64 ON CHANGES IN THE DISPOSITION &C. 



confirming the opinion that he is speaking indefinitely 

 in the first verses, and that, in the subsequent account, 

 he has commenced the history of oar present earth. 

 The word first used is " Baraa," which means, literally, 

 to create, or to call from non-existence into existence. 

 This verb is again used when man arid when whales 

 are created, as this was a real creation ; but the term 

 Yaas is applied to other cases. It is another proof that 

 the period of the original creation is intended to be in- 

 definite, when we find the verb " Baraa" used in the 

 absolute past, while all the verbs which follow are in 

 the present or future form ; confirming the opinion of 

 the complete separation, in the Historian's rnind, of 

 those two periods ; and of the creation of the six days 

 as entirely distinct from. the original creation of the 

 world. That this was also the opinion of the Trans- 

 lators of the Vulgate seems probable, from the title 

 which they have given ; which, after announcing " De 

 opere sex dierum," proceeds to say, " Die enim primo 

 facta est lux ;" without noticing the original creation of 

 the earth. They whom I arn answering have read as 

 if the heavens and the earth themselves were also cre- 

 ated on the first day. 



If the verb which is, by some translators, in the se- 

 venth verse of the second chapter, rendered "became" 

 instead of " is" or " be," may be thus rendered also 

 where the Tohu and Bohu, the horrible desert and 

 empty state of the earth, are^ described, it will con- 

 firm the same opinion respecting the period first men- 

 tioned ; by showing that, after the creation of the earth, 

 it is actually said to have become an uninhabited chaos ; 

 and it will thus sanction, still more strongly, these views 

 respecting the intended meaning of the Sacred Histo- 

 rian, as well as those which geology has here attempted 

 to establish concerning the history of the earth. 



