Genesis 2:26 Komentář

This chapter is an appendix to the history of the creation, more particularly explaining and enlarging upon that part of the history which relates immediately to man, the favourite of this lower world. We have in it, I. The institution and sanctification of the sabbath, which was made for man, to further his holiness and comfort (Gen 2:1-3). II. A more particular account of man's creation, as the centre and summary of the whole work (Gen 2:1-7). III. A description of the garden of Eden, and the placing of man in it under the obligations of a law and covenant (Gen 2:8-17). IV. The creation of the woman, her marriage to the man, and the institution of the ordinance of marriage (Gen 2:18, etc.).

INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS 2 In this chapter are contained a summary of the works of creation on the six days, and God's resting from his works on the seventh day, and the sanctification of that, Gen 2:1 and an account of various things relating to several parts of the creation enlarged on and explained, and of various circumstances omitted in the preceding chapter, which could not so well be taken notice of there; as of a mist arising out of the earth, which watered the herbs and plants before there was any rain to fall upon them, or a man to cultivate them, Gen 2:5 and of the matter and manner of man's formation, Gen 2:7 and of the planting of the garden of Eden, and the trees that were in it, and the rivers that watered it, and sprung from it, and the course they steered, the countries they washed, and what those countries abounded with, Gen 2:8 of man's being put into it to dress it, and keep it, and of the grant he had to eat of the fruit of any of the trees in it, excepting one, which was forbidden under a penalty of death, Gen 2:15 and of all the creatures, beasts and fowls, being brought to him, to give them names, Gen 2:18 and of God's providing an help meet for him, and forming Eve out of one of his ribs, and of their marriage together, and the institution of marriage, Gen 2:21 and the chapter is concluded with observing the present state and circumstances of our first parents before they fell, Gen 2:25.

The seventh day is consecrated for a sabbath, and the reasons assigned, Gen 2:1-3. A recapitulation of the six days' work of creation, Gen 2:4-7. The garden of Eden planted, Gen 2:8. Its trees, Gen 2:9. Its rivers, and the countries watered by them, Gen 2:10-14. Adam placed in the garden, and the command given not to eat of the tree of knowledge on pain of death, Gen 2:15-17. God purposes to form a companion for the man, Gen 2:18. The different animals brought to Adam that he might assign them their names, Gen 2:19, Gen 2:20. The creation of the woman, Gen 2:21, Gen 2:22. The institution of marriage, Gen 2:23, Gen 2:24. The purity and innocence of our first parents, Gen 2:25.

THE NARRATIVE OF THE SIX DAYS' CREATION CONTINUED. The course of the narrative is improperly broken by the division of the chapter. (Gen 2:1) the heavens--the firmament or atmosphere. host--a multitude, a numerous array, usually connected in Scripture with heaven only, but here with the earth also, meaning all that they contain. were finished--brought to completion. No permanent change has ever since been made in the course of the world, no new species of animals been formed, no law of nature repealed or added to. They could have been finished in a moment as well as in six days, but the work of creation was gradual for the instruction of man, as well, perhaps, as of higher creatures (Job 38:7).

The Sabbath of Creation. - "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them." צבא here denotes the totality of the beings that fill the heaven and the earth: in other places (see especially Neh 9:6) it is applied to the host of heaven, i.e., the stars (Deu 4:19; Deu 17:3), and according to a still later representation, to the angels also (Kg1 22:19; Isa 24:21; Neh 9:6; Psa 148:2). These words of Gen 2:1 introduce the completion of the work of creation, and give a greater definiteness to the announcement in Gen 2:2, Gen 2:3, that on the seventh day God ended the work which He had made, by ceasing to create, and blessing the day and sanctifying it. The completion or finishing (כּלּה) of the work of creation on the seventh day (not on the sixth, as the lxx, Sam., and Syr. erroneously render it) can only be understood by regarding the clauses Gen 2:2 and Gen 2:3, which are connected with ויכל by ו consec. as containing the actual completion, i.e., by supposing the completion to consist, negatively in the cessation of the work of creation, and positively in the blessing and sanctifying of the seventh day. The cessation itself formed part of the completion of the work (for this meaning of שׁבת vid., Gen 8:22; Job 32:1, etc.). As a human artificer completes his work just when he has brought it up to his ideal and ceases to work upon it, so in an infinitely higher sense, God completed the creation of the world with all its inhabitants by ceasing to produce anything new, and entering into the rest of His all-sufficient eternal Being, from which He had come forth, as it were, at and in the creation of a world distinct from His own essence. Hence ceasing to create is called resting (נוּח) in Exo 20:11, and being refreshed (ינּפשׁ) in Exo 31:17. The rest into which God entered after the creation was complete, had its own reality "in the reality of the work of creation, in contrast with which the preservation of the world, when once created, had the appearance of rest, though really a continuous creation" (Ziegler, p. 27). This rest of the Creator was indeed "the consequence of His self-satisfaction in the now united and harmonious, though manifold whole;" but this self-satisfaction of God in His creation, which we call His pleasure in His work, was also a spiritual power, which streamed forth as a blessing upon the creation itself, bringing it into the blessedness of the rest of God and filling it with His peace. This constitutes the positive element in the completion which God gave to the work of creation, by blessing and sanctifying the seventh day, because on it He found rest from the work which He by making (לעשׂות faciendo: cf. Ewald, 280d) had created. The divine act of blessing was a real communication of powers of salvation, grace, and peace; and sanctifying was not merely declaring holy, but "communicating the attribute of holy," "placing in a living relation to God, the Holy One, raising to a participation in the pure clear light of the holiness of God." On קדושׁ see Exo 19:6. The blessing and sanctifying of the seventh day had regard, no doubt, to the Sabbath, which Israel as the people of God was afterwards to keep; but we are not to suppose that the theocratic Sabbath was instituted here, or that the institution of that Sabbath was transferred to the history of the creation. On the contrary, the Sabbath of the Israelites had a deeper meaning, founded in the nature and development of the created world, not for Israel only, but for all mankind, or rather for the whole creation. As the whole earthly creation is subject to the changes of time and the law of temporal motion and development; so all creatures not only stand in need of definite recurring periods of rest, for the sake of recruiting their strength and gaining new power for further development, but they also look forward to a time when all restlessness shall give place to the blessed rest of the perfect consummation. To this rest the resting of God (ἡ κατάπαυσις) points forward; and to this rest, this divine σαββατισός (Heb 4:9), shall the whole world, especially man, the head of the earthly creation, eventually come. For this God ended His work by blessing and sanctifying the day when the whole creation was complete. In connection with Heb. 4, some of the fathers have called attention to the fact, that the account of the seventh day is not summed up, like the others, with the formula "evening was and morning was;" thus, e.g., Augustine writes at the close of his confessions: dies septimus sine vespera est nec habet occasum, quia sanctificasti eum ad permansionem sempiternam. But true as it is that the Sabbath of God has no evening, and that the σαββατισμός, to which the creature is to attain at the end of his course, will be bounded by no evening, but last for ever; we must not, without further ground, introduce this true and profound idea into the seventh creation-day. We could only be warranted in adopting such an interpretation, and understanding by the concluding day of the work of creation a period of endless duration, on the supposition that the six preceding days were so many periods in the world's history, which embraced the time from the beginning of the creation to the final completion of its development. But as the six creation-days, according to the words of the text, were earthly days of ordinary duration, we must understand the seventh in the same way; and that all the more, because in every passage, in which it is mentioned as the foundation of the theocratic Sabbath, it is regarded as an ordinary day (Exo 20:11; Exo 31:17). We must conclude, therefore, that on the seventh day, on which God rested from His work, the world also, with all its inhabitants, attained to the sacred rest of God; that the κατάπαυσις and σαββατισμός of God were made a rest and sabbatic festival for His creatures, especially for man; and that this day of rest of the new created world, which the forefathers of our race observed in paradise, as long as they continued in a state of innocence and lived in blessed peace with their God and Creator, was the beginning and type of the rest to which the creation, after it had fallen from fellowship with God through the sin of man, received a promise that it should once more be restored through redemption, at its final consummation.