Genesis 1:28-2:4

Recommended Resources:

C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy of books

Commentary:

1:28- I want to go back to verse 28 for a minute and note that all of these verbs are plural. Men and women were both called to rule the earth together. It’s not just man ruling the earth and woman ruling the house. That’s not Biblical. Such a belief creates an unhealthy dichotomy. There is no headship mentioned here, no extra authority given to the man. I know there are other passages that have to enter into the debate, but for now, we’re just looking at the Eden ideal that God establishes on page 1. It is abusive to remove from women the right to rule the earth alongside men as equal creations of God.

It’s also worth noting that even after the three main failure narratives in Genesis 3-11, the Bible never says that the image of God was affected or removed. We tend to assume that the image of God has been marred, but I’m not convinced. Yes, we sin. Yes, we often have a bent toward wrongdoing. But the image of God is about who we fundamentally are as human beings, not about what we do. No one person is any less the image of God than another, even if he isn’t fully living up to all he should be.

1:29- Whenever “and behold” shows up in a text, it’s like a movie camera’s zooming in on whatever comes next. It’s drawing you into the perspective of the character, pointing your focus to a specific part of the scene.

“Meat” is an unfortunate translation now. The word just means food in general, not specifically meat as we use the word today.

Most take this verse to mean humanity was originally vegetarian, and that is possible. But it would be inaccurate to say humanity did not eat meat before the Flood. First, we have to note this is not a command. Second, this is pre-Fall; there was a lot of time between the Flood and Fall. Third, humanity was to rule over the animals, and Abel brought an animal sacrifice, implying that animals were likely eaten before the Flood. Either way, God does allow for eating meat both at the Flood and in Acts. We must be careful not to fall prey to fad diets based in Bible passages taken out of context.

Notice how these instructions are concerning the entirety of the earth, not just the garden. The earth is depicted as needing humans to further God’s order-increasing actions in order to flourish. Our job was to make the rest of the earth like Eden.

1:30- “Life” here is the Hebrew word nephesh. It means throat but came to mean life by extension. It’s also often translated soul in the Tanakh. From this, we observe that the Bible has a very different definition of what constitutes life than what we do. When I think of life, I imagine a Discovery Channel documentary where you see seeds on a timelapse growing into plants. I picture trees blowing in the wind. But in the Bible, only creatures that breathe outside air through their lungs (or a similar system, ie gills in fish) are considered to be alive, to have nephesh. We tend to think that plants, animals, and humans all have life. Plants don’t have a soul or spirit. Animals have a soul but not a spirit. And humans have all three. But as we talked about a couple weeks ago, I believe the Bible teaches that all life has two parts—physical and spiritual or you could say material and immaterial. That goes for all life, animals and humans. Nephesh (often translated soul) and ruach (often translated spirit) both refer to pretty much synonymous spiritual realities. Animals are spoken of in both terms.

Genesis 1:30 says beasts of the earth, fowl of the air, and everything that swarms on the earth has nephesh. Ecclesiastes 3:21 ponders whether the ruach of an animal is any different from that of a human. Therefore, life separates animals from plants, and the image of God separates humans and animal. From the Biblical perspective, life comes from God’s breath, so only those creations with lungs that are breathing air are “alive.” (cf 1:20, 21, 24).

1:31- I realize we come from a time well after the Garden, but God’s creation is still very good. You are still very good in God’s eyes. Why not see the world that way today too? What would change if you saw the world as very good?

This is the first of the days to have the definite article in front of it in Hebrew. It’s an ordinal rather than cardinal number. The others literally read as “Day One,” “Day Two,” etc. But this day ends with “the sixth day.” There’s plenty of debate as to why, but I have yet to hear a convincing answer.

2:1- Host is a military term, and it’s often used to describe a large group of supernatural beings or the stars and planets. It’s likely this is referencing the creation of spiritual beings, possibly on Day 4, specifically verse 16. But then some would argue that Job 38:7 implies the spiritual beings were created before God’s speaking light into existence. Ultimately, we don’t really know for sure when they were created. That’s not what the text is trying to teach us.

2:2- “Seven” and “rest” and “complete” (not the one used in this verse) are spelled with the same root in Hebrew (sby). There is a wordplay that God completed and rested on the seventh day. Then in Exodus 16:3, the Hebrews complained that they no longer had the fullness (sby) they experienced in Egypt, so God gave them food every day but not on the seventh (sby, day of completeness) day.

How did God rest? What if Adam needed Him that day? I imagine it would have been very much like Jesus’ concept of rest. Jesus specifically carved out time for Himself, but if people needed Him, He made time for them. After all, the sabbath is for man, not man for the sabbath. Rest was made for humanity. I can’t imagine God would have told Adam to wait until Sunday or Monday if he had a problem. It was more like God was out of the office, but His phone is always on, to put it in modern terms.

Rest isn’t as much about being tired as it is enjoying the beauty of creation. When a king sits on his throne in a time of peace, he’s said to be resting on the throne. That’s the picture here. It’s not that God laid down or took a nap. He’s surveying the beauty and goodness of His new creation.

From another angle, we can consider other times God is said to rest in Scripture. When God’s glory filled the tabernacle and temple, His Spirit was said to be resting there. Here it is implied that His glory fills the whole earth, that He is taking up residence within creation, and that He is filling the earth with His presence.

God's rest in Genesis 2 is about filling a sacred space with His divine presence and celebrating the beauty and abundance of creation. The Sabbath practice is a way for humans to remember God’s presence and His ideal purpose for creation. It’s a way of stopping every week and reminding ourselves that the world will go on without us. What are some of the simple things you can celebrate and be grateful for this week? Who can you share that experience with today? How do you find yourself responding to the concept of ritualistic slowdowns in life? What thoughts and emotions do you experience? Are you aware of any fears or concerns that arise from the thought of taking a day to do actually nothing?

“The Sabbath is most truly honored when we participate in the work of God (see Is 58:13-14). The work we desist from is that which represents our own attempts to bring our own order to our lives. It is to resist our self-interest, our self-sufficiency and our sense of self-reliance.” -John Walton, The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate

Think about what it would mean for the Garden to be the original temple of God. Sometimes people complain that God was too harsh on Adam and Eve. Could this temple concept help us make sense of why judgement was so swift? Can you think of any other quick judgments when things went wrong in the tabernacle/temple? (Consider Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10 and Annanias and Sapphira in Acts 5.)

It’s also worth noting that ancient temples were often dedicated in a 7 day ceremony (cf Leviticus 8:33-35, 1 Kings 8:2, 8:65, Ezekiel 43:25-27)

“The ‘Christmas story’ found in John [1:14] is summarized in these profound words. God became human and dwelt among us. That word ‘dwelt’ becomes tremendously important when we understand its true meaning. Welcome to a mini Greek class! John uses the Greek word skēnoō here for ‘dwelt.’ Skēnoō, could literally be translated as ‘to pitch a tabernacle’; an apparent allusion to the Tabernacle/Temple.

By recalling the purpose of the Tabernacle, John has connected Jesus to the traveling dwelling place of God. Jesus thus becomes this new Tabernacle according to John. As the Tabernacle mirrors the reality of Eden, the place of united relationship with God, man, heaven, and earth, Jesus too illuminates this reality. The opening words of John’s Gospel place Jesus in this grand narrative of Scripture. Jesus is the answer to the Temple problem. As the new place where God and man meet, where God’s reality meets ours; Jesus brings people into Eden-like presence with God. The dwelling presence of God was no longer limited to a building, but was personally interacting with his people. Everywhere Jesus went, the Temple-like presence of God was there.

Later in John, a huge development in the temple-theme appears. We learn that Jesus promises his followers this eternal presence of God through the giving of the Spirit. God’s presence has now moved from building, to person, the entire body of believers! The believers thus become like this traveling Temple of Jesus’ presence through the Spirit.

This then gives us immediate relevance for the temple theme. Because Jesus tabernacled among us and gave us God’s Spirit, we now move about setting up tabernacles of God’s presence. Your interaction with the people around can become an invitation for someone to experience God’s temple presence. The way you care for your hurting co-worker. The way you treat the customer service agent. The way you love the crazy high school student at church. Done in a matter reflective of Jesus, our daily actions and words can lead people to knowing a present God.” – “He Tabernacled Among Us” Zach Zienka https://zachzienka.com/2018/10/24/he-tabernacled-among-us/

2:3- Notice what is missing from this verse. The day is never said to end. Because God’s concept of rest does not preclude work when needed, His seventh day rest continues even through till today. He welcomes us into that same way of living each day.

2:4- This officially starts chapter 2. Recall that whenever you have “these are the generations of” in Genesis, that is a transition marker called a toledot. It’s the author’s way of signaling that we’re ending one story and moving into the next. Where the first Creation story sounds more like it was written in Microsoft Excel, the second was written in Word, if you will. The first account was line after line of information. This new account reads more like a narrative.

The verse literally reads, “This is the birth story of the heavens and earth and the plants and herbs.” Yes, that is a very unique way to begin a story. I think the author is reminding us not to read this as scientific security camera footage of what happened but rather as a creative reimaging.

I do find it slightly amusing that we harp so harshly on the word “day” needing to mean a literal 24 hour day in chapter 1, and yet here it is used metaphorically referring to the whole week. And, yes, it is the same Hebrew word yom in both chapters.

We must pause and observe that this is the first revelation of the name of the deity who did all this. Through all of chapter 1, the author only uses the generic Hebrew word for God or gods—elohim. An ancient reader after reading the first chapter would have said, “Of course the gods created the skies and the land, but which gods do you mean?” Only in chapter 2 verse 4 is the identity of the Creator revealed. What our English Bibles usually translate as “LORD” (in all caps) is really the divine name Yahweh.

Many scholars see a difference in the tone of the passage depending on whether God is called by His name Yahweh or the title elohim. Elohim is the go to for times He appears more aloft and majestic; whereas the name Yahweh tends to be used when He is more personally interactive with humanity. Chapter 1 has Him speaking from His throne. There He is called simply elohim, God. Chapter 2 has Him stoop down to make humanity with His own hands. There He is called by His personal name Yahweh. While it is possible to make too much of these connections, I find them worth noting and pondering when they appear.