Introduction:
Hermeneutical Principle: In hermeneutics a text must be carefully outlined to find the flow of the argument. Verses are not isolated units of thought but ultimately must be understood in relationship to its immediate context and then to the whole book.Methodology
In doing this one should:
1. Identify the verses that constitute a section or unit of thought which is called its pericope.Application
2. Identify the techniques used by the original author to break the unit into its constituent parts.
3. Determine all the ways in which these parts interrelate.
4. Draw out of this study the purpose the original author intended when wrote the whole passage.1. It is difficult to precisely determine whether 2:4 is the last verse of the first section or the beginning of a new section. On basis of the analogy of the use of the Hebrew word toledot (generations/account) in 5:1 in which the generations of Adam are listed at the end of the section containing his story, it would seem that it should be included in the first section. On the other hand if one looks at the use of divine names one will see that there is a shift in 2:4 from the name Elohim to the name Yahweh Elohim. In this study the context is tentatively taken as being Genesis 1:1-2:3.
2. The pericope breaks itself down into two sections:a. An initial act of creation in which the world is brought into an existence that is marked by chaos.(1) The world was pictured as originally covered with an ocean/the deep (tehom/~AhT.), which to the ancient mind was a symbol of chaos. The chaos was magnified by the "deep" being covered with darkness (hoshek).b. The author uses the pattern of the human seven day work week to describe how God brought light to darkness, removed the formlessness, and filled the void. The first three days gave form to the universe and the next three days filled the universe. The seventh day was the day of cessation of God's labor.
(2) The world's condition was characterized by the two Hebrew words tohu (formless) and bohu (void).
(3) The section lacks a time indicator. The only indicator of whether a process was underway or not is that God's spirit is presented as actively nurturing (merahephet) the world.(1) The phrase "there was evening and there was morning, . . . day" repeats itself six times but is absent on the seventh day.
(2) The word good (tob) is repeated throughout the creation story until the creation of man when it is replaced with the phrase "very good" (tob meod)
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Initial Creation: {1} In the beginning
God created
the heavens and the earth.
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Fiat: {3} Then God said, "Let there be light";
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Fiat: {14} Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse
of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for
signs and for seasons and for days and years; {15} and let them be for
lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth";
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Fiat: {6} Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst
of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."
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Fiat: {20} Then God said, "Let the waters teem with swarms of
living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse
of the heavens."
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Fiat:{9} Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be
gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear";
Fiat: {11} Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them"; Fulfillment: and it was so. {12} The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; Appraisement: and God saw that it was good. Temporal Indicator: {13} There was evening and there was morning, a third day. |
Fiat: {24} Then God said, "Let the
earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping
things and beasts of the earth after their kind";
Contemplative Fiat: {26} Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Fulfillment{27} God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Blessing: {28} God blessed them; Mandate: and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." {29} Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; {30} and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; Fulfillment: and it was so. Appraisement: {31} God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. Temporal Indicator: And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. |
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{1}Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. {2} By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. {3} Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. {4} This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven. |