CHAPTER VI.

THE historian now arrives at his Fourth Article, and at the great and signal facts which it reveals. He relates:

66

"And GOD said, Let the LIGHTS in the firma"ment of Heaven for dividing the day and the night, BE for SIGNS, and for SEASONS, and for DAYS "and YEARS; and let them BE for lights in the firmament of Heaven TO GIVE LIGHT UPON THE "EARTH! And it was so.

66

"And GOD made the Two great lights (namely,) THE GREATER LIGHT to RULE the DAY, and THE LESSER LIGHT to RULE the NIGHT, together with the stars. And GOD disposed them in "the firmament of Heaven TO GIVE LIGHT UPON

66

THE EARTH, and to RULE the DAY and the

66 NIGHT. And God saw that it was good.

66

"And the evening and the morning were the

FOURTH DAY."

1. The declaration of this important article, is of the utmost consequence to all the preceding exposition, because, it proves and establishes its

correctness.

It is truly and excellently remarked by Rosenmuller-that "if any one, who is con

VOL. I.

"versant with the genius of the Hebrew, and "free from any previous bias of his judgment, "will read the words of this article in their "natural connexion, he will immediately per

66

66

66

66

ceive; that they import the direction, or determination of the heavenly bodies to certain uses which they were to render to the earth. The words лare not to be separated from the rest, or to be rendered, fiant luminaria, - let there be lights; i. e. let lights be made; but rather, let lights be, that is, serve, in the expanse of Heaven -inserviant in expanso cælorum-for distinguishing between day and night; and let them be, or serve, for signs, &c. For we are to observe, "that the verb, , to be, in construction with "the prefix, for, is generally employed to express the direction or determination of a thing to "an end; and not the production of the thing:

66

66

66

66

e. g. Num. x. 31, Zech. viii. 19, and in many "other places." This observation, is most just and sound; and it is indispensably necessary, for the true apprehension of the passage before us.

2. The word no-lights, signifies, apparent luminaries: as, in common language, we call light

naries

8, that which is diffused as an effect, without referring to the cause; but, we call lights or lumiл, the sources of that light, as lamps, or candles. The same distinction between a sensible effect and a sensible cause, is found in the different significations of these words, and

φως and φωστήρες. The sensible effect, was

produced on the first day; the sensible cause, is to be revealed on this fourth day.

3. The Hebrew word which we render " rule," is ; a word, whose primitive and radical sense Michaelis could not trace in any of the surviving dialects of the East; from whence he conjectured, "that it was either an Hebrew word which early "became obsolete, or that it was an exotic word anciently adopted into the Hebrew1." Its general signification, is known to be dominari, imperare to rule; but, a question arises, in what sense were those lights to RULE? since the lunar light is not constant through all the nights of the year, as the solar is through all the days. The Greek version has rendered it by appe; which word has the double sense, of imperare and inchoare, to rule and to begin. Now, the old Latin Version enables us to determine, in which of those senses the apxew of the Greek was anciently understood in this place, by rendering it inchoare, ad inchoationem― to begin; which interpretation, fixes the sense of imperare to that of præire, ducere-to precede, or rule by leading: for, though imperator

αρχειν

1 See above, p. 176.

* Homer uses agxu in the same sense : Il. i. 495.

So again in Il. iii. 420, ΗΡΧΕ δε δαιμων -PREIBAT autem Dea.

and dur have a general sense in common, yet, each has a special and peculiar sense. To rule, in the sense of ducere, implies the precedency of a ruler at the head of his host, where he is both "dux et princeps, dux et præfectus;" titles, which are often so united in the same individual. In this sense, as the day was to be led or ushered in by the solar orb', as its ruler, so was the night to be led or ushered in by the lunar: which further implies, that the moon displayed its orb upon the fourth evening at the time when that of the sun disappeared, and that it thus introduced the night.

4. But, the difference between the singular and the plural, in the 14th verse, demands a corresponding difference in the interpretation; and therefore, if we would make that difference apparent, we must thus literally interpret: "FIAT

66

-luminaria in firmamento cæli ad dividendum "inter diem et noctem, UT SINT in signa, et tempora, "et in dies, et in annos; ET SINT-ad illuminandum

66

super terram:" i. e. "Fiat ut luminaria sint "in signa, &c. et ad illuminandum," &c. The particle, signifies ut, in upwards of 300 passages and m, signifies ut sint, in several of these. This interpretation, therefore, will yield this literal sense in our language: "LET IT BE,

'Jamque jugis summæ surgebat Lucifer Idæ,
DUCEBATque diem.

2 NOLDIUS, Concord. Heb. p. 307.

En. ii. 802.

66

66

"that the lights in the firmament of Heaven for dividing between the day and the night BE for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years," &c. i. e. "LET THE LIGHTS, &c., BE for signs, "&c. :" so just and important is Rosenmuller's induction from the construction of this passage; "de determinatione astrorum ad certos quosdam usus "orbi terrarum præstandos, esse sermonem-non "de eorum productione1.-That the historian speaks of the determination of the stars to "certain uses which they were to render to the "earth, and not of their first formation."

II. In this article, the historian relates; that, after that portion of the mineral surface of the globe which had been extricated from the waters, and which, when it appeared, was axaтασxuαOTOS

-ungarnished, had received its universal garniture of vegetation; this new order of matter was, upon this fourth day, to experience the immediate and unobstructed influence of the cause of light and heat. Upon this day, therefore, the clouds which had hitherto loaded the atmosphere, and which had excluded the heavenly luminaries, were for the first time to be dispelled; and those splendid bodies, were to acquire their first optical existence with relation to this earth. The amazing Calendar of the Heavens, ordained to serve for the notation of time in all human concerns, civil and religious, so long as time and man should continue, was

1 ROSENMULLER, Sen. p. 61, 62.