ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION. BIBLE TEACHINGS.
THE BOOK OF GENESIS - CHAPTER # 1 !!!!!!
1:1 -In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
1:1 IN THE BEGINNING. _This opening verse can be taken as a summary, intoducing the whole passage; or it can be read as the first event, the origin of the heavens and the earth (sometimes before the first day), including the creation of matter, space, and time. This second view (the origin of the heavens and the earth) is confirmed by the NT writers affirmation that creation was from nothing (HEBREWS 11:3; REVELATION 4:11). GOD CREATED. Although the Hebrew word for "God," 'Elohim, is plural in form (possibly to express majesty), the verb "create" is singular, indicting that God is though of as one being. Genesis is consistently monotheistic in its outlook, in marked contrast to other ancient Near Eastern accounts of creatin. There is only one God. The Hebrew verb bara',"create," is always used in the OT with God as the subject; while it is not always used to describe creation out of nothing, it does stress God's sovereignty and power.
HEAVENS AND THE EARTH-here means "everything." This means, then, that "in the beginning" refers to the beginning of everything. The text indicates that God created everything in the universe, which thus affirms that he did in fact create it ex hihilo (Latin "out of nothing"). The effect of the opening words of the Bible is to establish that God, in his inscrutable wisdom, sovereign power, and majesty, is the Creator of all things that exist.
GENESIS 1:2 _The initial desipition of the EARTH as being WITHOUT FORM AND VOID, a phrase repeated within the OT only in JEREMAIH 4:23, implies that it lacked order and content. The reference to DARKNESS . . . OVER THE FACE OF THE DEEP points to the absence of light. This initial state will be transformed by God's creative activity: THE SPIRIT OF GOD WAS HOVERING. This comment creates a sense of expection; something is about to happen. There is no reason to postulate that a long time elaped between GENESIS 1:1 and 1:2, during which time the earth became desolate and empty. Critical scholars argue that the word "deep" (Hb. tehom) is a remnant of Mesopotamian mythology from the creation account
called Enuma Elish. Marduk, in fashioning the universe, had also to vanquish Tiamat, a goddess of chaos. These scholars believe that the Hebrew God had to conquer the chaos deity Tiamat in the form of the "deep" (notice the similarity of the two words Tshom and "Tiamat"). There are many linguistic reasons, however, for doubting a direct identification between the two. In any event, there is no conflict in Genesis or in the rest of the Bible between God and the deep, since the deep readily does God's bidding (7:11; 8:2; PSALM
33:7; 104:6). (Read GENESIS 1:2)
1:3__5 __AND GOD SAID. the absolute power of God is conveyed by the fact that he merely speaks and things are created. Each new section of the chapter is introduced by God's speaking. This is the first of the 10 words of creation in chapter 1 LET THERE BE LIGHT _Light is the first of God's creative works, which God speaks into existence. THE LIGHT WAS GOOD (VERSE 4). Everything that God brings into being is good. This becomes an important refrain throughtout the chapter (See VERSES 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31).
GOD CALLED THE LIGHT DAY (VERSE 5). This focus in verse 5 on how God has ordered time on a weekly cycle; thus, "let there be light" may indicate the drawing of a new day. God is pictured working for six days and resting on the Sabbath, which is a model for human activity. Day 4 develops this idea further: the lights are placed in the heavens for signs and seasons, for the purpose of making days and years and the seasons of the great festivals such as Passover. This sense of time being structured is further emphasized throughout the chapter as each stage of God's ordering and fillling is separated by evening and morning into specific days.
1:3 _THERE WAS EVENING AND THERE WAS MORNING, THE FIRST DAY. !!!!!!!
The order__evening, then morning__helps the reader to follow the flow of the passage: after the workday (VERSE 5) there is an evening, and then a morning, implying that there is a nighttime (the worker's daily reat) in between. Thus the reader is prepared for the next workday to dawn. Similar phrases divide chapter 1 into six distinctive workdays, while 2:1__3 make a seventh day, God's Sabbath. On the first three days God creates the envriroment that the creatures of day 4__6 will inhabit; thus, sea and sky (day) 2 areoccupied by fish and birds created on day 5. By a simple reading of GENESIS, these days must be described as days in the life of God, but how his days relate to human days is more difficult to determine (PSALM 90:4; 2 PETER 3:8).
1:6__8 _WATERS. Water plays a crucials role in ancient Near Eastern creation literature. In Egypt, for example, the creator-god Ptah uses the preexistent waters (personified as the god Nun) to create the universe. The same is true in Mesopotamian belief: it is out of the gods of watery chaos__Apsu, Tiamat, and Mummu__that creation comes. The biblical creation account sits in stask contrast to such dark mythological polytheism. In the biblical account, water at creation is no deity; it is simply something God created, and it serves as material in the hands of the sole sovereign Creator. As light was separated from darkness, so water are separated to form an EXPANSE (VERSES 6__7), which God calls HEAVEN (VERSE 8).
1:9__13 _Two further regions are organized by God: the DRY LAND forming EARTH, and the WATERS forming SEAS (VERSES 11__12). While the creation of vegetation may seem out of place on day 3, it anticipates what God will later say in (VERSES 29__30) concerning food for both humanity and other creatures. The creation of distinctive locations in days 1__3, along with vegetation, prepares for the filling of these in days 4__6.
1:9__13 _This section corresponds closely with the ordering of Day and Night on the first day, involving the separation of light and darkness (VERSES 3__5). Here the emphasis is on the creation of LIGHTS that will govern time, as well as providing LIGHT UPON THE EARTH (VERSE 15). By referring to them as the GREATER LIGHT and LESSER LIGHT (VESRES 16), the text avoids using terms that were also proper names for pagan deities linked to the sun and the moon Chapter 1 deiberately undermines pagan ideas regarding nature's being controlled by different deities. (To the ancient pagans of the Near East, the gods were personified in various elements of nature. Thus, in Egyptian texts, the gods Ra and Thoth are personified in the sun and moon, respectively.) The term MADE (Hb. 'asah, verse 16), as the ESV shows, need only mean that God "fashioned" or "worked on" them; it does not of itself imply that they did not exist in any form before this. Rather, the focus here is on the way in which God has ordained the sun and moon to order and define the passing of time according to his purpose. Thus the referrence to SEASONS (VERSE 14) or "appointed times" and to DAYS AND YEARS are probably an allusion to the appointed times and patterns in the Hebrew calendar for worship, festivals, and religious observance (EXODUS 13:10; 23:15)
1:16 _AND THE STARS. The immense universe that God created (See ISAIAH 40:25__26) is mentioned here only in a brief pharse, almost as if it were an afterthought. The focus of Genesis 1 is on earth; the focus of the rest of the Bible is on man (male and female) as the pinnacle of God's creation and the object of his great salvation.
1:20__23 _Having previously described the creation of the WATERS and the EXPANSE OF THE HEAVENS, this section forcuses on how they are filled with appropriate creatures of different kinds. As reproductive organism, they are blessed by God so that they may be fruitful and fill their respective regions.
1:21 _The term for GREAT SEA CREATURES (Hb. tannin) in various contexts can denote large serpents, dragons, or crocodiles, as well as whales or sharks (the probable sense here). Some have suggested that this could also refer to other extinct creatures such as dinosaurs. Canaanite literature portrays a great dragon as the enemy of the main fertility god Baal. Genesis depicts God as creating large sea creatures, but they are not in rebellion against him. He is sovereign and is not in any kind of battle to create the universe.
1:24__31 _This is by far the longest section given over to a particular day, indicating that day 6 is the peak of interest for this passage. The final region to be filled is the dry land, on EARTH (as it has been designated in verse 10). Here a significant distinction is drawn between all the living creatures that are created to live on the dry land, and human beings. Whereas verses 24__25 deal with the "living creatures" that the earth is to bring forth verses 26__30 concentrate on the special status assigned to humans. (Read GENESIS 1:24__31 - ESV)
1:25__25 _LIVESTOCK AND CREEPING THINGS AND BEASTS OF THE EARTH.
These terms group the land-dwelling animales into three broad categories, probably reflecting the way nomadic shepherds would experience them: the domesticatable stock animales (sheep, goats, cattle, and perhaps camels and horses); the small crawlers (rats, and mice, lizards, spiders); and the largers game and predatory animales (gazelles, lions). This list is not intended to be exhaustive, and it is hard to know where to put some animales (the domestic cat).
1:26 _LET US MAKE MAN OUR IMAGE. The text does not specify the indenity of the "us" mentioned here. Some have suggested that God may be addressing the members of his court, whom the OT elsewhere calls "sons of God" (JOB 1:6) and the NT calls "angels" but a significant objection is that man is not made in the image of angels, nor is there any indication that angels participated in the creation of human beings. Many Christians and some Jews taken "us" to be God speaking to himself, since God alone does the making in Genesis 1:27 (5:1); this would be the first hint of the Trinity in the Bible (1:2).
1:27 _There has been debate about the expression IMAGE OF GOD. Many scholars point out the idea, commonly used in the ancient Near East, of the king who was the visible representative of the deity; thus the king ruled on behalf of the god. Since verse 26 links the image of God with the exercise of dominion over all the other creatures of the seas, heavens, and earth, one can see the humanity is endowed here with authority to rule the earth as God's representatives or vice-regents (See Verse 28). Other scholars, seeing the pattern of MALE AND FEMALE, have concluded that humanity expresses God's image in relationship, particularly in well-functioning human community, both in marriage and wider society. Traditionally, the image has been seen as the capacities that set man apart from the other animals__ways in which humans resemble God, such in the characteristics of reason, morality, language, a capacity for relationships governed by love and commitment, and creativity in all forms of art. All these insights can be put together by observing that the resemblances (man is like God in a series of ways) allow mankind to represent God in ruling, and to establish worthy relatioships with God, with one another, and with the rest of the creation. This "image" and this dignity apply to both "male and female" human beings. (This view is unique in the context of the ancient Near East. In Mosopotamia, the gods created humans merely to carry out work for them.) The Hebrew term 'adam, translated as MAN, is often a generic term that denotes both male and female, while sometimes it refers to man in distinction from woman (2:22, 23, 25; 3:8, 9, 12, 20): it becomes the proper name "Adam" (2:20; 3:17, 21; 4:1; 5:1). At this stage, humanity as a species is set apart from all other creatures and crowned with glory and honor as ruler of the earth (PSALM 8:5__8). The events recorded in Genesis 3, however, will have an important bearing on the creation status of humanity.
1:28 _As God had blessed the sea and sky creatures (Verse 22), so too he blesses humanity. BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY. This motif recurs throughout Genesis in association with divine blessings (See 9:1, 7; 17:20; 28:3; 35:11; 48:4) and serves as the basis of the biblical view that raising faithful children is a part of God's creation plan for mankind. God's creation plan is that the whole earth should be populated by those who know him and who serve wisely as his vice__regents or representatives, SUBDUE IT, AND HAVE DOMINION. The term "subdue" (Hebrew kabash) elsewhere means to bring a people or a land into subjection so that it will yield service to the one subduing it (NUMBER 32:22, 29).
1:28 _Here thye idea is that man and woman are to make the earth's resources beneficial for thyemselves, which implies that they would investigate and develop the earth's resources to make them useful for human beings generally. This command provides a foundation for wise scientific and technological development; the evil uses to which people have put their dominion come as a result of Genesis 3. OVER EVERY LIVING THING. As God's representatives, human beings are to rule over every living thing on the earth. These commands are not, however, a mandate to exploit the earth and its creatures to satisfy human greed, for the fact that Adam and Eve were "in the image of God" (1:27) implies God's expectation that human beings will use the earth wisely and govern it with the same sense of responsibility and care that God has toward the whole of his creation.
1:31 _Having previously affirmed on six occasions that particular aspects of creation are "good" (Verses 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25), God now states, after the creation of the man and the woman, that EVERYTHING he has made is VERY GOOD; the additional BEHOLD invites the reader to imagine seeing creation from God's vantage point. While many things do not appear to be good about the present-day world, this was not so at the beginning. Genesis goes on to explain why things have changed, indicating that no blame should be attibuted to God. Everything he created was very good: it answers to God's purposes and expresses his own overflowing goodness. Despite the invasion of sin (Chapter 3), the material creation retains its goodness.
(1 TIMOTHY 4:4)
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