Commentary on Genesis John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
31. And God saw every thing that he had made, an behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
31. Et vidit Deus omne quod fecerat, et ecce bonum valde. Et fuit vespera, et fuit mane dies sextus.
1. In the beginning. To expound the term "beginning," of Christ, is altogether frivolous. For Moses simply intends to assert that the world was not perfected at its very commencement, in the manner in which it is now seen, but that it was created an empty chaos of heaven and earth. His language therefore may be thus explained. When God in the beginning created the heaven and the earth, the earth was empty and waste.35 He moreover teaches by the word "created," that what before did not exist was now made; for he has not used the term( ,יצרyatsar,) which signifies to frame or forms but( ,בראbara,) which signifies to create.36 Therefore his meaning is, that the world was made out of nothing. Hence the folly of those is refuted who imagine that unformed matter existed from eternity; and who gather nothing else from the narration of Moses than that the world was furnished with new ornaments, and received a form of which it was before destitute. This indeed was formerly a common fable among heathens,37 who had received only an obscure report of the creation, and who, according to custom, adulterated the truth of God with strange figments; but for Christian men to labor (as Steuchus does38) in maintaining this gross error is absurd and intolerable. Let this, then be maintained in the first place,39 that the world is not eternal but was created by God. There is no doubt that Moses gives the name of heaven and earth to that confused mass which he, shortly afterwards, (Genesis 1:2.) denominates waters. The reason of which is, that this matter was to be the seed of the whole world. Besides, this is the generally recognized division of the world.40
God. Moses has it Elohim, a noun of the plural number. Whence the inference is drawn, that the three Persons of the Godhead are here noted; but since, as a proof of so great a matter, it appears to me to have little
35"La terre estoit vuide, et sans forme, et ne servoit a rien." — "The earth was aempty, and without form, and was of no use." — French Tr.
36בראIt has a twofold meaning — 1. To create out of nothing, as is proved from these words, In the beginning, because nothing was made before them. 2. To produce something excellent out of pre-existent matter; as it is said afterwards, He created whales, and man. — See Fagius, Drusius, and Estius, in Poole's Synopsis.
37Inter profanos homines. 38Steuchus Augustinus was the Author of a work, "De Perennie Philosophia," Lugd. 1540, and is most likely the writer referred to by Calvin. The work, however, is very rare, and probably of little value.
39"Sit igitur haec prima sententia. Que ceci dont soit premierement resolu." — French Tr.
40Namely, into heaven and earth.