A critical and exegetical commentary on the book of Genesis

Preface

TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

In introducing to the American public Dr. Murphy's Commentary on Genesis, I would commend it as a timely antidote to much of the negative and destructive criticism upon the Pentateuch which has so largely obtained in Germany, and of late in England also, rather than as a complete solution of the many and vexed questions in language, in science, and in history which pertain to the so-called " Books of Moses." The merits of Dr. Murphy's work are a nice critical analysis of the text, a candid consideration of all alleged difficulties, a common-sense view of the principles of interpretation, and a philosophical clearness and comprehensiveness in the statement of inference or of doctrine. It consists of an exact literal translation of such passages as contain either verbal or grammatical difficulties, and of a critical and exegetical commentary, based upon the grammatical construction of the text, and framed in view of the best lights of modern criticism and science. Thus, in the narratives of the creation and the deluge, our author unfolds step by step the literal meaning of the sacred writer, and evolves from the Hebrew a sense which well accords with the facts of astronomical and geological science. The philological considerations that, in describing the creation, the sacred writer "presents each change as it would appear to an ordinary spectator standing on the earth," that he notes " only obvious results," and " touches merely the heads of things," are the key to a method of interpretation which leaves the

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largest freedom to scientific inquiry. The author's use of the term " day," though too much restricted by literalism in his comment upon verse 5 of chapter L, finds all reasonable expansion in the principle laid down under verse 12, that " there is a due proportion between the action and the time of the action, the creation to be developed and the time of the development.' '

In treating of the deluge, Dr. Murphy shows that all the requirements of the Hebrew text are met by the supposition of a flood which covered the portion of the earth's surface then known to man; and that "the sobriety and historical veracity of the narrative are strikingly exhibited in the moderate height to which the waters are said to have risen above the ancient hills." It is doubtful, however, whether it would relieve the difficulties pertaining to the account of the creation, were we there to limit the earth to " so much of the surface of our globe as was known by observation " in the time of Moses. This notion was pressed to an extreme by Dr. Pye Smith, in the supposition of a partial chaos in the region of the land of Eden. I do not understand Dr. Murphy, however, to limit the term " earth," in Gen. i. 2, any further than by insisting that " the desolation and disorder are limited in their range to the land, and do not extend to the skies." He lays down a true principle of interpretation when he says, further, that " along with the sky and its conspicuous objects, the land then known to the primeval man formed the sum total of the observable universe. These two terms — the heavens and the earth — have not even yet arrived at their full complement of meaning; and it was not the object or the effect of divine revelation to anticipate science on these points."

It is enough for the purpose of silencing scientific, or rather unscientific cavils against the inspiration of Genesis, that we show there is no real contradiction, but a substantial agreement, between the Mosaic cosmogony and the established truths of physical science. Professor Dana has shown conclusively,

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iii the closing chapter of his " Manual of Geology," that ei the order of events in the Scripture cosmogony corresponds essentially " with that which is deduced from the observations of science upon the crust of the earth. Yet while this general harmony of Genesis with geology is established, we may safely affirm, with another Christian scientist, that " the classification of the rocks is not yet in a condition to warrant us to believe it likely that any scheme will be found satisfactory, which claims to have discovered a complete parallelism between the ages of nature, as revealed to us in the fossiliferous strata, and the days of creation described in the first chapter of Genesis." 1 In this indeterminate state of the question, it is enough that Dr. Murphy has established a reasonable harmony between his interpretation of the history of creation by Moses and the schedule of creation as furnished by geology.

The sententious philosophy of the author is strikingly apparent in his comments upon " the great introductory sentence " of Genesis : " This simple sentence denies atheism ; for it assumes the being of God. It denies polytheism, and among its various forms the doctrine of two eternal principles, the one good and the other evil ; for it confesses the one eternal Creator. It denies materialism ; for it asserts the creation of matter. It denies pantheism ; for it assumes the existence of God before all things, and apart from them. It denies fatalism ; for it involves the freedom of the Eternal Being." A writer who is capable of such clear and discriminating thought expressed in language so strong and compact, will be welcomed by American students of theology.

The laws of interpretation laid down by Dr. Murphy in his Introduction, commend themselves equally by their simplicity and their good sense. It is the boast of the destructive criticism that it subjects the Old Testament to the same tests which it applies to other ancient documents ; but in point of fact, this criticism applies to the Bible the most arbitrary and exceptional

i Dr. John Duns; Biblical Natural Science, I. 48.

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methods. How many difficulties raised by Bishop Colenso against the authenticity of the Pentateuch would have been obviated by the simple principle that " we cannot found the slightest inference on a passage which we do not understand, or affirm a single discrepancy until we have made all reasonable inquiry whether it really exists, and what is its precise nature and amount " ! Thus Colenso's objection to Lev. viii. 1-4, that the court of the tabernacle could not have contained the whole congregation, betrays his want of familiarity with Hebrew terms.

" The congregation is simply a multitude assembled, a gathering or collection of people, without reference to organization or special appointment. With the definite article, it generally meant the whole body of the people. Hence every assembly was a congregation ; but every congregation was not an assembly. We may say the congregration of the assembly, but we do not say in Scripture language the assembly of the congregation.

" The word mo'ed means appointed or stated meeting time, and an appointed festival or convention held at that' time. It is the word constantly used in the phrase ' tabernacle of the congregation,' which is the tent of appointment or meeting, at the door of which all civil and sacred meetings were by appointment held. Now, putting the true equivalents for the three words edah, qahal, and mo?ed where they occur, the passage quoted stands thus : ' And gather thou all the assembly to the door of the tent of meeting. And Moses did as Jehovah commanded him, and the assembly was gathered into the door of the tent of the meeting.' Here, then, it appears the term in the original is the assembly, a select body, containing, not certainly the women and children, unless as idle spectators, nor even the main part of the able-bodied men of twenty years old and upwards, but the princes of tribes, the chiefs of houses, the elders, and probably the ' officers ' and some of the higher judges, and including a proportion of the

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priestly tribe under these designations. The number of those who were regular members of this assembly, or of those who were actually in attendance on this occasion, we do not know. And thus it is utterly impossible for us to create an impossibility here, do or suppose what we will." 1

Dr. Murphy reminds his readers that a meeting of parishioners is summoned and held in the vestry of the parish church, and legally transacts the parish business, though according to the Bishop of Natal " the vestry would only hold six abreast, and at that rate the parishioners would extend perhaps ten miles into space ! " Applying this common-sense view to the case in hand, he says :

" Let us recollect that the court was fifty cubits wide, and that its gate was twenty cubits — twice the width of the door of the tent — or thirty-six feet wide. Now, with a tent-door of eighteen feet, and a court-entrance of thirty-six feet, only ninety feet apart, and a laver and an altar in the interval, what will a reasonable man, with some little practical experience in public meetings, understand by being assembled ' at the door of the tent of meeting ? ' Obviously he will suppose such an assembly may be in any part of the square within the court or of the space in front of it which may be required for the convenience of the assembly. If you are told that a man is at your door, you suppose him, no doubt, to be within a foot or two of it ; but if you are told that a mob is at your door, you presently imagine that they may occupy not only the area, but the whole of the opposite street. How much more, if your door were eighteen feet wide, your area-gate thirty-six, and the multitude tenfold greater ! We read in Acts xiii. 44, that the next Sabbath-day came almost the whole city together to hear the Word of God ; and in xvii. 5, that i The nineteen alleged impossibilities of Colenso on the Pentateuch shown to he possible. By the Rev. James G. Murphy, LL.D., T.C.D. London, James Nisbit & Co. pp. 15, 10.

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they set all the city in an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason. Here all the city was at the door of one house." 1

These examples, taken from another work of our author, illustrate the principle laid down above, and expose the fallacy of much of the hypothetical criticism upon the Pentateuch. " In fact," says Dr. Murphy, " the argument of the school of critics to which Dr. Colenso belongs is built up of a series of surmises upon the ground of certain difficulties which they cannot solve. This is a beguiling sort of argument. He that deals in it is prone to forget the difference between the bearing of a probability or presumption on a supposition and on a conclusion. A second or third presumption in favor of a supposition adds to its probability. But if one probable premise enter into our reasoning, the remotest conclusion can never rise above that probability. If two premises are only probable, every after-conclusion is less probable than either of them. On the other hand, an established fact outweighs a whole host of adverse presumptions, and ninety-nine undisputed statements are abundantly sufficient to sustain one that admits of some dispute." 2

This general reasoning Dr. Murphy afterwards presses with the argumentum ad hominem against Colenso' s alleged incongruities in the account of the passover.

" The Bishop knows a little of Hebrew ; but he is not what we should call a Hebrew scholar. He does not understand, or he does not know how to apply, the laws of Hebrew composition. When the sacred writer spoke of midnight in the previous chapter [Exodus xi.] he was, let us admit, arrived at the 14th Abib in one line of the history. But then he had another to carry on, and so he goes back in the twelfth chapter to the 1st Abib to bring up this second line. And in the twelfth verse < this night ' means the night after the 14th Abib mentioned in the sixth verse. For the Hebrew writer always imagines himself at the time and place of the scene

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described, and therefore naturally uses this night in reference to the 14th day at which he has arrived in his directions. And besides, if this night were the night of the 14th, as the Bishop insists, how could directions be given on the 14th about what was to be done on the 10th ? Here is a man who is ignorant of three common laws of Hebrew composition, or does not know how to apply them, presuming to criticize Moses, and only betraying the shallowness of his own knowledge or the precipitancy of his own judgment.' '

Dr. Colenso's arithmetical difficulties with regard to the duties and the apportionments of the priests are disposed of by Dr. Murphy with a combination of logic, learning, and wit that leaves the Bishop of Natal but little ground to stand upon. The following spicy paragraph concludes that portion of the discussion :

" It seems a strange thing for a bishop to object to thirteen cities being given to the priestly family. Has he never heard of bishops' lands with towns built on them ? Surely, if they could not inhabit all the houses, they could let them to solvent tenants. This is the most frivolous objection we have ever met with, and especially from such a quarter. Most of our readers are acquainted with such things as bishops' palaces, revenues, lands, rentals, etc., and will not therefore be greatly astonished at thirteen towns with their suburbs for the whole future priesthood of Israel."

A second general principle laid down by Dr. Murphy is, that " presumed contradictions or discrepancies in the book lie as well against the theory of a mechanical compilation from heterogeneous materials by a final redactor as against an original unity of authorship." The favorite argument of the destructive school of critics is, that the discrepancies between the so-called Jehovistic and Elohistic elements in the Pentateuch forbid the supposition of unity of authorship ; and hence the hypothesis that the Books of Moses were a compilation from distinct documents and traditions, to which an uncertain date

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is assigned, somewhere in the period between the Judges and the Babylonish exile. But even if the alleged discrepancies could be established — which Dr. Murphy by no means admits — the fact would weigh as well against unity of editorship as against an original unity of authorship. Indeed, a compiler or redactor of a later age might be expected to correct discrepancies which had crept into the original composition. And Dr. Murphy reasons conclusively that any possible hypothesis for the solution of the difficulties inherent in an ancient history which bears the general marks of antiquity, is sufficient to remove the objection that the narrative is self-contradictory. We owe much to a writer whose critical learning is guided and applied by such strong common sense.

Dr. Murphy has condensed his theory of inspiration into this pithy aphorism, — that the Bible is the Word of God, " with all the peculiarities of man and all the authority of God." This same thought he has amplified in the pamphlet so often quoted, —

" The inspiration of the written Word of God we consider simply explained by the following words from Rev. ii. 1 : " Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus, write." Here the Lord dictates, and John writes. The mode in which this takes place is not our concern ; the fact is. The thoughts, purposes, commands, doctrines, promises of God, pass through the channel of John's mind, and come to expression by his tongue or by his pen. Hence the Scriptures are for the matter and the form in one respect the Word of God, — displaying the unity, harmony, and infallibility of its lofty source, — and in another respect the word of man — exhibiting all the peculiarities of his mother tongue and his individual mind. The simple development of this proposition will explain all those phenomena of Scripture by which it ' proves itself to be in the primary sense the Word of God, and at the same time, in the secondary sense, the word of the actual writer."

But it is not within the province of this brief Introduction

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to analyze all the principles of the author, nor to discuss his opinions upon disputed questions. It only remains to add a few words concerning the author himself.

Dr. Murphy was born in 1808, in the village of Comber, County Down, about seven miles from Belfast. After the usual scholastic training he entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he soon attained the technical rank of a " scholar," which entitled him to certain important privileges. In 1836 he was ordained to the ministry in the Presbyterian Church, and commenced his parochial labors in the town of Ballyshannon, County Donegall, where he remained till 1841, when he removed to Belfast as Head Master of the Royal Academical Institution. He was no less distinguished as a mathematician than for his classical attainments.

In 1847 he was appointed by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church to his present office as Professor of Hebrew in the Assembly's College at Belfast. This college, which nearly corresponds to an American theological seminary, has a Faculty consisting of Dr. Cooke, Professor of Sacred Rhetoric and Catechetics ; Dr. Edgar, Professor of Systematic Theology ; Dr. Killen, Professor of Church History and Pastoral Theology ; Dr. Murphy, Professor of Hebrew and other Oriental Languages ; Dr. Gibson, Professor of Natural Theology and Christian Ethics ; and Dr. J. L. Porter, Professor of Biblical Literature. Several of these gentlemen are well known in the United States. Drs. Edgar and Gibson have visited this country, and Dr. Gibson's narrative of the " Year of Grace in Ireland," published by Messrs. Gould & Lincoln, has had an extensive circulation ; Dr. Killen' s volume on " The Ancient Church " has been republished by Mr. Scribner of New York ; Dr. Porter, formerly of Damascus, has contributed several articles to the Bibliotheca Sacra and to various Biblical encyclopedias.

The Assembly's College has, upon an average, about one hundred students in theology in its several classes. It is

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under the jurisdiction of the General Assembly, though each Professor receives an endowment from the government of two hundred and fifty pounds in addition to students' fees.

Adjacent to this institution is Queen's College, which has an average of four hundred students, in arts, medicine, law, and agriculture. This college furnishes yearly a large number of students to the theological college ; the two institutions working in entire harmony.

Dr. Murphy received from Trinity College the honorary degree of LL. D. He is thoroughly Irish in birth, in education, in ecclesiastical offices, and in literary labors and honors. In addition to the volume on Genesis herewith presented to the public, he has published a Hebrew Grammar for the use of his students, and has translated Keit's Commentary on Kings for Clark's Foreign Theological Library. He has now nearly completed his Commentary on Exodus. His view upon the most important point of Egyptian chronology is foreshadowed in a private note to the subscriber, as follows : " Adhering still to the Hebrew or Masoretic text of the Old Testament, I am constrained to stand by the Hebrew chronology until I meet with some experimentum cruets that will prove or disprove it."

In character, Dr. Murphy has the simplicity of the true scholar and the devout and humble spirit of the true disciple of Christ. In introducing him to American students at the present period, it is not unimportant to add that he has shared the sympathy of his colleague, Dr. Gibson, for the United States during our struggle with the rebellion, and that as a friend of freedom and of the progress of humanity, he desires, " the prosperity of this country in all its noble and beneficent enterprises.' '

JOSEPH P. THOMPSON.

New Yobk, Nov. 1866.

Author's Preface

An ancient writing, purporting to be continuous and handed down to us as the work of one author, is to he received as such unless we have good and solid reasons for the contrary. The Pentateuch is a hook exactly of this description, continuous in its form, and coming down to us as in the main the work of Moses. We may not give up this prima facie evidence without cause. In particular, we should require strong and cogent arguments to convince us that this interesting monument of antiquity is, as some say, a dry and bare compilation, not even of document after document, but of selections from several later works all going over nearly the same ground, dovetailed into one another by a still later hand to form a factitious whole. For at first sight this seems to be a mere stretch of fancy, in which criticism has overmastered philosophy. A scheme so intricate in form and fantastic in conception cannot be accepted, unless it stand on impregnable grounds.

The main grounds on which this theory rests appear to be two, — first, certain discrepancies and difficulties that are supposed to be adverse to the unity and early origin of the work ; and second, certain characteristics of style, by which the selections are detected and restored to their original authors, who are then seen to be consistent in themselves, though still inconsistent with one another. And the result to which this theory leads, is, that the Pentateuch is neither given by inspiration of God nor historically valid, but rather a mechanical compilation of a later age from heterogeneous materials, the discrepancies of which the compiler had not either the sense to perceive or the taet to eliminate.

Before we accept a conclusion fraught with such results, it is obvious that we are bound to be fully assured, both that the premises are in themselves true, and that they are able to bear all the weight that is laid on them. Hence three questions come before us for adjudication. 1. Of what nature must the difficulties of statement and style be to constrain us to the adoption of this theory ? 2. What is the amount of the difficulties actually involved in the statements of the book, and what are the peculiarities of style that characterize its different parts'? 3. Are these difficulties of statement and diversities of style of such a nature that they could only arise from a medley of the kind supposed 1 Do the former disturb the unity and early origin of the book, as well as its historical value and divine authority ? Do the latter enable us to assign its several parts to their respective authors ?

The first of these is the question of principle. It involves the axioms or postulates on which the whole discussion turns. It is freely granted that the presence of plain contradictions or impossibilities is sufficient to overturn the historical credit or the early origin of a work. But they do not prove the diversity of authorship

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propounded in the above theory. It is acknowledged on all sides that some one hand at length put the Pentateuch together in its ultimate form. And if a final redactor did not see the presumed contradictions or did not regard them, neither might the original author. This part of the theory, therefore, has no support from the supposed existence of impossibilities.

The appearance, however, of discrepancies or difficulties that fall short of the contradictory or impossible, cannot be allowed to have these effects. So far from seeming strange, they are to be expected in a work more than three thousand years old, containing a brief history of at least twenty-two centuries, and dealing, not in abstract or general assertions, but in concrete and definite statements. They rather confirm than weaken its claim to antiquity and genuineness, so long as they stand within the bounds of possibility. If there be any possible mode of reconciling the seemingly incompatible statements, the contradiction is removed. If a second mode can be pointed out, the contradiction is still more remote. For several solutions of an apparent contradiction are so far from counteracting that they sustain one another in repelling it to a vanishing distance. Not one of them may be the real missing link in the chain of facts, which by hypothesis, be it remembered, is unknown ; but they all combine to show that the events in question may occur, not in one, but in a variety of ways.

It must, we think, be conceded that all the diversities of style that have been or can be discovered, apart from contradictions or impossibilities, do not suffice to prove a work to be a medley from different authors. They cannot in the nature of things have the force of demonstration. Having the authors, we may make out characteristics of style. Having a foregone conclusion as to certain passages, we may trace and tabulate their peculiarities. But all this may proceed from diversity of topic, mental state or design in the same author, and scarcely affords the color of a presumption for the intermingling of pieces from different authors.

The full discussion of this question belongs to another place. But meanwhile we conclude, that, as contradictions may occur in the work of one author, and certain diversities in the use of words may appear in different pieces of the same writer, these phenomena are not sufficient of themselves to substantiate the whole theory under consideration. The existence, however, of absolute contradictions or impossibilities in its statements deprives a work of independent historical value or great antiquity of origin.

The second question regards the actual contents of the book. "What are the difficulties it actually presents, and the diversities of style it exhibits 1 To ascertain these facts, we must examine the book, and determine as far as possible its real meaning. This is especially necessary in a work that has come down to us from a hoary antiquity, composed in a language that has not been spoken for eighteen centuries, and in a style which, though regular and systematic, is yet remarkably simple and primitive. We shall be doing great wrong to this venerable document, if we ascribe to it statements for which its own words, fairly interpreted, do not vouch. We cannot found the slightest inference on a passage which we do not understand, or affirm a single discrepancy until we have made all reasonable inquiry whether it really exists, and what is its precise nature and amount.

The following work is a contribution towards this important branch of the inquiry. It is an attempt to apply the laws of interpretation to the first book of the Pentateuch. The interest attached to the book of Genesis can hardly be exag-

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geratcd. It contains the records of the present condition of the earth and of the human race from its origin to the time of Moses. It answers the fundamental questions of theology, of physics, of ethics, and of philology. The difficulty of its exposition is proportioned to the antiquity of its origin and the loftiness of its theme. The present attempt to elucidate its meaning is neither perfect in its execution nor exhaustive in its results. But it makes some important advances in both these directions, as the author conceives ; and therefore it has been submitted to public examination.

The work consists of a translation of the original, and a critical and exegetical commentary, the whole forming a full interpretation of the sacred text. With the exception of the first chapter, which is extremely literal, the translation is a revision of the authorized version. On a close comparison of this version with the original, we find everything to admire in the purity of the English, and little to amend in the faithfulness of the rendering. The emendations introduced aim at a nearer approach to the original meaning in some passages, and in others to the original mode of thought and expression. Alterations of the former kind are of essential moment ; in making which the author has endeavored to divest his mind of any questionable preconception that might warp his judgment. The minor changes consist chiefly in adhering more closely to the original order of words, in rendering the same word in Hebrew as often as possible by the same word in English, and in occasionally substituting a word of English origin for one derived from the Latin. In expressing the sense of the original, the author has been greatly aided by the English version, and is fully persuaded that no independent version more adapted to the genius of the English lauguage will ever be produced. Nevertheless, even this part of his work will, he hopes, be found to have thrown considerable light on the meaning of the book that did not appear in the English version.

The commentary is the complement of the translation. It is critical and exegetical ; but so far as these qualities are distinct, much more attention has been paid to the latter. The formation of an improved text is not within the scope of the present work. The edition of Van der Hooght, the textus receptus of the Old Testament, is sufficient for all ordinary passages, and has been followed here. Peculiarities of form and syntax have been only sparingly discussed, as they are all noted and explained in our grammars and lexicons. The higher criticism, or the interpretation of the text, has been the chief study of the author, to which all other matters have been made subsidiary. It has been his endeavor to bring out the meaning of the original according to the philosophy of language, thought, and history.