But, it is plain, that there must have been some dialectical or critical reason for this uniformity in all the earliest interpretations, of the sense, de autem-but, in this place. Now, the principle upon which the disjunctive sense was affixed to the particle in this place, and not the copulative which our version has adopted, will reveal itself on an attentive examination. The proposition"God created the heaven and the earth, AND the earth was invisible;" would seem to imply, that it was the design of God in its creation, that it should be invisible. Whereas, the proposition"God created the heaven and the earth; BUT the "earth was invisible" carries a contrary implication; and excites an and excites an expectation expectation of that which immediately follows, namely, the formation of light, by means of which the invisibility of the earth was to be remedied. "God created the

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εκείθεν, μετα ΤΟ αποθανειν τον πατέρα αυτού, μεθῳκισεν αυτόν ELS την γην ταυτην εις ἣν ὑμεις νυν κατοικετε· ΚΑΙ ουκ εδωκεν αυτῳ κληρονομίαν εν αυτῇ, ουδε βήμα ποδος" ΚΑΙ επηγειλατο αυτῳ δουναι εις κατασχεσιν αυτή, ΚΑΙ τῷ σπερματι αυτού μετ' αυτον, ουκ αντος αυτῷ τεκνου. i. e. AND from "thence, after his father died, He removed him into this land wherein ye now dwell; YET (tamen-NOLDIUS, p. 305.) He gave him no "allotment therein, not even a footstep: ALTHOUGH (quamvis — NOLD. p. 296, 7.) He promised that He would give it to him for a possession: THAT IS (id est· - nempe — NOLD. p. 290, 293.) to his seed after him; "while he had as yet no child." If, in all these four clauses, kaι were to be uniformly rendered by and, "the series of the discourse, and the <c natures and mutual relations of the antecedent and subsequent sen"tences," would be equally destroyed as by uniformly rendering 1, and, in the first two verses of Genesis. The attentive reader, will find abundant occasions for applying the Hebrew rule to the Hellenistic kat, in the Greek Testaments.

heaven and the earth: but, the earth was invisible, "and darkness was upon the face of the deep:

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therefore, God said, Let there be Light!" The repetition of the conjunction, in this last clause, where it is also rendered by and in our version, gives it the proper force of wherefore, therefore quare, quamobrem, itaque1; with which sense it occurs, in more than two hundred and fifty places in the Scriptures; and this force accrues consequentially, from the sense of de, but, in the preceding clause. And thus, the mutual relation and dependence of the three clauses is clear and distinct, and their connexion, necessary and indissoluble. Josephus plainly shews by his paraphrase of the passage, that he understood the three clauses with this intimate relation and correspondence: εν αρχή εκτισεν ὁ Θεος τον ουρανον και την γην ταυτης ΔΕ ὑπ ̓ οψιν ουκ ερχομενης, αλλα βαθει μεν κρυπτομενης σκοτει, ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΟΣ ΔΕ αυτην ΕΠΙΘΕΟΝΤΟΣ, γενεσθαι φως εκελευσεν ὁ Θεὸς — In the beginning "In God created the heaven and the earth; BUT, the "earth not coming into view, but being hidden in profound darkness, the Spirit moreover coming upon it, God commanded LIGHT TO BE.”

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That we are to understand but, not and, at the beginning of the second clause; is, therefore confirmed, both by the authority of all the earliest interpreters, and by the natural import of the text critically ratifying that authority. This intimate

NOLDIUS, p. 297.

relation of the sentences, will be found a very essential point for the reader to hold in his recollection.

2. The criticisms which have been exercised upon the word 71, created, are very trifling: viz. that it does not denote, productio ex nihilo -production out of nothing; but, productio ejus quod antea non extitit--production of that which before did not exist. It is difficult to discern the difference intended between the two; which, however, resolves itself into this, that the former "notion was too metaphysical and abstract for "the apprehension of man in his primitive state1." But, this will not prevent the latter from signifying exactly the same thing as the former; which it must necessarily do, when it relates to the production.ev apx?, or first production, of a world which could not have existed before it was produced.

ארץ

3. What the historian intends by the word -earth, in this first verse which declares its "creation in the beginning;" is distinctly explained in the tenth verse, in which he expressly tells us, that it signifies 2, Enpa-the dry" matter of the globe, contradistinguished from ΕΠ, τα ύδατα D', Tα údαra" the waters" which covered it and prevented it from appearing. He thus tells us, that the " dry matter," which was made to appear on the third day, was the identical N —

MICHAELIS, Suppl. ad Lex. Heb. naa.

"earth" which was created on the first day; and he subjoins two characters which obviously pertained to its first formation so described ― viz. that it was tohu-invisible, va-bohu-and unfurnished.

4. That celebrated phrase, man, tohu vabohu, on which fancy and system have so largely and so unsubstantially built, is not of uncertain signification, as has most inconsiderately and unwarrantably been assumed, or pretended; for, we find the most ancient interpretation of it, as delivered by the native translators, uniformly maintained both in the Jewish and Christian churches for above six hundred years after their time; which prescription constitutes as solid and secure an evidence of the primitive signification of the terms, as the most punctilious criticism, founded on reason, can require or desire in any language. Those words, which our version, conforming to later translators, has rendered, "without form, "and void," are rendered by the oldest Jewish interpreters, (the LXX.) aoparos, καὶ ακατασκευ aoTos; invisible or unapparent, and unfurnished or unprovided. So also they were interpreted by the learned Jew, Philo1. And that Josephus, whom Jerom calls" vir Hebræus, et ab infantia sacris "litteris eruditus - a Hebrew, skilled in sacred learning from his infancy," understood the first of

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' Tom. i. p. 5. ii. pp. 491, 610. Ep. MAGNO, Oratori Romano. "Reliquis autem omnibus diligentius illustrandum Josephum mihi sumpsi. Disputatum de illo, Græcane an Hebraica biblia legerit?

those words to signify aoparos, invisible, is manifest from his paraphrasing it, ὑπ' όψιν ουκ ερχομενη

not coming into view. So likewise the oldest Latin version renders the words. And Jerom avowedly regarded this as the established interpretation, so late as the close of the fourth century; for, in his commentary on the 40th chapter of Isaiah, he says: "In the beginning of Genesis, " where it is written, But the earth was invisible and unfurnished;' the other interpreters (i. e. the "later; sc. Aquila and Theodotion,) have trans"lated, but the earth was void and nothing' — "In principio Geneseos, ubi scriptum est, terra autem erat invisibilis et incomposita:' cæteri

transtulerunt,' terra autem erat inane et nihil1.”” Those remarkable words of so early and learned a Father" ubi scriptum est," as opposed to " cœ"teri," prove incontestably; that the canonical interpretation of the words tohu va-bohu, remained unaltered in his age from that which was assigned to them in the earliest age to which we can recur. It is therefore very questionable, whether the present reading of the Vulgate in this place-" inanis "et vacua," is really that of Jerom. Tertullian,

"Utraque sane, ut plane facere possum. Ii vero turpissime falluntur, "qui Hebraicæ linguæ peritiam ab eo abjudicant. Grammaticarum "legum imperitior (fateor) quod nondum grammatica linguæ mortuæ "inventa esset, verborum significationes multo plures noverat, quam illi "ipsi, qui de eo judices sedere audent." — MICHAELIS, Pref. ad Spicileg. Geogr. Heb. Ext. post BOCHARTUM.

For the origin of this later interpretation, see the conclusion of this chapter.