Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/116

 admits that it is a remarkable conception; and (3) it is excluded by the object of that verb: the heavens and the earth. For though that phrase is a Hebrew designation of the universe as a whole, it is only the organised universe, not the chaotic material out of which it was formed, that can naturally be so designated. The appropriate name for chaos is 'the earth' (v.$2$); the representation being a chaotic earth from which the heavens were afterwards made ($6f.$). The verse therefore (if an independent sentence at all) must be taken as an introductory heading to the rest of the chapter. —God created.] The verb contains the central idea of the passage. It is partly synonymous with (cf. vv.{21. 27} with $1$), but 2$25$ shows that it had a specific shade of meaning. The idea cannot be defined with precision, but

the influence of G from a desire to exclude the idea of an eternal chaos preceding the creation. But the fact that T$3$ agrees with G militates against that opinion. The one objection to (b) is the 'verzweifelt geschmacklose Construction' (We.) which it involves. It is replied (Gu. al) that such openings may have been a traditional feature of creation stories, being found in several Bab. accounts, as well as in Gn. 2$40$. In any case a lengthy parenthesis is quite admissible in good prose style (see 1 Sa. 3$1$, with Dri. Notes, ad loc.), and may be safely assumed here if there be otherwise sufficient grounds for adopting it. The clause as gen. is perfectly regular, though it would be easy to substitute inf. (mentioned but not recommended by Ra.). (c) A third view, which perhaps deserves more consideration than it has received, is to take v.$26 f.$ as protasis and v.$2$ as apodosis, When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was, etc. (IEz. ? but see Cheyne, in Hebr. ii. 50). So far as sense goes the sequence is eminently satisfactory; the of v.$7$ is more natural as a continuation of v.$12$ than of v.$6$. The question is whether the form of v.$O$ permits its being construed as apod. The order of words (subj. before pred.) is undoubtedly that proper to the circumst. cl. (Dri. T. § 157; Dav. § 138 (c)); but there is no absolute rule against an apod. assuming this form after a time-determination (see Dri. T. § 78).,