Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/127

 addition (v.i.). The whole conception is as unscientific (in the modern sense) as it could be—(a) in its geocentric standpoint, (b) in making the distinction of day and night prior to the sun, (c) in putting the creation of the vegetable world before that of the heavenly bodies. Its religious significance, however, is very great, inasmuch as it marks the advance of Hebrew thought from the heathen notion of the stars to a pure monotheism. To the ancient world, and the Babylonians in particular, the heavenly bodies were animated beings, and the more conspicuous of them were associated or identified with the gods. The idea of them as an animated host occurs in Hebrew poetry (Ju. 5$20$, Is. 40$26$, Jb. 38$7$ etc.); but here it is entirely eliminated, the heavenly bodies being reduced to mere luminaries, i.e. either embodiments of light or perhaps simply 'lamps' (v.i.). It is possible, as Gu. thinks, that a remnant of the old astrology lurks in the word dominion; but whereas in Babylonia the stars ruled over human affairs in general, their influence here is restricted to that which obviously depends on them, viz. the alternation of day and night, the festivals, etc. Comp. Jb. 38$33$, Ps. 136$7-9$ (Jer. 31$35$). It is noteworthy that this is the only work of creation of which the purpose is elaborately specified.—luminaries ] i.e. bearers or embodiments of light. The word is used most frequently of the sevenfold light of the tabernacle

used of the eyes (Pr. 15$30$), and once of the divine countenance (Ps. 90$8$).—] the gen. is not partitive but explicative: Dav. § 24 (a).—G inserts at this point: 🇬🇷.—] In Jer. 10$2$ are astrological portents such as the heathen fear, and that is commonly taken as the meaning here, though it is not quite easy to believe the writer would have said the sun and moon were made for this purpose. If we take in its ordinary sense of 'token' or 'indication,' we might suppose it defined by the words which follow. Tuch obtains a connexion by making the double = both  and ("as signs, both for [sacred] seasons and for days and years"): others by a hendiadys ("signs of seasons"). It would be less