OF THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES, CALLED
G E N E S I S.
WE have now before us the holy Bible, or book, for so bible signifies. We call it the book, by way
of eminency; for it is incomparably the best book that ever was written, the book of books,
shining like the sun in the firmament of learning, other valuable and useful books, like the moon
and stars, borrowing their light from it. We call it the holy book, because it was written by
holy men, and indited by the Holy Ghost; it is perfectly pure from all falsehood and corrupt
intention; and the manifest tendency of it is to promote holiness among men. The great
things of God's law and gospel are here written to us, that they might be reduced to a greater
certainty, might spread further, remain longer, and be transmitted to distant places and ages
more pure and entire than possibly they could be by report and tradition: and we shall have a
great deal to answer for if these things which belong to our peace, being thus committed to us
in black and white, be neglected by us as a strange and foreign thing,
Hosea 8:12. The scriptures, or writings of the several inspired penmen, from Moses down to St. John, in which
divine light, like that of the morning, shone gradually (the sacred canon being now completed),
are all put together in this blessed Bible, which, thanks be to God, we have in our hands, and
they make as perfect a day as we are to expect on this side of heaven. Every part was good, but
all together very good. This is the light that shines in a dark place
(2 Peter 1:19), and a dark
place indeed the world would be without the Bible.
We have before us that part of the Bible which we call the Old Testament, containing the
acts and monuments of the church from the creation almost to the coming of Christ in the flesh,
which was about four thousand years--the truths then revealed, the laws then enacted, the
devotions then paid, the prophecies then given, and the events which concerned that distinguished
body, so far as God saw fit to preserve to us the knowledge of them. This is called
a testament, or covenant (Diatheke), because it was a settled declaration of the will of God concerning
man in a federal way, and had its force from the designed death of the great testator,
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,
(Revelation 13:8.) It is called the Old Testament,
with relation to the New, which does not cancel and supersede it, but crown and perfect it, by
the bringing in of that better hope which was typified and foretold in it; the Old Testament
still remains glorious, though the New far exceeds in glory,
(2 Corinthians 3:9.)
We have before us that part of the Old Testament which we call the Pentateuch, or five books of
Moses, that servant of the Lord who excelled all the other prophets, and typified the great
prophet. In our Saviour's distribution of the books of the Old Testament into the law, the
prophets, and the psalms, or Hagiographa, these are the law; for they contain not only the
laws given to Israel, in the last four, but the laws given to Adam, to Noah, and to Abraham, in
the first. These five books were, for aught we know, the first that ever were written; for we
have not the least mention of any writing in all the book of Genesis, nor till God bade Moses
write
(Exodus 17:14); and some think Moses himself never learned to write till God set him
his copy in the writing of the Ten Commandments upon the tables of stone. However, we are
sure these books are the most ancient writings now extant, and therefore best able to give us a
satisfactory account of the most ancient things.
We have before us the first and longest of those five books, which we call Genesis, written, some
think, when Moses was in Midian, for the instruction and comfort of his suffering brethren in
Egypt: I rather think he wrote it in the wilderness, after he had been in the mount with God,
where, probably, he received full and particular instructions for the writing of it. And, as he
framed the tabernacle, so he did the more excellent and durable fabric of this book, exactly
according to the pattern shown him in the mount, into which it is better to resolve the certainty
of the things herein contained than into any tradition which possibly might be handed
down from Adam to Methuselah, from him to Shem, from him to Abraham, and so to the
family of Jacob. Genesis is a name borrowed from the Greek. It signifies the original, or
generation: fitly is this book so called, for it is a history of originals--the creation of the
world, the entrance of sin and death into it, the invention of arts, the rise of nations, and
especially the planting of the church, and the state of it in its early days. It is also a history
of generations--the generations of Adam, Noah, Abraham, &c., not endless, but useful genealogies.
The beginning of the New Testament is called Genesis too
(Matthew 1:1,) Biblos geneseos,
the book of the genesis, or generation, of Jesus Christ. Blessed be God for that book which
shows us our remedy, as this opens our wound. Lord, open our eyes, that we may see the
wondrous things both of thy law and gospel!
Matthew Henry "Verse by Verse Commentary for 'Genesis' Matthew Henry Bible Commentary".
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