Commentary on Genesis John Calvin
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
COMMENTARY ON GENESIS
sustains the world by his power, governs it by his providence, cherishes and even propagates all creatures, he is constantly at work. Therefore that saying of Christ is true, that the Father and he himself had worked from the beginning hitherto,102 because, if God should but withdraw his hand a little, all things would immediately perish and dissolve into nothing, as is declared in Psalm 104:29103 And indeed God is rightly acknowledged as the Creator of heaven and earth only whilst their perpetual preservation is ascribed to him.104 The solution of the difficulty is well known, that God ceased from all his work, when he desisted from the creation of new kinds of things. But to make the sense clearer, understand that the last touch of God had been put, in order that nothing might be wanting to the perfection of the world. And this is the meaning of the words of Moses, From all his work which he had made ; for he points out the actual state of the work as God would have it to be, as if he had said, then was completed what God had proposed to himself. On the whole, this language is intended merely to express the perfection of the fabric of the world; and therefore we must not infer that God so ceased from his works as to desert them, since they only flourish and subsist in him. Besides, it is to be observed, that in the works of the six days, those things alone are comprehended which tend to the lawful and genuine adorning of the world. It is subsequently that we shall find God saying, Let the earth bring forth thorns and briers, by which he intimates that the appearance of the earth should be different from what it had been in the beginning. But the explanation is at hand; many things which are now seen in the world are rather corruptions of it than any part of its proper furniture. For ever since man declined from his high original, it became necessary that the world should gradually degenerate from its nature. We must come to this conclusion respecting the existence of fleas, caterpillars, and other noxious insects. In all these, I say, there is some deformity of the world, which ought by no means to be regarded as in the order of nature, since it proceeds rather from the sin of man than from the hand of God. Truly these things were created by God, but by God as an avenger. In this place, however, Moses is not considering God as armed for the punishment of the sins of men; but as the Artificer, the Architect, the bountiful Father of a family, who has omitted nothing essential to the perfection of his edifice. At the present time, when we look upon the world corrupted, and as if degenerated from its original creation, let that expression of Paul recur to our mind, that the creature is liable to vanity, not willingly, but through 102John 5:17. This sentence is omitted in Tymme's English version. — Ed. 103"Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust."
104The word translated preservation is vegetationem, which means an enlivening or a quickening motion; to explain this the Old English translation here adds, though without authority, "According to this saying of the apostle, In him we live, and move, and have our being." — Ed.