(2.) The earth was regarded in relation to man, and * accordingly each act of creation is a preparation of the earth for his abode— light, as the primary condition of all life; the heavens, for purposes already detailed; the dry land, for his home ; ** grass for the catUe and herb' for the service of man'* (Psa. dv, 14) ; the alterna- tions of day and night, the one for his work and the other for his rest (Psa. civ, 28) ; fish, fowl, and flesh fbr his food; the beasts of burden, to lighten his toil. The work of each day of creation has its specific application to the requirements and the comforts of man, and is recorded with that special view.
8. Creation was regarded as a progressive work— a gradual development firom the inforior to the superior orders of things* Thus it was with the earth's surfiioe,
at first a chaotic mass, waste and empty, well described in the paronomastic terms toku vo-^Att, overspread with waters and enveloped in darkness (Gen. i, 2), and thence gradually brought into a state of order and beauty so conspicuous as to lead the Latins to de- scribe it by the name Mundus, Thus also with the diffisrent portions of the universe, the earth before the light, the light before the firmament, the firmament before the diy land. Thus also with light itself, at first the elementary principle, separated from the dark- ness, but without defined boundaries; afterwards the illuminating bodies with their distinct powers and of- fices—a progression that is well expreraed in the He- brew language by the terms 6r and maSr (^IK, *l'lK^). Thus also with the orders of living beings ; firstly, plants ; secondly, fish and birds ; thirdly, cattle ; and, lastly, man. From **good" in the several parts to ** very good** as a whole (Gen. i, 81), such was its progress in the judgment of the Omnipotent workman. 4. Order involves time ; a succession of events im- plies a succession of periods ; and, accordingly, Moses assigns the work of creation to six days, each having its specific portion — flight to the first, the firmament to the second, the diy land and plants to the third, the * heavenly bodies to the fourth, fish and fowl to the fifth, beasts and man to the sixth. The manner in which these acts are described as having been done precludes all idea of time in relation to their perform- ance; it was miraculous and instantaneous: *'God said," and then **it was." But the progresstveness, and consequently the individuality of the acts, does involve an idea of time as elapsing between the com- pletion of one and the commencement of another; otherwise the work of creation would have resolved itself into a single continuous act. The period as- signed to each individual act is a day— the only period which represents the entire cessation of a work through the inteiposition of night That a natural day is rep- resented under the expression '* evening was and morn- ing was," admits, we think, of no doubt ; the term **day'* idone may sometimes refer to an indefinite pe- riod contemporaneous with a single event ; but when the individual parts of a day, " evening and morning," are specified, and when a series of such days are no- ticed in their numerical order, no analogy of our lan- guage admits of our understanding the term in any- thing else than its literal sense. The Hebrews had no other means of expressing the civil day of twenty- four hours than as "evening, morning" C^g2l ^^$, Dan. viii, 14), similar to the Greek wxBrifupov ; and, although the alternation of light and darkness lay at the root of the expression, yet the Hebrews in. their use of it no more thought of these elements than do we when we use the terms fortmgU or ae'mtight; in each case the lapse of a certain time, and not tiie ele- ments by which that time is calculated, is intended ; so that, without the least inconsistency either of lan- guage or of reality, the expression may be applied to the days previous to the creation of the sun. The ap- plication of the same expressions to the events subse- quent to the creation of the sun, as well as the use of tiie word " day" in the fourth commandment without any indication that it is used in a different sense, or in any other than the literal acceptation of Gen. i, 6 sq., confirm the view above stated. The interpreta- tion that " evening and morning'* =6e^ifimii^ and end, is opposed not only to the order in which the words stand, but to the sense of the words elsewhere.
6. The Hebrews, though regarding creation as the immediate act of God, did not ignore the evident fact that existing materials and intermediate agencies were employed both then and in the subsequent operations of nature. Thus the simple fact, "God created man" (Gen. i, 27), is amplified by the subsequent notice of the material substance of which his body was made (Gen. ii, 7) ; and to also of the animals (Gen. i, 24 ; ii,
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COSSETT
19). Tbe sepamtioa of aes and Imnd, attributed hi Gen. i, 6, to the divine fiat, was seen to involve the process of partial elevations of tbe earth's sor&ce (Psa. dv, 8, ** the mountains ascend, the valleys de- scend ;" comp. Prov. viii, 25-28). The formation of doods and the supply of moistme to the earth, which in Gen. i, 7, was pro'Wded by the creation of the firma- ment, was afterwards attributed to its true cause in the continual return of the waters from the earth's surfkce (EccL i, 7). The existence of the element of light, as distinct from the sun (Gen. i, 8, 14 ; Job xxxviii, 19), has liluwise been explained as the result of a philo- sophically correct view as to the nature of light ; more probably, however, it was founded upon tbe incorrect view that the light of the moon was independent of the sun.