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27,299 commentary entries
The Pulpit Commentary
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 1:20-22
The mystery of life. I. ITS ORIGIN. 1. Not dead matter. Scripture, equally with science, represents life as having a physical basis; but, unlike modern evolutionists, never confounds vital force with the material mechan…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 1:20-23
The fifth day. I. LIVE UNDER THE BLESSING OF GOD. 1. Abundance. Swarming waters, swarming air? preparing for the swarming earth. "Be fruitful, and multiply." The absence of all restraint because as yet the absence of si…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 1:21
Day six. Like day three, this is distinguished by a double creative act, the production of the higher or land animals and the creation of man, of the latter of which it is perhaps permissible to see a mute prediction in…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 1:21
And God created (bara, is in Genesis 1:1, to indicate the introduction of an absolutely new thing, viz; the principle of animal life) great whales. Tanninim, from tanan; Greek, ?琯菅챙 館?; Latin, tendo; Sansc; tan, to stre…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 1:23
And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. If of the previous creative days geological science has only doubtful traces, of this it bears irrefragable witness. When the first animal life was Introduced upon our…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 1:24-31
The sixth day. We pass from the sea and air to the earth. We are being led to man. Notice?? I. THE PREPARATION IS COMPLETE. Before the earth receives the human being, it brings forth all the other creatures, and God see…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 1:24-31
EXPOSITION
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 1:25
And God made (asah, not beta, the principle of life being not now introduced for the first time, as in Genesis 1:21) the beast of the earth (the chayyah) after his kind, and cattle (behemah) after their kind, and every…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 1:26
The importance assigned in the Biblical record to the creation of man is indicated by the manner in which it is introduced. And God said, Let us make man. Having already explained the significance of the term Elohim, as…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 1:27
So (or and) God created (bara, as in Genesis 1:1, Genesis 1:21, q.v.) man (literally; the Adam referred to in Genesis 1:26) in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. The thre…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 1:27
The greatness of man. I. THE TIME OF HIS APPEARANCE. The latest of God's works, he was produced towards the close of the era that witnessed the introduction upon our globe of the higher animals. Taking either view of th…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 1:28
And God blessed them. Not him, as LXX. As on the introduction of animal life the Divine Creator conferred on the creatures his blessing, so when the first pair of human beings are formed they are likewise enriched by th…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 1:29
Provision for the sustenance of the newly-appointed monarch and his subjects is next made. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 1:30
And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat. The first of the three classes of plants, gr…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 1:31
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. Literally, lo! good very! Not simply good, but good exceedingly. It is not man alone that God surveys, but the completed cosmos, with man as its c…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 1:31
Perfection. The first chapter closes with a review of the whole work of the six days. God saw it. Behold, it was very good! I. The SATISFACTION was in the completion of the earthly order in man, the highest earthly bein…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 3:1
The tempter. I. WHO TEMPTS? 1. Not the mere serpent. 2. A higher power of evil. 3. This higher power a person. 4. The leader of the fallen angels. II. WHY PERMITTED? Easy to see why moved; why permitted, a mystery. But…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 3:1-7
The moral chaos before the moral restoration. Hitherto the moral nature of man may be said to be absorbed in his religious nature. He has held intercourse with his Creator. He has ruled earth as "the paragon of animals.…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 3:1
Now (literally, and) the serpent. Nachash, from nachash— (a) To make naked; whence atom, plural arumim, naked (Genesis 2:25). (b) To crafty (1 Samuel 23:22). If applied to the serpent in the sense of πανοῦ ργος (Aquila…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 3:1-7
How long the paradisiacal state of innocence and felicity continued the historian does not declare, probably as not falling within the scope of his immediate design. Psalms 49:12 has been thought, though without suffici…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 3:1-7
EXPOSITION
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 3:4
The tempter's chief weapon. Narrative of the fall is of interest not only as the record of how mankind became sinful, but as showing the working of that "lie" (2 Thessalonians 2:11) by which the tempter continually seek…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 3:4
And the serpent said unto the woman. "As God had preached to Adam, so Satan now also preaches to Eve … The object of Satan was to draw away Eve by his word or saying from that which God had said" (Luther). Ye shall not…
The Pulpit Commentary on Genesis 3:5
For ( כִּי—nam, γαρ, for because; assigning the reason God doth know. Thus the serpent practically charges the Deity with (a) in affirming that to be true which he knew to be false; (b) in doing this while delivering hi…