Saturday, April 10, 2021

Luther's Comments on Gen.2:1-3 [interesting admission on Vs.3]

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, 
and all the host of them.
Vs.1
 
"Our Latin rendering of the text before us is "and all the adornment
of them
."
 In the original Hebrew the expression is ZEBAAM, the "host" or "army" of them. 
The prophets have retained this same form of speaking and of calling the stars and the planets, "the host or army of heaven," as Jer. 19:13, where the Jews are represented as having adored "all the host of heaven." 
And God says by the prophet Zephaniah, "I will cut off them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops." In the same manner also Stephen testifies concerning the children of Israel in the wilderness that God "gave them up to worship the host of heaven," Acts 7:42."
 
And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day 
from all his work which he had made.
Vs.2 

"The Sabbath or rest of the Sabbath here signifies that God so rested,
as not to have any further design of creating any other heaven and earth. 
It does not signify that God ceased to preserve and govern the heaven and the earth, which he had now created and finished."
 
And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: 
because that in it he had rested from all his work 
which God created and made.
Vs.3
 
"God did sanctify to himself the seventh day
This was especially designed of God, to cause us to understand that the "seventh day" is to be especially devoted to divine worship
For that which is appropriated to God and exclusively separated from all profane uses is sanctified or holy. 
 
-*-*-It follows therefore from this passage, that if Adam had stood in his innocence and had not fallen he would yet have observed the seventh day as sanctified, holy and sacred; 
that is, he would have taught his children and posterity on that day concerning the will and worship of God."
Martin Luther