The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 129

woro not hl'oUf(h t into tho garrlon, if other founder! on the Lest of reasons, though what ronson is roqmred beeicles thnt of physical they were it is impossible to discover, a.~ it i~ impossibility, tho ingenuity of Keil suggests not absolutely certain tha.t Adam spoke in that tlrn~o were not so neo.rly relatecl to Adam Hebrew. :But for Adam there was not found ns the fowls nnd tho beasts, which, besides, an help meet for him. This was the chief were the o.nimnls specially ordained for his reason for assembling the creatures. It was servico. And brought them (literally, meant to reveal his loneliness. The longing brought; not necessnrily nil the animals for a partner was already deeply seatecl in his in Eclen, but specimens of them) unto natn~e, ancl the sui:vey o! the animals, comin,g Adam. Wo ngreo with Willet in believing to 1nm probalily Ill pairs, could not fail to that "naither did Aclam gather together the intensify that secret frnnger of his soul, and cattle as n shepherd cloth his sheep, nor did perhaps evoke it into conscious operntion. the angels muster them, nor the animals Ver. 21.--And the Lord God caused a deep come themselves, nud, passing by, while he sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. This sat on some elevation, bow their beads at his was clearly not a sleep of weariness or fatigue, resplendent o.ppcamnce; nor were Adam's in consequence of arduous labours undergone, eyes so illumiuate that he beheld them all in but a supernatural slumber, which, however, their places-all ,vhirh," says he, "are but may have been superinduced upon the natural men's conceits ; "but that through the secret c,,ndition of repose, Lightfoot, following the influence of God upon their natmes they were LXX., who translate tardemah (deep sleep) assemblecl rouncl the inmate of paradise, as by ecstasy, frurn,rn;, im:igines that the afterwards they were collected in the ark. The whole scene of Eve's creation was presented reasons for this particular action on the part to Aclam's imagination in a Divinely-inspired of God were manifohl; one of them. being clream, which bas at least the countenance stated in the words which follow-to seo of Job iv. 13 Such a supposition, however, what ho would call them ; literally, to them. is not rcquiretl to account for Adam's recog- Already man hacl received from God his first nition of his bride. There is more of aptness lesson in the exercise of speech, in the naming in the observation of Lange, that in the deep of the trees and the imposition of the pro- sleep of Au.am we have an echo of the crea- hibition. This was his second-the oppor- tive evenings that prececled the Divine tunity afforded him of using for himself that activity. "Everything out of which some gift of language and reason with which he new thing is to come sinks down before the hnd been endowed. In this it is implied that event into such n deep sleep," is tlrn far- man wa.s created with tl10 faculty of speech, seeing and comprehensive remark of Ziegler. tho distinct gift of articulate nnd rational And he took one of his ribs (tsela = some- utterance, nnd the capacity of nttaching thing bent, from tsala, to incline ; hence a words to icleas, though it also seems to infer rib), and closed up the flesh (literally, flrsh) that the evolution of a language was for him, instead thereof. Wbether Atlam was create,[ as it is for the individual yet, a matter of with a superfluous rib, or his bocly was muti- graduo.l development. Another reason was lated by tho abstraction of a rib, is n question to manifest his sovereignty or lordship over for the curious. In the first, Calvin fimfa the inferior creation. And whatsoever Adam nothing "which is not in a.ccordance with (literally, tho man) called every living crea- Divine providence," while he favours the ture (i. e. that was brought to him), that was latter conjecture, nod thinks that Aclam got tho namo thereof. That is to say, it not only n rich compensation-" quum so integrum met tho Divine approbation as exactly sdt- vidit in uxore, qui prius t:intum climiclius able to tho natU1°e of the crcatlll'e, end thus crat." Luther inclines to think that Adam's was a striking attestation of the intelligence language in ver. 23 implies that not the bar~ and wisdom of the first man, but it likewiso rib, but the rib with the accom]Janying flesh, nclhered to the creaturo ns o. namo which was oxtracted. hncl been assignecl by its master. Ver. 22.-And the rib, which the Lord God Ver. 20.-And Adam gave names to all ha.d taken from man, made he (literally, cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to lmildod into; aodijicavit,Yulgate; ~roooµ11u,v, every beast of the field. Tho portrait l1ere LXX.) a woman. The 1ieculiar phraseology clolincatcd of tho first man is something employed to describe tho formation of Adam's widely different from that of an infantile partner has been understood as rcforring to snvago slowly groping his way towards the the physical configuration of woman's body, "'Ossession of o.rticulute speech and intel- which is broadest towards the middle (Lyra) ; [igiblo lnngunge by imitation of the so\lllds of to tho incompleteness of Adam's being, which nnimals. Speech and lnngu11ge both spring wns like an uufinishecl buildi.ng until EYo full-formecl, though not completely maturecl, was fornlell (CalYin) ; to tho part of tl:o from the prinws homo of the Biblo. As to fcmalo in building up tlw family (Delitzsch, tlw n~nws that A,hm gave the animals, wilh Mucdonahl), to the lrnihling up of 1 110 Call-in we urc,l not tlonbt th'.lt they \\'c'l'r Church, or whic-h she was ,ksigne,1 lo \,e F ')  THE DOOR OF GENESIS. [l'll. II. 18-25.