Genesis 1:2
Verse
Context
Sermons
T. Austin-Sparks
Leonard Ravenhill
Art KatzT. Austin-Sparks
Francis Schaeffer
Zac PoonenT. Austin-SparksSummary
Commentary
- Adam Clarke
- Keil-Delitzsch
- Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
- John Gill
- Tyndale
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
The earth was without form and void - The original term תהו tohu and בהו bohu, which we translate without form and void, are of uncertain etymology; but in this place, and wherever else they are used, they convey the idea of confusion and disorder. From these terms it is probable that the ancient Syrians and Egyptians borrowed their gods, Theuth and Bau, and the Greeks their Chaos. God seems at first to have created the elementary principles of all things; and this formed the grand mass of matter, which in this state must be without arrangement, or any distinction of parts: a vast collection of indescribably confused materials, of nameless entities strangely mixed; and wonderfully well expressed by an ancient heathen poet: - Ante mare et terras, et, quod tegit omnia, caelum, Unus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe, Quem dixere Chaos; rudis indigestaque moles, Nec quicquam nisi pondus iners; congestaque eodem Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum. Ovid. Before the seas and this terrestrial ball, And heaven's high canopy that covers all, One was the face of nature, if a face; Rather, a rude and indigested mass; A lifeless lump, unfashion'd and unframed, Of jarring seeds, and justly Chaos named. Dryden. The most ancient of the Greeks have spoken nearly in the same way of this crude, indigested state of the primitive chaotic mass. When this congeries of elementary principles was brought together, God was pleased to spend six days in assimilating, assorting, and arranging the materials, out of which he built up, not only the earth, but the whole of the solar system. The spirit of God - This has been variously and strangely understood. Some think a violent wind is meant, because רוח, ruach often signifies wind, as well as spirit, as πνευμα, does in Greek; and the term God is connected with it merely, as they think, to express the superlative degree. Others understand by it an elementary fire. Others, the sun, penetrating and drying up the earth with his rays. Others, the angels, who were supposed to have been employed as agents in creation. Others, a certain occult principle, termed the anima mundi or soul of the world. Others, a magnetic attraction, by which all things were caused to gravitate to a common center. But it is sufficiently evident from the use of the word in other places, that the Holy Spirit of God is intended; which our blessed Lord represents under the notion of wind, Joh 3:8; and which, as a mighty rushing wind on the day of Pentecost, filled the house where the disciples were sitting, Act 2:2, which was immediately followed by their speaking with other tongues, because they were filled with the Holy Ghost, Act 2:4. These scriptures sufficiently ascertain the sense in which the word is used by Moses. Moved - מרחפת merachepheth, was brooding over; for the word expresses that tremulous motion made by the hen while either hatching her eggs or fostering her young. It here probably signifies the communicating a vital or prolific principle to the waters. As the idea of incubation, or hatching an egg, is implied in the original word, hence probably the notion, which prevailed among the ancients, that the world was generated from an egg.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
The First Day. - Though treating of the creation of the heaven and the earth, the writer, both here and in what follows, describes with minuteness the original condition and progressive formation of the earth alone, and says nothing more respecting the heaven than is actually requisite in order to show its connection with the earth. He is writing for inhabitants of the earth, and for religious ends; not to gratify curiosity, but to strengthen faith in God, the Creator of the universe. What is said in Gen 1:2 of the chaotic condition of the earth, is equally applicable to the heaven, "for the heaven proceeds from the same chaos as the earth." "And the earth was (not became) waste and void." The alliterative nouns tohu vabohu, the etymology of which is lost, signify waste and empty (barren), but not laying waste and desolating. Whenever they are used together in other places (Isa 34:11; Jer 4:23), they are taken from this passage; but tohu alone is frequently employed as synonymous with איך, non-existence, and הבל, nothingness (Isa 40:17, Isa 40:23; Isa 49:4). The coming earth was at first waste and desolate, a formless, lifeless mass, rudis indigestaque moles, ὕληἄμορφος (Wis. 11:17) or χάος. "And darkness was upon the face of the deep." תּהום, from הוּם, to roar, to rage, denotes the raging waters, the roaring waves (Psa 42:7) or flood (Exo 15:5; Deu 8:7); and hence the depths of the sea (Job 28:14; Job 38:16), and even the abyss of the earth (Psa 71:20). As an old traditional word, it is construed like a proper name without an article (Ewald, Gramm.). The chaotic mass in which the earth and the firmament were still undistinguished, unformed, and as it were unborn, was a heaving deep, an abyss of waters (ἄβυσσος, lxx), and this deep was wrapped in darkness. But it was in process of formation, for the Spirit of God moved upon the waters, רוּח (breath) denotes wind and spirit, like πνεῦνα from πνέω. Ruach Elohim is not a breath of wind caused by God (Theodoret, etc.), for the verb does not suit this meaning, but the creative Spirit of God, the principle of all life (Psa 33:6; Psa 104:30), which worked upon the formless, lifeless mass, separating, quickening, and preparing the living forms, which were called into being by the creative words that followed. רחף in the Piel is applied to the hovering and brooding of a bird over its young, to warm them, and develop their vital powers (Deu 32:11). In such a way as this the Spirit of God moved upon the deep, which had received at its creation the germs of all life, to fill them with vital energy by His breath of life. The three statements in our verse are parallel; the substantive and participial construction of the second and third clauses rests upon the והיחה of the first. All three describe the condition of the earth immediately after the creation of the universe. This suffices to prove that the theosophic speculation of those who "make a gap between the first two verses, and fill it with a wild horde of evil spirits and their demoniacal works, is an arbitrary interpolation" (Ziegler). Gen 1:3 The word of God then went forth to the primary material of the world, now filled with creative powers of vitality, to call into being, out of the germs of organization and life which it contained, and in the order pre-ordained by His wisdom, those creatures of the world, which proclaim, as they live and move, the glory of their Creator (Psa 8:1-9). The work of creation commences with the words, "and God said." The words which God speaks are existing things. "He speaks, and it is done; He commands, and it stands fast." These words are deeds of the essential Word, the λόγος, by which "all things were made." Speaking is the revelation of thought; the creation, the realization of the thoughts of God, a freely accomplished act of the absolute Spirit, and not an emanation of creatures from the divine essence. The first thing created by the divine Word was "light," the elementary light, or light-material, in distinction from the "lights," or light-bearers, bodies of light, as the sun, moon, and stars, created on the fourth day, are called. It is now a generally accepted truth of natural science, that the light does not spring from the sun and stars, but that the sun itself is a dark body, and the light proceeds from an atmosphere which surrounds it. Light was the first thing called forth, and separated from the dark chaos by the creative mandate, "Let there be," - the first radiation of the life breathed into it by the Spirit of God, inasmuch as it is the fundamental condition of all organic life in the world, and without light and the warmth which flows from it no plant or animal could thrive. Gen 1:4 The expression in Gen 1:4, "God saw the light that it was good," for "God saw that the light was good," according to a frequently recurring antiptosis (cf. Gen 6:2; Gen 12:14; Gen 13:10), is not an anthropomorphism at variance with enlightened thoughts of God; for man's seeing has its type in God's, and God's seeing is not a mere expression of the delight of the eye or of pleasure in His work, but is of the deepest significance to every created thing, being the seal of the perfection which God has impressed upon it, and by which its continuance before God and through God is determined. The creation of light, however, was no annihilation of darkness, no transformation of the dark material of the world into pure light, but a separation of the light from the primary matter, a separation which established and determined that interchange of light and darkness, which produces the distinction between day and night. Gen 1:5 Hence it is said in Gen 1:5, "God called the light Day, and the darkness Night;" for, as Augustine observes, "all light is not day, nor all darkness night; but light and darkness alternating in a regular order constitute day and night." None but superficial thinkers can take offence at the idea of created things receiving names from God. The name of a thing is the expression of its nature. If the name be given by man, it fixes in a word the impression which it makes upon the human mind; but when given by God, it expresses the reality, what the thing is in God's creation, and the place assigned it there by the side of other things. "Thus evening was and morning was one day." אחד (one), like εἷς and unus, is used at the commencement of a numerical series for the ordinal primus (cf. Gen 2:11; Gen 4:19; Gen 8:5, Gen 8:15). Like the numbers of the days which follow, it is without the article, to show that the different days arose from the constant recurrence of evening and morning. It is not till the sixth and last day that the article is employed (Gen 1:31), to indicate the termination of the work of creation upon that day. It is to be observed, that the days of creation are bounded by the coming of evening and morning. The first day did not consist of the primeval darkness and the origination of light, but was formed after the creation of the light by the first interchange of evening and morning. The first evening was not the gloom, which possibly preceded the full burst of light as it came forth from the primary darkness, and intervened between the darkness and full, broad daylight. It was not till after the light had been created, and the separation of the light from the darkness had taken place, that evening came, and after the evening the morning; and this coming of evening (lit., the obscure) and morning (the breaking) formed one, or the first day. It follows from this, that the days of creation are not reckoned from evening to evening, but from morning to morning. The first day does not fully terminate till the light returns after the darkness of night; it is not till the break of the new morning that the first interchange of light and darkness is completed, and a ἡερονύκτιον has passed. The rendering, "out of evening and morning there came one day," is at variance with grammar, as well as with the actual fact. With grammar, because such a thought would require 'echaad אחד ליום; and with fact, because the time from evening to morning does not constitute a day, but the close of a day. The first day commenced at the moment when God caused the light to break forth from the darkness; but this light did not become a day, until the evening had come, and the darkness which set in with the evening had given place the next morning to the break of day. Again, neither the words ערב ויהי בקר ויהי, nor the expression בקר ערב, evening-morning (= day), in Dan 8:14, corresponds to the Greek νυχθη̈́̀ερον, for morning is not equivalent to day, nor evening to night. The reckoning of days from evening to evening in the Mosaic law (Lev 23:32), and by many ancient tribes (the pre-Mohammedan Arabs, the Athenians, Gauls, and Germans), arose not from the days of creation, but from the custom of regulating seasons by the changes of the moon. But if the days of creation are regulated by the recurring interchange of light and darkness, they must be regarded not as periods of time of incalculable duration, of years or thousands of years, but as simple earthly days. It is true the morning and evening of the first three days were not produced by the rising and setting of the sun, since the sun was not yet created; but the constantly recurring interchange of light and darkness, which produced day and night upon the earth, cannot for a moment be understood as denoting that the light called forth from the darkness of chaos returned to that darkness again, and thus periodically burst forth and disappeared. The only way in which we can represent it to ourselves, is by supposing that the light called forth by the creative mandate, "Let there be," was separated from the dark mass of the earth, and concentrated outside or above the globe, so that the interchange of light and darkness took place as soon as the dark chaotic mass began to rotate, and to assume in the process of creation the form of a spherical body. The time occupied in the first rotations of the earth upon its axis cannot, indeed, be measured by our hour-glass; but even if they were slower at first, and did not attain their present velocity till the completion of our solar system, this would make no essential difference between the first three days and the last three, which were regulated by the rising and setting of the sun. (Note: Exegesis must insist upon this, and not allow itself to alter the plain sense of the words of the Bible, from irrelevant and untimely regard to the so-called certain inductions of natural science. Irrelevant we call such considerations, as make interpretation dependent upon natural science, because the creation lies outside the limits of empirical and speculative research, and, as an act of the omnipotent God, belongs rather to the sphere of miracles and mysteries, which can only be received by faith (Heb 11:3); and untimely, because natural science has supplied no certain conclusions as to the origin of the earth, and geology especially, even at the present time, is in a chaotic state of fermentation, the issue of which it is impossible to foresee.)
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
the earth was without form and void--or in "confusion and emptiness," as the words are rendered in Isa 34:11. This globe, at some undescribed period, having been convulsed and broken up, was a dark and watery waste for ages perhaps, till out of this chaotic state, the present fabric of the world was made to arise. the Spirit of God moved--literally, continued brooding over it, as a fowl does, when hatching eggs. The immediate agency of the Spirit, by working on the dead and discordant elements, combined, arranged, and ripened them into a state adapted for being the scene of a new creation. The account of this new creation properly begins at the end of this second verse; and the details of the process are described in the natural way an onlooker would have done, who beheld the changes that successively took place.
John Gill Bible Commentary
And the earth was without form, and void,.... It was not in the form it now is, otherwise it must have a form, as all matter has; it was a fluid matter, the watery parts were not separated from the earthy ones; it was not put into the form of a terraqueous globe it is now, the sea apart, and the earth by itself, but were mixed and blended together; it was, as both the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem paraphrase it, a waste and desert, empty and destitute of both men and beasts; and it may be added, of fishes and fowls, and also of trees, herbs, and plants. It was, as Ovid (k) calls it, a chaos and an indigested mass of matter; and Hesiod (l) makes a chaos first to exist, and then the wide extended earth, and so Orpheus (m), and others; and this is agreeably to the notion of various nations. The Chinese make a chaos to be the beginning of all things, out of which the immaterial being (God) made all things that consist of matter, which they distinguish into parts they call Yin and Yang, the one signifying hidden or imperfect, the other open or perfect (n): and so the Egyptians, according to Diodorus Siculus (o), whose opinion he is supposed to give, thought the system of the universe had but one form; the heaven and earth, and the nature of them, being mixed and blended together, until by degrees they separated and obtained the form they now have: and the Phoenicians, as Sanchoniatho (p) relates, supposed the principle of the universe to be a dark and windy air, or the blast of a dark air, and a turbid chaos surrounded with darkness, as follows, and darkness was upon the face of the deep: the whole fluid mass of earth and water mixed together. This abyss is explained by waters in the next clause, which seem to be uppermost; and this was all a dark turbid chaos, as before expressed, without any light or motion, till an agitation was made by the Spirit, as is next observed: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, which covered the earth, Psa 104:6 the earthy particles being heaviest sunk lower, and the waters being lighter rose up above the others: hence Thales (q) the philosopher makes water to be the beginning of all things, as do the Indian Brahmans (r): and Aristotle (s) himself owns that this was the most ancient opinion concerning the origin of the universe, and observes, that it was not only the opinion of Thales, but of those that were the most remote from the then present generation in which he lived, and of those that first wrote on divine things; and it is frequent in Hesiod and Homer to make Oceanus, or the ocean, with Tethys, to be the parents of generation: and so the Scriptures represent the original earth as standing out of the water, and consisting of it, Pe2 3:5 and upon the surface of these waters, before they were drained off the earth, "the Spirit of God moved"; which is to be understood not of a wind, as Onkelos, Aben Ezra, and many Jewish writers, as well as Christians, interpret it; since the air, which the wind is a motion of, was not made until the second day. The Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem call it the spirit of mercies; and by it is meant the Spirit of the Messiah, as many Jewish writers (t) call him; that is, the third Person in the blessed Trinity, who was concerned in the creation of all things, as in the garnishing of the heavens, so in bringing the confused matter of the earth and water into form and order; see Job 26:13. This same Spirit "moved" or brooded (u) upon the face of the waters, to impregnate them, as an hen upon eggs to hatch them, so he to separate the parts which were mixed together, and give them a quickening virtue to produce living creatures in them. This sense and idea of the word are finely expressed by our poet (w). Some traces of this appear in the or mind of Anaxagoras, which when all things were mixed together came and set them in order (x); and the "mens" of Thales he calls God, which formed all things out of water (y); and the "spiritus intus alit", &c. of Virgil; and with this agrees what Hermes says, that there was an infinite darkness in the abyss or deep, and water, and a small intelligent spirit, endued with a divine power, were in the chaos (z): and perhaps from hence is the mundane egg, or egg of Orpheus (a): or the firstborn or first laid egg, out of which all things were formed; and which he borrowed from the Egyptians and Phoenicians, and they perhaps from the Jews, and which was reckoned by them a resemblance of the world. The Egyptians had a deity they called Cneph, out of whose mouth went forth an egg, which they interpreted of the world (b): and the Zophasemin of the Phoenicians, which were heavenly birds, were, according to Sanchoniatho (c), of the form of an egg; and in the rites of Bacchus they worshipped an egg, as being an image of the world, as Macrobius (d) says; and therefore he thought the question, whether an hen or an egg was oldest, was of some moment, and deserved consideration: and the Chinese say (e), that the first man was produced out of the chaos as from an egg, the shell of which formed the heavens, the white the air, and the yolk the earth; and to this incubation of the spirit, or wind, as some would have it, is owing the windy egg of Aristophanes (f). (Thomas Chamlers (1780-1847) in 1814 was the first to purpose that there is a gap between verse 1 and 2. Into this gap he places a pre-Adamic age, about which the scriptures say nothing. Some great catastrophe took place, which left the earth "without form and void" or ruined, in which state it remained for as many years as the geologist required. (g) This speculation has been popularised by the 1917 Scofield Reference Bible. However, the numerous rock layers that are the supposed proof for these ages, were mainly laid down by Noah's flood. In Exo 20:11 we read of a literal six day creation. No gaps, not even for one minute, otherwise these would not be six normal days. Also, in Rom 5:12 we read that death is the result of Adam's sin. Because the rock layers display death on a grand scale, they could not have existed before the fall of Adam. There is no direct evidence that the earth is much older than six thousand years. However, we have the direct eyewitness report of God himself that he made everything in six days. Tracing back through the biblical genealogies we can determine the age of the universe to be about six thousand years with an error of not more than two per cent. (k) "Quem dixere chaos, rudis indigestaque moles", Ovid Metamorph. l. 1. Fab. 1. (l) &c. Hesiodi Theogonia. (m) Orphei Argonautica, ver. 12. (n) Martin. Sinic. Hist. l. 1. p. 5. (o) Bibliothec. l. 1. p. 7. (p) Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 2. c. 10. p. 33. (q) Laert. in Vita Thaletis, p. 18. Cicero do Natura Deorum, l. 1. (r) Strabo. Geograph. l. 15. p. 491. (s) Metaphysic. l. 1. c. 3. (t) Zohar in Gen. fol. 107. 3. and fol. 128. 3. Bereshit Rabba, fol. 2. 4. and 6. 3. Vajikra Rabba, sect. 14. fol. 156. 4. Baal Hatturim in loc. Caphtor Uperah, fol. 113. 2. (u) "incubabat", Junius, Tremellius, Piscator, "as a dove on her young", T. Bab. Chagigah, fol. 15. 1. (w) ----and, with mighty wings outspread, Dovelike satst brooding on the vast abyss, And mad'st it pregnant.---- Milton's Paradise Lost, B. 1. l. 20, 21, 22. The same sentiment is in B. 7. l. 234, 235. (x) Laert. in Vita Anaxagor. p. 91. Euseb. Evangel. Praepar. l. 10. c. 14. p. 504. (y) Cicero de Nat. Deorum, l. 1. Lactant, de falsa Relig. l. 1. c. 5. (z) Apud Drusium in loc. (a) Hymn. ver. 1, 2. (b) Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 3. c. 11. p. 115. (c) Apud Ib. l. 2. c. 10. p. 33. (d) Saturnal. l. 7. c. 16. (e) Martin. Sinic. Hist. l. 1. p. 3, 4. (f) In Avibus. (g) Ian Taylor, p. 363, 364, "In the Minds of Men", 1984, TEF Publishing, P.O. Box 5015, Stn. F, Toronto, Canada.
Tyndale Open Study Notes
1:2 This verse gives the background for the summary in 1:1 and the detailed description in 1:3–2:3. God’s creative utterances bring order to the chaotic state of the universe. • formless . . . empty (Hebrew tohu . . . bohu): This terse idiom means something like “wild and waste.” It sets a stark contrast to the final ordered state of the heavens and the earth (1:1). • deep waters (Hebrew tehom): Some scholars say this alludes to the Mesopotamian goddess Tiamat (representing chaos), but Genesis views tehom as inhospitable chaos, not as a deity or goddess that God engaged in cosmic battle. • the Spirit of God: God directly superintended the creation process.
Genesis 1:2
The Creation
1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.2Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
- Scripture
- Sermons
- Commentary
A Positive Purposeful God
By T. Austin-Sparks7.4K32:45Character Of GodGEN 1:2JER 4:23In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of surrendering our minds, hearts, and wills to the Lord in order to experience a quick and wonderful transformation by the Holy Spirit. The sermon begins by highlighting the power of God to bring about change and transformation in our lives. The speaker then focuses on the phrase "In the beginning, God" as the introduction to the entire Bible, emphasizing that when God is given His rightful place, there is always a new beginning and a new prospect. The sermon concludes by highlighting God's desire for light and His willingness to bring judgment and destruction upon anything that has lost its purpose.
Monday Night (2 Peter 1-21) - Part 1
By Leonard Ravenhill3.3K42:35GEN 1:2EZK 37:9EZK 47:3MAT 28:19JHN 3:3ACT 1:82PE 1:21In this sermon, the preacher discusses the importance of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers. He emphasizes that it is not a decision, but a mental flip that occurs when the Spirit of God comes upon someone. The preacher also highlights the role of God in forgiving us, Jesus Christ in redeeming us, and the Holy Spirit in regenerating us. He mentions a story about a man named Simeon who prayed for revival for over 60 years and was told he would not die until revival came. The preacher concludes by expressing his belief that a rebirth is coming for the church and that God will re-energize and give a new vision and authority to believers.
Nor-01 a True Apostle
By Art Katz2.9K44:08ApostleGEN 1:2JHN 1:1EPH 2:191TH 1:31TH 1:5HEB 3:1In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of relationships and how God brings people together at the right time. He mentions how everyone in the room has been prepared by the Lord in different places. The speaker then encourages the audience to go back to their own people and share the gospel with power and conviction. He highlights that being Gentiles should not be a threat to the Jewish people, as they are part of a heavenly kingdom. The speaker also mentions that God chose the Jewish people not because they were the greatest, but because they were the least, and he emphasizes the power of the gospel message despite its foolishness to the natural mind.
Holy Spirit and the Crisis of Pentecost - Part 3
By T. Austin-Sparks2.7K30:42PentecostGEN 1:2MAT 28:19JHN 16:7ACT 1:8EPH 1:13EPH 4:13EPH 4:30In this sermon, the speaker focuses on the significance of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers. The Holy Spirit is described as a seal, representing our inheritance and the guarantee of what God will do for those who believe. The speaker emphasizes the importance of the Holy Spirit's role in revealing Christ to us and opening our hearts to understand God's truth. The passage from Ephesians is referenced to support the idea that believers are sealed with the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption.
Intellectual Climate and New Theology
By Francis Schaeffer2.6K1:30:56TheologyGEN 1:2MAT 6:33JHN 1:1JHN 11:35ROM 8:221JN 1:1REV 21:5In this sermon, the preacher discusses the concept of an impenetrable mystery that lies behind all creation, both human and divine. He emphasizes the inexhaustible energy that exists in even the smallest particles of matter, demonstrating that matter is merely a representation of a powerful and luminous reality beyond our senses. The preacher also mentions the idea that man's destruction is insignificant in the grand scheme of things, as the spirit that first breathed upon the waters will create a new man. He concludes by urging the audience to focus less on the achievements of individuals and more on the imperishable energy that they were a part of. The sermon references passages from the book of John to support these ideas.
(Genesis) - Part 5
By Zac Poonen2.1K1:01:24TemptationGEN 1:2GEN 2:17GEN 3:10ISA 8:12MAT 6:33LUK 12:4JHN 14:27In this sermon, the preacher discusses the concept of chaos in the Bible, specifically in Genesis 1. He emphasizes that despite the chaos, God can make something excellent out of it, which serves as a great encouragement for believers. The preacher also highlights the connection between fear and sin, stating that fearing God is necessary but nothing else. He emphasizes that Jesus wants to deliver believers from fear just as much as any other sin. Additionally, the preacher discusses the importance of taking personal responsibility for one's sins instead of blaming others or circumstances.
Gods Order in Christ - Part 2
By T. Austin-Sparks2.0K56:36Order In ChristGEN 1:2EPH 2:1REV 12:7In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of order and harmony in God's creation. They highlight how God has arranged the seasons and the movements of heavenly bodies to govern the earth. The speaker also marvels at the intricate design of the human body and suggests that anyone with knowledge of it should be in awe of God. They explain that when humanity rebelled against God and left their environment, they entered into an environment of poison and lack. However, the Bible is about bringing humanity back to God and restoring them to their rightful environment. The speaker concludes by discussing the relationship of Christ to this eternal heavenly order and how God has determined to gather all things together in Christ.
The Meaning of Born Again
By Svend Christensen1.8K38:50GEN 1:2MAT 11:28JHN 3:8JHN 3:14EPH 5:261PE 1:31PE 1:25In this sermon, the preacher begins by sharing a personal dream about shooting a moose out of season and the fear of facing the consequences. He contrasts this with the reality of those who wake up in hell with no escape. The preacher emphasizes the importance of being born again and warns about the fearful judgment of God. He urges the listeners to come to Jesus and find salvation now, as today is the accepted time. The sermon also touches on the power of the gospel, which unites people from different nationalities and inspires singing, fighting, and shouting for its message. The preacher concludes by mentioning a personal experience of shooting a moose without a license and being faced with the dilemma of what to do. The sermon then transitions to discussing the topic of the new birth and being born of the Spirit, highlighting the personhood of the Holy Spirit. The preacher indicates that in future sessions, they will delve deeper into the topic of God the Holy Spirit.
(Beginning a New Year) the Spirit and the Throne
By Zac Poonen1.7K1:02:19DiscipleshipThe Holy SpiritGEN 1:21SA 2:30ISA 6:1MAT 28:19MRK 16:15JHN 14:26ROM 8:281CO 12:32TI 3:13REV 4:1Zac Poonen emphasizes the necessity of being lifted by the Holy Spirit to truly understand God's Word and experience His fullness. He reflects on Revelation 4:1, where John is called to come up higher, illustrating that earthly distractions prevent us from grasping divine truths. Poonen warns against the dangers of relying on our own understanding and encourages believers to seek the Holy Spirit's guidance to see the throne of God, which provides perspective and strength for the challenges ahead. He stresses that true discipleship requires humility and a willingness to surrender everything to Jesus, who must be the center of our lives. As we enter a new year, Poonen calls for a renewed commitment to making Jesus Lord in every aspect of our lives.
Fren-04 Death & Resurrection
By Art Katz1.6K57:45ResurrectionGEN 1:2EZK 37:1MAT 6:33ROM 8:11PHP 3:10HEB 12:21PE 1:3In this sermon, the speaker reflects on the story of Ezekiel in the Bible and the prophet's experience in the valley of dry bones. The speaker emphasizes the depth of despair and depression that Ezekiel faced in this place. Despite the dire circumstances, the speaker suggests that God allowed this extreme situation to demonstrate His power and bring about a transformation in the nation of Israel. The speaker also highlights the role of believers in participating in this resurrection and emphasizes the importance of understanding Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith.
The Cross and Eternal Glory - Part 7
By T. Austin-Sparks1.5K44:52Eternal GloryGEN 1:2In this sermon, the speaker discusses the overarching theme of the Bible, which is the eternal glory that God intended for his creation. The speaker emphasizes that this glory is centered in Jesus Christ and radiates through the Church. The sermon traces the progression of God's plan from the past eternity to the present, highlighting how previous attempts at achieving perfection fell short. Finally, the speaker asserts that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God's purpose, as revealed in the four gospels. The sermon concludes by mentioning the book of Revelation, which gathers all the elements of the Bible and presents Jesus as the mediator and the Lamb slain.
Quote - God's Protection From Sin
By Leonard Ravenhill1.5K02:09Ravenhill QuoteGEN 1:2MAT 4:19MAT 5:13ROM 3:23ROM 6:231CO 10:131JN 1:8In this sermon, the preacher shares a personal story about going fishing in the Bahamas. He describes the luxurious lifestyle of the people he went fishing with, including their beautiful home, servants, and extravagant possessions like a plane and a yacht. The preacher caught a kingfish weighing 34 pounds, but when it was cooked and served, he didn't enjoy it. He questions how a fish can live in such a salty ocean without the salt penetrating its skin, yet God cannot keep him from sinning in this sinful world. The preacher emphasizes that sin is not normal for Christians and challenges the notion that it is. He highlights the fact that God hangs the world upon nothing and suggests that sin is abnormal and not part of God's original design for humanity.
The Spirit and the Word Change Us
By Zac Poonen1.3K57:09GEN 1:2JER 15:19MAT 8:8MRK 11:23ACT 2:3
This sermon emphasizes the importance of responding to the Holy Spirit's promptings and allowing our tongues to be under the control of the Holy Spirit. Drawing parallels between Genesis 1 and Acts 2, the speaker highlights the need for daily renewal and transformation through cooperation with the Holy Spirit. The message stresses the power of words spoken under the authority of the Holy Spirit to drive out darkness and obstacles in our lives.
The Life of Christ in Eternity Past
By Stephen Kaung1.2K59:39EternityGEN 1:2ISA 14:12EZK 28:11JHN 1:1ACT 26:19EPH 1:9In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes God's plan for humanity and how it unfolded throughout history. Despite man's sin, God did not give up on his plan. He progressively sent better and higher beings to overcome the enemy. Ultimately, God sent his son Jesus to secure everything according to his eternal purpose. The heavenly vision is revealed through the apostle Paul, and it is important for believers to understand and embrace this vision.
Manifesting the Life of Jesus (Tamil)
By Zac Poonen1.2K1:08:16GEN 1:2EXO 34:29PRO 4:18PRO 28:13MAT 7:7LUK 10:42JHN 1:42CO 3:18HEB 8:10JAS 4:8
This sermon emphasizes the transition from the old covenant to the new covenant, highlighting the need for honesty and true transformation through the Holy Spirit. It discusses the importance of living a life that reflects the light of Jesus, growing in purity, humility, and love. The speaker urges listeners to seek genuine repentance, embrace the new covenant where glory increases, and strive to be a light in the world like Jesus.
Not in Vain - is.45
By Paul Ravenhill1.1K49:28GEN 1:2PRO 29:18ISA 26:18ISA 45:18MAT 6:33ACT 1:8HEB 13:8In this sermon, the speaker shares a story about a man who faced numerous challenges and obstacles but persevered with determination. The man's journey involved physical hardships, such as freezing feet and losing essential items like gloves and a compass. Despite these difficulties, the man recognized the strength and capabilities that God has given to mankind. The speaker emphasizes the importance of taking steps in faith and committing oneself to God's purpose and calling. The sermon also highlights the need to look beyond personal feelings and subjective judgments and instead focus on the kingdom of God. The speaker references Isaiah 33, which speaks of seeing a far-off land and dwelling with the everlasting burnings. The sermon concludes by emphasizing that following God's calling may require leaving behind familiar things and embracing the reality and promises of God.
Fren-04 La Viede La Mort (Life From the Dead)
By Art Katz98056:34Eternal LifeGEN 1:2EZK 37:1MAT 6:33ROM 6:52CO 4:16HEB 9:141PE 1:19In this sermon, the speaker discusses the story of Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones. He emphasizes that the hand of the Lord was upon Ezekiel, and he was brought down into the valley to witness the power of God. The speaker challenges the audience to consider their own willingness to be called by God and to be used as instruments of His power. He highlights the importance of the resurrection power of God being demonstrated through a transformed nation, and urges the audience to be active participants in this process.
Seasons of Refreshing
By Fred Tomlinson90655:08RevivalGEN 1:2JOL 2:28MAT 27:46ACT 2:15In this sermon, the pastor describes a powerful experience he had while listening to a preacher. He was moved by the passion and fervor in the preacher's voice, especially when he prayed for God to do something great again. The pastor also shares a story about an emperor's tomb being opened and how everything inside turned to dust when exposed to the outside air. He relates this to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, emphasizing that God wants to do something extraordinary in the lives of His people. The pastor concludes by stating that Pentecost was not a new plan of God, but rather a new phase in His plan, highlighting the importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit.
The Moving of God’s Spirit
By Emanuel Esh7501:29:14Holy SpiritGEN 1:2MAT 6:33ACT 2:4ACT 4:31ROM 8:141CO 2:10EPH 5:18In this sermon, the speaker discusses the movement of the Spirit of God throughout history as depicted in the Bible. He uses the example of Jonah and the city of Nineveh to illustrate how the Spirit of God moved upon the hearts of the people. The speaker emphasizes the need for energy and movement for something to happen, comparing it to the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters in Genesis. He encourages the audience to look at the scriptures with a closer perspective and recognize the ongoing movement of the Spirit of God in the world today.
The Mystery of Christ
By Stephen Kaung6911:12:31GEN 1:2MAT 10:37MAT 16:23MRK 12:30LUK 22:42ROM 11:36EPH 3:3PHP 2:5COL 1:27This sermon delves into the mystery of God and the church, emphasizing God's revealed plan for His beloved Son to head up all things. It explores the story of redemption from the restoration of the earth in Genesis to the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, highlighting the importance of surrendering all aspects of our lives to Christ. The sermon emphasizes the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit in guiding believers to bring every thought, emotion, and action to the feet of Jesus, aligning with God's eternal purpose for each individual.
The Rest Versus Babylon
By Robert B. Thompson6481:18:58GEN 1:2MAT 5:14MAT 23:24ACT 9:15ROM 8:19HEB 4:2HEB 4:10In this sermon, the preacher discusses the concept of rest in the context of the Bible. He compares the rest of God to various analogies, including Joshua bringing Israel into the land. The preacher emphasizes that the devil is not afraid of large prayer meetings or assertive actions by the church, but rather fears when individuals interact with Jesus. He also highlights the importance of ceasing from our own works and entering into the vision that God has for us through faith and obedience.
From Faith to Faith - Part 1
By Lance Lambert63959:58GEN 1:2MAT 17:20JHN 10:27ROM 1:16ROM 14:232CO 5:17GAL 2:20EPH 2:8COL 1:13HEB 11:6
This sermon emphasizes the foundational truth of the necessity of living, active faith in the Christian life, highlighting the importance of faith as the key to every aspect of life. It delves into the power of God through faith, the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel, and the transformative nature of being in Christ. The speaker urges listeners to cultivate and utilize the mustard seed faith given by God to move mountains and grow deeper in their relationship with the Lord.
The Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord
By Michael Flowers41118:58BaptismGEN 1:2ISA 40:3MAT 3:16JHN 1:32JHN 3:5JHN 8:12PHP 2:8In this sermon, the preacher explores the symbolism and significance of John the Baptist and Jesus' baptism in the Jordan River. John the Baptist is portrayed as the bridge between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, calling people to repentance and preparing the way for Jesus. The baptism in the Jordan River represents a passage from the present evil age to the Kingdom of God. Through this baptism, Jesus is revealed as the Son of God, with the Spirit of God resting upon him and the Father proclaiming his sonship. The sermon emphasizes the importance of being united with Christ through baptism, becoming a new creation and hearing the voice of God declaring us as beloved children.
Leadership and Ministry Training #1
By Stephen Kaung4041:01:35GEN 1:2GEN 2:16ISA 14:12MAT 16:24MRK 8:34JHN 3:16PHP 2:51PE 1:19
This sermon delves into the origins of creation, focusing on the triune nature of God and the fall of the archangel Lucifer due to pride. It emphasizes the importance of not looking into oneself but fixing one's gaze on Jesus, who emptied himself for humanity's redemption. The sermon highlights the need for individuals to surrender their will to God, acknowledging His lordship and allowing His perfect work to be done in their lives.
Holy Spirit Seminar
By A.C. Valdez Sr.411:27:50Empowerment for ServiceHoly SpiritGEN 1:2MAT 3:11ACT 1:4A.C. Valdez Sr. emphasizes the enduring significance of the Holy Spirit in the church, drawing parallels between the past and present experiences of believers. He recounts the historical misunderstandings faced by early Pentecostals, who were often labeled as fanatics, and contrasts this with the current acceptance of the charismatic movement. Valdez highlights the transformative power of the Holy Spirit, illustrating how it empowers individuals for service and witness, and encourages believers to seek a fervent relationship with God. He also addresses the importance of understanding biblical terminology regarding the Holy Spirit and the necessity of being filled with the Spirit for effective ministry.
- Adam Clarke
- Keil-Delitzsch
- Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
- John Gill
- Tyndale
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
The earth was without form and void - The original term תהו tohu and בהו bohu, which we translate without form and void, are of uncertain etymology; but in this place, and wherever else they are used, they convey the idea of confusion and disorder. From these terms it is probable that the ancient Syrians and Egyptians borrowed their gods, Theuth and Bau, and the Greeks their Chaos. God seems at first to have created the elementary principles of all things; and this formed the grand mass of matter, which in this state must be without arrangement, or any distinction of parts: a vast collection of indescribably confused materials, of nameless entities strangely mixed; and wonderfully well expressed by an ancient heathen poet: - Ante mare et terras, et, quod tegit omnia, caelum, Unus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe, Quem dixere Chaos; rudis indigestaque moles, Nec quicquam nisi pondus iners; congestaque eodem Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum. Ovid. Before the seas and this terrestrial ball, And heaven's high canopy that covers all, One was the face of nature, if a face; Rather, a rude and indigested mass; A lifeless lump, unfashion'd and unframed, Of jarring seeds, and justly Chaos named. Dryden. The most ancient of the Greeks have spoken nearly in the same way of this crude, indigested state of the primitive chaotic mass. When this congeries of elementary principles was brought together, God was pleased to spend six days in assimilating, assorting, and arranging the materials, out of which he built up, not only the earth, but the whole of the solar system. The spirit of God - This has been variously and strangely understood. Some think a violent wind is meant, because רוח, ruach often signifies wind, as well as spirit, as πνευμα, does in Greek; and the term God is connected with it merely, as they think, to express the superlative degree. Others understand by it an elementary fire. Others, the sun, penetrating and drying up the earth with his rays. Others, the angels, who were supposed to have been employed as agents in creation. Others, a certain occult principle, termed the anima mundi or soul of the world. Others, a magnetic attraction, by which all things were caused to gravitate to a common center. But it is sufficiently evident from the use of the word in other places, that the Holy Spirit of God is intended; which our blessed Lord represents under the notion of wind, Joh 3:8; and which, as a mighty rushing wind on the day of Pentecost, filled the house where the disciples were sitting, Act 2:2, which was immediately followed by their speaking with other tongues, because they were filled with the Holy Ghost, Act 2:4. These scriptures sufficiently ascertain the sense in which the word is used by Moses. Moved - מרחפת merachepheth, was brooding over; for the word expresses that tremulous motion made by the hen while either hatching her eggs or fostering her young. It here probably signifies the communicating a vital or prolific principle to the waters. As the idea of incubation, or hatching an egg, is implied in the original word, hence probably the notion, which prevailed among the ancients, that the world was generated from an egg.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
The First Day. - Though treating of the creation of the heaven and the earth, the writer, both here and in what follows, describes with minuteness the original condition and progressive formation of the earth alone, and says nothing more respecting the heaven than is actually requisite in order to show its connection with the earth. He is writing for inhabitants of the earth, and for religious ends; not to gratify curiosity, but to strengthen faith in God, the Creator of the universe. What is said in Gen 1:2 of the chaotic condition of the earth, is equally applicable to the heaven, "for the heaven proceeds from the same chaos as the earth." "And the earth was (not became) waste and void." The alliterative nouns tohu vabohu, the etymology of which is lost, signify waste and empty (barren), but not laying waste and desolating. Whenever they are used together in other places (Isa 34:11; Jer 4:23), they are taken from this passage; but tohu alone is frequently employed as synonymous with איך, non-existence, and הבל, nothingness (Isa 40:17, Isa 40:23; Isa 49:4). The coming earth was at first waste and desolate, a formless, lifeless mass, rudis indigestaque moles, ὕληἄμορφος (Wis. 11:17) or χάος. "And darkness was upon the face of the deep." תּהום, from הוּם, to roar, to rage, denotes the raging waters, the roaring waves (Psa 42:7) or flood (Exo 15:5; Deu 8:7); and hence the depths of the sea (Job 28:14; Job 38:16), and even the abyss of the earth (Psa 71:20). As an old traditional word, it is construed like a proper name without an article (Ewald, Gramm.). The chaotic mass in which the earth and the firmament were still undistinguished, unformed, and as it were unborn, was a heaving deep, an abyss of waters (ἄβυσσος, lxx), and this deep was wrapped in darkness. But it was in process of formation, for the Spirit of God moved upon the waters, רוּח (breath) denotes wind and spirit, like πνεῦνα from πνέω. Ruach Elohim is not a breath of wind caused by God (Theodoret, etc.), for the verb does not suit this meaning, but the creative Spirit of God, the principle of all life (Psa 33:6; Psa 104:30), which worked upon the formless, lifeless mass, separating, quickening, and preparing the living forms, which were called into being by the creative words that followed. רחף in the Piel is applied to the hovering and brooding of a bird over its young, to warm them, and develop their vital powers (Deu 32:11). In such a way as this the Spirit of God moved upon the deep, which had received at its creation the germs of all life, to fill them with vital energy by His breath of life. The three statements in our verse are parallel; the substantive and participial construction of the second and third clauses rests upon the והיחה of the first. All three describe the condition of the earth immediately after the creation of the universe. This suffices to prove that the theosophic speculation of those who "make a gap between the first two verses, and fill it with a wild horde of evil spirits and their demoniacal works, is an arbitrary interpolation" (Ziegler). Gen 1:3 The word of God then went forth to the primary material of the world, now filled with creative powers of vitality, to call into being, out of the germs of organization and life which it contained, and in the order pre-ordained by His wisdom, those creatures of the world, which proclaim, as they live and move, the glory of their Creator (Psa 8:1-9). The work of creation commences with the words, "and God said." The words which God speaks are existing things. "He speaks, and it is done; He commands, and it stands fast." These words are deeds of the essential Word, the λόγος, by which "all things were made." Speaking is the revelation of thought; the creation, the realization of the thoughts of God, a freely accomplished act of the absolute Spirit, and not an emanation of creatures from the divine essence. The first thing created by the divine Word was "light," the elementary light, or light-material, in distinction from the "lights," or light-bearers, bodies of light, as the sun, moon, and stars, created on the fourth day, are called. It is now a generally accepted truth of natural science, that the light does not spring from the sun and stars, but that the sun itself is a dark body, and the light proceeds from an atmosphere which surrounds it. Light was the first thing called forth, and separated from the dark chaos by the creative mandate, "Let there be," - the first radiation of the life breathed into it by the Spirit of God, inasmuch as it is the fundamental condition of all organic life in the world, and without light and the warmth which flows from it no plant or animal could thrive. Gen 1:4 The expression in Gen 1:4, "God saw the light that it was good," for "God saw that the light was good," according to a frequently recurring antiptosis (cf. Gen 6:2; Gen 12:14; Gen 13:10), is not an anthropomorphism at variance with enlightened thoughts of God; for man's seeing has its type in God's, and God's seeing is not a mere expression of the delight of the eye or of pleasure in His work, but is of the deepest significance to every created thing, being the seal of the perfection which God has impressed upon it, and by which its continuance before God and through God is determined. The creation of light, however, was no annihilation of darkness, no transformation of the dark material of the world into pure light, but a separation of the light from the primary matter, a separation which established and determined that interchange of light and darkness, which produces the distinction between day and night. Gen 1:5 Hence it is said in Gen 1:5, "God called the light Day, and the darkness Night;" for, as Augustine observes, "all light is not day, nor all darkness night; but light and darkness alternating in a regular order constitute day and night." None but superficial thinkers can take offence at the idea of created things receiving names from God. The name of a thing is the expression of its nature. If the name be given by man, it fixes in a word the impression which it makes upon the human mind; but when given by God, it expresses the reality, what the thing is in God's creation, and the place assigned it there by the side of other things. "Thus evening was and morning was one day." אחד (one), like εἷς and unus, is used at the commencement of a numerical series for the ordinal primus (cf. Gen 2:11; Gen 4:19; Gen 8:5, Gen 8:15). Like the numbers of the days which follow, it is without the article, to show that the different days arose from the constant recurrence of evening and morning. It is not till the sixth and last day that the article is employed (Gen 1:31), to indicate the termination of the work of creation upon that day. It is to be observed, that the days of creation are bounded by the coming of evening and morning. The first day did not consist of the primeval darkness and the origination of light, but was formed after the creation of the light by the first interchange of evening and morning. The first evening was not the gloom, which possibly preceded the full burst of light as it came forth from the primary darkness, and intervened between the darkness and full, broad daylight. It was not till after the light had been created, and the separation of the light from the darkness had taken place, that evening came, and after the evening the morning; and this coming of evening (lit., the obscure) and morning (the breaking) formed one, or the first day. It follows from this, that the days of creation are not reckoned from evening to evening, but from morning to morning. The first day does not fully terminate till the light returns after the darkness of night; it is not till the break of the new morning that the first interchange of light and darkness is completed, and a ἡερονύκτιον has passed. The rendering, "out of evening and morning there came one day," is at variance with grammar, as well as with the actual fact. With grammar, because such a thought would require 'echaad אחד ליום; and with fact, because the time from evening to morning does not constitute a day, but the close of a day. The first day commenced at the moment when God caused the light to break forth from the darkness; but this light did not become a day, until the evening had come, and the darkness which set in with the evening had given place the next morning to the break of day. Again, neither the words ערב ויהי בקר ויהי, nor the expression בקר ערב, evening-morning (= day), in Dan 8:14, corresponds to the Greek νυχθη̈́̀ερον, for morning is not equivalent to day, nor evening to night. The reckoning of days from evening to evening in the Mosaic law (Lev 23:32), and by many ancient tribes (the pre-Mohammedan Arabs, the Athenians, Gauls, and Germans), arose not from the days of creation, but from the custom of regulating seasons by the changes of the moon. But if the days of creation are regulated by the recurring interchange of light and darkness, they must be regarded not as periods of time of incalculable duration, of years or thousands of years, but as simple earthly days. It is true the morning and evening of the first three days were not produced by the rising and setting of the sun, since the sun was not yet created; but the constantly recurring interchange of light and darkness, which produced day and night upon the earth, cannot for a moment be understood as denoting that the light called forth from the darkness of chaos returned to that darkness again, and thus periodically burst forth and disappeared. The only way in which we can represent it to ourselves, is by supposing that the light called forth by the creative mandate, "Let there be," was separated from the dark mass of the earth, and concentrated outside or above the globe, so that the interchange of light and darkness took place as soon as the dark chaotic mass began to rotate, and to assume in the process of creation the form of a spherical body. The time occupied in the first rotations of the earth upon its axis cannot, indeed, be measured by our hour-glass; but even if they were slower at first, and did not attain their present velocity till the completion of our solar system, this would make no essential difference between the first three days and the last three, which were regulated by the rising and setting of the sun. (Note: Exegesis must insist upon this, and not allow itself to alter the plain sense of the words of the Bible, from irrelevant and untimely regard to the so-called certain inductions of natural science. Irrelevant we call such considerations, as make interpretation dependent upon natural science, because the creation lies outside the limits of empirical and speculative research, and, as an act of the omnipotent God, belongs rather to the sphere of miracles and mysteries, which can only be received by faith (Heb 11:3); and untimely, because natural science has supplied no certain conclusions as to the origin of the earth, and geology especially, even at the present time, is in a chaotic state of fermentation, the issue of which it is impossible to foresee.)
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
the earth was without form and void--or in "confusion and emptiness," as the words are rendered in Isa 34:11. This globe, at some undescribed period, having been convulsed and broken up, was a dark and watery waste for ages perhaps, till out of this chaotic state, the present fabric of the world was made to arise. the Spirit of God moved--literally, continued brooding over it, as a fowl does, when hatching eggs. The immediate agency of the Spirit, by working on the dead and discordant elements, combined, arranged, and ripened them into a state adapted for being the scene of a new creation. The account of this new creation properly begins at the end of this second verse; and the details of the process are described in the natural way an onlooker would have done, who beheld the changes that successively took place.
John Gill Bible Commentary
And the earth was without form, and void,.... It was not in the form it now is, otherwise it must have a form, as all matter has; it was a fluid matter, the watery parts were not separated from the earthy ones; it was not put into the form of a terraqueous globe it is now, the sea apart, and the earth by itself, but were mixed and blended together; it was, as both the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem paraphrase it, a waste and desert, empty and destitute of both men and beasts; and it may be added, of fishes and fowls, and also of trees, herbs, and plants. It was, as Ovid (k) calls it, a chaos and an indigested mass of matter; and Hesiod (l) makes a chaos first to exist, and then the wide extended earth, and so Orpheus (m), and others; and this is agreeably to the notion of various nations. The Chinese make a chaos to be the beginning of all things, out of which the immaterial being (God) made all things that consist of matter, which they distinguish into parts they call Yin and Yang, the one signifying hidden or imperfect, the other open or perfect (n): and so the Egyptians, according to Diodorus Siculus (o), whose opinion he is supposed to give, thought the system of the universe had but one form; the heaven and earth, and the nature of them, being mixed and blended together, until by degrees they separated and obtained the form they now have: and the Phoenicians, as Sanchoniatho (p) relates, supposed the principle of the universe to be a dark and windy air, or the blast of a dark air, and a turbid chaos surrounded with darkness, as follows, and darkness was upon the face of the deep: the whole fluid mass of earth and water mixed together. This abyss is explained by waters in the next clause, which seem to be uppermost; and this was all a dark turbid chaos, as before expressed, without any light or motion, till an agitation was made by the Spirit, as is next observed: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, which covered the earth, Psa 104:6 the earthy particles being heaviest sunk lower, and the waters being lighter rose up above the others: hence Thales (q) the philosopher makes water to be the beginning of all things, as do the Indian Brahmans (r): and Aristotle (s) himself owns that this was the most ancient opinion concerning the origin of the universe, and observes, that it was not only the opinion of Thales, but of those that were the most remote from the then present generation in which he lived, and of those that first wrote on divine things; and it is frequent in Hesiod and Homer to make Oceanus, or the ocean, with Tethys, to be the parents of generation: and so the Scriptures represent the original earth as standing out of the water, and consisting of it, Pe2 3:5 and upon the surface of these waters, before they were drained off the earth, "the Spirit of God moved"; which is to be understood not of a wind, as Onkelos, Aben Ezra, and many Jewish writers, as well as Christians, interpret it; since the air, which the wind is a motion of, was not made until the second day. The Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem call it the spirit of mercies; and by it is meant the Spirit of the Messiah, as many Jewish writers (t) call him; that is, the third Person in the blessed Trinity, who was concerned in the creation of all things, as in the garnishing of the heavens, so in bringing the confused matter of the earth and water into form and order; see Job 26:13. This same Spirit "moved" or brooded (u) upon the face of the waters, to impregnate them, as an hen upon eggs to hatch them, so he to separate the parts which were mixed together, and give them a quickening virtue to produce living creatures in them. This sense and idea of the word are finely expressed by our poet (w). Some traces of this appear in the or mind of Anaxagoras, which when all things were mixed together came and set them in order (x); and the "mens" of Thales he calls God, which formed all things out of water (y); and the "spiritus intus alit", &c. of Virgil; and with this agrees what Hermes says, that there was an infinite darkness in the abyss or deep, and water, and a small intelligent spirit, endued with a divine power, were in the chaos (z): and perhaps from hence is the mundane egg, or egg of Orpheus (a): or the firstborn or first laid egg, out of which all things were formed; and which he borrowed from the Egyptians and Phoenicians, and they perhaps from the Jews, and which was reckoned by them a resemblance of the world. The Egyptians had a deity they called Cneph, out of whose mouth went forth an egg, which they interpreted of the world (b): and the Zophasemin of the Phoenicians, which were heavenly birds, were, according to Sanchoniatho (c), of the form of an egg; and in the rites of Bacchus they worshipped an egg, as being an image of the world, as Macrobius (d) says; and therefore he thought the question, whether an hen or an egg was oldest, was of some moment, and deserved consideration: and the Chinese say (e), that the first man was produced out of the chaos as from an egg, the shell of which formed the heavens, the white the air, and the yolk the earth; and to this incubation of the spirit, or wind, as some would have it, is owing the windy egg of Aristophanes (f). (Thomas Chamlers (1780-1847) in 1814 was the first to purpose that there is a gap between verse 1 and 2. Into this gap he places a pre-Adamic age, about which the scriptures say nothing. Some great catastrophe took place, which left the earth "without form and void" or ruined, in which state it remained for as many years as the geologist required. (g) This speculation has been popularised by the 1917 Scofield Reference Bible. However, the numerous rock layers that are the supposed proof for these ages, were mainly laid down by Noah's flood. In Exo 20:11 we read of a literal six day creation. No gaps, not even for one minute, otherwise these would not be six normal days. Also, in Rom 5:12 we read that death is the result of Adam's sin. Because the rock layers display death on a grand scale, they could not have existed before the fall of Adam. There is no direct evidence that the earth is much older than six thousand years. However, we have the direct eyewitness report of God himself that he made everything in six days. Tracing back through the biblical genealogies we can determine the age of the universe to be about six thousand years with an error of not more than two per cent. (k) "Quem dixere chaos, rudis indigestaque moles", Ovid Metamorph. l. 1. Fab. 1. (l) &c. Hesiodi Theogonia. (m) Orphei Argonautica, ver. 12. (n) Martin. Sinic. Hist. l. 1. p. 5. (o) Bibliothec. l. 1. p. 7. (p) Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 2. c. 10. p. 33. (q) Laert. in Vita Thaletis, p. 18. Cicero do Natura Deorum, l. 1. (r) Strabo. Geograph. l. 15. p. 491. (s) Metaphysic. l. 1. c. 3. (t) Zohar in Gen. fol. 107. 3. and fol. 128. 3. Bereshit Rabba, fol. 2. 4. and 6. 3. Vajikra Rabba, sect. 14. fol. 156. 4. Baal Hatturim in loc. Caphtor Uperah, fol. 113. 2. (u) "incubabat", Junius, Tremellius, Piscator, "as a dove on her young", T. Bab. Chagigah, fol. 15. 1. (w) ----and, with mighty wings outspread, Dovelike satst brooding on the vast abyss, And mad'st it pregnant.---- Milton's Paradise Lost, B. 1. l. 20, 21, 22. The same sentiment is in B. 7. l. 234, 235. (x) Laert. in Vita Anaxagor. p. 91. Euseb. Evangel. Praepar. l. 10. c. 14. p. 504. (y) Cicero de Nat. Deorum, l. 1. Lactant, de falsa Relig. l. 1. c. 5. (z) Apud Drusium in loc. (a) Hymn. ver. 1, 2. (b) Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 3. c. 11. p. 115. (c) Apud Ib. l. 2. c. 10. p. 33. (d) Saturnal. l. 7. c. 16. (e) Martin. Sinic. Hist. l. 1. p. 3, 4. (f) In Avibus. (g) Ian Taylor, p. 363, 364, "In the Minds of Men", 1984, TEF Publishing, P.O. Box 5015, Stn. F, Toronto, Canada.
Tyndale Open Study Notes
1:2 This verse gives the background for the summary in 1:1 and the detailed description in 1:3–2:3. God’s creative utterances bring order to the chaotic state of the universe. • formless . . . empty (Hebrew tohu . . . bohu): This terse idiom means something like “wild and waste.” It sets a stark contrast to the final ordered state of the heavens and the earth (1:1). • deep waters (Hebrew tehom): Some scholars say this alludes to the Mesopotamian goddess Tiamat (representing chaos), but Genesis views tehom as inhospitable chaos, not as a deity or goddess that God engaged in cosmic battle. • the Spirit of God: God directly superintended the creation process.