484 Archaia. 



the rock was in the beginning, " without form and void." But no 

 one could infer from this statement that we gave the name " rock" 

 to the yet unformed condition of its elements. So neither can we 

 see why the words " heaven and earth" should he regarded as 

 appellations of the unformed and chaotic condition of their 

 elements. 



3. Create, (bara). From the view taken of the words " heaven 

 and earth" it will follow that the word " bara " is not used here to 

 express the idea of absolute creation. There is nothing in the 

 text requiring that it should be so understood. Nor does the use 

 of the word in other places lead us to infer that it ever was so 

 understood by the Hebrew writers. " Bara" and " asah" are 

 constantly used in this narrative and in other places as convertible 

 terms. Of this we have manifest instances in verses 21 T 25, 26 

 and 27. In the first of these " bara " is used in reference to the 

 creation of great whales, &c. ; in the second " asah " is applied to 

 the creation of the beasts of the earth ; in the third " asah" is taken 

 to describe the last and highest act of creation, when God said 

 " Let us make man" ; and in the fourth " bara" is used to designate 

 the same creative act. No claim can therefore be established for 

 < ( bara" as a word of wider signification than " asah" Both are 

 constantly used to designate the act of making, forming or creat- 

 ing. We know of no biblical critic of modern times who r on 

 grammatical grounds, will say that " bara" means the act of 

 absolute creation out of nothing. All that the usus loquendi 

 will authorise is that " bara" is most frequently used to express 

 the highest exercise of divine power — that it is somewhat more 

 intensive than its synonym " asah" and that it is seldom used in 

 reference to the acts or works of man. Whatever deductions 

 may be drawn from the statement of the first verse, as to the crea- 

 tion of the heavens and earth out of nothing, it is to us obvi- 

 ous that the literal grammatical rendering of the words will not 

 yield such a sense. Nothing therefore hinders that this first vers$ 

 should be the prologue or proem of the biblical account of the 

 creation. 



4. Day. (vom). This is the word upon which the scheme of 

 our author mainly rests. The idea that it means a long period 

 was first started by Cuvier, and has since been adopted by Jame- 

 son, Miller and others. In chapter seventh of this book the sub- 

 ject is elaborately and ingeniously argued, and it would require 

 more space than we can command to reply to all the statements 



