enamoured of its catena of imperatives, adopted in other cases from the Septuagint Version, exceeds that Version by a further indulgence of a too much commended caprice ; if, indeed, it do not aim at a sublimity of its own in its " Let us make man." The apology for the English, and other modern Versions, lies in the fact, the incontrovertible fact, that they were all dependent upon the Septuagint ,■ or upon the Latin Vulgate, a servile trans- lation of the Septuagint. The apology for the Seventy may be that, they had not too much Greek, but less of Hebrew, learning. Some writer, I think it is Dupin, questions the probability that seventy-two Jews, who were capable of translating the Hebrew Bible into any language, could be found at the time ; and denies the probability that each tribe could supply six persons able to perform the operation. " Assuredly," the same writer adds,' " a ' And that writer is the learned and indefetigable Dupia. I 114 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. smaller number might have succeeded in executing the task, if they were fitted to undertake it." I have a notion which frequently obtrudes itself and is not always so easily put aside, that the Seventy Jews had aid and support from more cultivated and elegant Greek scholars, in the forma- tion of the Greek Text. Ptolemy desired more books. If they were exquisite specimens of manu-scripture, and of polite literature, they were additions to his library. The errors I have exposed in this first chapter of Genesis, errors that must have proceeded from ignorance as well as from presumption, must satisfy the reader that the Sep- tuagint Version has no pretension to have been an inspired operation ; and that the exceptions I have taken against its fidelity, or correctness, are only too well founded. There is an infinity of lesser, or merely literary, errors. One or two places occur to me of greater consideration. I pro- duce them. Let us take a cursory glance at the vexed passage in the Book of Job, where the patient man's wife is introduced, saying to him, " Barek Elohim vamuth."' This clause the Vulgate, Seb. Castellio and Luther ren- der, " Bless God and die."^ But the English Version reads, " Curse God and die." And what solution of He- brew Truth do the Seventy propose? Their solution, or obfuscation, of this text is, " Say some word to the Lord and die."* Is this " some word," or " a certain word," a suggestion in the spirit of the English Version? The verb in question signifies, to bless : other verbs are at hand — when to curse, is intended.* The whole stream of ' npi D'An tjia. e. 2, T. 9. ^ " Bonedic Deo et morere." Vulgate. " Age sane Deo gratias, et mo- rere." Seb. Castellio. " Ja, segne Gott und stirb." Luther. ■* Wlien Isaiah writes (viii. 21), "they shall fret themselves, and curse their King and their God" — the vei'b is kalal. vri'-xn ta^-ia '?Vpi, vekillel bemalto ubelohfiT. When Moses writes, "Thou shalt not curs; God" — RECAPITULATION. 115 significations and applications of the verb, barak, flows on through Holy Writ in one uninterrupted course of — to- wards God — invocation, adoration, blessing ; and these on bended knees : from God to man, of blessing and making prosperous : and from man to his fellow, of benevolence, of benediction and of beneficence. Its primary meaning is, to kneel. Its Arabic derivative represents the attitude taken by the camel, when that meek and enduring animal receives its burthen. ' The solution of the nodus in our text is sometimes sought in the import of the word, Elo- him. Professor Lee, in his most elaborate treatment of the Book of righteous Job, has rendered this place, " Bless the Gods and die ;" meaning, end thy sufferings by volun- tarily incurring death under the Patriarchal Law. This, however, does not articulate with the taunts^ of Satan in the fifth verse of this, and in the eleventh verse of the pre- E. v., "revile the Gods"— the verb is not barak, but kalal. ^^D «'' D'^N, Elohim lo tekallel. And when Job intended to curse his day, the verb ia not baa:ak, but kalal. " After that Job opened his mouth, and he curses his day." ioi>n« ';Vp;i. When, however, Jezebel ohajpged the nobles to set up sous of Behal, who should bring an accusation against Naboth, that should render him Hable to capital punishment, the verb to be used was barak. The accusation was, " Thou didst bless G-od and the King." The crime, alleged, was that of ascribing to the King and to Q-OD, conjointly, wor- ship, which belonged to God alone. The Septuagint, the Vulgate and Luther render the place correctly ; the English Version and CasteUio incorrectly. The three former give the sense of blessing ; the two latter of malediction. Is it probable that the Seventy saw the passage in the aspect of, blessing, or cursing, " the gods," the false gods, and forbore a, seemingly to them, literal translation from motives of fear of, or obsequiousness to, Ptolemy ? ' By the use of this verb, and its derivative, Solomon is represented to have " kneeled down upon his knees before aU the congregation of Israel." 2 Chron. vi. 13 ; by the same verb and derivative Daniel " kneeled upon his knees and prayed." Dan. vi. 10, E. V. ; vi. 11, Heb. 2 Professor Lee has his view of these taunts of Satan. As if it read : " But put forth Thy hand now and touch all that he hath" — otherwise, if Thou do not this thing — " if not, he wiE bless Thee to Thy face." Sohultena may be consulted on this passage, and the Book of Job gener- ally, with profit and dehght. I 3 116 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. ceding chapter. There we read not Elohim, but the pro- noun of the second person. And the person addressed being the one true God, Elohim, both in the passage under discussion and in the fifth verse of the preceding chapter, can alone signify the eternal God Himself. The manner of the application of the verb, barak, must, therefore, sup- ply the desiderated solution. And in the search for that solution it will be at once seen and felt that an Euphemism lurks beneath that expression of blessing. We discover a harsh resolution, a daring sentiment, couched in phrase gentle and delicate. It is a bidding, farewell, as an inti- mation of renouncement. It is " x'^lpsiv , iva, iva, aa, eu, 6a, as Professor Lee would rule, is neither understood, nor permissible. The authors of the Latia Vulgate, Castelho, Luther and our own translators, were conspicuously unacquainted with it. Scapula's and other Greek Lexicons make (TKKripiva to signify. To render hard, to harden : not to pronounce hard. AViuer also, Vol. I. p. 104, teaches that, verbs in iva signify to render what the concrete root de- notes. My memory supplies me with no such usage of these verbs by piu-e Greek writers, as would be hereby imposed. ^ Chap, xiii., verses 3, 8, 15, 22, 25. 27, 30, 44., et alibi. 3 Ibid, verses 6, 13, 23, 28, 34, 37. RECAPITULATION. 119 Hebrew intensive verb in those places, as the Seventy have dealt with the intensive form of the Hebrew verb, to harden ; and as all translations within my reach have dealt with it. In another place,' the same form of another Hebrew verb has either the primary intensive, or the de- clarative, manner of expression. For there the action of the verb is by the possessors, as agents, on their own hearts. And the fall force would be, " Wherefore do ye intensely harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pha- raoh intensely hardened their hearts ?" Here the agent is not God ; and the action may be intense, exhibitive, or declarative, by the agents, or owners, of the dispositions so hardened. They may intensely harden their hearts ; they may prove them hardened ; they may declare them hardened. Scripture is the best interpreter of Scripture. In Exodus, c. viii. v. 1 1, and in the last verse of that same chapter we read, who it was that hardened Pharaoh's heart. It was not his benign Creator, who, on the contrary, was exerting His wondrous power to aiford him another and yet another opportunity of voluntarily relenting, but the in- tractable Pharaoh himself. "When Pharaoh saw there was a breathing time so as to harden his heart, he hearkened not unto them ; as the Lokd had said." And again in the last verse : " And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, and he would not let the people go." I have taken some little pains to set this matter in the true light, in order to reconcile the whole of this, and all other simi- larly constructed and similarly misunderstood places of Holy Writ, with due notions of the justice and goodness of God. As this matter has stood, preachers of the Gos- pel of Christ have had recourse to various expedients. Your Calvinist takes little trouble about it. He merely fixes his eyes on his deluded hearers and points to " the vessel of wrath." More enlightened and more scrupulous, ' 1 Sam. vi. 6. 130 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. in these days less followed, preachers regard and represent God's hardening Pharaoh^s heart, as a judicial visitation of his contumacy towards His holy Prophet. All this darkness arises from the error, the lamentable ignorance, or negligence, of the Septuagint Version. The softened charge of obscurity is scarcefy possible, if my argument against the hypothetic expression of a-xXtipCvco be, as it claims to be, admitted. S. Paul's use of this verb^ is of a different complexion. If interpreted in all its severity even against the temporal condition of peoples, it would be harsh in the extreme. But it was merely intended to convey the idea of greater, or less, consideration ; even as the hating of Esau only signifies the preference of the seed of Jacob, as the depositaries of God's oracles for the be- hoof of all mankind ; even as the expression, to hate father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters and his own life also, as the duty and badge of a disciple of Christ, only intends the postponement of all worldly affections to the love and service of God through Jesus, The Chkist. It may not be imagined that there are not very many important and innumerable merely literary errors, besides these I have put forward, in the Version of the Seventy.^ I might extend this discussion, already beyond calculation extended, from a pamphlet to a folio, were I to enter upon any thing like a detail of errors. To the reader, who turns with distaste from the only road to this conviction ; from ' Ep. Eom. ix. 18. ' In the matter of " Shiloh" Gen. xHx. 10, the Septuagint is correct, while all other Tersions, the English Version amongst the rest, are incorrect. The Septuagint has, " t^ cmoKetfieya air^ ;" the error has crept in through a false lection of the Hebrew text about the tenth century of the Chi-istian era. It stood in older MSS., " asher lo," i'' 1W, which was first corrupted to "shello," i^tf, and then amended, or attempted to be amended, to "shiloh," ri';>ttJ. The " $ aTrcJ/ceiToi'' of Symmachus and Aqmla is superior to the " t& airoK^lfieea aurip" of the Seventy. RECAPITULATION. 121 the most satisfactory and the most delightful source of Biblical and philosophical knowledge, the study of that most wonderful volume in its own sacred and interesting language, I can offer no substitute. He must receive on trust, and, if he be a minister of Christ,^ he must teach on trust, those awful and momentous subjects, which he might draw and might distribute from the Fountain of Truth. And have I not shown with too much certainty that he is not always in the hands of the safest guides? We have only to look at the faults and discrepancies amongst translations, and we shall be convinced of, and keenly feel, this truth. Without reference to the sacred original, the ipsissima Dei Verba, the Hebrew Truth, no ' It is matter of aBtoniBlunent to all thinking, and of regret to all earnest people, that persons, who are entirely devoid of acquaintance with the original language of the Old Testament, should venture, or he admitted, into Holy Orders. The Ministers of the Gospel are compelled to appeal to those ancient Books, as the records of G-od's dealings with His chosen peo- ple and as the storehouse of prophecies relating to the Divine Author of the G-ospel Covenant. And they can only know these important matters im- perfectly, through the Septuagiut and its offspring, the Latin and the English Vulgates. It would really be a very inconsiderable effort to obtain a respectable and useful mastery of the Hebrew tongue. But were it an arduous undertaking, it might be confidently proposed to British youths, who aspire to the high and holy office of becoming ambassadors of Oheist. It would indeed be well for Cheisi's Church and for the members, who compose it, if something beyond the usual slender modicum of Greek, ena- bling the student to make out with some difficulty and with small iutelh- gence a chapter of the New Testament, were demanded of candidates for the highest and most sacred office man can hold. Greater proficiency in the Greek and some respectable knowledge of the Hebrew languages, and ascer- tained aptness in applying that proficiency and that respectable knowledge to the elucidation of the Holy Scriptures, should constitute the high road to Ecclesiastical prizes ; not political partizanship, nor blind nepotism. I regard with ineffable indignation the raids that have been made upon Episcopal and Capitular properties. The Dignitaries must, nevertheless, " provide for their own households" out of their diminished incomes, without defrauding industry and talent of their merited and due reward. The Clergy are men of superior, not of superhuman, aspirations. 123 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. man can pretend to any criterion^ any available standardj of fidelity. Truly he has abundance of information for all spiritual purposes, all things necessary to salvation; but he has no unfailing source of truth, of literary, or of refined, satisfaction.^ He sits under the light of the pale moon : the brightest beams and the warmest rays of the Sun of Inspiration cannot reach him. After all I have said, relating to the inadequacy of our English, and all other Versions, it might be reasonably demanded that I give some model of what I consider a Version should be. Yet, reasonable as this demand ap- pears, the response to it must naturally impress me strongly with the arduousness of the undertaking and with my in- competency to the work. It requires a very cultivated ear, a perfect facility in the English idiom and a discriminating taste for the native beauty of the Anglo-Saxon element, contained in it. It is no pretence for me to confess that I am conscious I do not possess these desirable, and to this undertaking most indispensable, accomplishments. These tastes are far too rarely cultivated, considering their importance in every point of view ; and especially to the Clergy, who would therein find a chord of powerful sym- pathy between the preachers and the congregation, ad- dressed from the pulpit. It would be a circumstance that ' The most accomplished Greek scholar, who is entirely devoid of skill in the Hebrew hterature, is imable to read the Hellenistic of the New Tes- tament with full rehsh and profit. The Hellenistic of the New Testament is Greek abounding in Hebraisms. I have smiled at the boast of a dis- tinguished TJniverBity Classic, that he " could read the Greek Testament as well, as a Bishop." So he, undoubtedly, could, if the Bishop were guilt- less of Hebrew literatm'e : otherwise, not. RECAPITULATION. 123 would cause every fibre to vibrate and would reach the heart through the best affections, if the people should in their own language, in which they were born, hear of the gracious designs and the wonderful works of God. But even to the ripe scholar, thus fitted for popular addresses, or for interpretation of the original Word of God, the task, especially the latter, is one of infinite delicacy, and that demands a lively and untiring vigilance. The ear may find a charm in a word, or a phrase, that does not accurately satisfy the original, and thus the taste and the judgment may be antagonistic; the selection from two, or more, solutions may distract the most scrupulous atten- tion ; the expression, that most closely enunciates the mind of the inspired Writer, may not be calculated to awaken the corresponding idea in the mind of the reader. The grandeur, the solemnit;^, the tenderness of the subject must be perceived and felt, without apparent effort of the interpreter, in the march aid the tone of the interpreta- tion. Force must not be rigid ; ease must not have the appearance of indifference; simplicity must not sink to slipshod; smoothness must not cloy; fulness must not sur- feit. The rare felicity is,' to cull the simple phrase that suits the great occasion. i There occur many such felici- ties in our English Version. Unless I should be com- pelled, I would not violat^ by a retouch those sacred relics of our ancient style ; lest I be found to offend against God's holy Truth in its fairest guise. If there be am- biguous terms, phrases, .members of sentences, or entire sentences, how may these be dealt with ? I am aware of a manner of entertaining these, to which I can scarcely bring myself to subscribe. That is, to interpret ambigu- ously ambiguous passagels. But the terms are at variance. ^ Passages, ttat are not eipphatio in the original, have no claim to be emphatic in the translation, lue Clerc points to this fault as frequent ; and he censures it. Artis Oriticse P. ii. cap. iy. reg. 3. 134 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. How can ambiguity perform, the office of interpretation ? I dismiss the distinction between translation and interpre- tation, as a mere affair of words. Both mean a removal of a mind from one into anoliher language ; or, into other terms of the same language.^ It is dif&cult to imagine any part of God's holy Revelati on so obscure, that its verbal signification, I say verbal to distinguish between language in its simple acceptation and prophetic language, may not be approached, if not arrived at. Even if that signification should seem latent in ancient phrase, or obscure diction, that passage does not, like the Sphinx's Enigma, stand alone. There is other matter,, which must be brought into contact with it ; and the hopeful probability is, that the comparison, or blending, of th ese may result in a precipi- tation of the truth. And if otherwise, the fault will be with the reader rather, than ^fith holy Scripture. There will be a manifest want of due preparation ; a short-com- ing in reading and intelligent digestion; a neglect in seek- ing truth, or seeking it aright ; not the fact that truth is beyond reach. The Volume of God's Word is a Volume of marvels. It cannot be grasped by the most vigorous in- tellect in the life of man ; succe ssive lives of ablest com- mentators have not yet opened, all its pages. The hand- ling of it according to a man's moral and intellectual strength is the passport to a liiture, that will open the ' In our venerable Version are many estcellent and graceful interpreta- tions ; while in many passages the meanin g is obscure through a fastidious adherence to words. The reader, who shalU have his mind awakened to this fact, will not rarely perceive the justice of tlie observation. The mind of the inspired writer must be reached through hi^ words. But his words alone, how accurately soever rendered, will not suffice, if they do not convey that ascertained mind to the reader. The scope of the phrases and words in the language, into which the translation is bein;; made, must be weighed; and rejected, or adopted, as they be suitable, or otherwise. It would be no difficult operation, if we should essay to exhiibit passages in our Version, in which freedoms are unscrupulously taken ; i uid others in which the mind of the inspired writer is missed and lost thi-ough an undue and Ul-thned scrupulousness. This is " verba dare." THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. 125 precious Volume more widely and more satisfactorily to the eye of his understanding. But after all, should there occur a passage, of which the semse seems unattainable, the only treatment I could recommend, or would adopt, would be that of a literal verbatim translation. The words written by the inspired Writer should live and breathe there as nearly, as language could represent them ; they are the words, or they are rich with the mind, of the Holy Spirit, who will open their intent in His good time. No undertaking should be entered upon without hum- blest prayer to the Divine Source of all good and desirable issues. Let the undertaking of the new Translation, or, rather, of the revision of our Translation, of God's blessed Word be made only after prayer for the guidance of God's Holy Spirit. In this feeling and with this preliminary act I respond to the reasonable, or reasonably assumed, expectation of the reader. A LITERAL AND A EEADABLE TRANSLATION OP THE EIEST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. Literal Translation. Amended Translation. 1. In the beginning God In the beginning God re- restored to order the heavens newed the heavens and the and the earth. earth. 2. Seeing that the earth For the earth was in be- had been and was in exist- ing, an exceeding desola- ence an exceeding desola- tion; and darkness was on tion : and darkness on the the face of the deep : and face of the deep ; and the the Spirit of God brooded Spirit of God brooded on on the face of the waters, the face of the waters. 3. And God saith : There And God saith : There 126 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. Literal Translation. shall be light ; and there is light. 4. And God beholds the light, that good ; and God makes a division between the light and between the darkness. 5. And God calls to the light day ; and to the dark- ness called He, night ; and there is evening and there is morning, the first day. 6. And God saith : There shall be an expanse between the waters, and it shall be eifectually separating be- tween waters with respect to waters. 7. And God labours with reference to the expanse, and efiectuaUy separates between the waters, which under the expanse and between the waters which above the ex- panse : and it is so. 8. And God calls to the expanse, heavens : and there is evening and there is morn- ing, a second day. 9. And God saith: The waters under the heavens shall be collected together into every several place : and the dry shall become appa- rent : and it is so. Amended Translation. shall be light : and there is light. And God beholds the light that it be good : and God makes a division be- tween the light and the dark- ness. And God calls the light, day ; and the darkness call- ed He, night : and the even- ing and the morning are the first day. And God saith : There shall be an expanse in the midst between the waters : and it shall efl^ectually sepa- rate between waters and waters. And God labours with re- ference to the expanse, and efiectually separates between the waters, which are under the expanse and the waters, which are above the expanse : and it is so. And God calls the ex- panse, heavens : and the evening and the morning are a second day. And God saith : The waters under the heavens shall be gathered together into their several places ; and the dry shall become apparent : and it is so. THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. 137 Literal Translation. 10. And God calls to the Avj, earth : and to collec- tions of waters called He seas : and God beholds that good. 11. And God saith : The earth shall send forth young grass, the first blades of grass, the green herb seed- ing seed, the fruit-tree pro- ducing fruit after its kind, whose seed is in it, upon the earth ; and it is so. 13. And the earth caused to come forth the young blades of grass, the green herb seeding seed after its kind : and the tree produ- cing fruit, whose seed is in it, after its kind : and God beholds that good. 13. And there is evening and there is morning, a third day. 14. And God saith: There shall be places of light in the expanse of the heavens for to divide between the day and between the night ; even as heretofore they have been for signs of seasons and for days and years. 15. Yea, they have here- tofore existed for places of Amended Translation. And God calls the dry, earth ; and the gathering to- gether of the waters called He, seas : and God beholds that it he good. And God saith : The earth shall send forth young grass, the tender herbage, the green herb seeding seed ; the fruit- tree yielding fruit after its kind, whose seed is in it, upon the earth : and it is so. And the earth sent forth the young blades of grass, the green herb seeding seed after its kind : and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed is in it, after its kind : and God beholds that it he good. And the evening and the morning are a third day. And God saith : The places of light shall con- tinue to be in the expanse of the heavens to distinguish between the day and the night; even as heretofore they have been for signs of seasons and for days and years. Yea, they have heretofore existed for places of light in 128 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY, Literal Translation. light in the expanse of the heavens ; to give light upon the earth ; and it shall be so. 16. And God continues to appoint the two places of light the great : the place of light the great for the rule of the day : and the place of light the small for the rule of the night ; the stars also. 17. And God continues to place them in the expanse of the heavens for to cause light upon the earth ; 18. And for to rule in the day and in the night: and for to divide between the light and between the darkness : and God beholds that good. 19. And there is evening and there is morning, a fourth day. 20. And God saith : The waters shall swarm with the creeper ; the animal of life : and fowl shall fly above the earth, in the face of the ex- panse of the heavens. 21. And God fashions the sea monsters the great : and every animal the living the creeping; with which the waters swarmed according to their species ; and every bird of wing according to its Amended Translation. the expanse of the heavens ; to give light upon the earth ; and it shall be so. And God continues to ap- point the two great places of light : the great place of light to rule the day, and the less place of light to rule the night : the stars also. And God continues to place them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth ; And to rule in the day and in the night : and to divide between the light and the darkness : and God be- holds that it be good. And the evening and the morning are a fourth day. And God saith : The waters shall swarm with the creeper, the living animal : and fowl shall fly above the earth, in the face of the ex- panse of the heavens. And God fashions the huge sea monsters : and even every living animal that creepeth, with which the waters swarmed, accord- ing to their species ; and moreover every bird of wing, THE FIRST CHAPTEK, OF GENESIS. 129 Literal Translation. species; and God beholds that good. 22. And God blesses them to the extent of sayings Be fruitful; and multiply ; and fill the waters in the seas ; and the fowl shall multiply in the earth. 23. And there is evening and there is morningj a fifth day. 34. And God saith : The earth shall cause to go forth the animal of life according to its species ; cattle and reptile and the wild beast of the land according to its species : and it is so. 25. And God designs the wild beast of the earth ac- cording to its species, and also the cattle, according to its species : and every thing creeping on the earth accord- ing to its species : and God beholds that good. 26. And God saith : We will make man in our Image, as it were in our likeness : and they shall have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over cattle, and over all the earth; and over every Amended Translation. according to its species : and God beholds that it he good. And God blesses them even to saying. Be fruitful ; and multiply; and fill abund- antly the waters in the seas : and fowl also shall multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning are a fifth day. And God saith: The earth shall bring forth the living animal, according to its spe- cies ; cattle and reptile and wild beast of the earth, ac- cording to its species ; and it is so. And God fashions the wild beast of the earth ac- cording to its species; and moreover the cattle accord- ing to its species ; and every thing that creepeth upon the ground according to its spe- cies : and God beholds that it be good. And God saith : We will make man in our Image, as it were in our likeness : and they shall have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over cattle, and over all the earth ; and over every creep- 130 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. Literal Translation. creeping thing, the creeping on the earth, 27. And God creates the man in His Image, in the Image of God created He him : a male and a female created He them. 28. And God blesses them, and God saith unto them. Be fruitful and mul- tiply, and overflowingly fill ye the earth and subdue it ; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fovrl of the air, and over every living thing the creep- ing upon the earth. 29. And God saith : Be- hold I have given to you every herb seeding seed, which upon the face of the whole earth : and every tree, wherein the fruit of a tree seeding seed : to you it shall be for food. 30. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air and to every thing creeping on the earth, where- in the breath of life : even every green herb for food ; and it shall be so. 31. And God beholds every thing which He has Amended Translation. ing thing that creepeth on the earth. And God creates man in His Image ; in the Image of God created He him : a male and a female created He them. And God blesses them, and God saith to them, Be fruitful and multiply and entirely fill the earth and subdue it : and have do- minion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every thing living that creepeth on the earth. And God saith : Behold I have given to you every herb seeding seed, which is upon the face of the whole earth; and every tree, where- in is the fruit of a tree seed- ing seed : to you it shall be for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth on the earth, wherein is the breath of life, even every green herb for food : and it shall be so. And God beholds every thing, which He has made ; THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. 131 Literal Translation. Amended Translation. made ; and behold good ex- and behold it is good ex- ceedingly: and there is even- ceedingly: and the evening ing and there is morning, a and the morning are the sixth day. sixth day. I am unable to present a revised version of the passage of Holy Writ under discussion in better form, than that given above. It is the production of a close attention, much thought, iterated erasures and small self-gratulation. I am free to confess it would be better done by an abler pen. Yet when done as well as skill and refinement can do it, shall you, reader, or shall I, be satisfied with it ? I much doubt it. I have, however, shewn that fidelity is preferable to the charms of language and all the delights of literary excellence. It would be absolutely childish to prefer that, which is merely pleasing to the ear and the taste, to that, which should satisfy, and in satisfying should conciliate and command, the understanding and the judgment. In the specimen, I have in obedience to my own sense of justice and with some misgivings ren- dered, there are doubtless many things susceptible of im- provement by a more finished touch ; many things, which might be more naturally and so better expressed; many things which by a bold writer, might be altered and amended without prejudice to the intention of the origi- nal and the fidelity of the translation. On grounds of in- correctness I venture to say, there is no demand for a retouch; the translation is faithful and it is accurate. The attempt, nevertheless, is made more through the hope of exhibiting the necessity and practicability of a revision, than of meeting that necessity. And I consider that the 133 THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. case is made out with only too much clearness. The mea- sure is not only necessary, but indispensable. It demands immediate attention. The jaundiced complexion of the age we live in is the sad, but the only, plea for delay .^ In all that I have hitherto written I have referred to the Old Testament alone. Had I entered upon the short- comings and the errors of the New Testament; had I essayed the proof of truths hidden, and false teaching cropping out of the translations of the Christian docu- ments, where woidd be the end ?2 I will only say in this place and on this occasion, the good will of God to man is obscured behind errors of translation : errors against the simplest canons of human language ; errors in the sig- nification of words, of phrases, and of whole sentences ; errors, suggested by prepossessions ; errors, imposed by prejudice, by party zeal, by enthusiasm. But with these things I have no present concern ; they are outside the field of the present undertaking. ' The reign of Victoria has been a distiaguished one. But the achieve- ment of a revised Bible would be a glory, before which all other glories would mate obeiBanoe. We are, however, in this age of morbid sentimen- tality" and egregious foUy, aye ! and of the profoundest ignorance in high places, more hkely to see the Boot of Common Prayer, a boot that was breathed and hallowed by Saints and Martyrs, assimilated to our Puritani- cal Bible, than to behold the Word of the Creator and G-ovemor of the Universe done common justice to in our AngHcan Version. And neverthe- less we consider ourselves, and we are in many respects, the most en- lightened people on the earth. 2 The reader, who doubts this, has only to look into Burnet's History of the Reformation, and even that Puritanical writer will give biin a melan- choly insight into Puritanical outrages upon the written Word of GrOB. He may witness the same process, illustrated by examples, in Mactnight's General Preface to his New Translation of the Apostolical Epistles : and in Mill's Prolegomena to his Greet Testament, where Th. Beza is spoken of. He may sea it passim by comparing the translation with the original ; all protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. JOSEPH MASTERS AND SON, PRINTERS, ALDERSGATE STREET.