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Chapter 2

Thus the heavens and the earth and all their array were completed.(A)

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I. The Story of the Nations

The Garden of Eden. This is the story[a] of the heavens and the earth at their creation. When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens—

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Footnotes

  1. 2:4

    This is the story: the distinctive Priestly formula introduces older traditions, belonging to the tradition called Yahwist, and gives them a new setting. In the first part of Genesis, the formula “this is the story” (or a similar phrase) occurs five times (2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10), which corresponds to the five occurrences of the formula in the second part of the book (11:27; 25:12, 19; 36:1[9]; 37:2). Some interpret the formula here as retrospective (“Such is the story”), referring back to chap. 1, but all its other occurrences introduce rather than summarize. It is introductory here; the Priestly source would hardly use the formula to introduce its own material in chap. 1.

    The cosmogony that begins in v. 4 is concerned with the nature of human beings, narrating the story of the essential institutions and limits of the human race through their first ancestors. This cosmogony, like 1:1–3 (see note there), uses the “when…then” construction common in ancient cosmogonies. The account is generally attributed to the Yahwist, who prefers the divine name “Yhwh” (here rendered Lord) for God. God in this story is called “the Lord God” (except in 3:1–5); “Lord” is to be expected in a Yahwist account but the additional word “God” is puzzling.

28 I beg you, child, to look at the heavens and the earth and see all that is in them; then you will know that God did not make them out of existing things.[a] In the same way humankind came into existence.

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Footnotes

  1. 7:28 God did not make them out of existing things: that is, all things were made solely by God’s omnipotent will and creative word; cf. Hb 11:3. This statement has often been taken as a basis for “creation out of nothing” (Latin creatio ex nihilo).

When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and stars that you set in place—

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II

By the Lord’s word the heavens were made;
    by the breath of his mouth all their host.[a](A)

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Footnotes

  1. 33:6 All their host: the stars of the sky are commonly viewed as a vast army, e.g., Neh 9:6; Is 40:26; 45:12; Jer 33:22.

12 Yours are the heavens, yours the earth;
    you founded the world and everything in it.(A)

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Before the mountains were born,
    the earth and the world brought forth,
    from eternity to eternity you are God.(A)

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Digression on God’s Mercy

17 For not without means was your almighty hand,(A)
    that had fashioned the universe from formless matter,[a]
    to send upon them many bears or fierce lions,

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Footnotes

  1. 11:17 Formless matter: a Greek philosophical concept is used to interpret the chaos of Gn 1:2.

Divine Wisdom Seen in Creation[a]

24 Listen to me, my son, and take my advice,
    and apply your mind to my words,

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Footnotes

  1. 16:24–17:23 In harmony with Gn 1–2, the author describes God’s wisdom in creating the universe and everything in it (vv. 24–30), endowing human beings with a moral nature, with wisdom, knowledge, and freedom of will (cf. 15:14) according to his own image (17:1–3, 7). Now they can govern the earth (vv. 3–4), praise God’s name (vv. 9–10), obey his law (vv. 11–14), and render to him an account of their deeds (v. 23). Cf. Ps 19; 104.

12 The one who made the earth by his power,
    established the world by his wisdom,
    and by his skill stretched out the heavens.(A)

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15 [a]“Men, why are you doing this? We are of the same nature as you, human beings. We proclaim to you good news that you should turn from these idols to the living God, ‘who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.’(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 14:15–17 This is the first speech of Paul to Gentiles recorded by Luke in Acts (cf. Acts 17:22–31). Rather than showing how Christianity is the logical outgrowth of Judaism, as he does in speeches before Jews, Luke says that God excuses past Gentile ignorance and then presents a natural theology arguing for the recognition of God’s existence and presence through his activity in natural phenomena.

16 For in him[a] were created all things in heaven and on earth,
    the visible and the invisible,
    whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;
    all things were created through him and for him.(A)
17 He is before all things,
    and in him all things hold together.

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Footnotes

  1. 1:16–17 Christ (though not mentioned by name) is preeminent and supreme as God’s agent in the creation of all things (cf. Jn 1:3), as prior to all things (Col 1:17; cf. Hb 1:3).

in these last days, he spoke to us through a son, whom he made heir of all things and through whom he created the universe,(A)

who is the refulgence of his glory,
    the very imprint of his being,
and who sustains all things by his mighty word.
When he had accomplished purification from sins,
he took his seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high,(B)

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Every house is founded by someone, but the founder of all is God.

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(A)By faith we understand that the universe was ordered by the word of God,[a] so that what is visible came into being through the invisible.

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Footnotes

  1. 11:3 By faith…God: this verse does not speak of the faith of the Old Testament men and women but is in the first person plural. Hence it seems out of place in the sequence of thought.

11 “Worthy are you, Lord our God,
    to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things;
    because of your will they came to be and were created.”(A)

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