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in the Scriptures primarily to denote is, both are, on the whole, capable of the setting apart. devoting, or appro- doing as much, with this weekly alterpriating any thing from a common to nation of rest, as they could confortaa peculiar and generally to a sacred use. bly perform without it. The rest of the Thus God is said to have sanctified,' Sabbath, therefore, is to be considered or set apart for a holy use, the first- as an indispensable part of its due obfruits of the earth, the tabernacle with servance; nor can we rid ourselves of its various furniture, the tribe of Levi the obligation by merely abstaining to the office of priests, &c. In this from bodily labour, while we are othsense to sanctify is the same as to 'hal-erwise occupied as during the week. It low,' and is opposed to calling or treat- is the allotment of one man to be eming any thing as 'unclean,' or 'common.'ployed at manual labour, and of anothThe sanctification of the seventh day er to be employed chiefly in mental exin the present case, can only be under-ertion; and if the rest of the Sabbath stood of its being set apart to the special had been designed only as a cessation worship and service of God; for it is of bodily labour, to a large proportion to be remembered, that at this time, of mankind it would have been inapevery thing was holy as far as moral plicable. But this is not the case. purity was concerned. Every day ofSix days shall thou labour, and do all the week, as well as the seventh, was thy work-whatever it may be 'but in this sense kept holy to God, and it the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord could only be sanctified or set apart, by thy God in it thou shalt not do any being set apart for the objects just sta- work, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughted. Thus the rest of the Sabbath was to ter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy be from the beginning a holy rest; and maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy as these ideas enter so essentially into stranger that is within thy gates.' Ex. the nature of this institution, it may be 20. 9, 10. The rest of the Sabbath is proper to dwell upon them a little more here made obligatory on all classes in at length. (1.) The Sabbath is to be a general, whether accustomed to manuday of rest. This formed a prominent al labour or not, and it cannot be dispart of its original design, and is in puted, that the precept applies to every fact the most elementary view which species of occupation. It is indeed, can be taken of the institution. Rest true, that from this universal rest of the is essential to the Sabbath. It is this Sabbath, there are certain exceptions, which constitutes it a Sabbath; and usually comprised under the head of which must be observed on the part of works of necessity and mercy, and so all for whom the Sabbath was intend- far as our circumstances place us under ed. The day is, under every dispensa- any of these exceptions, we ought readtion, a portion of time which the Crea-ily and cheerfully to forego our enjoytor has reserved for the rest of all his creatures that require it-for the rest of man and as many of the inferior animals as are subservient to his use and sharers of his toil. It is thus to the other days of the week, what night is to day, and winter to summer; nor is there reason to believe, were there no such rest allowed, that either men or beasts of burden would be able to sustain, for any length of time, the unabated waste of continual labour. But as it

ment of rest, and to fulfil every duty. But let us not be partial judges. We ought to judge and feel, not as if we wished to get rid of the restriction, but as if, desirous of observing the Sabbath, we yielded ourselves to another duty according to the will of God. In the exercise of such feelings we are little likely to err on this head; and in the absence of them, there can be no right observance of the Sabbath, under any circumstances. (2.) The Sabbath is to

be a day of holy rest. We have hither- | words; then shalt thou delight thyself to considered the day, simply as a day in the Lord,' &c. Anything short of of rest, and in this light, the invasion of this is a virtual desecration of this holy its sanctity may be summed up under season, which not only deprives us of its the general fault of carrying forward inestimable benefits, but lays us open to the employments of the week into the the.nost marked tokens of the divine disrest of the Sabbath. But mere absti-pleasure.- -¶Because that in it he had nence from worldly labour, so far from rested, &c. These words assign a reabeing all that the appointment requires son for the institution, and a powerful of us, only affords an opportunity for motive to its observance. The appointthe due discharge of other duties, on ment of the Sabbath as a day of rest which its observance more strictly de- is here enforced by the example of God's pends. We come short of the divine rest after the completion of the six requisition, unless we hallow or set days' work. The institution is thus apart the rest thus reserved to the spe- presented to us not merely in the light cial service of the living God, as a day of an arbitrary enactment, but as cloth to be religiously observed, as a season to ed with the constraining moral power, be spent in the various appropriate ex- which naturally attaches to such a preercises of public and private worship. ce lent. Such is the innate and invetIt is to be feared that this duty is but ||erate apathy of our nature to exercises imperfectly appreciated even by many of a purely spiritual character, that inwho admit, and, in form, observe the finite wisdom sees fit to superadd the Sabbath as a day of rest. It is to be force of endearing motives to naked feared that there are many who dis- precepts, and thus allure an obedience continue their ordinary occupations on which it might properly compel. True the Lord's day, and are nevertheless it is that the Sabbath was subsequentSabbath profaners, inasmuch as they ly changed from the seventh, to the carry their observance no farther. Are first day of the week, but this change they not such who rest upon the Sab- of the day under the Christian disbath only by resting a great part of the │pensation, makes no essential differday in their beds, and spend the re-ence in the character of the season, or mainder of it in idle sauntering or vain of the duties which it demands. Ad. recreation? 'Is this the rest that I ditional considerations do indeed, conhave chosen?' may the Lord very prop-nect themselves with the spiritual duerly say of such a mode of devoting the ties of the day, enforced by more solemn consecrated hours. We have only to and sublime sanctions, but the essence revert to the original design of the insti- of the institution is the devoting of one tution to see that this is a most gross seventh part of our time to the more perversion of the rest which it enjoins. immediate service of God, and whether God intended by its appointment to this comes on the seventh or the first secure to all men a seventh portion of day of the week is immaterial. It is their time for the special business of plain from the drift of the passage that eternity, and how this end is to be at- the Sabbath is to be regarded as a comtained his own word explicitly instructs memorative institution. Its stated reus, Is. 58. 13, 'If thou turn away thy currence was designed to remind our foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy first parents of the finished work of pleasure on my holy day; and call the creation and lead them to a devout conSabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord templation of those perfections of the honourable; and shalt honour him not Deity which it displayed. And to doing thine own ways, nor finding thine place this consideration in its proper own pleasure, nor speaking thine own light, it is to be borne in mind, that at the

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d

4 T These are the generations of the heavens and of the

d ch. 1. 1. Ps. 90. 1, 2.

earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

our heads. -T Which God created and made. Heb. created to make, or to do. This, though different from our mode of expression, is an idiom of the original, implying its being done in the most perfect, excellent, and glorious manner. The word

time of its first appointment, there was no Bible. The revelations which it records had not then been communicated. There was as yet no history of past times to illustrate the character of God, in the works of his providence. What is now called the book of nature, was therefore then the only book to to make, or to do, is frequently which man had access. But with us the case is different. We have other things to celebrate with the periodical returns of this holy day. To us, it is the memorial of a finished redemption,

as well as of a finished creation. While

subjoined to another word, to convey the idea of intensity or of the utmost degree of the action specified. Thus, Eccl. 2. 11, 'The labour that I had laboured to do (b).' Pa. 126.

The Lord hath done great things for

hath magnified to הגדיל לעשות) them

do).' Judg 13. 19, And the angel did wondrously (2) wrought miraculously to do).'

therefore, the primeval ends of the in-2, stitution of the Sabbath hold equally with regard to us, and we are called to observe the day as a season of devout meditation and grateful remembrance of God, as the Creator and bountiful 4. Generations of the heavens and Benefactor of mankind, yet under the the earth. Heb. 15 births. Events Christian dispensation, the day brings of whatever kind are sometimes said in with it far more interesting associations, scripture style to be begotten, as Prov. and the life, death, resurrection, ascen- 27. 1, 'Thou knowest not what a day sion, and mediatorial reign of Christ, may bring forth (7").' See also Ps. all lay claim to our contemplations, 90. 2. Hence the term 'generations' and our praises. This great work of is nearly equivalent to occurrences, inthe Saviour should in fact, constitute cidents, things that happen to any one. the main, the central theme of our med- Gen. 6. 9. 'These are the generations itations. Our services and devotions of Noah,' i. e. the specially memorable I should have a special reference to him; events in the life of Noah. So Gen. 37. 2. for the day is now honoured by a des- Here the phrase, 'the generations of the ignation that makes it peculiarly his-heavens and the earth,' is equivalent to, 'the Lord's day.' On this day his resurrection occurred, and in commemorating that event, we are to look forward to the resurrection of believers, and their entrance upon the promised glory. Thus the Sabbath becomes to us, a prefigurative sign of the rest of heaven. We are to look upon it as a pledge of that eternal salvation, into which we may even now enter by the anticipations of faith, and place ourselves among the ransomed captives, returning to Zion, with songs and everlasting joy upon

'the narrative of the remarkable events
connected with the creation of the
heavens and the earth;' referring to the
account given in the first chapter. The
Septuagint renders it, 'The book of the
Genesis,' &c., i. e. the book or history of
the generations, &c.—¶ In the day.
That is, in or at the time. See the scrip-
tural usage in regard to this word illus-
trated in the note on ch. 1. 5.- - The
Lord God made. Heb.
Jehovah Elohim. A new title begins
here to be applied to the Creator which

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is kept up throughout this and the following chapter. The original Jehovah implies the eternal self-existence of the Most High, and his being the cause of all other existence. It is equivalent to the august name, Ex. 3. 14, I AM THAT I AM. The true import of the word is supposed to be declared, Rev. 1. 8, which is, and which was, and which is to come,' i. e. the everlasting; in accordance with which, Rab. Bechai, an ancient Jewish writer, says, 'These three times, past, present, and to come, are comprehended in this proper name, as is known to all.' Why a change in the appellation occurs here it is not easy to say. By some it is considered as strong evidence that this part of the narrative is from another hand than that of Moses. But by comparing the passage with Ex. 6. 3, 'And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them,' it may perhaps be safely maintained, that the title here is not used in allusion to his power like 'Elohim,' but to his actually performing, finishing, or consummating his works. 'As we find him known by his name Jehovah when he appeared to perform what he had promised, so now we have him known by that name when he had perfected what he had begun.' Henry. The Jews attach so much sanctity to this name, that in reading the Hebrew Scriptures, they never, with the single exception of Num. 6. 23, 27, pronounce it, but always substitute 1778 Adonai, another title which is frequently, but not exclusively, applied to the Deity, and which is also in our version rendered Lord. The Scriptures them

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caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not à man ❝ to till the ground.

f Job 38. 26, 27, 28. g ch. 3. 23.

selves, however, afford no warrant for this extreme scrupulousness. If it were lawful for Moses to write the name, it is doubtless lawful for us to read and to speak it, unless expressly forbidden.— As to the origin and import of the English word Lord, it is a derivative from the Anglo-Saxon Hlaford, afterwards contracted into Loverd, and finally into Lord; from Hlaf, bread (whence the English loaf) and Ford, to give out, to supply. Lord, therefore, implies the giver of bread, or him who sustains and nourishes his creatures. The title is highly expressive and appropriate when applied to the universal Benefactor, but it is on the whole to be regretted that the Anglicized Jehovah was not uniformly retained by our translators, wherever the original is 7 Yehovah, as they would thus have avoided giving the same representative (Lord) to two different words in Hebrew, besides doing fuller justice to the sense of the original. But the example of rendering it into another language was first set by the Greek version of the Seventy. And this usage the writers of the New Testament have seen fit to adopt, always employing as its equivalent Kvpios kurios, Lord, and thus establishing a precedent which all modern translators have felt safe in following.

5. And every plant of the field before it was in the earth. That is, these are the generations, or this is the history, of the production of the plants and herbs, prior to the ordinary mode of propagation from the seed. They were produced in their full perfection, by a simple act of omnipotence, without going through the present established process of germination from a seed, or being at all indented to the influence of rain, or

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6 But there went up a mist | man of the dust of the ground, from the earth, and watered the and i breathed into his nostrils whole face of the ground. the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

7 And the LORD God formed

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of human tillage. The Hebrew particle ( terem) rendered 'before' may mean 'not yet,' viz. ' and every plant of the field was not yet in the earth, and every herb of the field had not yet sprung up,' which substantially agrees with the former; the design of the writer being to enhance the wonder of such a production in the absence of all the natural causes which now contribute to it.

eminently distinguished for its fidelity to the original.

7. Formed man of the dust of the ground. Heb. 27 DTN

formed man dust of the ground; i. e. made him to be of the same material as the dust of the ground, so that when he died it might be said that he returned or was resolved into dust. Strictly considered the creation of a living being from a preexisting inert substance can scarcely be distinguished from a creation out of nothing. The same degree of power is requisite in the one case as in the other.- - Breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Heb.

as soine have supposed, that man possesses the vegetative life of plants, the sensitive life of animals, and that higher rational life which distinguishes humanity. Still it is not certain that this is the import of the plural in this word, nor is it possible to say with confidence what is. As to the action here attributed to the Creator, we are not to suppose that any such process was actual

6. But there went up a mist. As this verse reads in our translation it is somewhat singularly introduced; at least, it is not easy to perceive its connection with the context, nor the precise design with which it is here insert- breath of lives; intimating, ed. Probably a more correct rendering of the words is, Neither had there gone up a mist,' &c. The Heb. copulative and is in repeated instances in the scriptures to be rendered nor when the preceding clause or sentence is negative. Thus, Ex. 20. 4, 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image nor (Heb. and) any likeness.' Ps. 44. 19, 'Our heart has not turned back from thee, nor (Heb. and) our steps de-ly performed by him as breathing into clined from thy paths.' Is. 42. 8, 'My glory will I not give to another, nor (Heb. and) my praise to graven images.' The design is still to intimate that the process of vegetation, which usually requires the genial aid of rain or dew, was now miraculously effected without either. So far indeed from there having been a rain, not even a mist had arisen to which the result could be attributed. This rendering occurs in the Arab. version of Saadias and is adopted in that of Junius and Tremellius, which is, for the most part,

the nostrils of the inanimate clay which he had moulded into the human form. This is evidently spoken after the manner of men; and we are merely to understand by it a special act of omnipotence imparting the power of breathing or respiration to the animal fabric that he had formed, in consequence of which it became quickened and converted to a 'living soul,' that is, a living and sentient creature. This act is indicated by the phrase 'breathed into his nostrils,' because the function of respiration is chiefly visible in this part of

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