agree with Modem Geology ? 65 



that they were made, the greater light to rule over the present day, 

 and the lesser light to rule over the present night, and to be for 

 signs, and for seasons, and for days, and /or years, according to 

 the measures of time which we now find established by them. 

 This part of the history, then, when interpreted in consistency 

 with the 1st verse, and without any violence to the terms, im- 

 plies, in the common language of men, which, in all nations, re- 

 fers the diurnal and annual revolutions of the heavenly bodies 

 to the motions of these bodies themselves, that the earth was, 

 during this epoch, finally brought into its present orbit. 



The work of the third epoch was the appearance of the dry 

 land, and the creation of the vegetable kingdom. The history 

 of the latter, in our common translation, is, v. 11, " God said, 

 Let the earth bring forth grass (in the margin tefider grass), 

 the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after 

 his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth : and it was 

 so.*" V. 12, " And the earth brought forth grass, and herb 

 yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose 

 seed was in itself, after his kind." The terms grass (in Hebrew, 

 deshe), herb (Hebrew, oeseb), and tree (Hebrew, etz), are here 

 all put disjunctively in the Hebrew; there being only one con- 

 junction in the twelfth verse between herb and tree, which does 

 not affect the disjunctive character of the three terms, as it is a 

 common practice in the Hebrew writings to couple, in this man- 

 ner, the two last of a series of disjunctive terms, as, for example, 

 the names of the four kings in Genesis xiv. 1, In the two last 

 of these terms, herb and tree, we find a recognition of a remark- 

 able natural distinction among the vegetable tribes, and this 

 very circumstance would lead us to infer, that the first term, 

 which has obviously presented a difficulty to our translators, 

 since they have given two interpretations of it, is intended to 

 express some class or tribe of the vegetable kingdom, naturally 

 distinguished from herbs and trees, as they are from one ano- 

 ther. The term in question (deshe) is a noun from a verb, 

 which, from Joel ii. 22, we learn the meaning is to spririg, to 

 shoot, to vegetate, " Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field, for the 

 pastures of the wilderness do spring (dasheu)." In the 11th 

 verse under consideration, we find both the verb and the noun, 



VOL. XI n. NO. XXV. JULY 1832. K 



