Navigate to draft-bible. 13 August 2022
1. In the beginning. These famous opening words of Genesis are a translation of the Hebrew bᵉrešit, translated on the assumption that the noun rešit is in the absolute state. However, the preposition bʾ- (as opposed to ba-), along with the analogy of other uses of rešit, suggest that rešit should be read as in the construct state here. In that case, the translation of the whole phrase and surrounding contexts must be rearranged. Instead of berešit bara ʾ__elohim meaning “In the beginning, God created”, the expression would mean “When God began to create”. This in turn rearranges the way the rest of 1:1-3 are read. Verse 1 becomes a temporal clause establishing when our story takes place “When God began to create”; verse 2 becomes a description of how things were when the creation began; and verse 3 is the first independent clause of the story.
1. WEB adds a comma after 'beginning'. This seems fine. As a general issue, I will not in every place be discussing simple differences of punctuation. Though I’ll bring it up when it seems interesting, in general I cannot promise full coverage of punctuation, and this general issue will be noted in the “Recurring Issues” appendix under Punctuation.
1. heavens. The Hebrew word is š__amayim, which can also be translated ‘sky’. Compare later in the Genesis story, where the š__amayim is described in pretty concrete terms as a solid dome.
1. earth. Hebrew ʾereṣ. While ‘earth’ in today’s cosmology refers to a particular sphere, in the Genesis story ʾereṣ is used for dry ground, as opposed to sea and sky, the other two ‘stories’ of the three-storied cosmology assumed by Genesis. The proper arrangement of sky, land, and water are the general subject of Genesis 1, and when all three terms make an appearance in the first two verses of the story, perhaps they should be translated in rather concrete terms, rather than in abstract terms like ‘heavens’ and ‘earth’ which are liable to be reinterpreted in terms of modern scientific cosmology.
2. And. In Genesis 1:2, the ASV begins with the word 'And', which the WEB omits. This is an example of a sort of difference which will occurr endlessly between the two translations, and so it seems to like a good idea to discuss how we will deal generally with these cases. Generally speaking, where Hebrew uses the particle w-, very roughly equivalent to 'and', translators have taken various approaches to how closely the English translation should hew to the Hebrew. On the one hand, it is undeniable that Hebrew uses w- more often than most contemporary English writers use 'and', so much so that it could not be good English practice to simply and mechanically translate every w- as ‘and’. But within the range of forms that literary English might take, it is not always clear just how often the word ‘and’ should appear. The KJV, and allied translations like the RV and ASV, use ‘and’ rather more often, while the World English Bible attempts to use ‘and’ far less often. Mistakes in either direction are certainly possible. I have been influenced by Robert Alter’s tendency to preserve the parataxis of the Hebrew Bible, and I tend to think that the excisions of ‘and’ in the World English Bible have a tendency to make its wording unnecessarily choppy. As a result, I will generally retain where possible the ‘and’ if it appears in both the Hebrew and the ASV, and I will not note every single instance. This matter will appear in the list of “Recurring Issues” at the end of this commentary, under the heading P__arataxis.
2. waste and void. Where ASV reads ‘waste and void’, the WEB reads ‘formless and empty’. The underlying Hebrew expression is tohu wa-bohu. While tohu (waste, formless) appears a number of times independently in the Hebrew Bible, wa-bohu only appears in the phrase tohu wa-bohu, and as a result it is difficult to say much about the exact meaning of the word bohu specifically. Left with the issue of tohu, I do not see how ‘formless’ is any better than ‘waste’ for conveying the word’s meaning, and so here I would be inclined simply to leave the wording of the ASV is “waste and void”.
2. upon … upon. Where the ASV speaks of darkness ‘upon the face of the deep’, in the WEB it is ‘on the surface of the deep’. The underlying Hebrew preposition is ʿal, which generally can be rendered just fine by the English ‘upon’. Despite the slightly old-fashioned sound of ‘upon’, in this case I would retain it, under the principle ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. I may not address this issue every time it appears, so ‘upon’ has an entry in the appendix “Recurring Words”. A second time in the same verse, upon appears in the ASV, as the Spirit of God moves upon (again, Hebrew ʿal). But this time, instead of ‘on’, the WEB eliminates ‘upon’ by substituting over. It seems like a step backward for the WEB to read two English words in place of one Hebrew, given that the ASV managed to translate both instances consistently.
2. face. Where the ASV reads ‘face’, the WEB has ‘surface’ for the Hebrew panim (twice). While ‘surface’ is not necessarily incorrect, ‘face’ also is perfectly adequate English. The word panim, depending on context, can refer either to the front of a head or to a surface. The English word ‘face’ manages to cover both these bases fine as well. This substitution of ‘surface’ for ‘face’ is a repeated feature of the WEB, so instead of mentioning every instance of it, it earns its own entry in the appendix “Recurring Words”.
2. spirit of God. The Hebrew expression ruaḥ ʾelohim is read as ‘Spirit of God’ in ASV and ‘God’s Spirit’ in WEB. Unfortunately, in theological writing, the term ‘Spirit of God’ with a capital S is conventionally used to represent the figure known in Christian theology as the second person of the Trinity. Genesis being a product of a time well before any Trinitarian theology had developed, it seems to me best to at the very least read ‘spirit’ with a lower-case s. In light of the way that ruaḥ can also refer to ‘wind’, some might even suggest reading the expression ruaḥ ʾelohim as ‘a wind from God’.
2. was hovering. Hebrew meraḥefet, a participle and a fairly uncommon word. Given the parallel use in Deuteronomy 32:11, a verb that denotes bird-like movement in place seems appropriate.
In the same verse, ASV reads ‘Spirit of God’, where WEB has ‘God’s Spirit’. This should be further reviewed, as should the Hebrew expression rendered as ‘moved upon’ (ASV) or ‘was hovering’ (WEB).
3. At the beginning of verse 3, the WEB has a paragraph break, which the ASV is lacking. I’m inclined to think the ASV is right in not breaking here, especially given that it might be argued Genesis 1:1-3 constitute a single sentence in Hebrew. I will in general not comment on or even display differences in paragraph break locations between the versions. This issue is discussed in the appendix “Recurring Issues” under the heading Paragraph Divisions.
Also in Genesis 1:3, we come to the first use of quotation marks in the WEB where the ASV has none. The Hebrew text does not use quotation marks. In Hebrew, as in English, the beginning of a quotation is usually obvious from context, and can easily be indicated in English by capitalizing the first letter of the quotation. The exact end of the quotation is not always quite so obvious, and will at times reflect a judgment call on the part of a translator. Although perhaps it is excessive conservatism on my part, perhaps it would be best to leave quotation marks out altogether. While many instances of quotation are fairly straightforward, there are passages where the Hebrew text seems to slide from speaker to speaker, especially in cases of prophetic language, in a manner that an English writer used to using quotation marks would never permit. I will generally leave quotation marks out, and this issue will be addressed in the appendix “Recurring Issues” under the heading Quotations.
And when the quotations are removed from the WEB in Genesis 1:3, suddenly the use of a colon to mark off ‘and there was light’ seems more appropriate.
4*. that it was good. The ASV has the rhythmic, And God saw the light, that it was good. Perhaps in an attempt to make the English smoother, WEB reads God saw the light, and saw that it was good. To me, this seems repetitive and a bit of a step backward.
5. Day. Hebrew yom. If we are going to stick to the general practice of not using quotation marks, then in Genesis 1:5 the ASV’s capitalized Day becomes preferable to the WEB’s “day”. So also for ‘night’.
5. Night. Hebrew laylah.
5. one day. Where ASV reads ‘one day’, the WEB reads ‘the first day’. This is a mistake, because it then ruins a subtle feature of the Hebrew account of the six days. In Hebrew, we have yom ha-šiši (‘the sixth day’) in 1:31, whereas all the other days lack the article. This feature correctly appears in the ASV, but falls apart in the WEB with the addition of the article in “the first day”.
6. dome. Where ASV reads the now archaic word ‘firmament’, the WEB reads ‘expanse’. This is a step forward and a step back: firmament is a an archaic word, an moving away from that is positive, but expanse misrepresents what the Hebrew text is saying. An ‘expanse’, in English, by default refers simply to an empty space, especially in the context of the sky, which in modern cosmology is believed to be an empty space. Using the word ‘expanse’ leads the reader to import modern cosmology in a way that makes it difficult to understand verse 6.
Put plainly, the Hebrew raqiaʿ describes something solid – something solid which keeps the waters above the sky separate from the waters below -- thus it is described as "in the middle of the waters". The creation of the raqiaʿ helps bring order to the universe. The universe begins covered in water. The sky is a solid vault created to make a space for life. Above the sky-vault is water, which would come crashing down and destroy all life if allowed to. Below the earth is water, which would come rushing up if allowed to. Between the earth and sky-vault, humans live, protected from the waters above and below. As Driver notes, the solidity of the vault is confirmed by Job 37:18, "Can you like him beat out the skies, which are strong as a molten mirror?" It is also worth noting that the verb "beat out" is spelled like the word "vault", suggesting that the idea is that the vault is a solid, hammered-out object.
Later in Genesis, when the raqiaʿ ceases to function properly, the waters above pour down and drown all living things. This is not how an ‘expanse’ functions. Perhaps better to describe it as a ‘vault’ or ‘dome’.
6. to divide the waters from the waters. According to Kittel, here we should add, "And it was so."
7, 8. dome. As in verse 6.
7. and it was so. These words generally appear after something God says, not something God does, and so it seems to Driver they are "apparently misplaced". Similar copying errors seem to occur elsewhere in Genesis 1: the missing "that it was good" of verse 8, the missing "animal" of verse 26, and the baffling phrasing of verse 29.
Kittel says that we should move the "And it was so" from here to the end of verse 6, and here read "And God saw that it was good" instead of "And it was so." Out of all the days of creation, this is the only one, in the Masoretic Text, of which God does not "see that it is good" [Driver, Genesis].
8. Sky. WEB reads “sky” instead of Heaven, and the WEB reading is preferable. The šamayim here is a solid dome, and while no English word exactly captures the Hebrew concept, the physical term ‘sky’ is closer than the metaphysically loaded ‘heaven’.
9. Sky. As in verse 8.
9. unto. The WEB generally makes a practice of avoiding the word unto, and here I agree. Unto is archaic.
9. place. Hebrew MQWM. Kittel says that we should read MQWH, "collection", a word related to the Hebrew term here translated as "gathered." So, if we adopted Kittel's suggestion, we would read something like, "Let the waters under the sky be collected into one collection".
Whether we read "place" or "collection", at least looking at a globe, we would not today see the oceans of the world as "gathered to one place", but there is an alternate ancient way of looking at the goegraphy of the earth, which treats the land as a flat disk, surrounded on all sides by a single ocean. Maps built on this template can be found even in medieval Europe (see Wikipedia, "T and O map"). For a fuller description of the picture implied by this and other passages in the Bible, see page 8 in Driver's Genesis.
10. he called. ASV reads called he. This is simply a matter of the archaic form of English in the ASV allowing for more flexibility in word order than today’s English allowed. In cases like this – not all of which will call for comment – I will simply change the word order to that demanded by more current forms of English. In this case, ‘he called’. This issue is logged in the “Recurring Issues” appendix under Word Order.
10. earth. Hebrew ʾereṣ.
10. Seas. Hebrew yamim.
11. grow green with. ASV ‘put forth’, WEB ‘yield’. The Hebrew term is tadše, a word referring specifically to the growth of vegetation, and which is noticeably reminiscent of deše, translated ‘grass’ (ASV, WEB). Where WEB reads tadše as ‘yield’, this has the unfortunate effect of being the same English word the WEB uses in the same verse for mazriaʿ, ‘bearing seed’.
11. producing seed. Hebrew mazriaʿ zeraʿ. I am replacing ‘yielding’ with ‘producing’ on the idea that ‘yielding’ seems just a bit odd.
11. [and] fruit trees. The KJV, and its grandchild the ASV, follows the practice of using italics to indicate the present of words in the translated text not found in the original-language exemplar. Unfortunately, in today’s English italics denote emphasis, which is quite nearly the opposite of what the KJV means by them. The WEB drops the KJV-style use of italics, in itself an advance, but I think we can do better. In some cases, where it is worthwhile to tip off the reader to words being supplied in translation, I think we should use the more current convention of brackets [ ] . I will not note every time this occurs. See Italicization in the appendix “Recurring Issues”.
In this particular case, while "and" is oddly missing in the Masoretic Text, it is supplied by the Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Peshitto, and Vulgate. Kittel also notes that three Masoretic manuscripts preserve the word.
11. of various kinds. Hebrew lemino (leminah and leminehu are variants of the same phrase in different grammatical situations). The traditional translation ‘after their kind’ has the unfortunate drawback of not really meaning anything in today’s English. To the extent that English-speaking readers puzzle the phrase out, they sometimes get the impression that ‘after their kind’ is a reference to how each tree only produces its own kind of fruit. The Hebrew expression means no such thing. Consider, for example, the list of forbidden birds found in Deuteronomy 14. Verse 18 forbids eating "the stork, the heron lemina, the hoopoe, and the bat." Are we to imagine that the writer intended to forbid storks, hoopoe, bats, and specifically herons which only breed in such a way as to produce other herons? Of course not. Such a reading would be similarly absurd in the rest of the biblical instances of lemino/ah/ehu It is much more reasonable to read this as forbidding "the stork, the various kinds of heron, the hoopoe, and the bat". (Compare Driver's Genesis at 1:11).
On a text-critical note, in this verse the expression "of various kinds" is missing from the hexaplaric recension of the Septuagint, according to Kittel.
11. with their seeds in it (WEB). This is preferable to the archaic wherein is the seed thereof (ASV). In general, the word thereof needs to be removed for archaism, and I will not note every instance when I do so.
11. And it was so. The Septuagint adds, "And the waters which were under the sky were gathered to their gatherings, and the dry land appeared" (Kittel).
12. brought forth (ASV). Hebrew toṣe. The ASV’s ‘brought forth’ is a nice solid literal translation of the underlying Hebrew word. For some reason, the WEB here reads ‘yielded’, which unfortunately is the same English word that the WEB uses in this same verse for mazriaʿ (‘produce seed’).
12. producing seed. As in verse 11.
12. of various kinds. As in verse 11.
12. with their seeds in it (WEB). As in verse 11.
14. sky-dome. We have already discussed, in the notes on verses 6-8, why ‘dome’ is preferable to ‘firmament’ or ‘expanse’ as a rendering of raqiaʿ. And in the note on 8, why ‘sky’ is better than ‘heaven’ for šamayim. We would already, then, be justified in reading ‘in the dome of sky’. But ‘of’ seems a clumsy addition, not required by the Hebrew birqiaʿ ha- šamayim, a phrase which could very literally be read as ‘in the sky-dome’.
14. for signs, and for seasons. Grammatically, the ASV’s reading is tightly parallel to that of the Hebrew: “for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years”. The WEB, however, rearranges things a bit, adding to the words ‘to mark’, and reading “signs to mark seasons, days, and years”. It seems to me that the WEB’s rearrangement is unjustified. This is particularly true if the word signs is meant to bring to mind the idea of portents or omens. The WEB’s reading excludes this possibility, and narrows down the function of the heavenly bodies to nothing more than routine timekeeping.
14. signs. Driver interprets this term as referring to the use of the heavenly bodies for seeing directions, for interpreting the passage of seasons, and "perhaps also, by extraordinary phenomena, as eclipses, portending (as antiquity believed) extraordinary occurrences ... Comp[are] the manner in which the prophets sometimes represent extraordinary darkenings of the heavenly bodies as acommpanying great political catastrophe ([Amos 8:9; Ezekiel 32:7; Isaiah 13:10]); see also Joel 2:31, Luke 21:25. However, an undue regard to such 'signs of heaven' is condemned in Jer[emiah 10:2]."
14. seasons. According to Driver, the primary sense of the Hebrew word here refers to the fixed times of the year, such as the times for festivals, animal migration, and so on. Perhaps what we today call the four seasons are included in this, but that is not the main meaning of the term.
15. (and preceding). Driver points out, following Dillmann, that the picture here is strongly at odds with the polytheistic concept of the heavenly bodies as deities. Instead, they are sources of light and timing, made for the use of human beings.
15, 17. sky-dome. As in verse 14.
16. light. It is often remarked that the writer here goes out of his way to avoid using the terms "Sun" and "Moon", perhaps due to connections with polytheism, but instead simply refers to them generically as "lights". This is one of several details marshalled in the argument that Genesis has a de-mythologizing program.
16. and the stars. This is the most literal translation of the Hebrew – the words ‘and the stars’ just sit at the end of the verse, like an afterthought. Some would say that this is purposeful: the Genesis story is written in deliberate contrast to polytheistic mythologies which give a prominent place to stars, while Genesis 1 reduces the host of heaven to physical objects. The ASV reads “he made the stars also”, with the words he made in italics. This is a convention that extends back at least to the KJV, which to this day traditionally puts English words in italics if those individual words do not have direct counterparts in the original text. This translation will dispense with most of the ASV’s use of italics, occasionally using brackets [ ] for the same purpose. See, in the appendix “Recurring Issues”, Italicization. Where the ASV shows perhaps a bit of modesty about its addition by enclosing he made in italics, the WEB sets aside an entire sentence: “He also made the stars”. This seems a bit much, when the original text reads simply ‘and the stars’.
18. to rule. If the wording of v. 16 is intentionally de-mythologizing, it is curious that the unnamed sun and moon are now described as "rulers". Apparently the author has not chosen to completely remove anthromorphic language for the host of heaven.
20. swarm with swarms. The ASV parallels the Hebrew here: an etymologically related verb and noun. Why flatten this to just the word abound? And replacing it with abound introduces an inconsistency into the WEB, which seems perfectly content to render the same underlying Hebrew word as swarm in verse 21.
20. birds. Or, more precisely, flying things. As Driver points out, "the term may include insects" (see Leviticus 11:20-23).
20. across the sky-dome. Hebrew ʿal-pnei rᵉqiaʿ ha-šamayim. This is rendered pretty directly by ‘across the sky-dome’. The WEB’s ‘in the open expanse of the sky’ is unjustifiable on at least two counts – the raqiaʿ of Genesis is a solid dome rather than an expanse. And there is certainly no Hebrew word meaning ‘open’ here. The expression ‘open expanse’ is a clear reading of modern cosmology back into a text that is in no way modern. Cf. Driver, Genesis.
20. At the end of this verse, Kittel says one should add, "And it was so."
21. the great sea-monsters (Hebrew ha-tanninim ha-gᵉdolim). Reading ‘large sea creatures’ obscures the mythological overtones of the Hebrew word tanninim, for which compare Psalm 74:13 and 148:7, Isaiah 27:1 and 51:9, Jeremiah 51:34, and Ezekiel 29:3. In the creation stories of some neighboring cultures, creatures like the tanninim represent the chaos-waters, and must be killed by the creation hero before the world can be brought to order. However, the God of Genesis 1 creates by speaking, and does not need to fight with his creation. The KJV is over-specific in reading the word as "whales".
21. moves. The ASV has moveth, which is simply the archaic equivalent of the word that is now moves. Where the ASV has archaic verbal forms, I will side with WEB in modernizing them. I will not note every instance of this issue. It is registered in the appendix “Recurring Issues” under the entry Verbal Forms.
The Hebrew verb here translated "move" is RMŚ, for which "move" is an unfortunately non-specific translation, though I'm not sure what word should replace it. This verb also appears in verse 24.
21. wherewith is best replaced by its contemporary equivalent, with which.
21. in their various kinds (Hebrew lᵉminehem … lᵉminehu). Like in 1:11, the problem is that ‘after their kind’ is no longer comprehensible English.
22. *Be fruitful, and multiply.** Driver notes that "be fruitful and multiply" is a phrase repeated in several places by the Priestly source.
24. bring forth. This is a nice literal rendering of the Hebrew toṣe, and has a nice literary ring, so it seems sad to replace it with the more abstract and sterile ‘produce’.
24. of every kind. Hebrew lᵉminah. The problem with ‘after their kind’ is that it doesn’t really mean anything in today’s English.
24. livestock. Hebrew bᵉhemah. The category is broader than just ‘bovines’, as the word ‘cattle’ (KJV) might suggest. This issue will reappear a number of times, but I will not note every case. It is filed under CATTLE in the appendix “Recurring Words”.
24. and crawling things. The Hebrew, despite the WEB, does contain ‘and’ (w-) before remeś (‘creeping thing’, ‘crawling thing’). The Hebrew distribution of w-s, I think, suggests that living creatures is the broad category (living things), while livestock, crawling things, and beasts of the earth (i.e. wild animals) are the three sub-categories mentioned immediately afterward. The idea that a list of these three sub-categories might be used to represent animal life as a whole is reinforced by the reappearance of all three in verse 25.
24. crawling. Though even the word crawling might not quite be adequate, the word creep in today’s English is no longer appropriate for the sort of animal here referred to: probably small and/or swarming critters of some sort. I will not note every occurrence of this or related terms; see the entry CREEP in the appendix “Recurring Words”.
One reason to think the word "crawling" is not a perfect equivalent for the Hebrew term RMŚ is that the term is also used for the movement of fishes in verse 21. Driver quotes Dillmann, who says it is used of creatures which "move along the ground either without feet, or with imperceptible feet". According to Driver this includes reptiles and "small creatures with more than four feet". So we might say that the three broad classes of animals are the domestic animals (cattle, sheep, goats, etc.); the wild beasts; and the various little critters that skitter about the earth.
24. wild animals. The Hebrew expression, ‘living thing of the earth’ refers specifically to wild animals.
25. wild animals … of every kind … livestock … crawls. All three expressions as in verse 24.
26. Let us. The WEB has the contraction ‘Let’s’. The WEB does this in an attempt to communicate a tone of informality. This is, for one thing, simply a mistake in most of the Hebrew Bible, which is generally self-consciously formal in its presentation. For another thing, it introduces a jarring set of tone shifts, because the WEB, while it mechanically inserts contractions, fails to establish an evenly informal tone, and frequently retains all sorts of formal and even stilted language from the ASV. Thus, in just this verse, the WEB has both Let’s and have dominion coexisting in a single statement. I think the best thing to do is just revert to the ASV’s practice of not using contractions, unless there is some specific context that calls out for them. This is filed under Contractions in the appendix “Recurring Issues”.
On a more substantial note, the plural is interesting. According to what Driver calls "the general Jewish interpretation", God is speaking to the angels. But do the angels participate in creating humanity? A traditional Christian interpretation is that this refers to the Trinity, but Trinitarian thought developed after the Hebrew Bible was written. Driver calls the usage here a "plural of majesty".
26. man. It is difficult to defend translating the Hebrew ʾadam as ‘man’, given that the term includes both male and female humans, and that there exists a Hebrew word ʾiš which is more suitable for use when referring to ‘man’ as opposed to ‘woman’. However, if we are to translate ʾadam as ‘human being’ throughout the early chapters of Genesis, then we produce such unfortunate phrases as ‘the human being and his wife’ (Genesis 2:25). That seems scarcely better. For now, I will begrudgingly let the language of the ASV and WEB stand here.
26. *after our likeness.** The Samaritan Pentateuch and Septuagint read "and after our likeness" (Kittel, see also Driver).
26. sky. See the note on 1:6-8.
26. all the earth. Hebrew KL HʾRṢ. The other items in the list (fish, birds, domestic animals) suggest that instead of KL HʾRṢ, originally probably KL ḤYT HʾRṢ was intended (literally "every beast of the earth", meaning, every wild animal). And, in fact, the equivalent of KL ḤYT HʾRṢ is found in the Peshitta (Driver).
27. the image of God. WEB reads ‘God’s image’. In view of the way that ‘image of God’ has entered the English language as a stock phrase, I have decided to retain it.
28. fill. The ASV reads ‘replenish’, which in older forms of English was simply a synonym for ‘fill’.
28. subdue. "The word ([kabash], -- properly, tread down) is used of the subjugation of a conquered territory, Nu[mbers 32:22]; Josh[ua 18:1]" (Driver).
28. sky. See the note on 1:6-8.
After the word "sky", Kittel says we should insert "and over the livestock", following the Septuagint and Peshitta.
28. crawls. The ASV and WEB are inconsistent here in rendering the same Hebrew word as “creep” in verses 26 and 30, but as “move” in 28. This inconsistency goes back to the KJV, whose translators were perhaps trying to break up the repetition. For more on the general issue of the word ‘creep’ as it appears in ASV, see the entry CREEP in the appendix “Recurring Words”.
29-30. It is often noticed that, in these verses, it appears that humans and animals were prescribed a vegetarian diet in the idealized past. No mention is made here of eating flesh, which is given to Noah after the flood in a passage which includes sacrifice (9:2). "The idea that in the 'Golden Age' the first men lived only on vegetable food is found also in classical writers," notes Driver, giving as examples Plato and Ovid.
29. face. As in verse 2.
29. every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed. This expression is awkward in English because it is awkward in Hebrew. The WEB smooths over this rough patch.
29. seed ... fruit. In ancient agricultural societies, grains tended to make up the bulk of human diets, so it makes sense that Genesis would start with seeds when describing God's design for the human diet. Fruits were also important in the Hebrew Bible. Deuteronomy 8:8, listing the foodstuffs of the land of Canaan, provides a list of seeds and fruits: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and (date) honey. "The idea that in the 'Golden Age' the first men lived only on vegetable food is found also in classical writers," notes Driver, giving as examples Plato and Ovid.
29. serve as. Literally ‘be for’. Though the ASV comes closer to the literal construction of the Hebrew than the WEB does here, it still seemed that the ASV’s approach could be made a little bit smoother English.
30. beast of the earth. Given that ‘beast’ and ‘animal’ are synonyms, and given that ‘animal’ is in wider use in contemporary English, it might at first glance be tempting to follow the WEB’s lead and substitute ‘animal’. However, at the level of the phrase, the Hebrew expression ḥayyat ha-ʾareṣ – very literally, ‘living thing of the earth’ – is an idiom that means ‘wild animal’. Once we know that the Hebrew text wishes to express that these are specifically wild animals, then ‘beast’ has better connotations for that job than ‘animal’. But this raises another question. If we want to talk about wild animals, why bother with a circumlocution like ‘beast of the earth’. Why not just say ‘wild animal’? Here we bump up against a problem of how the portrait of Genesis 1 as a whole is painted. Genesis 1 concerns itself with three habitats – earth, sea, sky – and their inhabitants, such as the ‘beasts of the earth’, the ‘fish of the sea’, and ‘the birds of the sky’. Given how Genesis 1 repeatedly and deliberately chooses phrases that connect types of animals with their habitats, in that case something would be lost in the parallelism of phrases when ‘beast of the earth’ is replaced with ‘wild animal’. And so I think ‘beast of the earth’ should stay.
30. sky. See the note on 1:6-8
30. [I have given]. The words "I have given" seem to be missing in the Hebrew Text, and Kittel says that the text should include them. See the NETS translation of the Septuagint for the entirely different structure of 29-30 in the Septuagint.
30. every green plant. Hebrew KL YRQ ʿŚB, which KJV, ASV, WEB read as "every green herb". It is better to read, as many translations do, "every green plant", because the term "herb" has become loaded with the idea specifically of plant foods that are used in small quantities to season food or for medicine, and nothing so specific is meant here. However, if we follow Driver, even "green plant" is not quite right here -- YRQ ʿŚB should be understood to mean (my paraphrase) "all the greenery of plants", which in Driver's mind refers specifically to leaves. In this understanding of 29-30, then, humans are given grains or seeds and fruits, while animals are given leaves (including blades of grass?) to eat.
I do know of one translation that seems to follow Driver's train of thought -- the Good News Translation reads "grass and leafy plants". According to DCH, the exact meaning of YRQ ʿŚB is unclear.
31. the sixth day. One of the curious features of Genesis 1 in Hebrew is that the article is reserved for the sixth day. That is, there is ‘a third day’, ‘a fourth day’, ‘a fifth day’, and then ‘the sixth day’. But the WEB reads ‘a sixth day’, making the English style more consistent than the Hebrew. But perhaps the Hebrew text is deliberately marking off the sixth and final day of creation. After, this is the only day which is very good; while on other days God only evaluates his creation as good.
2:1. To very strictly preserve the word order of the Hebrew of this verse, one might read: Then were finished the sky, and the earth, and all their host. Three things are finished, and they are listed together, with no verb intervening between them. Thus, it is the WEB that comes closest to the word order of the Hebrew.
1. host. The Hebrew term is ṣabaʾ, a term most commonly used for an army. It is also used of the heavenly bodies, the ‘host of heaven’, especially in contexts where they are treated as deities (e.g. Deuteronomy 4:19). In this way, the use of the Hebrew term parallels the English term host, which is used both in a stricter sense for an army, but also in a looser sense to refer to a great number of something. While there are many biblical references to heavenly bodies or beings being referred to as a ṣabaʾ, it is only in this verse that a ṣabaʾ of ‘heaven and earth’ appears, and it must refer to both the heavenly bodies and the earthly beings created in Genesis 1, which are collectively pictured as a sort of ‘army’ over which God presides. Compare the common biblical title YHWH ṣebaʾot, commonly translated ‘Lord of Hosts’. What the rendering ‘vast array’ has going for it is that it very clearly communicates the referent of the term ‘army’ to the reader; its drawback is that it hides the term itself. One could say that ‘vast array’ is more a commentary on than a translation of the Hebrew term.
2. on the seventh day God finished. The Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint, and Peshitto read, "on the sixth day God finished".
If the "sixth day" reading is not original, it may reflect an attempt to avoid the implication that perhaps God is continuing to "work" on the seventh day. The seven days of creation are plainly intended to mirror the seven days of the week, so that the seventh day represents the Sabbath. If the passage is to make metaphorical sense, then, a reader must take "finished" not in the sense that God had carried out most of his work on the previous six days and did the last bits on the seventh. Rather, the seventh day he "finished" his work by not working at all (Driver).
2. rested. According to Driver, "desisted" would be a better reading, as šabat here stresses the non-continuation of work, not relaxation per se. Compare Genesis 8:22 and Isaiah 14:4.
2. done … done. The Hebrew verb, ʿaśaʾ, is a very common, very general word for a broad range of actions, and is often translated ‘do’ or ‘make’. In this case, the WEB’s ‘done’ seems just a little bit more natural in this context to the ASV’s ‘made’, but I have no real objection to either choice.
3. made it holy. This means the same thing as the ASV’s hallowed, but hallowed may perhaps be a stretch for many of today’s readers.
3. on it he rested. Mimicking the word order of the Hebrew, which I think also manages to work despite not being the most default casual word order in Hebrew.
3. creation which God had done. Hebrew ʾašer baraʾ ʾelohim laʾaśot. The exact relationship between the verbs ‘create’ and ‘do’ here is not reproducible in perfectly literal English, but I think the ASV’s rendering better shows the relationship than the simple ‘created and made’. Goodness knows Hebrew is not lacking in parataxis, and it seems a bit strange to use it in English where the Hebrew chooses not to. Driver suggests "because that in it he desisted from all his business, in doing which God had created, i.e. which he had creatively done.."
Additionally, note that the word God does appear explicitly here in the Hebrew; not just a pronoun as in the WEB.
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