interpretations are those of men living in the light of an advanced and advancing revelation.1

1. THE IDEAL CONCEPTION OF MAN AND HIS DESTINY."

And God said, Let us make man in our image,

after our likeness:

(26)

And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle,

And over all the earth, and over every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth.

And God created man in his own image, (27)
In the image of God created he him,
Male and female created he them.

And God blessed them: and God said unto
(28)

them,

Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it;

And have dominion over the fish of the sea, and

over the fowl of the air,

And over every living thing that moveth upon the

earth. GEN. i. 26–28.8

This sublime picture is the condition of all prophecy and of all history, since it presents them as

1 The consideration of the historical background of this material would then naturally come in the periods to which the prophetic interpreters belong.

2 Read Gen. i. I-ii. 4 (creation of the world and man). The section in its present form is from the priestly document (P) which was compiled in the post-exilic period, i.e. after 537 B.C. For the difficult passages (1) vs. 26, let us, cf. Dillmann, Gen., I, p. 78 f.; Orelli, Old Testament Prophecy, p. 86; Briggs, Mess. Proph., 69n; (2) in our image, etc., cf. Topic, p. 32.

The language of the Revised Version has been employed in the Biblical passages.

under special divine guidance, and reveals a ground of hope. What is it that is here promised?

(a) Man's nature is godlike. The essential being of man is identical with that of his Creator.

(b) The purpose of his creation is that he may become lord of the world. The proper translation of the second clause in v. 26 is not " let them," but "that they may have dominion over," etc. As man's essential being is identified with that of his Creator, so his destiny joins him intimately with the world. (c) This lofty purpose is to be accomplished by the human race; it is "the gradual taking possession of a kingdom given to mankind by God." 1 What does this ideal conception involve? What hope lies within it? The man to whom it was revealed and who uttered it was conscious in himself that mankind had not attained unto his destiny, that the attainment was far distant. In his utterance there lies the inspired thought of a glorious future, that man is designed for something infinitely beyond what he has yet reached; that he was intended by nature for companionship with God; that he was born to be the king of the world; and that these fundamental purposes, because divine, shall ultimately be realized. This sublime prophecy, therefore, is the foundation of all that is to follow. The purpose and the progress of salvation is made possible because of this primal fact.

1 Briggs, Mess. Proph., p. 71.

The Ideal of
Humanity.

The generalities of this primal foreshadowing involve a multitude of details to be unfolded in later and more definite words. Yet its limitations must be as clearly recognized as its possibilities. In foreshadowing man's future it looks not beyond the world, even though it promises him sovereignty therein.

2. THE HOPE OF VICTORY OVER SIN.1

And Jehovah God said unto the serpent,
Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou

(14)

Above all cattle, and above every beast of the field;
Upon thy belly shalt thou go,

And dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life :

And I will put enmity between thee and the

woman,

And between thy seed and her seed:

It shall bruise thy head

And thou shalt bruise his heel.

(15)

-GEN. iii. 14, 15.2

These verses disclose a very different picture. The writer is one who stands in the midst of the plainest and saddest facts of human life, facts which demand from him an interpretation and explanation. These are the essential facts of human sin, human birth, and human death, waywardness from God, the coming of the individual into the world through the agony of the mother,

1 This passage is from J, who gives a second account of creation (ch. ii.) followed by the narrative of the Temptation and Fall.

2 The word Jehovah has been substituted for "the LORD" in all the passages where the latter occurs.

Ultimate

his struggle for existence, his labor and sorrow, and his passing away in spite of all resistance and struggle. Under the divine guidance the The Ideal of prophet has given us his interpretation, and Deliverance. through the interpretation he has risen to a higher sphere. Out of it he has drawn glorious hope, sublime inspiration, for the future. What is his explanation, and what is his hope?

(a) Everything returns for its solution to man's disobedience toward God. The birth-pangs of the mother and her sorrows, man's conflict with the soil for the means of existence, the horror of death, are the results of the divine displeasure against the fall of the race from its fidelity toward its Creator. This is the fountain of sin.

(b) Sin is not originally natural to humanity. Man struggles against it. There is enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. A divine aversion to evil has been planted in the human soul.

(c) Observe that all is general. In the eye of the seer it is humanity, the descendants of the first pair, who must wage this warfare.

(d) How, or where, or when this struggle shall culminate he does not say. To him the impor

tance of the issue is vital; place in his horizon.

its details have no

(e) Man shall ultimately conquer-not without suffering, not without pain. Yet it is head against heel. The serpent's power shall be struck at its

C

strongest point by that part of man most capable of bruising and crushing.

What a picture of the history of humanity is given in the writer's portrayal of the fundamental perplexities of human life! What an insight into essential causes! What a vision of human greatness even in the ruins! What a sublime hope and inspiration is added in his prophecy of victory over difficulty, of the final solution of this terrific problem! "To the woman's seed belongs the future. . . . Henceforth man's gaze is no longer turned backward in longing after a lost Paradise, but is directed hopefully to the future." 1

3. THE HOPE OF COMFORT.2

And he called his name Noah, saying,
This same shall comfort us for our work
And for the toil of our hands,

(29)

Because of the ground which Jehovah hath cursed. . GEN. v. 29.

The fundamental problems of individual human life, sin, and death have given occasion to the first sublime picture of hope and victory. But there are other problems that concern society, which pressed with equal weight upon the heart

1 Orelli, O. T. Proph., p. 90. See also an admirable summary in Edersheim, Proph. and Hist., p. 34.

2 Read Gen. iv. 1-24 [J] (the descendants of Cain; the beginning of bloodshed; the beginning of civilized life with polygamy; music; the manufacture of weapons of war); iv. 25, 26; v. 1-28 [P] (the line of Seth); v. 29 is from J.