Commentary on Genesis John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
23. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
23. Et dixit Adam, Hac vice os est ex ossibus meis, et caro ex carne mea: et vocabitur Virissa, quia ex viro sumpta est ista.
24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
24. Idcirco relinquet unusquisque paterm suum et matrem suam, et adhaerebit uxori suae, eruntque in carnem unam.
25. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
25. Erant autem ambo nudi, Adam et uxor ejus: et non pudebat eos.
1. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished100 Moses summarily repeats that in six days the fabric of the heaven and the earth was completed. The general division of the world is made into these two parts, as has been stated at the commencement of the first chapter. But he now adds, all the host of them, by which he signifies that the world was furnished with all its garniture. This epilogue, moreover, with sufficient clearness entirely refutes the error of those who imagine that the world was formed in a moment; for it declares that all end was only at length put to the work on the sixth day. Instead of host we might not improperly render the term abundance ;101 for Moses declares that this world was in every sense completed, as if the whole house were well supplied and filled with its furniture. The heavens without the sun, and moon, and stars, would be an empty and dismantled palace: if the earth were destitute of animals, trees, and plants, that barren waste would have the appearance of a poor and deserted house. God, therefore, did not cease from the work of the creation of the world till he had completed it in every part, so that nothing should be wanting to its suitable abundance.
2. And he rested on the seventh day The question may not improperly be put, what kind of rest this was. For it is certain that inasmuch as God
100The three verses at the commencement of this chapter evidently belong to the first, being a summing up of the preceding history of the creation, and an account of the sabbatical institution on the seventh day. The remark of Dathe is, "Male capita hoc loco sunt divisa. Tres versus priores ad primum caput sunt referendi." — Ed.
101"Copiam," a questionable rendering, surely of the word.צבאםThe Septuagint gives the word κόσμος, and the Vulgate, ornatus; the meaning of both words is "ornaments," or garniture. The other versions in Walton translate it exercitus, host or army. Fagius, in Poli Synopsi, seems the chief maintainer of Calvin's interpretation. The words of Poole are, "Alii, virtus, copia eorum, quia eis declarat Deus (sicutrex copiis suis,) potentiam et sapientiam." — Ed