there two accounts, the one putting the creative acts into the mouth of God, and the other describing them in narrative? One phenomenon strikes us at once as encouraging this idea. Just as the refrain "and so it was" was found to follow the verses of the Divine commands, so do we find the phrase," and God saw that it was good," following the verses of narrative. They occur in this way in verses 12, 18, 21, 25 and 31, after five out of the eight acts; and also in verses 4 and 10, under rather different circumstances, yet probably by the same writer, since in both cases the other writer's description has been already finished off by, "and Light was" (v. 3), "and so it was" (v. 9). On examining the Hebrew text more minutely to see whether it aids or contradicts this theory, we discover several points that aid it most strikingly, and can hardly be otherwise accounted for. The Divine Commands have the created things always without article (vv. 3, 6, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26); the Narrative makes them definite (vv. 7, 16, 21, 25 and 37; v. 12 exceptionally leaves them indefinite). Now, although in the present context the definite article may in verses 7 and 16 be accounted for because the firmament and the luminaries denote those announced in the preceding verses, yet in the other instances, where the second account often uses different words from the first, the phenomenon cannot be so explained. Again, the form ?, ?, after his kind, after their kind, is very peculiar, having a pronominal suffix which is scarcely found elsewhere in the whole Bible

it occurs in the ; לְמִינָם לְמִינוֹ the regular forin being)

Narrative, in verses 12 (twice), 21 (twice), and 25, to the exclusion of the regular form; and the latter alone is found in the Commands in verse 11; verse 24 furnishes no,instance, since the feminine suffix, which exhibits no variety, is used both times there, as also in the first two instances in v. 25. A characteristic feature of the Commands is the use of a verb and object from the same root, as, "Let the water swarm a swarm of animal life" so v. 11, NI NUTA,

the ; עוֹף יְעוֹפֵף יִשְׁרְצוּ שֶׁרֶץ ,20 .see also v. 29), v) מַזְרִיעַ זֶרַע

Narrative avoids all these except the second, which is by far the least peculiar of them.-To the account of the creation of the Luminaries as the Commands in vv. 14, 15 give it, and the Narrative in vv. 16-18 repeat it, the latter adds that they are "to make a division between the light and the darkness;" but this could not possibly be written by

the writer of the words in verse 4, "and God made a division between the light and the darkness;" since that had been already long effected:-here is discrepancy as to fact.

If there are two writers, we can have no hesitation in pronouncing the author of the Commands to be the earlier; for (1) we shewed how deep-rooted was the idea of the Divine acts, and preeminently the first acts of creation, being effected through Words; (2) the Words form a connected story, which the Narrative does not; (3) the Commands exhibit a racier and more original style, especially in the "swarming a swarm," &c.; but also in the use of other peculiar words, arian, Ding, neŋde, y77; the other writer, though in ? he uses an unusual form, in general makes an easy paraphrase of the peculiar phrases of his predecessor. The verses in which God gives names to created things, and those in which he blesses them, naturally belong to the writer who attributes speech to him, the writer of the Commands. We shall now have no difficulty in dividing the chapter between its two writers. One or two irregularities must be assumed. The Narrative has lost its commencement, and begins (as we have it) with the creation of the Firmament in v. 7; before that we have only the fragment in v. 4, "and God saw the light that it was good." The words "and so it was" at the end of v. 7 should obviously, from the analogy of all the other passages, conclude v. 6; and we may conjecture that the words "and God saw that it was good" have dropped out from v. 7. At the end of v. 20 the words "and so it was" have dropped out, as already noticed. The result of this inquiry appears below, where the two writers are exhibited side by side. The sentences are abridged in order not to occupy too much space.

COMMANDS.
First Act.

1 In the beginning of God's forming the heavens and the earth... 23 God said: "Let LIGHT be!" and Light was. 4b And God made a division between the light and the darkness; 5 and God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.

NARRATIVE.
First Act.

4a And God saw the Light, that it was good.

We are now able, in conclusion, to reconsider the analogy between the two equal sections of the Creation. As given above, it broke down at several places. If the three days of each section represent respectively heaven (air), water and earth, then how comes it that the firmament, which is declared to be the heaven, belongs to the second day? and that the birds are produced in connection with the fishes and the water, not with the sky, their natural element? A hint of the correct arrangement may be found in verse 26, where all the animals, having been then created, are enumerated in the order natural to the writer, which he would doubtless observe elsewhere also: "the fishes of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, &c. upon the earth;" and let it be noticed that each domain of the world has a class of animals assigned to it. Here the order is: water, sky, earth; exactly as in verses 20 and 24. The living and moving population of the heaven or air is therefore not to be found in the Luminaries of the fourth day, but in the birds of the fifth. This relieves us at once from the embarrassing necessity under which the former system laboured, of saying that the Luminaries, from their motion, were treated as the quasi-animate population of the heaven. But more and better remains to be shewn. In the first section it was clearly wrong to say that heaven, water and earth were created or arranged on the first three days respectively. The Light of the first day can be treated as equivalent to heaven only by a straining of the sense at least as great as

that required to make animated beings out of the luminaries of the corresponding fourth day; and the heaven is distinctly affirmed to be created with the settling of the waters on the second. The second day must be said to witness the ordering of both water and heaven; which agrees exactly with the fact observed of the fifth, that on it the animal tenants of both those regions were created. The following is therefore the corrected system:

ACT 1. LIGHT.
Act 2. Water.

Heaven.

Act 3. Earth.

Act 4. Plants.

ACT 5. LUMINARIES.

Act 6. Fishes.

Birds.

Act 7. Land-animals.
Act 8. Men.

Light, in truth, belongs to no one section of the universe, but pervades them all; it is the soul of the universe, the source of life to all, as we saw before; and it therefore stands rightly at the head of the series, not as one element equal with those that follow, but as supreme above them, virtually containing them all in itself. We are again brought by a different route to the same grand idea which we reached before, that the great creative word, which comprises all others, is, "Let Light be !"-Water, heaven and earth, then follow in natural order. The creation of the two former is in the Hebrew account so blended into onethe creation of a firmament being in itself that which put the waters in the places and functions they were to maintain that we cannot separate them to make the two creative acts which we should desire; but it is interesting to see how exactly the acts of the second section observe the same anomaly. To the creation of earth is appended, as a distinct act, that of plants; to which in the second section that of men corresponds; for somewhat as water, heaven and earth were made for fishes, birds and beasts respectively, so plants were made specially for man (v. 29), who is conceived as strictly vegetarian in this age; the lower animals being in v. 30 admitted to a share in one part only of the vegetable kingdom.*

RUSSELL MARTINEAU.

I need not seriously regret this abrupt conclusion, which leaves a few points still unnoticed, because it is my intention in a future article to continue the subject and consider the other account of the Creation (Gen. ii.).