Ver. 1. All the host of them.] His upper and nether forces, his horse and foot, as it were, all creatures in heaven, earth, or under earth; called God’s host, for their (1) number, (2) order, (3) obedience. These the Rabbins call magnleh cheloth, and matteh cheloth, the upper and lower troops ready pressed. Kimchi
Ver. 2. He rested,] that is, he ceased to create; which work he had done, without either labour or lassitude (Isaiah 40:28) He made all, by command not by works. [nutu, non motu.]
Ver. 3. God blessed the seventh day,] i.e., made it an effectual means of blessing to him that sanctifieth it, as a rest from bodily labour and spiritual idleness, as Ignatius exhorts. And sanctified it,] i.e., consecrated and set it apart for holy use; as they sanctified, that is, appointed Kedesh for a city of refuge (Joshua 20:7, margin.) Εκαστος ημων σαββατιξετω πνευατικως μελετη νομου χαιρων ου σωματος ανσει Ignat. Ep 3, Ad Magnesios. Spac. Europae
Ver. 4. Jehovah God.] Moses first calls God JEHOVAH here, when the universal creation had its absolute being. This is the proper name of God. The Jews pronounce it not; we profane it, which is to them a great stumbling block. The first among the Christians that pronounced Jehovah was Petrus Galatinus. But if ye would pronounce it according to the own letters, it should be Jahua, as Jarmuth, Jagnakob. This essential and incommunicable name of God, is by the more ancient better minded Hebrews called Hashem, “the name,” by an excellency; and Shem hamphorash, “the expounded name,” because it might be expounded by a name of twelve letters, which is this, say they, Ab, Ben veruach hakkodesh, that is, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. They call it also Tetragrammaton, or the name cons isting of four letters. In reference whereunto, likely, the Pythagoreans used to swear by τετιραχτη, quaternity, or the number of four; which they also called “the fountain of everlasting nature,” παγαν αεναου φυσεως.
Ver. 5. The Lord hath caused it to rain.] And none but he can give rain, (Jeremiah 14:22) the means of fruitfulness, which yet he is not tied to as here. The Egyptians used in mockery to tell the Grecians, that if God should forget to rain, they might chance to starve for it.
Ver. 6. But there went up a mist.] The matter of rain: and hereby God tempered the mortar whereof he would make man, as he did the clay with spittle, wherewith he cured the blind. (John 9:6)
Ver. 7. Formed man of the dust.] Not of the rocks of the earth, but dust, that is soon dispersed, to note our frailty, vility, and impurity. [Lutum enim conspurcat omnia, sic et caro.] But why should so glorious a soul (called here Neshamah, of affinity to Shamajim, heaven, whence it came) dwell in this corruptible and contemptible body? For answer, besides God’s will, and for order of the universe, Lombard saith, that by the conjunction of the soul with the body, so far its inferior, man might learn and believe a possibility of the union of man with God in glory, notwithstanding the vast distance of nature, and excellence; the infiniteness of both in God, the finiteness of both in man. And breathed into his nostrils.] The greatest man is but a little air and dust tempered together. [Quidam volunt metaphoram sumptam a vitrorum formatione.] What is man, saith one, but Νους και χους, soul and soil, breath and body, a pile of dust the one, a puff of wind the other, no solidity in either? Man is nothing else but the son of the earth, the nephew of nothing, [terrae filius, nihili nepos] saith Augustine; or a piece of clay neatly made up, as Arian upon Epictetus hath it. And man became a living soul.] Dicaearchus doubted of the soul, whether there was such a thing in natural events. [rerum natural] He could not have doubted of it without it; as man cannot prove logic to be unnecessary, but by logic. Zuinglius. Lomb., l. ii. dis. 1. Nazian. πηλος κομφως πεφυραμενος. Tusc. Quaest.
Ver. 8. And the Lord God planted.] Had planted (to wit, on the third day, when he made trees) for man’s pleasure, a garden or paradise in Eden, whence ηδονη, in the upper part of Chaldea, whereabout Babel was founded. It was destroyed by the deluge; the place indeed remained, but not so the pleasantness of the place, the rose fell and remained thorny. [cecidit rosa, mansit spina] And yet that country is still very fruitful, returning, if Herodotus and Pliny may be believed, the seed beyond credulity. He put the man whom he had formed.] And formed him not far from the garden, say the Hebrews; to mind him that be was not here to set up his rest, but to “wait till his change should come.” Διηκοσια μεν το παραπαν αποδιδοι, Herod., l. i. Pliny, l. vi. c. 26. Donec a spe ad speciem transiret
Ver. 9. Every tree, &c.] The Hebrews think that the world was created in September, because the fruits were then ripe and ready. Επεχω The tree of life also.] A symbolical tree; by the eating of the fruit whereof Adam should have had Gaius’s prosperity, “his body should have been in health, as his soul prospered,” (3 John 2) The tree of knowledge of good and evil.] So called, not because itself either knew, or could cause man to know; but from the event; God forewarning our first parents, that they should know by woeful experience, unless they abstained, what was the worth of good, by the want of it; and what the presence of evil, by the sense of it. In like sort the waters of Meribah, and Kibroth Hattaavah, or the graves of lust, received their names from that which happened in those places.